Even in that limited space, Paula tried to block Olivier’s access to Marilyn. This time, however, Olivier was intent on having a chat. But whatever he said behind closed doors evidently had no effect. At the end of the day, lest Olivier try to talk to Marilyn again, Paula ushered her out of the studio before her makeup had been removed.
For all that, Olivier still had reason to hope. He had witnessed Marilyn’s breathtaking transformation in the makeup tests. He had seen for himself what she was capable of. Despite all the nonsense on the set so far, he knew she had the capacity to be magical on camera. He knew it was in her power to turn into the luminous “Marilyn” character he had adored in The Seven Year Itch. But how on earth was a director to persuade her to do what she did so well?
Later in the week, Olivier tried a new tack with his leading lady. In full costume as a Carpathian Grand Duke, he stared at her through a monocle as they prepared to shoot a scene.
“All right, Marilyn,” said Olivier. “Be sexy.”
The remark misfired badly. Marilyn, indignant, ran off the set. Paula accompanied her to the dressing room. Olivier’s words may have been ill-chosen, but all he had been asking her to do was to perform the miracle he’d witnessed previously. He wanted her to become “Marilyn.” Olivier’s remark had been nothing less than his acknowledgment that as an actress, she knew exactly what she was doing.
Marilyn interpreted the incident very differently. She took the words to mean that Olivier had never thought of her as an actress and never would. Suddenly, she was convinced that even on her own production, she was doomed to the same sort of disrespectful treatment she’d once received at Twentieth.
Marilyn called Lee Strasberg in New York. She poured out her anger and upset. Strasberg has to have known that Marilyn would be unable to work effectively in this condition. It was essential that her first independent production be a success; making the film work had to be her priority. At that moment, anyone who sincerely cared about her would have done his best to calm her down. But the incident played into Strasberg’s hands, and he turned it to his advantage. Soon, he was as indignant as Marilyn. He was very angry at Olivier. And he would not let the matter drop—not then or later. Strasberg had found a wedge with which to drive Marilyn and her director permanently apart. Even if he guessed what Olivier had really been trying to say, he could never have admitted that to Marilyn; he did not want her to know that some people regarded her best Hollywood performances as acting of a very high order.
Olivier seems not to have realized quite what had happened, but the incident doomed his working relationship with Marilyn. From then on, she abandoned all belief in the transforming power of a role she had worked hard to make her own. It was as though Olivier’s remark had torn the veil from Marilyn’s eyes. As far as she was concerned, the dream was dead. Whatever she might have hoped, it was now clear that her association with “the greatest actor alive” was not going to change her life. Humiliated, she felt like a fool for ever having imagined that Olivier could take her seriously. Her anger at herself turned outward; after this, Marilyn not only distrusted Olivier, she actively hated him.
More than ever, Marilyn looked forward to Arthur’s visits to the set. Her eyes would brighten when she spotted her husband. No matter what she was doing, she would rush into his arms and excitedly wrap herself around him. He was her protector. He was there to get her through all this. She clung to him as if for dear life. Olivier might have been about to film a scene, but he would look on helplessly as the lovebirds disappeared to Marilyn’s dressing room, usually for about ten minutes. After that, it was said, Marilyn would return to the set visibly refreshed.
Nonetheless, when it became evident that Greene was virtually powerless to influence Marilyn or to do anything about the Paula situation, Olivier, overcoming his initial irritation, turned to Miller. Marilyn trusted Arthur and hung on his every word. Perhaps he could help to get her to the studio on time. Olivier calculated that it was certainly in Miller’s interest to do so. Marilyn’s own company lost money every time she was late or held up the production in some other way. The money came out of Marilyn’s pocket—not Warner Bros.’, as Miller seemed to think until Greene enlightened him. And her latenesses meant less time and solitude for Miller to work. It was no secret that Arthur was under intense pressure to get those revisions to Binkie Beaumont, a close friend of the Oliviers.
