The film was daring for the fifties; the I. A. L. Diamond script was full of double-entendres that were sure to raise the censors’ eyebrows. Regardless of how much suggestive sexuality she exuded, Marilyn had to appear innocent in order to pull off Diamond’s lines.
When Marilyn found out that she was pregnant again, her attitude toward Some Like It Hot improved considerably. She was happy and could stop obsessing about Joe DiMaggio. Though she still had misgivings about the movie, she shrugged them off, committed herself to doing just another job, to not getting upset or upsetting the baby.
With the additional weight gain brought on by the pregnancy, Marilyn’s figure ballooned to size 14. After the Millers arrived to stay at her favorite hotel, the Beverly Hills, Marilyn knew that the reporters waiting outside couldn’t fail to notice her plump figure.
The fact that the picture was being filmed in black and white annoyed the actress no end; her contract called for Technicolor, her best medium. Wilder argued that the men would look ridiculous in color, but his real reason was probably that he was filming a period piece and wanted an authentic look. Not only was Marilyn angry at Billy’s decision to shoot in black and white, but the way he ordered her around infuriated her as well. She started calling him “Hitler the director.”
The morning sickness Marilyn was experiencing seemed to be intensified by her conflicts with Wilder, but she chose not to disclose her pregnancy to the cast and crew. After her ectopic pregnancy and subsequent surgery, she feared for the life of her child and did not want to jinx this pregnancy by talking about it too much. Not until the third month did she feel safe enough to tell the world. In the meantime, the actress continued to arrive on the set later and later. This time she forgave herself. Often listless and tired from the pregnancy, her energy level was at an all-time low. Since the baby came first, Marilyn knew she had to parcel out her energy in small doses. And, if ever she had an excuse to be late, this second Miller pregnancy would be the one.
When “Sugar” had to sing on the set, Marilyn chugged down her favorite scotch, Cutty Sark, in order to increase her confidence and relax her throat and nerves. At that time alcohol was not known to cause fetal problems, and Marilyn enthusiastically depended on her favorite splits of champagne and scotch as loyal companions during the grueling weeks of filming.
Due to Tony Curtis’s jealousy, Monroe turned to drinking more than ever in her life. Curtis became highly resentful and impatient with her chronic tardiness. Whenever she flubbed her lines, she demanded additional takes or more creative lighting to conceal her bulging curves. Tony, Billy, Jack, and the whole crew grew frustrated and annoyed.
Though Marilyn was physically attracted to her costar Tony Curtis, his resentment of her made her even more nervous and self-conscious than usual, and frequently caused her to forget her lines. Tony hated the daily routine of having to be up early only to have to dress as a woman and have the pasty cake makeup applied, and then sit around for hours on end waiting for his “third lead,” as he referred to Marilyn, to show up. The more Monroe primped, the more Curtis fumed. Curtis did his best work after the first few takes, while Marilyn habitually required countless takes to get it right. Her insatiable need for reassurance, attention, and constant fussing enraged him even more. When asked later what it was like kissing Marilyn Monroe in the scene on board the yacht, he blurted “It was like kissing Hitler”—the same name Marilyn had for Wilder at the time.
While Billy Wilder had tolerated Monroe’s lateness on Itch, feeling now the heat from his two male leads, the production crew and producers, the director lost his patience with Marilyn during Some Like It Hot and began yelling at her. Succumbing to Curtis and Lemmon’s accusation that he was playing favorites and kowtowing to Marilyn, Wilder felt pressured by everyone involved. To add to his headaches, the film was already way over budget. When Arthur Miller approached him to go easier on Marilyn, because of her pregnancy, Wilder was not sympathetic. His sarcasm came out, “I’d gladly send her home by noon if she would just show up at nine in the morning.”
Mrs. Miller enlisted the skills of her dressmakers to disguise her extra poundage and lessen the negative effects of the black-and-white camera on her stunning coloring: her platinum-blond hair, blue-gray-green eyes, and porcelain skin. Black and white accentuates contrast, and it made her appear flat and pasty. In an attempt to compensate, Whitey Snyder gave her a shimmering and glistening makeup that would glow, and wardrobe bejeweled her evening gowns with sequins, beads, and tulle.
