My Week with Marilyn (4 page)

Arthur's voice came nearer. ‘Come on. Get up. Time to go to sleep.' There was a rustle as Marilyn's bedcover fell to the floor. I couldn't hear their footsteps on the thick carpet, but soon a door shut and the bolt of light went out.

Only then did I realise that I was shivering. I felt I was in shock. My shirt was wet through with perspiration, as if I had been under a shower.

It seemed to take me an eternity to find the stairs, and by the time I got to the kitchen I was ready to faint. My emotions were in turmoil. I had never experienced anything like this before in my life. I couldn't get Marilyn's gaze out of my head. Marilyn Monroe, staring straight at me with that amazing sort of mute appeal. I could only dream of somehow saving her – but with what, and from what, I had no idea. I stumbled into the dining room and found a bottle of brandy on the sideboard. It was full, and I took a long swig, perhaps longer than was wise. That immediately brought on a fit of coughing which threatened to wake the whole house. The only answer seemed to be another swig. Then, for the third time that night, an unwelcome light snapped on.

‘We'd better get you home straight away, laddie,' said Roger grimly, his dressing-gowned figure making for the phone. ‘You're not going to be in much shape for work tomorrow. Never mind,' he added. ‘I don't expect Marilyn will be going in anyway. I think I heard her still awake a minute ago. Let's just hope Mr Miller doesn't
ask me who was coughing in the middle of the night.' He spoke into the phone: ‘Hello, taxi? Can you come and collect someone from Parkside House, Englefield Green? Five minutes? Very well. We'll be outside. Don't whatever you do ring the bell.' He turned back to me. ‘Come on, laddie. You're only twenty-three. You'll be OK. You'll be in bed in a flash. Don't fall asleep in the car, mind.'

And so on and so on, until he had wedged me unsteadily in the back of the car, taken a pound out of my wallet for the driver, and told him where to go.

When I finally got to bed I was exhausted, but I could not sleep. That image of Marilyn simply would not leave my mind. She seemed to be addressing me directly, like a figure in a dream, as if her spirit was calling out to mine.

I expected to have a terrible hangover the next morning, but when the alarm went off I was still feeling strangely excited. It took a few minutes before reality set in. It was six o'clock in the morning and I was meant to be at Pinewood Studios, ten miles away, at 6.45.

If my car had been outside all would have been well. At this hour of the morning it only took fifteen minutes to get there. But I did not have my car, and although Marilyn never turned up at the studio on time, Olivier always arrived at seven o'clock sharp. Tony and Anne Bushell, with whom I was staying at Runnymede House, which they had rented for the duration of the filming, would not be getting up for another hour. They were kind and generous people, but they would not like to be woken at 6.30 a.m. and asked for a lift. Tony is the associate producer on the film, and he does not arrive on the set until nine. Only the actors need to get there so early, in order that they can be made up and put into their costumes before shooting starts.

I dressed quickly and went out into the morning air to seek inspiration. The events of last night now seemed like a crazy dream. It was almost as if they hadn't happened at all. I certainly could not give them as an excuse for being late for work. But then, to my delight, I noticed that there were two cars in the drive outside the house – Tony's Jaguar, and an elderly MG. That must belong to Anne's son Ned, I thought. He sometimes came down for the night. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I went back inside the
house and went up to the spare room. Sure enough, there was Ned, very sound asleep.

‘Ned,' I whispered in his ear. ‘I need to borrow your car for a few hours. Is that OK?'

Ned snored on. He is my own age, and he must have had a weary night.

I picked up his trousers from the floor and took his car keys out of the pocket. There was no time to explain. I found a piece of paper on the desk and wrote: ‘Sorry about the car – back soon. Colin,' and left.

‘We don't have this car registered to you, sir,' the guard said when I arrived at the main gate of the studios. ‘No car that isn't registered is allowed in. We can't be too careful now Miss Monroe is here. These reporters try all sorts of tricks.'

‘I'm not a reporter, you fool. I'm assistant director on the film.'

‘Sorry, sir. Just doing my job.'

