CAUSE: He died aged 79 of lung cancer in Santa Barbara, California. He defied doctors when diagnosed with cancer and emphysema by continuing to smoke a packet of cigarettes every other day and drinking six Martinis for lunch. “Well,” he reasoned, “you gotta die of something.”
FURTHER READING: Robert Mitchum– David Downing (London: Comet, 1985); Robert Mitchum: A Biography– George Eells (London: Robson Books, 1988); Them Ornery Mitchum Boys– John Mitchum (Pacifica: Creatures At Large Press, 1989).
Tom Mix
Born January 6, 1880
Died October 12, 1940
The silent screen cowboy star. From very early on Hollywood has realised the publicity value of romantic backgrounds for stars. According to the press flacks, (6)߰Thomas Hezikiah Mix was the son of a cavalry officer, went to military school and fought in the Spanish-American War as one of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, the Philippines Insurrection, the Boxer Rebellion and the Boer War (on both sides!). He later became a Texas Ranger. He claimed to have been wounded 21 times and even sold maps of his body explaining each scar and mark. After the Texas Rangers, he became a bounty hunter and a US Marshal. When the Mexican Revolution broke out, he went south of the border to fight, was captured and sentenced to death by firing squad, though by some miracle he managed to escape. All fiction. He was born in Mix Run, Pennsylvania, the son of a lumber worker and although he did join the army he deserted in 1902 after persistent nagging from his wife. He began his professional life in various Western shows, making his film début in Ranch Life In The Great Southwest (unreleased until 1910). He appeared in over 300 films, directed over 100, wrote over 70 and produced almost 50. On screen he never drank, smoked or fought without just cause. At one time he was Hollywood’s highest-paid star, taking home $17,500 a week at a time when Gary Cooper made just $50 a week. Many stars have their own little luxuries (sometimes not so little) in their dressing rooms and Mix had a boxing ring installed in his to help him keep fit. D.W. Griffith said of him: “He can’t act, but he can ride like hell and everybody loves him. I don’t know why.” Mix spoke slowly, not because he was a slow thinker but because he had trouble with his badly fitting false teeth. Living in a house with nine bathrooms, he dyed his hair black, telling Gene Autry: “The Lord has been good to me. He preserved my hair. I can sure keep it black for Him.” He left Hollywood in 1935 to run a circus. He had a less than chivalrous attitude to women, threatening one wife by twirling a loaded gun around his finger but he could also be ‘protective’. Out one night with girlfriend Lupe Velez, he tried to strangle another man who began talking to her. Mix married seven times, including the same woman twice. The Mrs Mixes were: Grace I. Allin (1902–1902); Kitty Perine (1905–1906); Olive Stokes (1909–1917) by whom he had a daughter, Ruth (b. 1913, d. 1977); Victoria Forde (1918–December 4, 1930; she was born in New York in 1897 and died in Beverly Hills on July 24, 1964) by whom he had a daughter, Thomasina (b. 1922); Mary Mabel Morgan (1930–1931) by whom he had a daughter, Betty; Mabel Hubbard Ward (February 15, 1932–1934); and Olive Stokes (1935–1939) again, by whom he had yet another daughter, Bessie Mae. Olive Stokes died in 1972.
CAUSE: He was killed aged 60 in a car crash in Florence, Arizona. A flood had destroyed a bridge and Mix, driving his white convertible at high speed, failed to make a turn and crashed, breaking his neck. A statue of a riderless horse was erected on the spot to honour him.