After the first week of filming, Vivien was due to join her husband at Notley Abbey after finishing her commitment to South Sea Bubble. She was five months pregnant. Following her farewell performance, she went to a cast party in her honor, then drove out to the country late on Saturday night. On Sunday mornings, the village church bells in Chearsley, Haddenham, and Long Crendon could be heard throughout the house. Vivien invited a group of friends for tea that day, including the dancer Robert Helpmann, the costume designer Bumble Dawson, and Terence Rattigan. There was talk of a party which Rattigan planned to give at Little Court on August 18, before he left for America. Vivien, who’d missed his last party, was eager to attend. In a naughty mood, Vivien asked Colin Clark how things were going with Marilyn. She was pleased when Clark rolled his eyes. Aware of what Larry’s feelings for Marilyn had been, she took malicious pleasure in all the trouble Marilyn gave him now. In high spirits, Vivien could not bear to see the party break up. She kept her guests late. After they all left, she felt unwell. While Vivien was waiting for the doctor, she miscarried. The baby, it turned out, had been a boy.
After the miscarriage, Binkie Beaumont visited Vivien at Notley Abbey. He found her state of mind to be precarious. Once again, she was perilously unable to sleep. Her husband, who believed that her madness had started after she miscarried the first time, had reason to fear that history was about to repeat itself. He released a statement to the press. “We are bitterly disappointed and terribly upset. The main concern now is Vivien. The important thing is that she should make a complete recovery.” On the morning of Monday, August 13, Olivier was made up, costumed, and at work on the set long before Marilyn appeared.
Filming went no more smoothly than it had the previous week. Yet again, Marilyn appeared to panic whenever it was time to leave the cocoon of her dressing room. Utterly distraught, she would clutch at any excuse to linger. Instead of getting better as the years passed, her fear of going in front of the camera had intensified. Yet again, on the set Marilyn forgot her lines and huddled with Paula. She repeatedly disappeared to confer by telephone with Lee Strasberg in New York.
By the second week, it was evident that each side, Olivier and Monroe, misperceived the other. Olivier entirely misread Marilyn’s anxiety. As far as he was concerned, anyone who dared to behave as Marilyn did with Paula could hardly be afraid. Without insight into the terrors that drove her, he assumed she was merely being rude and disruptive. Marilyn, for her part, mistook Olivier for a man who was serenely in control of his world, when in fact he had a mad wife and a tormented personal life. Marilyn had no idea of what Paula represented to Olivier. She knew nothing of his psychological battle with Kazan and the Actors Studio, and she remained blind to the extent to which she was being manipulated by Lee and Paula. It was in the Strasbergs’ interest for Marilyn to believe that Olivier was patronizing her.
Night after night, Marilyn vented her fury at home. She was constantly screaming about Olivier. Her long telephone conversations with Lee only made her angrier. A woman in crisis, she kept Arthur awake much of the night. The only way Marilyn could finally get to sleep was to drug herself into oblivion. Miller, accustomed to working in calm isolation, suddenly found himself in the middle of a great storm. It was as though the Tom Ewell character in The Seven Year Itch had married “the girl” only to discover that sex was perilous, after all. In fact, Marilyn was tormented and intensely needy. She had a violent temper and expected Arthur to share her indignation, as Joe had done. She interpreted any disagreement as a betrayal. Aware that Arthur had never seen her quite like this before, Marilyn was constant
ly on guard for the moment when he would pull back in disappointment and disgust. Conscious that she was no longer playing an innocent, she wanted him to love her for who she really was. That meant Arthur would have to accept, even love, what Marilyn described as the monster in her.
It seemed that things could not possibly get worse, but by the end of the second week they had. Marilyn, searching for a copy of her script, wandered into the music room. Her husband wasn’t there. She saw the script of The Sleeping Prince on Arthur’s desk, with one of his notebooks lying open beside it. Like Pandora, Marilyn was unable to resist. The notebook entry, in Arthur’s hand, concerned her.
