My Week With Marilyn

Bumble made various tiny alterations and then announced that two more fittings would be needed to get it right. (These will be at Parkside.)

MM did some twirls for the camera, but this time no one held their breath and Jack hardly bothered to adjust the lights. We all know what it will look like – ravishing.

At the end of the day, I was the last to leave. SLO had gone back to Notley with Tony, in high good spirits, after calling everyone to tell them the news. I went over to the bar for a drink. It is out of bounds during the day but empty after 6 p.m. Sitting alone I saw Whitey Snyder quietly sipping Scotch so I joined him.

‘What an amazing transformation,’ I said.

‘Nothing to it,’ said Whitey in his calm Yankee accent. ‘The camera just loves some people,’ he explained, ‘and it sure loves Marilyn. Look at Bogart. Funny little man you wouldn’t notice in a crowd, but on camera . . . ! Look at Gary Cooper. Wonderfully tall and good looking, yes, but can’t act for toffee and never even tries. Doesn’t ever change his expression by a hair’s breadth, and yet when you see him on camera, everyone with him seems to be overacting. Just born with the magic. And so is Marilyn. However confused or difficult she is in real life, for the camera she can do no wrong. I tell her that all the time but she doesn’t believe me. And sometimes I feel like telling her directors – don’t fuss her, don’t tell her what to do, just let her rip.’

I can see that he is genuinely fond of MM. The only person I’ve met so far who is. I wish I could sit him down for a quiet chat with SLO, but that’s out of the question.

FRIDAY, 20 JULY

Last day of the tests. This time the hairdressers had lots of wigs to try, but we ended up with the first choice which has been so successful.

MM arrived in the car with Milton. Clearly he is trying to reassert his control, which may have temporarily been taken over by AM. He never stops whispering into MM’s ear. Is this the fashionable way of communicating with film stars in Hollywood?

(#litres_trial_promo) We also ran a test to choose MM’s stand-in. Jack chose a skinny little blonde who doesn’t look a bit like MM to me – no more a real blonde than MM either, I would guess. But it is Jack who will have to light her every day to get the set ready for MM, and he mumbled something about ‘perfect skin tones’. Hmm. Who is perfect is the little Wardrobe girl. She could not be cuter or more flirtatious, and I made many more visits to the Wardrobe Department than were strictly necessary.

I hope David hasn’t noticed. I didn’t have the nerve to ask her out this weekend, but I stressed that I would be back on Monday and come to see her again then. I definitely have to get my hands on her!

I have had to learn my way around the studios in a hurry. David is always telling me to check something at one end or fetch someone from the other, and I spend a lot of time dashing along that long concrete corridor. Before the camera rolls, or ‘turns over’, a bell rings, red lights flash and the soundproof studio doors are locked automatically. It seems like an age if you are the wrong side of the doors, but actually the camera never runs for more than a minute or so. It is stopped between ‘takes’ to save film and it is returned to its starting position if it has been moved.

David told me that for the filming, there will be two 2nd Ast Dirs on call, one in the office and one in the studio. However that will not alter my role as his slave: I do not work for anyone else (except for SLO, Tony, Milton, Mr P and Vivien, think I).

Tomorrow I’m going down to the country for the weekend, to boast about MM.

MONDAY, 23 JULY

We were all at Pinewood again today, this time to listen to the music, which has been specially written by Richard Addinsell. SLO, Milton, Tony B, Terry Rattigan, David and I were all crammed in a rehearsal room. RA hummed and sang the main song he had written, accompanying himself on the piano. He is a very gentle, sympathetic man and we were all on his side. I’m not musical and I find it extremely hard to catch a tune the first time I hear it played. I remember M and D playing us the record of My Fair Lady when they came back from New York after attending the first night. The songs that had brought the house down in a live performance left us unmoved until we had played the record several times. It was the same now. Out of nerves, RA had put in so many decorations and variations with his left hand that it was too hard for us. Nothing could obscure the melody from him, but we were baffled. There was a polite, embarrassed silence.

‘Can you play the tune alone,’ asked SLO, ‘to make it easier for us dullards, dear boy.’

RA was clearly very anxious. But he played it slowly and lyrically and gradually a very charming little waltz began to appear – the Sleeping Prince waltz.

‘Bravo!’ shouted Tony, and everyone began to applaud.

Then RA sang the song MM will be singing in the film, to another round of applause.

There is no doubt such a pretty tune could help the film immensely. David tells me there will be a grand ballroom scene with 500 people (‘extras’) waltzing to it in full evening dress. That is where the movie will differ from the play and hopefully be more of a spectacle.

After lunch I sneaked up to see my little Wdg

(#litres_trial_promo) again – pretty as ever. She is no Einstein, but who cares about that. I just want to get my arms around her tiny waist and squeeze. She doesn’t have a boyfriend, so I intend to make my move next weekend.