Bob Monkhouse
Born June 1, 1928
Died December 29, 2003
Mr Comedy. Robert Alan Monkhouse was born at 2am in Beckenham, Kent, the younger son of Wilfred Adrian Monkhouse (d. 1957), a cavalry corporal known as Wammy, and Dorothy Muriel Hansard (d. 1969 of cancer), known as Buddy. Bob’s parents found it difficult to show him any affection when he was a child and he was a very fat, unhappy boy with a lifelong stammer he battled to overcome. Monkhouse’s grandfather, Frederick John Monkhouse (b. 1861, d. April 1938) was a custard powder tycoon whose death hit the nine-year-old Bob so hard that he was unable to speak for three months. The family firm, Monkhouse Glasscock, held little appeal for the young boy. “I was brought up in an atmosphere of ‘Some day son, all this custard will be yours.’ But I didn’t like the feeling of so much security and the prospect of so much cornflour.” He was educated at Dulwich College (the late nostalgia buff Denis Gifford, creator of Look’s Familiar, was a fellow pupil) where he was known as ‘The Oil’ because of his fondness for hair tonic. Bob discovered comedy aged six after seeing George Formby in Boots! Boots! at the Splendid Cinema, Sydenham, on Easter Monday 1934. As a teenager he began sending jokes to variety hall comedians. He earned his first professional money (five shillings) aged 15, writing for Max Miller. Among the funnies he submitted was “There’s going to be no more clothing coupons for old maids. No, well, they’ve got enough in their drawers they haven’t used yet.” His first audition was for the Canadian impresario Carroll Levis at the Golders Green Hippodrome and it was a disaster. “I managed only a couple of jokes before he spoke to me. He said just two words, ‘Go home.’ I did as he advised and walked off to the sound of my own footsteps. Then I went home and wept. I just couldn’t take the rejection.” Two years later, he began performing as a stand-up comedian with Denis Goodwin (b. London, July 19, 1929, d. February 26, 1975, aged 45 by his own hand). They styled themselves on Murgatroyd and Winterbottom, a double act formed by Tommy Handley and Ronald Frankau. Goodwin was never a confident stage performer but, out of loyalty, Monkhouse stayed with him when he should have broken up the partnership. He and Goodwin finally split in 1965 when Goodwin went to America. “Muir and Norden were the Fortnum & Mason of scriptwriting. We were the Tesco.” Monkhouse also wrote racy pulp novels for the troops under noms de plume including Ramon Le Croix. At 17 Monkhouse trained as a cartoon animator with Gaumont-British under David Low and worked on his act. Before being conscripted into the RAF in June 1946, Bob had made £20,000 from commissioning other writers and artists from his office in Penge and paying them by postal order. In order to entertain the local Young Communists he had to join the party – though he gave his name as Colney Hatch, after the lunatic asylum. Demobbed, he forged a letter from a group captain to the BBC insisting that Corporal R.A. Monkhouse, number 5590996, must have an audition as soon as possible for the sake of his sanity. The BBC replied immediately but the letter found its way to the group captain and it took all of Bob’s charm and wit to talk his way out of trouble. He auditioned with a wannabe singer called Gary Miller before Dennis Main Wilson, a young producer not long home from Forces Broadcasting in Hamburg. The usual auditioner awarded low marks – around 20 out of 100. Main Wilson gave Bob 101 and soon the work offers came flooding in. In 1948 Bob made his first appearances on radio and TV in Works Wonders and New To You respectively. The following year he became the BBC’s first contract (12 months) comedian. With Denis Goodwin, he began writing scripts, producing hundreds for radio and TV for performers such as Arthur Askey, Bob Hope, Jack Benny and Jack Buchanan. For a year they wrote up to seven weekly shows simultaneously. He appeared in a few films from 1952 including the first in the Carry On… series Carry On Sergeant in 1958. He once said of himself, “By the age of 28, it was clear to me that I had no talent. What I had was a certain facility, that was all.” That facility was to keep him in work for his entire adult life. In 1967, after the BBC had become disillusioned with him, he became host of Sunday Night At The London Palladium and then the host of ATV’s The Golden Shot, taking over from original host Jackie Rae. This was the show that featured the famous Bernie the Bolt, the man who loaded the crossbow fired by a blindfolded contestant at an apple to win the major prize. In 1972, Monkhouse was sacked after too blatantly endorsing a new Wilkinson Sword razor on the programme. Three years earlier, he had almost gone bankrupt when Ronald Markham, the hypnotist and conman, stole the funds of a nightclub called Change Is that he opened in Newcastle on February 9, 1969. Bob claimed that Markham had hypnotised him. By the mid-Seventies Monkhouse had become the king
