Despite the accolades for both lead performances, the film bombed at the box office just as Marilyn had predicted. Neither the Academy nor the public gave the two-hour film the critical acclaim that Arthur Miller had hoped for and Frank Taylor had counted on.
14
The Pinch-Hit Hitters
Nothing felt better to Marilyn than returning to her suite at her favorite hotel after spending four grueling months on a film that had torn her heart out. But before she could even begin to unwind, Marilyn asked Miller to leave. May Reis packed her former boss’s clothing and papers in boxes and, in the middle of the night, Frank Taylor, his aide Edward Parone, and Miller loaded Taylor’s small station wagon, and Miller retreated to the Sunset Towers Hotel, where he remained until he returned to New York.
At the Beverly Hills Hotel, a relieved Marilyn slept late, relishing her privacy. She drew the blackout drapes to ensure the bright California sunlight streaking through the windowpanes of her lavishly decorated bungalow-suite would not tarnish her sleep. By the time she woke and called room service for breakfast in bed, the hotel had already started lunch but made an exception for Marilyn’s eggs and salmon. Impatiently waiting for her pot of coffee, she felt sluggish with the previous night’s sleeping pills still in her system.
As breakfast arrived, Marilyn shuffled around the bedroom of the suite looking for her bathrobe. She signed the check and tipped heavily. She phoned her New York apartment to prepare housekeeper Lena Pepitone for her arrival. Expecting the actress to have gained weight from all the heavy catered food Marilyn had complained about on location, Lena was busily mending and altering her clothes. They chatted about Marilyn finally getting some sleep and the relief of not working.
Phoning her publicity office, Marilyn was informed that Rupert Allan had signed an exclusive contract with Grace Kelly and was no longer available. Her relationship with her former press agent, Pat Newcomb, had been severed during the filming of Bus Stop. But, once again needing help with the nearing publicity onslaught, Marilyn turned to Pat Newcomb. May Reis was only working part time, supervising most of the actress’s activities. Now with Pat, Reis was assured more assistance in handling Monroe. Together they arranged for the actress to travel back to New York incognito. Just thinking about the hullabaloo that would immediately follow the announcement of her impending divorce from her third husband made Marilyn tremble. Though permanent separation was absolutely necessary, separation under any circumstances never came easily for the woman who suffered so severely from an abandonment complex.
Monroe’s anxieties abated just a little when anticipating her upcoming visit from Joe DiMaggio. No longer would she have to sneak phone calls or arrange clandestine meetings with her love. With the arrangements in place to travel to New York, she called DiMaggio to notify him of her decision. He did not wish to be the cause of her marital breakup and wanted her to be certain her problems with Miller were unresolvable. Joe assured his ex-wife he loved her more than anyone else, but he still did not have the stomach for the daily ins and outs of her showbiz life. He loathed the cut-throat phonies and didn’t need their money or fame. In any event, Marilyn was finally free to see Joe on a regular basis, which he wanted, and she would be satisfied with that arrangement for now. Without any foundation of love, Marilyn had endured four years of marriage fraught with trials and tribulations. The end couldn’t come soon enough to suit her.
As Marilyn lounged around her room, enjoying late breakfasts in bed, beluga caviar and champagne, massages, long, hot baths, TV, and daydreams about DiMaggio, within days her health was rejuvenated. She could not forget Clark Gable’s kindness, which made almost tolerable the ordeal of shooting The Misfits. When she remembered their bedroom scene, she got goosebumps all over again. She remembered his self-effacing attitude toward his own charm and sensuality. Being modest, he would say there were millions of guys who looked better than he did. On location, when a fan was carrying on about how handsome he was, rather than bask in the flattery, Clark suddenly pulled out his set of false teeth and exclaimed, “See, I’m just an old man, like all the rest.”
With all the wonderful memories of her recent experiences with the icon, Marilyn nevertheless realized that Arthur Miller had used Gable to entice her into the film she felt was “hopeless” and that had been self-servingly written only to showcase his talents.
