Hardly had she had an opportunity to become excited about The Sleeping Prince when she received disturbing news from London. Anatole de Grunwald, who had known nothing of Rattigan’s negotiations with Wyler or Monroe, had meanwhile made arrangements of his own with John Huston. The deal had been made in good faith, and Huston expected the producer to go through with it no matter what Rattigan might have been up to in America. Rattigan had no choice but to tell Marilyn what had happened. Avid to hold on to Monroe and Olivier for his film, he hoped to persuade Huston to accept them both.
For weeks, there was no decision on any of this as Huston resisted the idea of casting Marilyn. Angry at what he perceived to be Rattigan’s double-dealing, Huston insisted that he wanted Jean Simmons in the part. The uncertainty lingered throughout December, while Marilyn remained every bit as determined to make The Sleeping Prince hers as Huston was to hold onto the property for himself.
Meanwhile, a far longer-running battle seemed about to end that month as Twentieth prepared a preliminary draft of Marilyn’s new contract. The moment of decision was finally at hand. The battle had begun two and a half years ago, following the release of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. A full year had passed since Marilyn left the studio with the claim that she was no longer legally under contract. The battle had heated up considerably in the last six months, after Zanuck decided to bring forward the release of The Seven Year Itch. That left Twentieth with no Marilyn Monroe films stockpiled for future release, and, as DiMaggio had long ago predicted, the moment that occurred the studio had to make a deal. The huge box-office and critical success of The Seven Year Itch put even more pressure on Zanuck to get Marilyn back in front of the cameras. As matters stood, it would be months before Twentieth had another Monroe film ready for release.
For tax reasons, both Twentieth and MCA wanted to make sure the deal was in place before the end of the year. Yet down to the very last day, Zanuck and a number of his closest associates remained profoundly uncomfortable with Marilyn’s requirements. To Zanuck’s irritation, Marilyn had increased her demands considerably since 1954, when she’d reluctantly accepted that the issue of director approval wasn’t even on the table. On this latest round, Marilyn, aware of her power, insisted on the right to approve directors and cameramen on all her films. Zanuck regarded that demand as a fundamental challenge to the way he made pictures. He took Marilyn’s rebellion personally. Were Marilyn to win, her victory would be a public humiliation for him. To the very end, the Zanuck faction argued that the studio should call Marilyn’s “bluff” and refuse her demands. Frank Ferguson insisted that Marilyn’s old contract was still in effect and that Twentieth’s “unconditional surrender” would be a tactical error.
Skouras did not see things the same way. Once again, the conflict between Skouras and Zanuck worked to Marilyn’s advantage. Skouras was first and last a businessman. His ego was not caught up in the studio’s dealings with Marilyn. As far as he was concerned, nothing mattered besides the fact that Marilyn was an extremely valuable property. That she demanded a degree of creative control concerned him not at all. As the year drew to a close, Skouras did everything in his power to push Marilyn’s deal through.
Finally, there was nothing Zanuck could do to stop the new contract. Marilyn’s representatives made clear that she would give not an inch on the matter of director approval. At last, in an effort to save face, Zanuck insisted that Marilyn could have cameraman approval only on the first and fourth pictures she did at the studio, not on the second and third. This petty, even pathetic gesture suggested the massive blow to Zanuck’s ego that Marilyn’s victory represented.
“We made the stars, but they’ve forgotten that,” Zanuck complained on another occasion. “Now they think they’re entitled to run the business. Faces, that’s all they are, just faces. But in today’s market it’s only faces that count, not brains. I’ll tell you one thing: they’ll never run my business, because I won’t be here.” The following year, Zanuck stepped down as production chief, signing a deal with Fox under which the studio would release the films he produced independently. Skouras, needless to say, was not sorry to see his old adversary go.
On December 29, 1955, at 4 p.m., the Board of Directors of Twentieth Century–Fox held their regularly scheduled meeting in New York. On the table in front of each board member was a typed agenda. The third order of business was consideration of a new agreement with Marilyn Monroe Productions. Skouras, who presided over the meeting, urged the board to approve the contract. There was some dissent, but Skouras pushed the deal through. His support of Marilyn was not a sentimental act of friendship, as some people seemed to think. It was just good business sense. For the studio’s sake, Skouras wanted Marilyn back at work as soon as possible. Indeed, Twentieth already had a new film lined up for her—William Inge’s Bus Stop. The sooner the contract was signed, the sooner production could begin.
