Marilyn Monroe

by Donald Spoto

  It is true that Marilyn could be capricious and self-absorbed: with her emotional and psychological needs, she did well to be concerned with sorting the real from the specious requirements. Professionally, this often led her to be remiss in her duties, chronically late and apparently unconcerned for the welfare of her colleagues. But these were never deliberate, and anyone who knew her attested that whenever she was confronted with the turmoil her bad habits caused, Marilyn was truly contrite.

  As for chemical dependence, Marilyn was never an alcoholic: in fact, she had little tolerance for liquor, as the premiere party for How To Marry a Millionaire demonstrated. A few evenings of overindulgence make for good gossip but not an accurate diagnosis of alcoholism. More serious was her addiction to sleeping pills, which began innocently in early 1954 during a period of routine insomnia due to jet lag. The pills were handed out to her in generous free samples from Sidney Skolsky, who had unlimited access to them at Schwab’s.

  Chemical dependence was poorly understood as late as the 1960s; it was also something Marilyn’s colleagues, employers and friends did little to correct. Barbiturates to sleep, amphetamines to stay awake, narcotics to relax—in Hollywood, these were as plentiful as agents, and could easily be obtained through the studio front office. Bookshelves are heavy with horror tales of film stars’ lives imperiled or destroyed by careless physicians working for uncaring studio executives who ordered whatever was necessary to get a performer through a production. Errol Flynn, Judy Garland, Tyrone Power, Montgomery Clift, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor—the names are legion and stretch from the days of silent film to the time of music video. Sidney shared his supplies with Marilyn ignorant of the dangerous effects: he even boasted in his column that he offered her whatever she needed whenever she was ill or even irritable—that Joe called Marilyn and Sidney “pill-pals, not pen-pals.”

  Yet of all movie stars, Marilyn Monroe’s reputation has suffered the most—perhaps because of her fundamental benevolence, her youth, her simplicity, her patent longing to belong. Such a woman, to whom the fantasies and hopes of an entire culture were attached, was disallowed weakness. She had to be as perfect as her onscreen beauty, her strength as unmarred as her face, the blond halo a sign of inner perfection: the culture was asking more of Marilyn Monroe than perhaps of anyone in its popular history. And because she was a woman, she seemed to fail twice as badly, to disappoint infinitely more than the tipsy chaps at the bar or the playboys sneaking in and out of Beverly Hills bedrooms.

  But she was always a sign of contradiction, and so in a way the public wanted her to fail. She evoked forbidden desires, she represented the full flourishing of unabashed sexual femininity. In 1969, the drug-induced death of Judy Garland, never a sex symbol, elicited pity. But Marilyn Monroe, so it was implied, was receiving only fair retribution when, it was erroneously reported, she died of an accidental (or intended) overdose. But this idea of her failure and collapse, which has taken on the status of conventional wisdom, cannot be supported by facts.

  Marilyn Monroe worked less frequently in films during the last eight years of her life not because her powers were failing but because they were being refined, because she tried to work more often and more deeply in life—and in this enterprise she succeeded remarkably often against appalling odds. The most artificial, expensive and undisciplined entertainment form in history was not the best place for a woman whose childhood melded into an adolescence founded on the enforced models of aspiring to stardom and entering a premature marriage.

  To be sure, Marilyn’s benighted past led her to crave the effects of stardom: the applause, the wide field of anonymous adoration so often mistaken for personal love. Equally evident is the fact that she had neither the background nor temperament for the discipline serious acting requires. The problems of her last years derived in no small measure from the presence of those around her who insisted that she was a ready-made artist by virtue of her mere existence and had nothing to do except stand before the world and be recognized. Longing to believe this, Marilyn too often did, unwittingly affecting the manner of a great artist. Then, almost immediately, she recognized the absurdity of such a posture, showing her insecurities and setting herself up for all sorts of professional, social and sexual exploitation. Famished for respect, endorsement and simply a reason to believe in her own worth, she was ripe for the inconstant but well-oiled machinery of Hollywood. Ironically, by her own cooperation she had become something deeply artificial—Marilyn Monroe The Superstar—and of this she was acutely if inarticulately aware in her twenty-eighth year.