The word was already out. Misfits would not be a critical or financial success. The executives at United Artists would release a thousand prints, hoping to ride on the publicity of the stars alone. Only then would the studio have a chance of making back the $4 million spent on the most expensive black-and-white film ever produced.
Once her sleeping improved and she began to relax, Marilyn packed up to go back to her apartment in New York and settle her affairs with Miller. Her press agent, Arthur Jacobs, consulted with Marilyn and decided the best place to announce the pending divorce would be in New York City, where she and Miller had resided.
Arriving in New York, she avoided the press, quickly dashing into her apartment through the wide-open doors to announce to Lena that she was finally home. Once she settled in, her phone never stopped ringing as friends and associates wanted the scoop on the separation, before the official notice. Miller soon came by to remove his remaining belongings. While he shuffled through his papers, mementos, boxes, and clothing, Marilyn stayed in her bedroom. Lena went to her room while he was finishing up, to report he looked very sad. Marilyn responded, “Tell me when he’s gone!”
Only after the last of his belongings were removed and he had gone did Marilyn ask Lena to open his study door to inspect the premises. There on the desk, was a photo of her. Hurt that he had purposely left it behind, Marilyn realized he, too, wanted to forget her. Tears rolled down her face as she turned to her consoling housekeeper for comfort. Then Marilyn felt more consolation devouring another home-cooked Italian meal, drinking her favorite splits of champagne, and gossiping on the telephone to a slew of callers. When Joe phoned to wish her well, she expressed how much she was looking forward to seeing him as soon as the announcement was public.
But before that event, news that Clark Gable had suffered a heart attack rocked the nation. Marilyn went into shock. His first day after The Misfits, Gable chose to lie low, playing with his stepchildren and dog. While changing a tire on his Jeep, he was suddenly brought to his knees by an acute chest pain, accompanied by profuse sweating. Kay thought he merely looked tired and suggested he have an early dinner and go to bed, which he did once the pain subsided. Awakened in the middle of the night by what he believed was a headache and indigestion, he took an aspirin and slept until 7:30. While pulling his khaki pants on, he doubled over in worse agony than before. Still vainly believing it indigestion, he was confounded, later describing the pain as feeling like “a huge hand had crawled inside of me and was tearing my rib cage apart.” But he still didn’t think it was necessary to call a doctor. Over his vehement protests, Kay persisted and phoned Doctor Fred Cerini, who instructed the Encino Fire Rescue to use emergency oxygen while transporting the actor to Van Nuys Presbyterian Hospital. Not wanting to upset his pregnant wife, Gable remained calm while riding to the hospital, all the while ruefully apologizing.
He was diagnosed as having a coronary thrombosis, which had damaged the back of his heart muscle. He was given anticoagulants, sedatives, oxygen, and a pacemaker, and the doctors watched Gable’s improvement. His life had been endangered by the extensive heart damage, though the immediate peril had passed. President Eisenhower’s heart specialist, Dr. George Griffiths, was summoned to preside over his recuperation.
Within days Gable had recovered sufficiently to vote by absentee ballot in advance of the national election and was already sifting through the thousands of get-well letters, cards, and flowers sent to him. Even President Eisenhower wired him his regards. His friend Howard Strickling and his wife Kay were the only ones close enough to him to transfer information about his health.
News sp
read that Gable had recovered and was doing well, but Marilyn was in a panic, fearful of a possible recurrence. She called constantly for the latest information about his health.
On the night of November 16, 1960, Kay Gable kissed her husband and went to the adjacent hospital room at 10 P.M. Near eleven o’clock Gable put his magazine down, rolled his head back, and succumbed. After being told of his death, Kay returned to his room and held the father of her unborn child in her arms for nearly two hours. Finally, after the doctors insisted, she let them remove his body to the hospital morgue.