TUESDAY, 24 JULY

More arrivals from the USA. Most important is Paula Strasberg. SLO and Tony B have worked themselves into a lather about her already. She is MM’s drama coach and current Svengali. SLO has been warned by Josh Logan (MM’s last director on Bus Stop) that she is a total menace. She contradicted everything and she muddled MM up. I thought Lee Strasberg was the drama coach. I don’t know what qualifications his wife has, except by association, although I hear she used to be an actress herself.

SLO has determined to ban Paula from the set while we are filming. Several times he has given me a diatribe about her and drama coaches in general. Finally, he told me to throw her out if I see her!

‘She can stay in Marilyn’s dressing room.’

‘What about MM’s dressing room in the studio?’ (MM is to have her own sort of pre-fab, or ‘portable’ dressing room built for her right by the set. It too will be all decorated up in beige and soft lights.)

‘Oh, the devil take her!’ shouted SLO, seeing that he wasn’t going to win.

Other arrivals from the USA are Amy and Joshua Greene, Milton’s wife and baby son. Milton almost looks too young to be a father. He is evidently a famous photographer, although I hadn’t heard of him. He does look a little like Bert Stern,

(#litres_trial_promo) but that is hardly enough of a qualification. I will find an excuse to visit Tibbs tomorrow and meet everyone.

There is also a lady called Rosten who used to work as AM’s secretary and now is going to be MM’s secretary.

(#litres_trial_promo) She is said to be a chum of MM’s but I suspect she is still loyal to AM. She will live with them both at Parkside.

WEDNESDAY, 25 JULY

I drove down to Tibbs in the morning – with Mr P’s blessing. He loves a bit of spying, and I’m afraid he already sees the American and British camps as ‘Them’ and ‘Us’. As I know Tibbs so well, and I was the one who arranged it, I went in through the back door as if I was the boss. This has a calming effect on the servants who are already in semi-revolt. It seems that Milton and his friends never give them a thought and are very untidy. The Cotes-Preedys are definitely going to lose their staff if we are not careful. I persuaded everybody that the arrival of Mrs Milton Greene would change all the bad habits. They countered that by saying they had never been told there would be children.

‘Just one,’ I said, ‘very small, and I have been told he is very well behaved.’ (Absolute lie.)

But they may still walk out with no notice despite their huge wages. ‘As good cooks go . . .’

Milton, to his credit, does not seem in the least surprised or upset when I wander into his living room unannounced.

‘Hi Colin. Want a beer?’

I explained that I was just checking if he was comfortable and well looked after.

‘Sure am. Stick around and meet Amy. She’ll be down soon.’

Amy looks even younger than Milton. She is also extremely attractive – small, pale, dark hair, intense – very much a contrast to my little Wdg with her empty eyes.

The little boy is about 2½ and known as Josh. He toddles all over the place, pretty much unhindered and with very little sense as yet. Milton seems very involved with both of them. Perhaps he is not as much of a rascal as Mr P implies. I absolutely can’t help liking him.

In the afternoon I drove over to Parkside. Plod opened the front door cautiously (I don’t know the staff here so I can’t go round the back). It seems that MM and AM spend all their time upstairs, having meals and newspapers sent up. I met Hedda Rosten, MM’s ‘personal secretary’. She is very New York, middle-aged, but sympathetic and clever. She had a drink in her hand and seemed to me a little tipsy. I suppose she is still exhausted from the overnight flight.

Plod seems happy enough. It is a great relief to have him there.

As I was leaving AM appeared in a white towelling bathrobe and gazed round slowly over his hornrimmed specs. Plod explained who I was – the house etc. – but AM just grunted and went back upstairs.

And to think that this is the man the whole world envies – on honeymoon with Marilyn Monroe.

THURSDAY, 26 JULY

Mr P and I and Vanessa went to Pinewood again to check everything once more. (Vanessa is going to be Mr P’s production secretary.) We already have Studio A and the major set – or scenery – is being put up there. It is going to be the purple drawing room in the Carpathian Embassy in Belgrave Square, and it is built so that each of the four walls, with their windows, fireplace, doors etc. can be swung away, and the camera can film the other three. There will be various bedrooms and dressing rooms leading off it which will be built later. It is meant to be on the first floor of the Embassy, and a huge columned hall and grand double staircase will eventually be put up in Studio B when we have finished in A.

There is a lighting grid or gantry all over the ceiling of each studio, with literally hundreds of lights hanging from it. They are on telescopic, rotating metal rods so that they can be altered by the electrician working up above. The lighting cameraman, Jack Cardiff, will work out which of these lights he wants lit, how high they should hang and where they should point. He will make a plan beforehand and give it to the lighting foreman, or ‘gaffer’, to set up. Then Jack will fine-tune all the lights using the stand-ins – one for MM, one for SLO, one for Dame Sybil Thorndike etc. until all is ready for the stars to walk in and perform.