  Marilyn’s actions throughout 1954 were an attempt to demonstrate her seriousness of purpose by daily deed rather than grand gesture, public apology or self-defense. During this year, she moved and acted quickly, openly defying her studio, then marrying, traveling abroad for the first time in a one-woman show and finally abandoning the troubled marriage and quitting Hollywood for New York.

  First she withstood the studio. Suspended by Fox on January 4, 1954, for failing to appear on the set of Pink Tights and denied her normal income until she returned to fulfill her contractual obligations, Marilyn instructed her attorney, Loyd Wright, to tell the press that she was “not fighting over money. The whole trouble hinges on the fact that the studio has refused to let Marilyn look at the script. She wants to be sure it’s a good one for her.”

  On two counts, this was an interesting position to publicize: first, because at stake was indeed her salary—only a portion of what less popular actors earned despite her status as one of the top five money-making stars in the world; second, although she had no right of script approval, she knew that studios often invited important actors to review a script—the unilateral imposition of one could result in a disappointing performance. It was, in other words, in the good self-interest of producers to find scripts that appealed to their employees. In the case of Marilyn, Fox thought it best to keep her in the successful rut of the last several pictures without consulting her first, while she (and, for different reasons, Joe DiMaggio and Milton Greene) wanted major changes in the direction of her life and career.

  Of River of No Return and There’s No Business Like Show Business, Marilyn said a few years later:

  I was put into these movies without being consulted at all, much against my wishes. I had no choice in the matter. Is that fair? I work hard, I take pride in my work, and I’m a human being like the rest of them. If I keep on with parts like the ones [Fox] has been giving me, the public will soon tire of me.

  As for Pink Tights, she was adamant: “I read the script and didn’t like it. The part isn’t good for me. It’s as simple as that. Of course I’d like a salary adjustment, but right now I’m more interested in getting a good script so I can make a good picture.”

  On Pico Boulevard, this brought men close to panic, for Fox stockholders and New York executives were beginning to jam the telephone lines, urging that this unfortunate and potentially disastrous situation be corrected with all dispatch. But Zanuck, less courteously than she, took as hard a line as Marilyn: “I couldn’t believe she’d be this crazy. We’ve got a $2,200,000 production planned; the script is completed to our satisfaction and we are not obligated to send it to her [which he already had done]. The picture is written and designed for her.” And so, for the first two weeks of 1954, the battle lines were drawn and no quarter given.

  In this matter, Marilyn was again taking a page from the life of Jean Harlow, who fought for years to overcome her image and play a wider variety of roles. She, too, went on strike for a better salary, a new contract, more artistic freedom and more serious pictures, goals in which she was encouraged even by the most studio-subservient Hollywood magazine, Photoplay. In January 1934, exactly twenty years before Marilyn’s adventure, Harlow got her new contract with Louis B. Mayer—a deal that would at first pay her $3,000 a week (at the height of the Great Depression) and ultimately twice that.1

  Nor was the Harlow connection lost on the press when news of
the Monroe-DiMaggio wedding filled headlines worldwide. “Marilyn herself is a girl full of surprises,” noted Time. “She is also the most talked about new star since Harlow.” Life agreed: she was “the inheritor of a tradition founded by Jean Harlow.” Anticipated for two years but announced only an hour in advance, the marriage was somehow not perceived as anticlimax: it was the union of two of the most adored (and poorly understood) Americans of the century. After a stormy courtship, everything subsequent happened with astonishing swiftness, from the ceremony itself through the short term of the marriage.

  Self-promotion was second nature to Marilyn, and she saw the value of first informing a publicist at Fox. From San Francisco, at half past one on the afternoon of January 14, she telephoned Harry Brand. Then she stepped into the City Hall chambers of Municipal Judge Charles S. Peery, where bride and groom signed the registry: Joe stated his age accurately as thirty-nine; she gave her true legal name (Norma Jeane Mortensen Dougherty) but took three years from her age and wrote twenty-five. Wearing a dark brown broadcloth suit with an ermine collar, she then stood by Joe’s side, three orchids shaking slightly in her hand as she promised to “love, honor and cherish”—the absence of a vow to “obey” duly noted by the reporter permitted in chambers. Several relatives and friends of Joe were witnesses; Marilyn had no loved ones present. When the orchids quickly withered in the warmth of her hand, she turned to Joe: if she died before him, would he place flowers at her grave every week—just as William Powell had done at the grave of his beloved Jean Harlow? Joe promised.