Cursing, I had to leave the car on the grass verge and run down the long drive to the studio. The MG had not been as fast as my Lancia, and I was late.

‘What happened to you, boy?' asked Olivier as I panted into his dressing room.

‘My car broke down. I'll have to sort it out at lunchtime.' I didn't dare mention what had really happened. ‘I don't think Marilyn will be in early,' I said. ‘Roger told me she had a pretty disturbed night.'

‘We 'll have a pretty disturbed
day
if she doesn't show up. We shot all the simple stuff yesterday because she was so woolly. When is she going to recover her composure and start to work?'

‘She 's on her honeymoon, I suppose. Maybe that 's affecting her.'

‘Oh, nonsense, she's not a schoolgirl. And Arthur's getting fed up too. He told me he needs a holiday already.' Olivier grimaced. ‘The trouble is that she 's so damn moody, and she stays up most of the night. I pity Arthur. I wouldn't sleep with Marilyn for a million dollars, I can assure you of that.'

Nor her with you, I thought, but I said nothing.

Just before lunch, to everyone's surprise, and my great relief,
Marilyn did show up after all. The usual bunch of people materialised out of thin air to pester the poor lady, but I only had eyes for Evans, the chauffeur. I did not have time to worry about whether Marilyn had seen me the night before or not, but I did most urgently need to get the MG back to Ned. Even so, I was anxious to avoid Marilyn's direct gaze. She wears very dark glasses when she first arrives at the studio, and one can never be quite sure how much she can see. By the time she was ready to start work, I imagined, she would be thinking of nothing but her lines.

‘Where have you been?' asked David Orton suspiciously as I slipped back onto the stage an hour later, Evans having driven me back from Runnymede House.

‘Tummy upset,' I said.

He glowered, but I was home.

Filming that afternoon followed the now-familiar pattern. We all wait around the set under the ‘work' lights for Marilyn to appear. Every quarter of an hour, Olivier tells David to go to Marilyn's dressing room to ask when she will be ready. David is a professional of the old school. He believes in a chain of command.

‘Colin!' he shouts.

‘Yes, David?'

‘Go to Miss Monroe's dressing room and ask when she will be ready.'

This of course is her portable dressing room, right there on the studio floor. From the outside, the thing looks like a caravan on a building site. Inside it is all soft lights and beige fabrics, like Parkside House.

I tap on the thin metal door. The make-up man or the wardrobe lady answers my knock. ‘Not yet,' they whisper. It is as if we are all waiting for someone to give birth – and in a way, I suppose we are.

Finally, and without any warning, the doors fly open and Marilyn appears, looking absolutely gorgeous in the incredible white costume designed for her to wear in her role as the chorus girl Elsie Marina
by ‘Bumble' Dawson. Her head is held high, she has a little smile on her lips, her huge eyes are open wide, and her gaze is fixed upon the set. Marilyn is ready. Marilyn is going to do it now, or die in the attempt.

A shout from David. (David has, and needs, a very loud voice, as there are over fifty impatient people present.)

‘Ready, studio!'

The film lights come on, one after another, with a series of terrific ‘clunks'.

Marilyn looks startled. Paula, ever present an inch from her elbow, whispers something in her ear. Marilyn hesitates for a split second . . . and is lost.

Instead of going straight to her marks in front of the camera, she deflects to her ‘recliner' positioned nearby. Paula, the make-up man, the hair stylist and the wardrobe lady all follow and re-surround her. Now she has to steel herself all over again, only this time the studio lights are burning away and we are poised to start work. If Marilyn loses her nerve completely, a scarlet flush, which she cannot control, spreads over her neck and cheeks, and then she has to go back to her dressing room and lie down. That means that the dress has to come off, and the wig has to come off, and it will be two hours before we can start the whole process again. It really is a miracle that anything ever gets done.

That afternoon it was clear that Marilyn was even more distressed than usual. By four o'clock she had left the set for the second time, and Olivier decided to call it a day. When I went into his dressing room to sort out the scripts – and the whisky and cigarettes – he was in an urgent discussion with Milton Greene as to what the cause of Marilyn's distraction could be.