of the TV gameshow hosting such shows as Family Fortunes, Bob’s Full House and Celebrity Squares. In 1977 Monkhouse’s name hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. An avid movie buff, he had a collection of 1,800 films on 16 mm. On July 11, he was arrested on charges of conspiracy. It was alleged that he had imported films of Columbia Warner and other distributors without the right to do so. He came to trial at the Old Bailey on June 6, 1979. After eleven days of testimony in which Terry Wogan appeared for the prosecution the judge decided there was no case to answer, dismissed it and awarded costs to the defendant. In 1983 he signed a three-year contract worth £200,000 to present a chat show for the BBC. In 1987 and 1992 he was voted After Dinner Speaker Of The Year by the Guild Of Professional Toastmasters, the only two-time recipient. The Nineties saw the return of Celebrity Squares and a new show, Bob’s Your Uncle, that brought back the crossbow, so beloved in The Golden Shot. This time it was under the aegis of a lady called Donna Derby (married to the comedian Bradley Walsh) resulting in Bob calling for “Donna – the dart”. Bob’s sharp wit and determination to always give of his best ensured that he survived the cull of many of his contemporaries and he remained a television favourite up until the time of his death from prostate cancer. A kindly man, Bob was always ready to help. He wrote the foreword to one of this author’s previous books and contributed to another. He also gave Jeremy Beadle his first break in television, writing questions for Celebrity Squares. In 1995 Monkhouse was devastated when two large books containing years of material were stolen from his dressing room. He was equally dismayed when the press publicised the theft of his “joke books”. He offered a £10,000 reward for their safe return and they were back in his possession 18 months later. Monkhouse was a genuine wit and had several thousand one-liners memorised: “I’d never be unfaithful to my wife – I love my house too much.” It was not unusual for him to work for two years on a joke to get it right and then repeat it ad infinitum. “If the gag is such a nifty piece of work, you can’t wait to do it every night, you know.” Interviewers strove to understand what made Monkhouse tick. Professor Anthony Clare in a 1992 episode of his radio programme In The Psychiatrist’s Chair caused Monkhouse to break down at the suggestion that his mother’s possessiveness indicated her love for him. “The fact is that I’ve made light of serious things because I can’t do anything else,” explained Monkhouse. In a touch of self-mockery he said, “I’m a hard man to ignore, but well worth the effort.” His private life was chequered. He tells of innumerable seductions in his autobiography – some successful and others not so. He slept with Diana Dors whose husband, Dennis Hamilton, threatened to slit Bob’s eyeballs with a razor and then put out a contract on his life. Sex with a transsexual chorus girl was not so successful and he rebuffed seduction attempts from Frankie Howerd and Tyrone Power. Twice married, his mother threatened to disinherit him if he married Belfast WAAF Elizabeth. She attended the ceremony at Caxton Hall, Westminster on November 5, 1949 dressed in black. Monkhouse and his mother did not speak again for 20 years, though they were reconciled shortly before her death. Elizabeth suffered four premature births and their first child, a son called Gary Alan, was born three months prematurely on November 24, 1951 severely disabled with cerebral palsy and spent his life in a home. He died in July 1992 of natural causes and was buried on July 14. His second son, Simon (b. July 1954), a teacher, became estranged when he believed Bob was “using” him in interviews. He forbade his father from mentioning him in his autobiography. Then when he was not mentioned by name, Simon Monkhouse again fell out with his father. He died of a heroin overdose in a Thailand boarding house in May 2001. The Monkhouses adopted a daughter, Abigail (b. 1959), who remained close to Bob. The marriage ended in divorce in 1971 and on October 4, 1973 at St Marylebone Register Office he married Jackie Harding (b. August 10, 1936), who had been secretary to Bob and Denis Goodwin. They remained blissfully happy until Bob’s death. Monkhouse was a devotee of alternative medicine, taking about 30 vitamin and herbal tablets a day. He topped up his tan with trips to his home in Barbados. He suffered from vitiligo, the skin disease, which left him, beneath his underpants, “a riot of polka dots and moonbeams”. He also maintained heroic levels of alcohol consumption, usually two bottles of wine and half a bottle of malt whisky a day. One of his funniest lines came as a result of his family’s lack of enthusiasm for his chosen profession, “They laughed when I said I was going to be a comedian … they’re not laughing now.”
CAUSE: He died aged 75 of prostate cancer in Egginton, Bedfordshire.
FURTHER READING: Crying With Laughter – Bob Monkhouse (London: Century, 1993; Over The Limit – Bob Monkhouse (London: Century, 1998).