  Attempting a hasty retreat from the judge’s chambers, the DiMaggios were mobbed by two hundred reporters and photographers and more than three hundred fans admitted to City Hall. The newlyweds were forced to submit to flashbulbs and questions, to kiss for the camera, then to kiss again.

  How many children did they plan? “I’d like to have six,” replied Marilyn. “One,” said Joe.

  Where would they live? “Here, San Francisco,” said Joe. “I’m going to continue my career,” said Marilyn, adding after a glance from Joe, “but I’m looking forward to being a housewife, too.”

  With that, Joe almost growled, “Let’s go.” He took Marilyn’s hand and hurried toward a rear staircase; they took a wrong turn toward the Assessor’s Office, then crashed into a score of autograph hounds on two staircases and finally reached Joe’s dark blue Cadillac outside. He raced the engine and they sped away, ignoring the last question about their honeymoon location.2

  By late that afternoon, they had driven south to the town of Paso Robles, where at the modest Clifton Motel Joe took a six-dollar room, insisting on a double bed and a television set. “It usually rents for seven-fifty,” said the motel owner, Ernest Sharp, “but this is the offseason.” Days later, he told the press that Marilyn was “radiant” but Joe “solemn and tired.” He had, Sharp concluded, overheard Joe say to his bride enigmatically, “We’ve got to put a lot of miles behind us.”

  Next morning, Marilyn telephoned Loyd Wright for news and messages; apparently as a gesture of good will toward her marriage, Fox had lifted the suspension. She was back on payroll and respectfully asked to return to work on January 20 for Pink Tights rehearsals. But Joe was adamant: his wife would not appear in a movie scantily clad and portraying a woman of easy virtue. Her wedding vow formula notwithstanding, Marilyn obeyed. When she had not presented herself at work by the twenty-sixth, business considerations prevailed and the suspension was again imposed. Departing Paso Robles on January 15, the DiMaggios drove farther south, past Los Angeles to a hideaway near Palm Springs, where Joe demanded that their room be changed when he could not get first-rate reception on the television set.

  Retired Joe might have been, but he was eager to retain his star status. Before the marriage, he had agreed to accompany his old friend and mentor Frank “Lefty” O’Doul and his new bride, Jean, to exhibition baseball games and rookie-training sessions in Japan. Marilyn, longing to be the loyal wife, decided to travel with him—even at the risk of further antagonizing Fox.

  Just past midnight on January 29, the DiMaggios and the O’Douls prepared to depart for Tokyo on Pan American’s flight 831. Wearing an uncharacteristically matronly and dour black suit softened only by a leopard-skin choker, Marilyn arrived at San Francisco Airport with her right hand hidden in a mink coat. When one of the pressmen noticed a splinted and taped thumb peeking out, an embarrassed Marilyn was at once interrogated.

  “I just bumped it,” she said awkwardly. “I have a witness. Joe was there. He heard it crack.” When pressed for details, she turned away coolly and became silent. This was the first indication, to the press and to their friends, that the union had a dark side. Signs of violence would surface with alarming frequency during the next eight months, and they were curiously enhanced by Marilyn’s ambiguous sobriquet for Joe—“my Slugger”—although, as she often said, she had never seen him play baseball.

  The subject of the broken thumb was quickly changed by Joe, who was ordinarily silent during such reportorial encounters. He said Marilyn would visit army hospitals in Japan, where many American soldiers who had fought in Korea were recuperating. “Yes,” she added weakly, “I hope to do that.” Asked if she would soon return to movie acting, she replied simply, “I don’t know. I’m under suspension.”

  “We’re not concerned about that now,” said Joe, escorting his wife away from the press. “We’re on our honeymoon.” The departure had not quite so gay an atmosphere, however.

  A stopover in Honolulu provided little rest. A mob of fans pushed onto the tarmac screaming “Marilyn!,” sweeping round her and tearing at her clothes and hair. Amid her growing panic, six policemen rushed forward to escort the couple to a waiting lounge. “Airport officials,” reported United Press International on the spot, “said it was the most enthusiastic greeting given a movie star in years.”

