Yves Montand was desperate to finish in order to get to Japan in time to keep his concert commitments. Arthur needed to get Marilyn out of this film and on to The Misfits. Cukor was in a state. He had shot only seventy-four pages of a 150-page script. During the strike, he put in frequent appearances at the studio. He tried to get ahead on the editing. He did what he could to move things along. But his efforts were in vain; he could accomplish little without actors. Finally, he consoled himself for the shutdown by ordering a new Rolls Royce, proof that at least he was being well paid for his headaches.
It looked as if it would be a considerable time before the strike was settled, so Arthur and Marilyn decided to fly back to New York for the duration. Though she had been seeing Dr. Greenson regularly, back in New York she would be able to see Dr. Kris, and perhaps regain some sort of balance during the break from work. Arthur needed to finish the third draft of The Misfits, which still had to be submitted to United Artists for final approval. The Montands would remain in Los Angeles. Before Marilyn could leave, however, she had to appear the following evening, Tuesday, March 8, at the Golden Globe Awards. Though she didn’t feel it was a proper compensation for her failure to be nominated for an Oscar, the Foreign Press had nominated her for Some Like It Hot as Best Actress in a comedy. Marilyn had promised to attend the ceremonies.
Sam Shaw was then in Los Angeles to photograph John Wayne. He had just checked in at the Chateau Marmont that Tuesday evening when he got a call from Marilyn, asking him to come to the Beverly Hills Hotel right away. He had no idea what she wanted. Not long afterward, Shaw walked into the living room of Marilyn’s bungalow. There were three people sitting in the room—in total silence. Montand and Signoret sat in one corner as though waiting patiently for someone to arrive. On the other side of the room sat Arthur.
Since his return from Ireland on February 27, Arthur had worked ceaselessly as he tried to complete a new draft of The Misfits which incorporated his discussions with Huston. Even now, he was still not quite finished, and he knew that there could be additional weeks of delay on Let’s Make Love because of the strike. He had a look of total distraction, as if he were off in some other world with his screenplay. He was bedraggled and unshaven. On the table in front of him was a plate with a huge steak, recently delivered by room service. Arthur stared at the plate, methodically cutting off a piece of meat. He lifted the fork to his mouth, chewed, then cut another piece. Meanwhile, no one spoke until suddenly Marilyn could be heard calling cheerily, “Sam Spade, come in here!”
Shaw entered the bedroom. There he discovered an equally silent and nearly catatonic Whitey Snyder. Marilyn’s makeup man sat on a bench in front of a table with a mirror and many little makeup jars. But there was still no sign of Marilyn.
Then she called out again: “In here!”
Shaw entered the bathroom. Marilyn, in the bath tub, was “encased in ice cubes.” There was no water in the tub, only ice.
Shaw and Marilyn had been friends for years, and he was rarely surprised by anything she did. He sat down on the edge of the tub as if there were nothing odd about his having just walked through a silent cast of characters to be greeted by a naked movie star in a bath of ice. Marilyn, by then having passed into full character in anticipation of the evening ahead, offered a deadpan and sincere explanation: “The ice cubes will keep my body up and firm!” Sam responded in kind, pointing out that Katharine Dunham used much the same technique. Before going on stage, the dancer always put her feet in a bucket of ice.
The two friends talked for a while until finally Marilyn stood up out of the ice. Sam, scrutinizing her naked body, declared approvingly that the ice had done its work. Soon they moved into the bedroom, Sam continuing to chat with Marilyn as she was dressed and made up. Whitey painted her face. Signoret was called in to fiddle with Marilyn’s snug bodice to be certain her breasts did not unexpectedly pop out.
By this time, a publicist was waiting in the living room. As Marilyn entered, Arthur, who in all this time seemed not to have said a word, rose silently from his dinner. He picked up the long train of Marilyn’s gown, dutifully following her out to a chauffeur-driven car. It was an unforgettable image—the great playwright carrying Marilyn’s train—one that reminded Shaw of nothing so much as Emil Jannings and Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel.
Marilyn, evidently, had worn them all down. Yet that night at the Golden Globes, no one would ever have guessed that she was anything but the delightful, enchanting character that Billy Wilder had captured on film one last time. When Marilyn won the award, it was richly deserved—as well as a poignant reminder of what might have been, and of how truly sad this whole thing had become. By the next morning, the fairy-tale princess had become the nervous, despondent Marilyn again.