Marilyn Monroe
(NORMA JEANE MORTENSON)
Born June 1, 1926
Died August 4, 1962
‘The Mmmmmmmm Girl’. For the past ten years or so the name of Marilyn Monroe has been linked more to the various conspiracy theories surrounding her death than to her movie career. More books have been written about her than any other show business celebrity. Despite the preoccupation with her death, Marilyn Monroe remains the most potent sex symbol of the twentieth century. She began life in Los Angeles General Hospital. Her father is listed as Edward Mortenson, a 29-year-old baker from California, whereabouts unknown. (Some believe that Mortenson was not Norma Jeane’s real father and bolted when his wife became pregnant by one of her colleagues, C. Stanley Gifford.) Her Mexican-born mother, Gladys Pearl Monroe, had recently celebrated her 24th birthday and was working as a film cutter at Consolidated Film Industries at the time of Norma Jeane’s birth. Insanity ran in Norma Jeane’s family. Her great-grandfather, Tilford Hogan, would hang himself on May 29, 1933, aged 82. In July 1927 her grandmother, Della Mae Monroe Grainger (Tilford Hogan’s daughter), attempted to smother the 11-month old Norma Jeane and was committed to Norwalk Metropolitan State Hospital. She died there on August 23, 1927. (Years later Marilyn Monroe would claim she could remember her grandmother trying to smother her. Although many authors have believed this impossible her third husband, Arthur Miller, did believe her.) On November 20, 1929, her uncle Marion Monroe told his wife he was going out to buy newspapers and walked out on his family without explanation, never to return. Gladys Baker (Norma Jeane’s mother used the surname of her first husband, Jasper Baker, frequently) decided to use her feminine wiles to ensnare a husband for herself and a father for her latest offspring (she already had a son and a daughter by Jasper Baker). On June 13, 1926, she placed Norma Jeane with Albert Wayne and Ida Bolender, a religious couple who lived in Hawthorne, California, paying them $5 a week to look after her daughter. Meanwhile, Gladys went looking for a man, believing a single woman would be more appealing than a single mother. Gladys visited Norma Jeane every Saturday. The little girl stayed with the Bolenders until 1933 and then moved into another foster home for a brief period. By October 20, 1934, Gladys had saved enough money to put down a $750 deposit on a $6,000 bungalow at 6812 Arbol Drive, Hollywood and mother and daughter finally lived together. To make ends meet Gladys rented out the bungalow except for two rooms for herself and Norma Jeane. Another incident that has puzzled writers is Marilyn’s claim that she was molested by a ‘Mr Kimmell’, one of the lodgers where she lived. When she told her ‘foster mother’ what the ‘star boarder’ had done she was admonished for telling tales about such a fine man. It would seem likely that if the incident did happen, it happened at Arbol Drive, for that is really the only place Norma Jeane ever lived that had lodgers. The ‘star boarder’ was the English actor Murray Kinnell. Marilyn may have slightly changed his name and invented the idea of a ‘foster mother’ to protect her own mother. The happiness did not last, for in December 1934 Gladys suffered a nervous breakdown and was taken to Los Angeles General Hospital (where Norma Jeane was born) for observation. She was later transferred to Norwalk (where she later died) and was declared a paranoid schizophrenic. On January 15, 1935, Gladys was declared mentally incompetent and her best friend Grace McKee
was appointed Norma Jeane’s legal guardian. Grace McKee was a kind soul but she was also a practical one. For a while she and Norma Jeane lived with Grace’s mother just off Hollywood Boulevard. On August 10, 1935, in Las Vegas Grace married her divorced 6́ 5˝ beau Ervin Silliman ‘Doc’ Goddard, a wannabe inventor and Hollywood stand-in for Joel McCrea. A month later, on September 13, Norma Jeane became the 3,463rd child sent to the Los Angeles Orphans Home. Grace took Norma Jeane on outings, usually to the cinema where she told the little girl that she, too, could become a big star. Grace encouraged Norma Jeane to try out her cosmetics and experiment with various hairstyles and arranged for various foster families to look after Norma Jeane until she was able to provide a home herself. On June 12, 1937, eleven days after her eleventh birthday Norma Jeane left the orphanage for the last time and moved in with Doc and Grace and his three children. Five months later, Norma Jeane was on the move again. Both Doc and Grace were heavy drinkers and one night Doc behaved inappropriately towards Norma Jeane. The girl moved in with her Aunt Olive (wife of the disappeared Marion) until August 1938 when she went to live with one of the most important people in her life, ‘Aunt’ Ana Lower. Edith Ana Atchison Lower was a 58-year-old Christian Scientist and she was, said Marilyn, “the