For a long time, it had been Miller’s custom to jot down random impressions, ideas for plays, lists of possible titles, snippets of dialogue, and even drafts of entire scenes. Sometimes, he wrote in the third person about a character named “Miller.” At least in this context, he was interested in other people less for themselves than for the conflicts they generated in him, conflicts that might provide the germ of a play. When Arthur was with his first wife, he had stockpiled his thoughts on marriage to a difficult, demanding woman. He had meditated on adultery and a husband’s search for ecstasy. Now that he was with Marilyn, he continued to take notes.
Marilyn was shattered. She reported to Lee Strasberg that in the notebook entry, Arthur had expressed his disappointment in her. According to Marilyn, Arthur wrote that he had believed she was an angel but now he realized he’d been wrong. She had turned out to be different from his fantasy, and she was convinced that he was sorry he’d married her.
It is important to understand why Marilyn responded to this discovery in catastrophic terms. As Miller himself later recognized, she lived with the expectation of being abandoned. Early on, life had taught her to anticipate rejection. There were her father, her mother, and all the others who for one reason or another couldn’t or wouldn’t keep her. Her mother, according to Marilyn, had done more than just walk away; she’d actually tried to kill her. Perhaps it was inevitable that the child would ask why she had been abandoned so often. Perhaps it was inevitable that she would conclude it was something in her that drove people away. Is it any wonder her sense of self-worth was so fragile? This would explain Marilyn’s lifelong terror of criticism. To have even her slightest flaws pointed out suggested that the familiar process of discovery and abandonment had begun. And it would explain why Marilyn reacted so strongly to Miller’s notebook. She feared that he had begun to perceive her unworthiness. She feared he was on to who she really was. She feared he was about to leave her.
On the night of Saturday, August 18, the Millers drove to Little Court for the second Rattigan party. This time, the host greeted them at the door alone. Olivier remained at Notley Abbey with Vivien. The Millers seemed like a different couple tonight. There were rumors of discord at Parkside House, though at this point no one yet knew how badly things had spun out of control. Arthur was handsome in a white dinner jacket, Marilyn oddly disheveled. Colin Clark later noted in his diary that Marilyn actually seemed a bit frightened of her husband. That was a far cry from the impression she had given last time.
Back then, Marilyn had been certain that in Arthur she had finally found someone who loved her. Confident in his feelings, she had dared to feel worthy of being loved. But the discovery of the notebook changed all that forever. Suddenly, Marilyn was convinced that he would abandon her as all the others had done. After this, she would never feel safe in Arthur’s love again.
TWELVE
On Friday, August 24, Arthur Miller announced that he had decided to interrupt his honeymoon and fly to the United States “to see my children.” He planned to leave on Sunday night. He did not anticipate any trouble at home. Assistant United States Attorney William Hitz, who handled contempt cases in Washington, had been out all summer on sick leave and vacation. Miller’s file had been placed on Hitz’s desk along with several others. Hitz was not due back at work until the second week in September. It was unlikely that anything would happen until then. Meanwhile, Miller planned to visit Jane and Robert for about ten days, then return to England.
For Marilyn, the announcement could not have come at a worse time. One week after she discovered the devastating entry in Arthur’s notebook, his decision to go home can only have confirmed her worst fears of abandonment. It wouldn’t be the first time he had chosen his family over Marilyn. Once before, in New York in 1951, Arthur, having decided to leave his wife, had abruptly changed his mind and gone back to Mary and the children. Marilyn was left alone in a Manhattan hotel room to be comforted by Elia Kazan.
On Friday afternoon, Miller appeared at Pinewood Studios to collect Marilyn. Things had been tense at Parkside House all week. In the past, when Arthur arrived on the set, he and Marilyn couldn’t wait to be alone together. That was far from the case today. Instead of going home with Marilyn, Arthur decided to remain behind. It was a most unusual thing for him to do. Marilyn left with Paula Strasberg and other members of her entourage. Miller accepted an invitation to join Laurence Olivier and Milton Greene for a drink in Olivier’s dressing room.
Olivier was at wit’s end as the third calamitous week of filming drew to a close. He was having trouble at work with Marilyn and at home with Vivien. Now he had two sleepless, mad women to contend with, though he loathed one and loved the other. He jestingly announced that he planned to leave for China. Greene, increasingly disillusioned by what it meant to be a partner in Marilyn Monroe Productions, laughed that he’d join him there. Arthur chimed in that he’d like to come, too. Olivier, surprised that Miller would say such a thing, reminded the man of his new wife. Miller declared she was devouring him.