After all those years of admiring Clark Gable, fantasizing about him as a father, finally working with him and finding him to be such a wonderful man, Marilyn took his death hard. She hopelessly cried bitter tears. Clark had been so kind to her, kinder than anyone could comprehend. His playful joking and encouragement had kept Marilyn smiling throughout a horrible period. She repeatedly cried, “I love him.” Suddenly she realized that most of her life had been spent trying to win the affection of her make-believe father. She had finally arrived when her “father” grew to know her so well, worked with her for four months, and satisfied her longings.
And now he was dead, completely gone from her life.
Because of her distress, the actress refused to attend Gable’s funeral in Los Angeles. She feared she would again break down in public, as she had done at Johnny Hyde’s funeral. And there were additional fears. Rumors were rampant throughout the entertainment industry that Marilyn’s chronic lateness had caused the exhausted fifty-nine-year-old’s heart to stop. Nobody would ever mention Miller—his inability to complete his screenplay within the given time frame, his insistence on authenticity that had subjected the aging actor to inhumane working conditions in the alkali-dusted heat. And Marilyn knew that reporters at the funeral would demand a statement from her. The only words released to the press were through Rupert Allan, who suggested she say she was sorry and leave it at that.
Rumors continued to circulate for weeks that Marilyn’s lateness, her illnesses and frequent fights with her husband had driven the actor to such acute levels of stress that his heart simply gave out. Rather than release his pent-up nerves, Gable’s choice to remain patient and calm throughout the filming proved too much for him. The heat, the dust, the heavy consumption of alcohol, and the rigorous lassoing of mustangs may also have been factors—but they weren’t part of the rumors. Though Marilyn avoided the funeral, she couldn’t avoid the rumors and prayed for another chance to change her habits. If only she had known, she never would have been late or sick. There was nothing she wouldn’t have done for the love and life of Clark Gable.
True to her character, she began blaming herself for his death. Wallowing in guilt, she took more sleeping pills than before. But even the barbiturates did not erase the horrendous, disturbing nightmares. In her despairing solitude, she lost her appetite and lay in bed for days. Lena’s cooking did not change her mood. Joe came to comfort her after she became hysterical on the phone. DiMaggio was well aware of how overwhelming the grief could be for the child without a father, and his compassion toward his ex-wife was extraordinary. A sure sign of love is when a man can comfort a woman over the death of another man. As much as he understood and deeply cared for her, his love could not stop the anxiety and resurgence of all the pain from previous separations. Even Miller’s departure began to hurt. She wished he had at least loved her, but it was painfully evident he didn’t. Marilyn deteriorated to the point where she refused to leave her apartment, even to see her therapist. She called Kris for protracted telephone sessions. Marilyn punished herself for Gable’s death, which brought to the surface past guilt over “killing” Johnny Hyde. And she had always felt she had somehow caused her father’s disappearance, that she had done something to make him go away. But Kris hammered back that, by appearances, it seemed Clark Gable had done himself in, with all his drinking and smoking against his doctor’s advice.
Marilyn always had difficulty accepting logical feelings; it sounded right, but did not feel right. She couldn’t give up her guilt. By now she was grieving over the loss of all her previous relationships, including the one with her mother. She felt guilty about not visiting her. She felt guilty about divorcing James Dougherty who, she now understood, had really loved her. She was wrapped in guilt over the marriage to Joe DiMaggio and the pain she caused them both. And now she blamed herself for the breakup of her marriage to Arthur Miller and wondered how she had caused him to hate her too! Self-loathing snowballed to the point that Lena actually caught her nearing the bedroom window in a way that suggested she was about to jump to her death. Lena seemed to grab her just in time. Marilyn fell into her arms sobbing.
Official word that the Monroe-Miller marriage was over came on November 11, 1960, when Marilyn acknowledged that she and Arthur Miller had separated. On the sidewalk in front of Marilyn’s New York apartment building on 57th Street, Pat Newcomb met a press corps large enough for any head of state. Newcomb calmed the fears of the reporters by telling them there were no immediate plans for a divorce. Reporters then left in search of Miller, hoping to get his statement. Arthur would inform them later: “Our marriage is over and there seems to be no possibility of reconciliation.” His friend James Proctor justified their action, disclosing, “She is not just a star, she is an institution and must constantly be the center of excitement and activity. The nature of Miller’s work requires him to be frequently alone and away from the stresses of show business.”