first person in the world I ever really loved. She was the only one who loved and understood me.” In 1941 Norma Jeane moved back in with the Goddards until they announced they were moving to Huntingdon, West Virginia, where Doc had been transferred. They would not be taking Norma Jeane with them. In her usual practical way Grace decided the only thing to do was for Norma Jeane “to get married to the boy next door”. Briefly, the girl returned to live with Ana Lower before her wedding to 21-year-old Jim Dougherty on June 19, 1942. Norma Jeane was given away by Ana Lower. At first the marriage was a happy one. Jim Dougherty worked alongside Robert Mitchum and the future actor recalled how lovey-dovey the couple was. Dougherty told the present author that he and Norma Jeane had a very contented marital life. However, cracks gradually began to show. In 1943 the couple relocated to Catalina Island where Dougherty worked as a fitness instructor at the military base. Eventually, much to Norma Jeane’s dismay, Dougherty applied for and received duty overseas. He sailed out of Catalina Island and out of the marriage. Meanwhile, Norma Jeane found work in the Radio Plane factory in Van Nuys, California. It was there she was discovered by army photographer David Conover who had been sent to take pictures of women helping the war effort by his commanding officer, Captain Ronald Reagan. Conover’s pictures of the young woman caused a sensation and on August 2, 1945, Norma Jeane, who stood just over 5́ 5˝ tall, went to see Emmeline Snively at the Blue Book Model Agency based in the Ambassador’s Hotel, Los Angeles. (Bobby Kennedy would be shot dead in the same hotel 23 years later.) Christened Jean Norman, the new model was a success. Emmeline Snively recommended her to Helen Ainsworth, an agent at the National Concert Artists’ Corporation. It was Ainsworth who landed Norma Jeane her first interview with Ben Lyon at 20th Century Fox on July 17, 1946. Lyon was impressed by what he saw and two days later arranged a colour screen test for Norma Jeane, without bothering to get the prior approval of his boss Darryl F. Zanuck. The test went well and Norma Jeane was signed to Fox on August 26, 1946, at a fee of $75 per week. Lyon renamed her Marilyn Monroe after Marilyn Miller and Gladys’ maiden name. On September 13, she was divorced from Jim Dougherty. (Grace Goddard helped Norma Jeane to get married and she helped Marilyn to get divorced. When Marilyn went to Nevada to establish residency for the divorce she stayed with Grace’s Aunt Minnie.) The six-month contract was renewed for a similar period although her salary doubled. Marilyn appeared in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay (1948) and Dangerous Years (1947). However, the option on her contract was dropped on August 25, 1947 after she failed to make much impact in either film. On May 27, 1949, short of money, Marilyn posed nude for photographer Tom Kelley. She was paid a flat fee of $50. The pictures would become among the most celebrated photographs of all time. Between 1947 and 1950 Marilyn made Ladies Of The Chorus (1948) for Columbia (she was on contract there from March 9 until September 8, 1948) and returned to Fox to make three films: A Ticket To Tomahawk (1950), The Fireball (1950) and the feature that garnered her a second chance at Fox, All About Eve (1950). Marilyn signed her new contract thanks to her manager and mentor Johnny Hyde on December 10, 1950. Eight days later, Hyde died of a heart attack. On March 29, 1951, Marilyn was a presenter at the Oscars, handing the statuette to Thomas Moulton for Best Sound Recording on All About Eve. Finally realising what they had on their hands, Fox signed Marilyn to a seven-year contract on May 11, 1951. It was worth $500 a week with semi-annual increases to a limit of $1,500. The contractual terms were to cause Marilyn an awful lot of resentment in years to come and ended with her going on strike. She then appeared in a succession of mostly unmemorable films but the public noticed her and her fan mail was enormous. In 1952 two momentous incidents occurred. The story of her nude calendar pose became public and she was cast as the unfaithful wife Rose Loomis in Niagara (1953), the film that was to make her a star. Marilyn decided to throw herself on the public’s mercy and tell the truth about the pictures. It was a successful strategy and the public did not turn against her as the studio feared. Niagara was the first film in which Marilyn’s name appeared above the title. Behind the scenes Fox was terrified over the sexual content of the story — impotence, adultery, honeymooners — and insisted it be toned down. The right-wing Daughters of the American Revolution campaigned against sex in the movies and were not happy at all with Niagara. The Hollywood Daily Sketch wrote: “A film called Niagara in which Miss Monroe croons a song called ‘Kiss’ has proved the last straw for the matrons. And they have made