‘Don't you know anything, Colin?' Olivier asked me. ‘You hired her bodyguard. Can't you find out from him what 's going on?'

‘I know she and Arthur had an argument last night.'

‘We all know that,' said Milton. ‘She rang me at one a.m. to ask
for more pills. I know I promised Arthur that I wouldn't involve him with filming problems, but I'm going to telephone him now and see if he 'll tell me what's up.'

‘You'd better wait outside, Colin,' said Olivier. ‘But don't go away.'

When they called me in again five minutes later, both men were looking pale.

‘It seems that Arthur Miller has decided to go to Paris tomorrow,' said Olivier stiffly. ‘Evidently he has to see a literary agent there. Milton says this is the very worst thing for Marilyn. She has a horror of being deserted, even for a day. Both her previous husbands did it, and it terrifies her. She 's driving me absolutely crazy, but I suppose she 's giving Arthur a hard time too, so I can't say I blame him.'

‘Marilyn is still in the studio,' I said. ‘Perhaps she 's too upset to go home.'

‘Oh, God,' said Milton. ‘Still in the studio at this time? I'd better go and see what she needs.'

He dashed out of the room, but he was back in under thirty seconds, looking very grim.

‘Paula won't let me in. She says Marilyn won't see anyone, and she shut the door in my face.'

‘Colin,' said Olivier, his voice like a spade in gravel, ‘go across to Mrs Strasberg and ask her very politely whether Miss Monroe intends to come to the studio and work tomorrow. Don't go as my assistant. Say David needs to know.'

This was pretty high-risk stuff. A direct question. Usually Marilyn and Paula are already in the car back to Parkside before the rest of us have left the set. And of course they never answer the phone once they are home. Now, for the first time, they were still in our domain, at our mercy, as it were.

I marched across the thirty feet or so separating the suites of the two great stars and knocked on the door.

No reply. Cowardice means dismissal. Knock again!

The door opened a crack and Paula's eye appeared. She gazed at
me for a full five seconds, in disbelief. Even from the little I could see of her, I could tell that she was in the grip of strong emotions.

‘Come in,' she croaked, standing aside. I edged past her, and she closed the door firmly behind me.

She was alone in the pretty little sitting room that acted as a foyer to the
sanctum sanctorum
where Marilyn actually got dressed.

‘Go in.' She closed her eyes and pointed to the door. ‘Go in.'

‘Go in?' I didn't understand what she meant. ‘Go in where?' I felt like Alice through the looking glass. I'd never even been allowed in this reception room before, at least not when Marilyn was in it. This was holy ground. This was too much.

‘Go in.' Paula pointed to the door again. ‘Go in!'

The inner room seemed to be in pitch darkness. I took two steps inside and stopped.

‘Colin.' Marilyn's voice was no more than a whisper, but every word was completely clear.

‘Yes?'

‘Shut the door.'

I closed the door behind me, and held my breath.

There was a long pause. I could see nothing. I felt as if I had dropped off the edge of the world and was falling through space. All I could hear was a succession of little sighs. The same sighs that I had heard last night.

‘Colin?'

‘Yes?' I found myself whispering too, I wasn't sure why.

‘What were you doing in my house last night? Did they send you to spy on me?'

‘Oh, no, Marilyn . . .' What was I thinking of? This was the greatest film star in the world. ‘Oh, no, Miss Monroe. I came over to talk to the servants. I hired them for you, you see, when I found the house for you, you see, and they are always complaining about something, and I thought that if I went over and listened, they would calm down. And then I stayed and had a sandwich with Roger, you
see, and when I came out of his room I got lost. I'm so sorry,' I ended in a rush.

Pause. As my eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light, I could just make out the figure of Marilyn in a white bathrobe, lying on a sofa against the wall. She had taken off her blonde Elsie Marina wig and she looked very frail.

‘Colin?'

‘Yes, Miss Monroe?'

‘What is your job on the picture?'

‘I'm the third assistant director. What they call a “gofer”. I have to go for this and go for that, whenever I'm told. Anyone can boss me around. I really hardly have a job at all.'