FIFTEEN
On March 24, 1960, Billy Wilder and his wife Audrey drove up Charlie Feldman’s driveway in Coldwater Canyon. So did the Gary Coopers and the Irving Lazars. Tony Curtis put in an appearance. Warren Beatty arrived with Joan Collins. Beatty, touted as the next James Dean, was about to be directed by Elia Kazan in Splendor in the Grass. Kazan, though on the guest list, was not in town yet on account of the Screen Actors Guild strike. Had he attended, there might have been some awkwardness with Simone Signoret. Disdainful of Kazan’s politics, Signoret had refused to consider being directed by him in an adaptation of Colette’s Chéri.
Charlie Feldman would soon be fifty-six. Though he still kept a black book, he was no longer preoccupied with having a new girl every night. He was then involved with Capucine, a twenty-seven-year-old French model who had come to Hollywood with the hope of becoming a star. When the question of acting lessons arose, Feldman knew just the woman for the job. Natasha Lytess was hired to do for Capucine what she had once done for Marilyn.
These days, Yves Montand and Simone Signoret were often to be seen at Feldman’s. Twentieth paid their expenses during the strike. In the aftermath of her Academy Award nomination, this was very much Signoret’s moment. She quickly became a beloved figure in Hollywood. She was smart, witty, sexy, self-assured. She wasn’t obsessed with aging. She had no particular interest in stardom. She had a terrific marriage—or at least she seemed to.
Montand, who wore an identical wedding ring, claimed not to be upset about playing second fiddle to his wife. Tonight, his sole disappointment was that Frank Sinatra had sent regrets. Montand was eager for Sinatra to do a guest spot in Let’s Make Love. He hoped to make the pitch himself, Sinatra having already said no to Jerry Wald. Montand had asked that Sinatra be invited to this evening’s party in honor of the French designer Hubert Givenchy.
On April 4, Simone Signoret was named Best Actress at the Academy Awards ceremony at the Pantages Theater, ahead of Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, and Doris Day. It was an extraordinary achievement for a French actress in a small English film. Signoret believed that her Oscar had less to do with her performance than with Hollywood’s need to prove to itself that McCarthyism was a thing of the past. Five days later, she returned to France. She left calmly, with every reason to anticipate being separated from her husband for no more than a month. Let’s Make Love was about to resume production, the strike having been settled on April 8. Montand’s Japanese concert tour was scheduled to begin in May.
Signoret also had every reason to expect that Marilyn would not be alone in Los Angeles. Arthur had accomplished most of what he had gone to New York to do. He had completed a fresh draft of The Misfits, and Frank Taylor reported to Huston that the script was substantially improved, down to a running time of two hours and twenty minutes. That was still long, but Miller hoped to cut a bit more in the final third. He continued to have problems with the end. Nonetheless, the script was almost ready to be sent over to United Artists. If all went well, Huston planned to start filming on June 13.
Marilyn returned to Los Angeles on April 11. Arthur accompanied her on the flight from New York. The couple again checked into a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Montand was still in residence as well, but this time he was alone.
The day after her return, Marilyn reported for rehearsals. Then, on April 13, she stepped before the cameras again. Immediately, the pace of filming slowed. Montand tried to postpone his Japanese tour, but the promoters declined; they also refused Spyros Skouras’s offer to buy out Montand’s contract. Jerry Wald, hoping to expedite matters, urged Cukor not to shoot so many closeups. The director explained that it was hard to get a decent closeup of Marilyn anymore. Evidently, he was unaware that Adler and other studio executives had ceased to be particularly concerned with her appearance. Cukor, choosing his words, said Marilyn did not “look her best” in profile. She had gained a good deal of weight during the strike. He had to stage scenes in a way that permitted him to shoot her favorably. That took time.
It did not help that Marilyn almost never put in a full day. She tended to give Cukor four hours at most. Lew Schreiber summoned George Chasin, imploring the agent to explain the facts of life to her. If Marilyn didn’t hurry up, she would never get to make The Misfits. To the perplexity of studio executives, the argument seemed to impress her not at all. And Cukor was more aware than anyone that if he were to show the slightest impatience no matter how late Marilyn arrived or how many takes she required, she was likely to shatter into a million pieces and be completely useless to him.