In making that remark, Miller was clearly trying to distance himself from Marilyn. And he went considerably beyond merely sympathizing with Olivier about Marilyn’s behavior on the film. Miller was actually complaining to her director about Marilyn’s behavior at home.
That once again Miller was thinking of himself in the role of the betrayer is suggested by the way he rewrote A View from the Bridge in this period. There was a noticeable softening in the play’s attitude to Eddie Carbone. Instead of merely condemning the betrayer as in the earlier version, the two-act View sought to understand, even to love him. In part, this was probably a response to Eric Bentley’s criticism that the original was preachy and melodramatic. But it may also have reflected the playwright’s changing attitude to his new wife. Marilyn demanded that in her conflict with Olivier, Arthur take her side completely and unquestioningly. That, more and more, he was unable to do. In the past, when Miller identified with the betrayer, it had been in terms of his actions to Mary. Now for the first time, it was Marilyn he found himself turning against. This was the personal conflict that preoccupied Miller as he revised View; is it any wonder he had new sympathy for Eddie?
As it happened, Arthur did not leave on Sunday, but postponed his trip until Thursday, August 30. Before returning to America, he planned to stop in Paris to see Yves Montand and his wife, Simone Signoret, who were filming an adaptation of The Crucible with a screenplay by Jean-Paul Sartre. The Montands had appeared as John and Elizabeth Proctor in the highly successful French stage production. Meanwhile, Parkside House rocked with the Millers’ quarrels. Marilyn roamed the corridors of the enormous house, her drugged trance leading Olivier to compare her to Ophelia.
On Monday, Marilyn stayed away from work altogether. She reported to the studio on Tuesday in a barbiturate blur. Late that night, Greene had to be summoned to bring more pills to Parkside House. She and Miller had been fighting, and eventually the husband just seemed to withdraw. Finally, over the telephone, Marilyn’s psychiatrist in New York was able to soothe her sufficiently to let the sedatives work and send her to sleep.
Marilyn didn’t show up at the studio again on Thursday. Instead, she saw Arthur off at the airport. The next day, Milton Greene telephoned Irving Stein in New York to report that Marilyn was pregnant. A gynecologist visiting Parkside House confirme
d the pregnancy. Fearful she was going to lose her baby, Marilyn began to drink heavily, liberally supplementing champagne with tranquilizers. Hedda Rosten sat with her. Three sheets to the wind, Marilyn grew maudlin. She wept that she simply had to complete The Sleeping Prince.
Marilyn called Arthur in New York and they talked for hours. Olivier, worried that his leading lady might not be able to finish, had a business associate check his insurance policy in the event that the production had to be shut down. Miller wasn’t due back in London until September 12, but he returned suddenly on Wednesday the 5th, only six days after he had left. By Saturday, word was out that Marilyn had miscarried.
She would be in no physical or mental condition to go back to work until the middle of the week. The Sleeping Prince seemed hardly to matter to her anymore. Marilyn had never recovered from the moment when Olivier urged her to “be sexy.” From then on, her hopes for the film had died. But Marilyn’s attitude to her marriage was a very different story. She was utterly determined to keep that dream alive. It was clear that the notebook entry, followed by Arthur’s departure, had terrified her. She could not bear the thought that she might really lose him. When Arthur returned from America, Marilyn intended to hold onto him. She would do whatever it took to prove herself worthy of his love.
Despite her condition, Marilyn insisted that she drive to London with Arthur on Sunday. She might not be well enough to return to work, but this was something she had to do for her husband. There was a problem with A View from the Bridge, and Marilyn was in a unique position to help. The Lord Chamberlain, taking objection to the notorious scene in which Eddie kisses Rodolpho full on the lips, had refused Binkie Beaumont a permit for public performances at the Comedy Theater. The censor of plays demanded that the scene be cut.
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