it clear to Miss Monroe’s boss, Darryl Zanuck, that Hollywood is in for another purity campaign unless something is done to curb the present spate of suggestiveness in films and publicity. Do their words carry any weight? The film company has postponed the release of a ‘Kiss’ record by Marilyn Monroe.” The film contains what was then the longest walk (Marilyn’s) in celluloid history – 116 feet. The camera is trained on 5́5½˝ Marilyn’s backside for the entire stroll. Director Henry Hathaway was not looking forward to the assignment. He had heard Marilyn could be ‘difficult’. However, he was delighted to discover that she was a joy to work with. “Joe [DiMaggio] was there to keep her happy,” he later recalled. Marilyn’s next assignment, in November 1952, was co-starring with Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Marilyn was a smash as Lorelei Lee, beating out Fox glamour queen Betty Grable for the role. The part allowed Marilyn to show that she could act, sing and dance. Her rendition of ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’ inspired Madonna and countless other artistes. Marilyn’s next smash was the first comedy to be filmed in CinemaScope and teamed her with Grable and Lauren Bacall, in How To Marry A Millionaire (1953), the story of how three good-time girls set out to ensnare a rich husband. Most people expected there to be fireworks on set between Monroe and Grable – the upcoming glamour queen and yesterday’s version. They were disappointed when the two women became firm friends. The film was released in November 1953 to critical acclaim. Three months later, on January 14, 1954, Marilyn married baseball hero Joe DiMaggio in San Francisco’s City Hall. At her new husband’s insistence Marilyn dressed conservatively for the ceremony. On their honeymoon they visited Korea, where Marilyn entertained the GIs stationed there. The marriage was not a happy one and was often punctuated by violence. DiMaggio had no patience for what he saw as Hollywood phonies. That patience was stretched to the limit when Marilyn filmed the famous skirt-blowing scene in The Seven Year Itch (1955) on September 15, 1954. DiMaggio watched in stony silence as the crowds cheered every time his wife’s dress was blown up, before storming off. By October the marriage was over and Marilyn appeared alongside her lawyer Jerry Giesler to announce the separation. She was sporting a nasty bruise on her forehead caused by DiMaggio’s fist. That same year Marilyn appeared as saloon singer Kay Weston in River Of No Return (1954) opposite h
er first husband’s ex-colleague Robert Mitchum and as singer Vicky in There’s No Business Like Showbusiness (1954). Neither were great hits. On December 31, 1954, along with bisexual photographer Milton H. Greene, Marilyn formed Marilyn Monroe Productions. The aims of the company were to produce motion pictures worthy of Marilyn’s talent and to break the stranglehold, both creative and financial, that Fox held over Marilyn. The studio retaliated by publicly threatening to sue her and privately by spinning against her, playing the ‘dumb blonde’ card. Marilyn went on strike and a stand-off occurred until the summer of 1955 when The Seven Year Itch was released and gave Marilyn her first hit in two years. At the insistence of its shareholders Fox and Marilyn Monroe Productions began to negotiate a new contract. The new document, signed a year to the day after the formation of her company, gave Marilyn director and cinematographer approval, $100,000 per picture, the right to make just four pictures in seven years for the studio, along with $142,500 in compensation. On May 3, 1956, Marilyn began her first film under the new regime. It was the story of Cherie, a nightclub singer who longed to find a man to accept her for what she was, and a simple-minded cowboy on the look-out for a wife. Co-starring Don Murray, Bus Stop (1956) featured what is probably Marilyn’s best performance. It was also the first film made under the guidance of Lee Strasberg, the proponent of the ‘Method’ school of acting that has baffled so many actors and helped so many others. The filming also coincided with her romance with playwright Arthur Miller. The couple was married in a civil ceremony on June 29, 1956, and in a Jewish ceremony two days later. At the time Miller was under investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee for his supposed left-wing views. Marilyn was wont to combine her honeymoons with work and on this one she and Miller flew to England where she filmed Terence Rattigan’s play The Prince & The Showgirl (1957) opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. Marilyn was to play Elsie Marina, the showgirl of the title. Ironically, Olivier’s wife, Vivien Leigh, had played the role on the London stage but was too old (at 42) for the screen version. Olivier stated that he had expected to fall in love with Marilyn during filming. He was to be disappointed. The leading man and