The terms Marilyn had won were considerable. MCA had held onto the $100,000 per picture fee Feldman negotiated. Under the new contract, however, instead of owing the studio fourteen films in seven years, Marilyn would be required to do only four. In addition, Marilyn had the right to make outside pictures. When the board approved that, Marilyn Monroe Productions finally became possible. But the most important part of the contract, as far as Marilyn was concerned, was not even mentioned in Skouras’s presentation. Marilyn had the right to approve the director on all of her films at Twentieth, and the right to select her cameraman on two. That was precisely the sign of respect she believed she had earned, and that Zanuck had persisted in denying her.
For Marilyn, the battle had never been about money. It had been about dignity. It had been about being taken seriously. It had been about getting credit for her own achievements. In the end, Marilyn had accomplished something that few people in Hollywood had expected her to do. She had brought Darryl Zanuck to his knees.
On December 31, 1955, the new contract was signed. That night, as Marilyn sipped champagne, she had something truly remarkable to celebrate. She had won revenge for the terrible insult a year and a half previously, when Twentieth refused the contract terms she knew she had earned. Had the studio given Marilyn what she wanted then, all they would have had to concede were a few tokens of creative control. As it turned out, Zanuck’s stubbornness had resulted in a contract that gave Marilyn much, much more than she had originally asked for.
On January 4, 1956, the New York Morning Telegraph made the first public announcement of Marilyn’s breathtaking victory—and Twentieth’s humiliation. The next day, other newspapers chimed in. “BATTLE WITH STUDIO WON BY MARILYN” and “ACTRESS WINS ALL DEMANDS,” the headlines declared. Exactly one year before, these same newspapers had called Marilyn “stupid” and “foolish” for insisting on contract provisions far less advantageous than those she had just negotiated.
In the middle of all this, Marilyn received a cable from Rattigan. Huston, blaming Rattigan for a “double-cross,” had withdrawn from the project in disgust. The rights to The Sleeping Prince were Marilyn’s. Better yet, Olivier wanted to do the picture with her. A private screening of The Seven Year Itch had only made him more eager to come to New York to meet her personally.
On February 5, Olivier, Rattigan, and Olivier’s manager, Cecil Tennant, flew into New York. Not long afterward, in a heavy rain, the trio arrived at the building on Sutton Place South where Milton Greene had an apartment. Greene had run short of cash and when Marilyn’s Waldorf Towers sublet ended, he had installed her in his own riverside apartment until some money began to come in from Twentieth. When Greene needed to stay in town, he slept at his photography studio.
By this time, Marilyn not only wanted Olivier to co-star in her first independent production; she hoped he would direct as well. Olivier’s most recent film, Richard III, acclaimed in England, was about to be released in America. Kenneth Tynan had recently called Olivier “the greatest actor alive.” So Marilyn had set her sights as high as possible. Yet now that Olivier had fina
lly arrived for their first meeting, she was terror-stricken. As Milton Greene served the guests drinks and entertained them in the living room, Marilyn hid in the bedroom. For more than two hours, Olivier’s commanding tenor filled the three small rooms of the apartment. The guests were becoming tipsy, yet there was still no sign of Marilyn. Finally, Olivier took matters in hand. He went to the bedroom door and called to her, begging her to come out and end the suspense. The door inched open and Olivier and Monroe—the Knight and the Garter, as they came to be known—glimpsed each other for the first time in six years.
Did Olivier remember their previous encounter? Marilyn certainly did. It was August 1950, and Johnny Hyde had taken her to Danny Kaye’s party to welcome Vivien Leigh to Hollywood for A Streetcar Named Desire. Vivien, radiant in an olive-green dress, had been Kazan’s dinner partner; they had come out on the train together from New York. Olivier had arrived soon afterward to film Carrie with William Wyler, and the couple were borrowing Charlie Feldman’s house for three months. At the dinner, Larry and Vivien charmed everyone with a joint speech in verse. But there was trouble below the surface.