Marilyn felt especially vulnerable during the filming of Some Like It Hot. Her recent miscarriage and now the pregnancy mobilized her fears of having, losing, or raising a baby. The morning sickness was getting to her. She feared that childbearing would destroy her looks. Other beauties had been “put out to pasture” after childbirth.
The combination of these present conflicts with the old ones in her career and marriage made it nearly impossible for Marilyn to appear on the set in the morning. Whitey Snyder would get to her suite early, grab her out of bed, throw her into the shower, and turn on the cold water to shock her system into waking up from another restless night with sleeping pills. Always there for Marilyn, Whitey loved her unconditionally and became her greatest single source of daily support.
Marilyn also clashed with screenwriter I. A. L. Diamond. She wished to transform what was originally tagged a “weak part” into a central character who was both funny and beautiful. In her efforts, Marilyn would alter his script, changing and adding dialogue. Diamond vehemently objected, arrogantly believing his every word was carved in stone. Her response—who else but an experienced, successful comedy actress like herself could better do “the dumb blonde,” certainly not the screenwriter. Yet the enraged Diamond would interrupt production insisting on another retake with his exact words. Billy Wilder had to contend with the insecure antics of Marilyn, Tony, the producers, and now even the writer.
Diamond would later refer to Marilyn as “the meanest little seven-year-old I ever met.” Believing that her power had gone to her head, Diamond completely misunderstood Monroe. He explained Marilyn’s lateness as an attempt to throw her weight around, especially after her successful contract renegotiation with Fox. What irritated him additionally was that she never apologized for keeping the cast and crew waiting for hours. He claimed that when the assistant director went to retrieve her in her dressing room, she would audibly scream “Screw you!” Diamond concluded that “having reached the top, she was paying back the world for all the rotten things she had to go through.” The hostility between the two continued well past the end of production.
With Hot running way behind schedule, the front office increased pressure on Wilder to get Monroe in line. The budget rose from $2 million to $2.8 million. As production continued in San Diego by the Coronado Beach Hotel, Wilder had to organize a shoot that included 150 extras. Marilyn’s 9 A.M. call turned into another 11:30. As her car finally came into sight, Wilder indignantly called “Lunch,” irritating the extras and especially Miss Monroe.
Whitey was called upon more and more to act as the buffer between Wilder and Marilyn. He made sure that Monroe’s concentration was on target. Before she went on camera, Whitey would bolster her confidence. He insisted that Marilyn would never appear on the set until she was fully able to perform.
Most mornings Marilyn would catch up on her sleep, lying on her back while Snyder quickly and efficiently gave her the cleanest, freshest makeup in the business, avoiding heavy contouring and complicated eye makeup. Though Marilyn used five different shades of lipstick to create those famous lustrous lips, Whitey confesses the contours took only seconds to duplicate. Marilyn’s hair was usually the early-call problem. Being curly and processed, it had to be frequently straightened and stripped of color. The touch-ups were monotonous and time consuming. While styling the actress’s blond locks, her favorite hairdresser, Agnes Flanagan, would try many styles to create the right look, sometimes even ignoring the period of the pi
cture. Marilyn demanded that her normally unruly hair be perfect. Though at times it fell short, the actress refused to go to the set until it was “right” enough.
After filming was completed, neither the relieved Marilyn nor her husband considered attending the wrap party. Not only does the star of a film customarily avoid such events, but the stress and strain endured by cast and crew hardly left good feelings among them. There is a saying in Hollywood: “If things on the set go too well, one can look for the film to be a flop, and if there is much conflict and misery, then chances are good that you’ll have a hit!” The destiny of the film deserves its place as one of the most celebrated comedies in Hollywood’s history. But one would hardly have known that when production ended.