  On February 2, they arrived in Tokyo, where (as Time reported) Joe again “went virtually unnoticed as Japanese by the thousands swarmed to meet his bride. Marilyn’s fans pressed so thickly about the arriving couple that both were forced to scramble back into the airplane, escaping later through its baggage hatch.” At the Imperial Hotel, two hundred police were summoned to restore order as Marilyn’s devotees—demanding a glimpse of her or at least a photo of her room—caused a riot, fell into koi ponds, jammed themselves in revolving doors and broke plate-glass windows. Unwilling to disperse until she waved to them from a balcony, the crowd shouted until Marilyn reluctantly agreed to appear, saying she loved her public but this was going too far: she was being treated “like I was a dictator or something.”

  According to Lefty O’Doul, this was the first time Joe appreciated just how much Marilyn’s celebrity exceeded his. And with this realization, Joe became surly. He would permit her to leave the hotel only to attend the ball game with him: “No shopping, Marilyn. The crowds will kill us.” She did not argue, but O’Doul saw that she resented being given orders.

  As for Joe, his resentment blazed even hotter next morning, at the only press conference arranged in his honor. All the questions were directed at Marilyn, who with almost Zen-like composure about the intimacy of such matters had to field spontaneous replies:

  Did she agree with the Kinsey report? “Not fully.”

  Did she sleep naked? “No comment.”

  Was her walk natural? “I’ve been walking since I was six months old.”

  What kind of fur was she wearing? “Fox—and not the Twentieth Century kind.”

  Did she wear underclothes? She shot a withering glance at the translator and replied caustically à la Rose Loomis (in Niagara), “I’ll buy a kimono tomorrow.” It is not hard to imagine Joe’s reaction when the Tokyo press dubbed his wife “Honorable Buttocks-Swinging Actress.”

  As if it had been sketched for a television comedy, the DiMaggio situation became even more complex the following day, February 3. Just as Joe tried to separate Marilyn from press and public, an invitation arrived from General Jo
hn E. Hull’s Far East command headquarters. If necessary government clearances and USO status could be obtained, would Miss Monroe like to visit American troops still stationed in Korea—perhaps to entertain them with an improvised one-woman show? With Joe and Lefty scheduled for days of baseball and nights of meetings with Tokyo’s sports reporters, Marilyn considered this an excellent suggestion—in the great tradition of those performers who went to sing for the men in uniform. Joe, however, was adamantly opposed, and according to two friends, “the marriage seemed to go wrong from their honeymoon, [when] some general asked her to go to Korea. . . . Marilyn looked at Joe. ‘It’s your honeymoon,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Go ahead if you want to.’ ” She did. On February 8, Marilyn received USO Entertainer Serial Number 129278 and her clearance papers for Korea.

  For four days, beginning February 16, Marilyn, accompanied by Jean O’Doul and army entertainment officer Walter Bouillet, traveled by airplane, helicopter and open jeep to ten wintry sites where more than 100,000 soldiers and 13,000 marines welcomed her with deafening roars and prolonged applause for a dozen performances. In two days alone, her audiences included grateful troops of the Third, Seventh, Twenty-fourth and Fortieth Army divisions—sixty thousand men. Most of them had never seen a Monroe film, for they had been in the service since her rise to stardom. But they knew her photograph, the calendar, the snapshots, the thousands of pictures in newspapers and magazines.3

  At each stop, Bouillet alighted first, like a sideshowman about to produce a rabbit from his hat. Then, instead of a furry white bunny, out popped Marilyn, eyelashes fluttering, kisses flying from her mouth to her palm, then blown over the hillside teeming with uniformed soldiers. She wore clam-tight olive drab pants, a windbreaker and dazzling rhinestone earrings before changing into her show gear: heedless of biting winds and freezing temperatures, she wore a tightly fitted lavender dress she kept as a memento for the rest of her life. On makeshift stages Marilyn sang, among other songs, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” and “Do It Again.” The temperature may have risen some few degrees as she sang the second song, whose lyrics only seemed to question the title of the first.