The sixty-year-old Cukor, however, was not an easy-going person, even in the best of circumstances—and this was hardly the best. Highly-strung and nervous, he fought a lifetime battle with his weight, alternating between diets—controlling his appetite with diet pills which only sharpened his already fierce temper—and episodes of bingeing on food. At the moment, he was in a diet phase. Thus, he could not comfort himself by eating during the seemingly endless hours he had to wait for Marilyn on the set. Instead, he developed a most peculiar alternative: he would stifle his rage by tearing bits of paper off the script, stuffing them into his mouth. It was as though he could silence himself that way, keep himself from exploding at Marilyn when she arrived. Cukor, pacing back and forth, would chew pieces of the script until finally, Tony Randall said, “his mouth was white with paper.” Upon seeing Marilyn, Cukor would swallow the paper in a great gulp before greeting her with a burst of effusive delight.
It was evident to everyone that Marilyn was deeply depressed. Tony Randall, also in the picture, studied her one night in the rushes. “Her eyes would be kind of dull,” he said. “On the word ’Action!’ her face would light up and the eyes got bright and she did the scene. With the word ’Cut!’ she drooped in the most desperate depression.” Watching Marilyn, her head down on her chest, Randall was reminded of a deflated tire. “You saw the real Marilyn there,” he recalled, “how unhappy she was with herself.”
Randall observed something similar when they all left after the rushes. “She got in her car,” he remembered, “and she slumped all the way down in the back seat so that she was almost out of sight. It was just such self-loathing, such disappointment in oneself. It was pitiful.”
Arthur remained in Los Angeles with Marilyn for only a few days. After he had attended to some Misfits-related business, he returned to New York to try to finish his screenplay. That April of 1960, as he had done nine years before, Miller left Marilyn alone in Los Angeles with his friend. This time, Marilyn remained behind not with Kazan but with Yves Montand. In 1951, Marilyn had reacted to Arthur’s departure with a certain sadness. This time, she reacted with anger. For months, Marilyn had given Arthur every possible signal that she was distraught, yet The Misfits remained his priority. Nothing she did cracked his self-absorption. The man who had once written, “Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person,” should have known that Marilyn would keep trying to get his attention in whatever way she could.
Marilyn stayed home from work with a fever. At the end of the day, Montand ran into Paula. Had she been sent there to intercept him? Paula urged Montand to visit Marilyn. She said Marilyn was distressed about having called in sick. She insisted a visit would make her feel better.
Marilyn greeted him in bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress, made small talk, and stroked her hand. Then, he said, he really had to go home to prepare for tomorrow. He planted a goodnight kiss on her cheek. She moved slightly. Their lips met. He felt a pang of guilt. And matters proceeded from there. Marilyn had seduced John Proctor. The following night she came to his bungalow. When she took off her mink coat, she was naked.
That Marilyn may also have been feeling guilty is suggested by the fact that during the first week of her affair, she made prolonged lunchtime visits to Dr. Greenson. His Beverly Hills office was a few minutes from the studio. After these sessions, either she did not return to work at all or she locked herself in her dressing room for an hour before assistants were permitted to do her hair and makeup. She had a lot to think about. Greenson told Marilyn that he would not help her to spite her husband.
But was it mere spite that motivated her? Or was Marilyn testing Arthur? By this time, she had tried almost everything to provoke him. One thinks of that night at the Strasberg apartment when Marilyn was abusive all evening, then asked why Arthur hadn’t slapped her. If sleeping with his friend didn’t do the trick, what would? Marilyn’s affair with the actor who had played John Proctor was not just an on-the-set fling; it was a calculated gesture on her part. She later told Kazan that she resented what she saw as Arthur’s tendency to cast himself as morally superior to her and others. The author of The Crucible may have been a master of self-justification, but Marilyn did not plan to let him get away with it this time. She was not about to let Arthur tell himself that The Misfits was a gift for her. If he went ahead with his film after Marilyn’s betrayal, Miller would have to face the fact that, in his wife’s eyes at least, he was a user like all the rest. In challenging Arthur to proceed with The Misfits, Marilyn brutally assaulted his core sense of himself. She attacked his posture of moral superiority. She cried out that he was no better than she. For Marilyn, this wasn’t about Yves Montand at all; it was about Arthur Miller.