As Christmas approached, Marilyn thought a shopping spree in Manhattan might provide a temporary respite from her obsession with death and desertion. But instead, when she saw so many people happily hugging and buying gifts for loved ones, she became more despondent. With no family of her own, Marilyn cried lonely tears, while everyone around her appeared to be enjoying the season. Empty-handed, she returned to her apartment considering ending her life. With nothing to look forward to, she found herself again eyeing the window and thinking of escape.
With Joe DiMaggio her immediate solution, she called and talked at length. Just knowing he was around was enough to make her smile again. After their phone conversation she confessed to Lena that she couldn’t imagine committing suicide, asking, “How could I have been so crazy?”
After Marilyn’s brush with wishing herself dead, Lena relayed her concern to May Reis. The consensus, especially after consulting with her attorney Aaron Frosch, was that she should get her affairs in order and draw up a will. Frosch would be the executor, her half-sister Bernice Baker Miracle and May Reis would be heirs, each receiving ten thousand dollars. Twenty-five percent of her estate would go to Dr. Marianne Kris to benefit the Hamptonstead Child Therapy Clinic in London. The Rostens were bequeathed five thousand dollars. The surprise was that Lee Strasberg would receive the balance of the estate, including Marilyn’s personal effects. Attorney Frosch would supervise a trust for her mother’s care as well. Marilyn reluctantly acquiesced to the will even though she thought it was “creepy.” She wanted a will she could change, and her preliminary choices didn’t mean much to the actress. She figured she could change her mind about any of it at some later day. Joking nervously about her attraction to the window, Monroe reminded her maid to “keep the windows closed,” just in case she was ever tempted again.
Joe DiMaggio again became her lifesaver, and they resumed seeing each other frequently. Dressed in an elegant suit and taking the service elevator so as to not draw attention, DiMaggio would typically arrive after dinner with gifts and flowers, stay the night, then leave early the next morning before May Reis would show up. What a comfort it was for Marilyn’s staff to know how content she was with Joe. A simple hello and the touch of his powerful steady arm around the woman he loved provided better therapy than any psychiatrist ever could. Marilyn appreciated the love of a man who could never be bought and paid for. Instead of lonely nights, a joyless marriage, and unending cold silence with Miller, the apartment now came alive. Even New Year’s Eve for
the Millers had always been depressing. December 31, 1960, was different, however. Marilyn had her cook prepare a special holiday dinner for the formerly married lovers. DiMaggio and Monroe dined on spaghetti with sweet Italian sausages. After dinner, Marilyn and Joe happily kissed and toasted their chef. For working late on New Year’s Eve, Lena was generously tipped and left the two in each other’s arms to usher in 1961.
When Lena returned the following morning, she prepared breakfast, noticing Marilyn and Joe still holding hands and calling each other “darling,” so unlike mealtimes with the Millers. In seventh heaven, both seemed completely serene and satisfied. Marilyn dared to confront Joe about making a commitment to marriage again. But to the Yankee Clipper, love was one thing and marriage another. His answer was, “Your career is killing you, and I want no part of it or Hollywood.” Only if she quit and stuck with him would it work. As adamant and stubborn as he was, Marilyn still wanted to marry him and prayed he would change his mind, wishing she were less stubborn about her own career. As long as DiMaggio continued to be around to pick up the pieces, Marilyn was patient and content to wait.
But Marilyn had clearly not resolved her marriage to Miller. By intensifying her relationship with DiMaggio, the actress was merely avoiding other problems and conveniently sweeping the recent losses of Miller and Gable under the carpet.
With a vast array of scripts coming in, Marilyn was pleased that her performance in The Misfits had been acclaimed. She was still a hot property, and the calls enticing her into one project or another continued. Even if The Misfits did not succeed at the box office, it would not faze Monroe. She was still in demand for lead roles, and with Joe by her side, she finally felt confident enough to file for divorce from her estranged husband.
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