lady did not gel off screen. Olivier was exasperated by Marilyn’s behaviour and her reliance on Paula Strasberg. However, despite their differences Olivier was to later state “I was as good as could be; and Marilyn! Marilyn was quite wonderful, the best of all. So. What do you know?” On July 8, 1958, Marilyn announced her next film was to be the Billy Wilder comedy Some Like It Hot (1959). The idea originated with Fanfaren Der Liebe, a musical in pre-Hitler 1932 Germany. Wilder was working for UFA and had seen the movie in which two musicians disguise themselves to fit into various scenarios: blacking up to play negro music, wearing earrings and bandannas to play gypsy music, wearing drag to play in a girl band, etc. The original had overtones of sadism and lesbianism. Wilder altered the story to make it more palatable for movie audiences in America. It began filming on August 4, 1958 (four years to the day before Marilyn’s death) and wrapped on November 6, 1958, 29 days over schedule. It finally cost $2,800,000, having gone $500,000 over budget. Marilyn wanted the film to be shot in colour (as stipulated by her contract) but when the tests were shown, the make-up made the faces of co-stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon look distinctly green, so she agreed to let Billy Wilder shoot in monochrome. Wilder hated colour films. He only shot his previous effort with Marilyn, The Seven Year Itch, in colour because of Monroe’s contract. Filming was difficult at times because the leading lady was pregnant. Marilyn took 47 takes to deliver the line, “It’s me, Sugar”. She kept saying, “It’s Sugar, me” or, “Sugar, it’s me”. Following the 30th take, Wilder had the line written on a blackboard. Another line also caused her problems. It was, “Where’s the bourbon?” The scene required Marilyn to search through a chest of drawers and deliver the line. Forty times she said either, “Where’s the bottle?,” “Where’s the whisky” or “Where’s the bonbon?”. Wilder had the line written on a piece of paper and put in the drawer. Then Marilyn became puzzled as to the location of the paper so Wilder placed it in every drawer. Marilyn eventually took 59 takes to film the scene. She was not happy with her opening scene. Remembered Wilder, “She called me after the first daily rushes … I hung up and [screenwriter I.A.L.] Diamond and I met and decided it was not good enough. She had just come on originally doing something with that ukulele. And we made up that new introduction with a new entrance [showing Sugar] coming down to the train through that puff of steam. She was absolutely right about that.” Marilyn remembered it slightly differently. “I’m not going back into that fucking film until Wilder re-shoots my opening. When Marilyn Monroe comes into a room, nobody’s going to be looking at Tony Curtis playing Joan Crawford. They’re going to be looking at Marilyn Monroe.” The film was a commercial and critical success, reaching number three at the box office in 1959 earning $7 million and a further $8 million by 1964. Marilyn was paid $100,000 plus a 10 per cent share of the gross profits. It was during this film that co-star Curtis made his notorious remark comparing kissing Marilyn to “kissing Hitler”. She could not understand the comment. Her gay publicist, Rupert Allan, remembered Marilyn as saying to him, “That’s a terrible thing to say about anybody. I don’t understand it either because every morning he would stick in his head and say how beautiful I looked and how wonderful it was and how exciting.” Curtis later told Time Out, “She was a 600-pound gorilla, y’know. About 680 pounds actually … And she was like a mean 6-year-old girl. She would come and tell me that I was funnier than Jack Lemmon, and then she’d tell Jack she wished she were ending up with him at the end of the movie. It got to the point that nobody wanted to talk to her.” Not long after filming wrapped Marilyn suffered a miscarriage. On October 1, 1959, she began filming Let’s Make Love (1960) opposite French actor Yves Montand. It was to be a prescient title. Marilyn and Montand had an affair under the noses of their respective spouses. Marilyn supposedly thought Montand would leave his wife Simone Signoret for her but the Gallic actor evidently saw his dalliance as a mere fling. Perhaps the off-screen events affected Marilyn’s performance because Let’s Make Love is generally considered to be Marilyn’s worst starring film. During the filming of Some Like It Hot Arthur Miller had been turning his Esquire short story The Misfits about a group of disaffected cowboys into a vehicle for his wife. Marilyn’s penultimate completed film was to be another fraught with difficulties, despite co-starring with her childhood idol Clark Gable and her friend Montgomery Clift. Filming was delayed by the backlog caused by an actors’ strike. Shooting finally began at 9am on July 18, 1960, but it shut down a week later because director John Huston’s gambling caused a