Arthur, in New York, clearly had no idea of what was going on. Perhaps he refused to know. He knew only that Marilyn appeared to be in excellent spirits. He did not seem suspicious about why his wife, who had barely managed to drag herself through the film, was suddenly so pleased. As though he had blinders on, he attributed the change not to Montand but to Cukor. On April 30, he wrote to thank Cukor for all he had done for Marilyn. He was effusive. He said he had never known Marilyn to be so happy in her work or so full of hope. He commended the director for his patience and for his skill. He guessed that by now Cukor understood why Marilyn was so precious to him. He explained that he still had work to do in the east but didn’t know how much longer he could bear to live as a bachelor. Miller’s letter must have made interesting reading for Cukor, who had been among the first to know about the affair.
Perhaps it was her husband’s very lack of suspiciousness that caused Marilyn to flaunt the relationship. Dr. Greenson’s departure for ten days of lectures in Detroit and Atlantic City seemed to liberate her. In Montand’s bungalow one morning, she permitted herself to be seen by a room-service waiter, and soon people were talking all over town.
A little over a week after he had written to Cukor, Arthur appeared in Los Angeles. By then he may have been the last person to find out. Even when he did discover that his wife had been sleeping with her co-star, he proceeded with his plans. He suppressed his anger. Yet at least one old friend discerned the feeling in Miller’s voice, the hurt in his face.
Elia Kazan, at work on Splendor in the Grass, had heard all about Marilyn’s affair. He was struck by the flagrancy of her actions. From the first, Kazan had believed that Marilyn was not the sort of girl one married. He wondered whether Miller, in his view an innocent, would be able to handle the punishment. He contacted Miller and suggested they meet. Nothing could be more ironic than the fact that it was Kazan who felt called on to comfort Mille
r. Nine years before, Kazan, like Montand, had carried on an affair with Marilyn when his friend Miller returned to New York.
Kazan and Miller, at their first meeting after seven years, had refrained from talk of HUAC. This time, they avoided mention of Marilyn. Yet that painful topic formed the subtext of the encounter. Kazan regarded Miller’s restraint as manful. Much had changed in the five months since Miller’s call to Kazan on location, when Miller had looked like a winner again; five months later, he was a cuckold and many people in Hollywood knew it. Kazan reached out, and Miller appeared to welcome his sympathy and interest.
When Arthur returned to the east, Marilyn was seen everywhere with Montand. They attended a screening of Billy Wilder’s The Apartment. She took him to a party at Romanoff’s. When Tennessee Williams brought his mother to Cukor’s set to say hello to Marilyn and invite her to lunch, Marilyn left no doubt in his mind that she was having an affair. She appeared increasingly shrill and desperate. At times, the burly Montand actually seemed afraid of her. He, like everyone else on Let’s Make Love, had abundant evidence that Marilyn was unstable. He did not want to offend her, but he didn’t want matters to get out of hand either. This was his first Hollywood film, and he didn’t want to ruin his chance.
Cheryl Crawford, who hoped to cast Montand in a Broadway musical, took him and Marilyn to a party at David Selznick’s house. The evening was a disaster. Simone Signoret had endeared herself to Hollywood. Montand was winning no popularity contests for having betrayed her. Late in the evening, Marilyn overheard Greg Bautzer, Howard Hughes’s lawyer, in conversation. Bautzer, massive and powerful, was a rough number, always prepared for a tussle. He remembered Marilyn from the days when she was on call at Uncle Joe’s. In his deep, booming voice, Bautzer announced that Joe Schenck was near death. Aged eighty-one, he had had a heart attack and later slipped into a coma. Marilyn went wild, screaming that it couldn’t be true. She knew she would have been called. She insisted she had to see Uncle Joe immediately. Bautzer responded angrily, contemptuously. He reminded her of who she was. He told her to save her tears. He berated her for having failed to visit when Schenck might actually have enjoyed seeing her.
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