Olivier, for his part, was ambivalent about Kazan. When Olivier directed his wife in A Streetcar Named Desire in London in 1949, he had been overwhelmed by the precedent of Kazan’s sensational staging on Broadway. Again and again he found himself peeking at Kazan’s prompt book. He had written to Tennessee Williams that he didn’t like finding himself in the position of merely reheating someone else’s dish. He told the American producer Irene Selznick, in London to look out for the playwright’s interests, that he felt “like just a stage manager.” Determined not to echo Kazan, Olivier ignored stage directions and cut the text mercilessly. He blamed his own pride, and justified himself to Williams by warning him that without new readings a play cannot live. He was intent on reshaping A Streetcar Named Desire in his own image, and was determined to control his wife’s interpretation of Blanche Dubois.
Olivier had not originally wanted to direct Streetcar. He had only agreed because Vivien loved the play and strongly identified with Blanche. Eager to emerge from her husband’s shadow, she longed to be accepted in “the big tragic roles.” Like Marilyn, she wanted to be taken seriously. In his staging of Streetcar, Olivier made all that possible—but at what expense to the play? After the run-through, Irene Selznick, appalled, concluded that this was no longer a Tennessee Williams play. It had turned into a struggle between Laurence Olivier and Elia Kazan.
The struggle continued in Hollywood. Under Olivier’s direction in England, Vivien had finally proven, to herself as much as others, her worth as an actress. She promptly let Kazan know that she preferred to do things Larry’s way. It was the first day on the set and other cast members were watching. Kazan courteously reminded Leigh that Olivier was not directing the film—he was. Vivien resisted at first. At home each night, an irate Olivier fought to prevent Kazan’s interpretation from taking over. He despised the Actors Studio and the Method. But increasingly, Vivien discarded Olivier’s instructions and did as Kazan asked. Before long, she discovered that she loved Kazan’s direction. It was a crushing defeat for Olivier, one he would never forget.
Marlon Brando was another thorn in Olivier’s side. When Olivier directed A Streetcar Named Desire, Brando’s precedent irked, haunted, and overwhelmed him as much as, perhaps more than, Kazan’s. Brando, though he was being touted as potentially “an American Olivier,” incarnated a new acting style with which Olivier himself felt excruciatingly uncomfortable. Brando made Olivier feel old-fashioned. In correspondence with Williams, Olivier was defensive about his decision to cast an actor who would play Stanley Kowalski as Olivier himself, not Marlon Brando, might have done. Olivier made much ado of not wanting a bruiser type in the role. Though he had not seen Brando’s stage performance, Olivier insisted he was after something subtler and less ape-like.
Olivier’s passionate resentment of Kazan, Brando, and the Actors Studio, dating back to A Streetcar Named Desire, was to form the subtext of his painful dealings with Marilyn during the filming of The Sleeping Prince. But as he led her to the living room to see Cecil Tennant and Terence Rattigan on a rainy February night in 1956, Olivier did not yet associate Marilyn with any of that.
Olivier saw in Marilyn, in his son’s words, “the prospect of glamor and money.” Preoccupied with his rapidly approaching fiftieth birthday, Olivier saw a chance to feel young again. He saw a challenge and an opportunity to reinvent himself. After the glory of his recent Stratford season, especially Peter Brook’s staging of Titus Andronicus, Olivier was eager to display versatility.
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t know what to wear,” Marilyn was saying, her voice a low murmur from the back of her throat. She wore a simple, dark dress and a touch of makeup. “Should I be casual or formal? I went through my entire wardrobe twice, but everything I tried on wasn’t kinda right.”
She believed she had been dressing for one of the most important encounters of her life. She wanted Olivier to take her seriously—that’s what this was all about for Marilyn—yet at the same time, years of experience told her that if she played “the girl,” few men could resist. There was no way that Marilyn could be sure of the right image to project.
By the time she had spoken, however, Olivier and the others were at her feet. He found her adorable and amusing, more physically attractive than anyone he could possibly imagine. Olivier had such a wonderful time, talking, laughing, and drinking, that he neglected to mention business. So did his associates. The visitors were about to head back to their hotel when Marilyn stopped them.
“Just a minute,” Marilyn said softly. Olivier noted that she used a small voice to good effect. “Shouldn’t someone say something about an agreement?”