The Millers gladly returned to New York to lick their wounds. Within weeks a pain-stricken Marilyn was rushed to the hospital for another D&C. With yet another miscarriage and lost baby, the tired, beaten actress blamed the lot for the mishap, especially her husband, Wilder, and the filming of Hot.
While Mrs. Miller was still grieving over this latest loss, Wilder granted a candid interview with Joe Hyams that appeared in the New York press. Attempting to absolve himself of the responsibility for the film’s going over budget, the director blamed Marilyn’s chronic lateness. Hot producers had asked Wilder during the making of the film why he hadn’t been able to control the actress as he had on Itch. Wilder felt it necessary to defend his position in print, “I’m the only director who ever made two pictures with Monroe. It behooves the Screen Directors Guild to award me a Purple Heart.” (John Huston would later become the only other director to do so.) Hyams inquired about Wilder’s health. Wilder replied he was eating better, his back didn’t ache anymore, he was able to sleep for the first time in months, and that he could finally look at his wife without wanting to hit her because she was a woman! When asked whether he would do another film with Monroe, he said both his doctor and psychiatrist told him that he was too old and too rich to go through that again.
Marilyn was so crushed by the piece that she insisted that her secretary, May Reis, read it countless times. Then the actress would read it to herself, then aloud. Totally outraged that a director would use her that way, she obsessed over the betrayal, reporting, “First I saved the picture for him by consenting to do it in the first place, then I graciously allowed him to film in black and white, which I hated, then I go through hell with the pregnancy and then lose the baby over the stupid film... and now he tells the world that I made him sick!”
Without constraint, she verbally assaulted Miller, too. She ordered him to take a public stand defending her honor. If he really loved her, she said, he would say something—after all, he had more respect from them than she did. Lena Pepitone would say afterward that Miller had attempted to comfort his wife, but that three days later she became even more hysterical. Lena tried the formula that typically calmed her, but even the perfect Italian dinner did not work—neither Arthur nor Marilyn came to the dinner table. Instead the actress cried all night, drinking champagne for comfort and sinking deeper into depression.
Miller finally agreed to send Wilder several telegrams protesting his comments and praising Marilyn’s performance. Wilder resolved to make light of the incident by chalking it up to the last line in the film: “Nobody’s perfect!” The eccentric millionaire played by Joe E. Brown uttered these words upon finding out that Jack Lemmon was indeed a man and not a woman as he had thought. Neither Marilyn nor Miller found the retort funny. But Marilyn’s relationship with her husband suffered the most from all the Hot fallout. It was spinning into dissolution more rapidly than ever.
Marilyn turned her attention to the possibility of performing on Broadway with the Strasbergs, vowing she would “never do a movie again.” She changed her mind abruptly when she won the 1958 award for Best Foreign Actress for her performance in The Prince and the Showgirl. The David di Donatello prize was presented to the actress at a champagne reception at the Italian consulate with more than fifty dignitaries in attendance. Marilyn decided beforehand to streamline her figure into shape by starving herself in order to fit sensationally into a sedate black cocktail dress that was elegant and sophisticated, not revealing her trademark decolletage. Monroe wanted to appear respectable when she accepted “the Italian Oscar.” She had never felt so honored.
Then she ran into Italy’s most revered performer, Anna Magnani. The crowds of photographers and fans had swarmed around Monroe and pushed Magnani aside. An outraged Magnani lost control and started screaming at Marilyn, “Putane!” Americans, she cried, could not act, especially the guest of honor.
Magnani’s attempt to destroy the evening did not faze the American. By now such rivalry was routine. Most other actresses (with the exception of Jane Russell) resented Marilyn’s demeanor and abhorred her. And this night merely reminded her of her first award, when Joan Crawford lashed out at her. Marilyn wallowed in the affection lavished on her by the European film community that she had long respected and stopped concerning herself with jealous females.