cash flow problem. Marilyn’s first scene was filmed on July 21. Shooting was postponed on July 30, and again on August 1, because Marilyn was ‘indisposed’. On August 25, filming shut down because Huston had bled the company financially dry. Marilyn took the opportunity to fly to Los Angeles for a long weekend. Huston had spoken to Marilyn’s doctors Hyman Engelberg and Ralph Greenson and told them Marilyn, in his opinion, should be hospitalised for a week to rest. On August 28, Marilyn entered Westside Hospital in Los Angeles. Producer Frank Taylor announced Marilyn had suffered “a breakdown” and that filming would be suspended for a week. It gave Huston time to find new finance. On September 5, Marilyn returned to Reno but was ill again on September 12, 13 and 19. Studio filming began on October 24, with Marilyn and Eli Wallach in a scene involving a truck. The film wrapped on November 4, 1960. It had cost $3,955,000 – the most expensive black-and-white film then made – and gone 40 days over schedule. Marilyn’s marriage to Arthur Miller fell apart and the crew of The Misfits divided into two camps. Marilyn found Miller’s diary where he had written a less than complimentary entry about her. “I’m not just a dumb blonde this time, I’m a crazy dumb blonde. And to think, Arthur did this to me. He was supposed to be writing this for me. He could have written anything and he came up with this.” They flew home to New York from Hollywood in separate aeroplanes.
On Friday November 11, a week after the film wrapped, the couple announced they would divorce. Five days later, Clark Gable died after suffering a massive heart attack 11 days earlier. The press jumped on Marilyn, claiming her behaviour on the set caused Gable’s death. No one mentioned that 59-year-old Gable insisted on doing all his own stunts or the fact that he had smoked 60 cigarettes a day for over 30 years. When the film premièred on January 31, 1961, critics were not kind. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, “Characters and theme do not congeal. There is a lot of absorbing detail in it, but it doesn’t add up to a point. Mr Huston’s direction is dynamic, inventive and colourful. Mr Gable is ironically vital. (He died just a few weeks after shooting was done.) … But the picture just doesn’t come off.” Marilyn and Arthur Miller were divorced on January 20, 1961, a day chosen to minimise press coverage because it coincided with the inauguration of America’s first Roman Catholic President, John F. Kennedy. Marilyn spent much of 1961 hospitalised for various physical and mental ailments. On April 23, 1962, she began filming Something’s Got To Give opposite Dean Martin. The film was directed by George Cukor who had previously worked with Marilyn on Let’s Make Love. At the same time that Marilyn was shooting that feature, Elizabeth Taylor was in Rome filming the epic Cleopatra (1963), the movie that eventually bankrupted 20th Century Fox. In retrospect, it appears as if the studio wanted Marilyn to leave the film so they could sue her for $1 million for breach of contract and recoup some of the money laid out on Cleopatra. The script was regularly changed and the new sides were only sent to Marilyn at the last moment. Marilyn was invited to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to President Kennedy at his Madison Square Garden birthday party on May 19, 1962, but was forbidden to go by the studio. Feigning a cold, she flew to New York anyway where the MC Peter Lawford introduced her as “the late Marilyn Monroe,” a gentle dig at her constant tardiness. Marilyn was escorted by Isadore Miller, her former father-in-law, but rumours have surfaced over the years that she spent the night with the President at the Carlyle Hotel and may even have taken part in an orgy that night. Marilyn’s friend Jim Haspiel, who attended the event, disputes this. “I can tell you with authority, that I was with Marilyn at her apartment at ten minutes to four in the morning. Categorically, Marilyn was not asleep at the Carlyle Hotel, and I didn’t notice the President anywhere nearby us, either!” Nine days after the Madison Square party, Marilyn filmed the famous nude swimming scene for Something’s Got To Give. The actress was not a good swimmer and utilised an unusual doggy paddle style. She celebrated her 36th birthday with a party on-set. On June 4, she was bedridden with a temperature of over 100 degrees. Four days later, she was fired. An advertisement was placed in Weekly Variety, supposedly by the crew ‘thanking’ Marilyn for losing them their jobs. It was actually placed by Fox, once again spinning against their biggest female draw. Negotiations began in earnest between studio and star; Dean Martin chivalrously refused to appear with anyone else. Marilyn was offered $500,000 for the film plus a bonus if it was completed on time. The film was due to re-shoot from September 16. It was not to be.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 126