The next day, Olivier met with Marilyn to discuss the specifics of The Sleeping Prince. She had agreed to a price of $125,000 for the film rights, plus an additional $50,000 for Rattigan to write the script. It was far more than Rattigan would have gotten elsewhere, but Marilyn seemed only to care about being certain that the property was hers. That afternoon, Olivier agreed to direct and co-star in the film. His company would co-produce.
Olivier had decided to work with Marilyn despite his wife’s objections. He told himself—and seemed rather to relish the idea—that Vivien was jealous. The Oliviers had performed The Sleeping Prince in London three years previously, while Vivien was recuperating after her collapse on Elephant Walk. She had a relapse during the 1955 Stratford season and doctors believed her condition was incurable.
In good times, Vivien slept four hours a night at best. When she entered the manic phase, she slept hardly at all, leaving Olivier to perform Titus Andronicus in a state of sheer physical exhaustion. To make matters worse, Vivien had humiliated her husband by resuming a love affair with Peter Finch. At the time Olivier went to New York to meet Marilyn Monroe, Vivien was planning to co-star with Finch in Noël Coward’s play South Sea Bubble.
Why, one might ask, did the Oliviers stay together? It was said that they had once signed a deal with the devil, who agreed to make Larry and Vivien king and queen of the stage on one condition—they must remain married forever. Put another way, they were, said Noël Coward, “trapped by public acclaim.” People loved the very idea of them as a couple. But it wasn’t just a matter of how others saw them; it was how they saw themselves.
Both Oliviers strongly identified with, and constantly strove to live up to, their image as passionate lovers. When on one occasion Larry privately declared, “There’s nothing to touch your Majesty’s cunt,” before he and Vivien made their entrance in a play, she wasted no time afterward repeating the endearment in a letter to her friend Ruth Gordon. As a romantic couple the Oliviers had very much lived and loved in public. But now, all that seemed to be coming to an end. They were losing more than each other; they were losing a sense of themselves.
Though it would be difficult to imagine a woman more different from Vivien, over lunch at “21” it seem
ed as if Olivier might be about to recapture some of that intensity with Marilyn Monroe. He didn’t just want to go to bed with Marilyn or to have an affair. He wanted, as he said, “to fall most shatteringly in love.” That’s what had happened when he met Vivien. Evidently, he desperately wanted to repeat the experience. He even fantasized about divorcing Vivien in order to marry Marilyn as he had once left Jill Esmond. Jill had been pregnant at the time he went off with Vivien. Olivier, stung by Vivien’s affair with Finch, imagined people saying “poor Vivien” as once they had said “poor Jill.”
And what did Marilyn want? A press conference would do. A year after the newspapers had mocked her efforts to become a new Marilyn, Olivier’s desire to collaborate with her would force people to take her aspirations seriously. Besides, she wanted everybody to know that “the greatest actor alive” was working for her now.
That Marilyn feared she might not really be worthy of the respect she longed for is suggested by something that happened on Wednesday, February 8. It was the day before she and Olivier were to meet the press at the Plaza Hotel. When Marilyn left her daily psychiatric session on East 93rd Street, she always did the same thing. The choreography never varied. She would come out the front door, pause, put her hand over her mouth and cough. Only then did Marilyn look up, apparently having pushed back inside whatever emotionally-charged material she had disclosed to Dr. Hohenberg. Today, as she emerged from the doctor’s office, Marilyn carried a manila envelope containing contact sheets from a recent photo shoot with Milton Greene.
In these black-and-white photographs, taken at the so-called Black Sitting, Marilyn posed in black lacy undergarments and torn fishnet stockings. She was drunk, having imbibed large quantities of champagne. There was nothing innocent or little-girlish about this woman, nothing of the self-mocking bewilderment that, in The Seven Year Itch and other films, lent fun, charm, and lightness to Marilyn’s sexuality. Gone was the “beautiful child” who spouted double entendres as though she had no idea what they meant. Marilyn’s half-closed eyes were glassy, her tipsy smile rather sad. She looked as if she knew perfectly well what the tawdry poses implied. She looked beat, tired, used up. Meant as test shots for Bus Stop, a number of the pictures simply went too far.
Marilyn Monroe Page 24