Some Like It Hot was an instant hit with critics and the public alike. It turned out to be Billy Wilder’s most successful film. His previous hits had included Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, Lost Weekend, and, of course, Seven Year Itch. By spring 1959, Variety called Hot the biggest hit of the year and the most popular movie in the United States. After twenty-three films, Monroe was finally making a fortune. Paid a guarantee against her eventual payment of 10 percent of the film’s gross earnings (the film earned ten million not including worldwide distribution), she would end up with her most profitable venture.
11
The Fantasy Diversion
The endless hours of psychoanalysis still seemed fruitless for Marilyn. Though she religiously attended her daily sessions with Dr. Marianne Kris, Marilyn gained little understanding of her marital morass. Miller was still barricaded in his study, and she had virtually no friends in New York but the Strasbergs and the Rostens.
Through domestic and foreign revenues from Some Like It Hot were soaring, its bittersweet success failed to gratify its star. Her personal life was empty again, even as the press and the public clamored for more of her. Though America loved the dumb-blonde stereotype, she was still unhappy that her acting ability was never appreciated or taken seriously. Even acquiring a serious writer for a husband had not gained her any public respect.
Now Miller could launch his screenwriting career. With Monroe footing the bills, he had given up personal satisfaction for another chance to hear the critics’ praise. Marilyn, in turn, dreamed of starring in Miller’s next Pulitzer Prize-winner; maybe then she would be respected as a consummate actress. Maybe that could save their marriage. Ironically, what they craved professionally from each other left them personally stifled and miserable.
Their sexual encounters nearly ceased as Miller grew more distant and more obsessed with his Misfits screenplay. In response, Marilyn’s anger grew, driving Miller still further into retreat. Her wrath was especially pronounced after another visit to her analyst’s office. She would return from the long sessions enraged at her husband for not even trying to satisfy her sexually. She had cherished his former tenderness in bed; at first his absence had only compelled her to desire him more, as she went out of her way to seduce him, walking around the house stark naked. In anticipation, she would take long relaxing baths, then scent and cream her freshly scrubbed skin. Still damp, she would wrap her body in a white terry-cloth robe and put a towel around her damp hair; she was ready and waiting for her husband to love her.
But Miller was always too busy with his work. Whether he resented his wife for failing to inspire him or to help him resurrect his floundering career, the distance between them grew wider. The hurt of being rejected sent Marilyn spiraling downward, and her analyst would hear all about it the next morning. Unable to understand how to solve her problems, all she could do was pour them out to her therapist.
Her psychiatrist suggested that Miller’
s indifference might be his way of coping with the pain he suffered from her miscarriages and that he was unable to openly express his hurt and anger. But that wasn’t enough to placate the narcissist in Marilyn, who could only cry, pout, and numb her own pain with more champagne, even as she continued at other times to praise Miller’s writing “genius.”
Marilyn would beg her husband to go out and catch a movie. Neither promising nor refusing, Miller would purposely keep his wife’s hopes up during the evening. Monroe’s excitement would permeate the household. But Arthur again would have little to show for another long day in front of his typewriter. Then, after Marilyn had dressed, applied makeup, and combed her hair, Miller would emerge from his study to dash his wife’s hopes one more time. Disappointment quickly turned to anger as the actress would curse him. “Shit, my life is shit. I can’t go anywhere. I’m a prisoner in my own house! ”
Almost overwhelmed by Miller’s rejection, Monroe’s thoughts sometimes turned to better times. Thinking of Joe DiMaggio was the perfect diversion. Marilyn missed him and wondered if her life would be better with him. But Joe’s position remained clear: no remarriage unless she gave up her career to become a full-time housewife and mother. She kept his photo hidden deep in her closet behind the wardrobe Lena was constantly reorganizing. On lonely nights she would take out the picture, put on a Sinatra record, and stare teary-eyed at the Yankee Clipper while she sang “All of You” along with Frank. Occasionally her ex-husband would call. Without Miller’s knowledge, Marilyn would stay on the phone with him for hours, laughing and giggling. Joe’s voice soothed her ailing soul, but he wasn’t the way out of her predicament.
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