The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Natasha Continues Her Dual Purpose

Of course, Natasha Lytess was still a permanent fixture in Marilyn Monroe’s life. Most observers felt that she was determined to keep Marilyn under her control by reinforcing the notion that she was indispensable to her. “She is not a natural actress,” Natasha said in an interview in 1953. “She has to learn to have a free voice and a free body to act. Luckily, Marilyn has a wonderful instinct for the right timing. I think she will eventually be a good actress.”

“There wasn’t a single moment on the set of any film Marilyn made during this time that Natasha wasn’t there,” said Jane Russell, Marilyn’s costar in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. “I felt that Marilyn was using her too much as a crutch. After she would do a scene she would look over to one side or another to see Natasha’s reaction. Directors didn’t like it, I can tell you that much. At one point, [Natasha] was removed from the set of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes because the director just had enough of her presence.”

Only a select few people, however, knew that Natasha had a dual purpose in Marilyn’s life—she was her acting teacher, certainly, but she was also the one person who could calm Marilyn when “the voices” became too loud in her head.

In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn had a scene with Charles Coburn in which his character, “Piggy,” was reciting to Monroe’s character, Lorelei, a line in Swahili. “The actor was speaking gibberish, of course, and in each take Coburn read the line a bit differently,” Natasha wrote in a letter to her former student Helena Albert. For some reason, his pattern of speech was something Marilyn could not get out of her head, Natasha wrote. Apparently, days after the shooting of this scene, Marilyn locked herself in her dressing room and refused to speak to anyone but Natasha. The director, Howard Hawks, adjusted the shooting schedule and then sent for the acting coach, who arrived quickly. According to Natasha’s memory of events, Marilyn explained to her that she couldn’t stop her mind from playing and replaying Coburn’s Swahili impression. “It was as if she had become haunted by it,” Natasha wrote. “Marilyn told me she couldn’t even bear to look at Charles Coburn. Prior to this time, she had adored him. They had appeared in Monkey Business together.”

Somehow, after less than an hour with her star client, Natasha managed to get Marilyn back in action. It was as if nothing had ever happened. Natasha knew how to bring Marilyn out of these kinds of episodes. “Whenever Marilyn works herself into a panic about something, only I have the cure,” Natasha wrote, rather cryptically.

Similarly, during the making of How to Marry a Millionaire, Natasha was ordered off the set. The next day, Marilyn didn’t show up for work, claiming she had bronchitis. Marilyn would often cloak her mental breakdowns with excuses of physical illnesses. When the studio sent a doctor to her home, which was the procedure at that time, she insisted on speaking to Natasha. Not surprisingly, Marilyn soon returned to work, and Natasha was brought back in—at an even higher salary. Nunnally Johnson, who worked with Marilyn on that film (in March 1953), recalled, “Natasha was really advising her badly by this time, justifying her own presence on the set by requiring take after take and simply feeding on Marilyn’s insecurity. ‘Well, that was all right, dear,’ she often said to Marilyn, ‘but maybe we should do it one more time.’

“I’m not sure, but I think Joe felt that Natasha was more important to Marilyn than he was—and he may have been right.”

“If it were up to me, Morticia would take a long walk off a short pier,” Joe DiMaggio told Stacy Edwards. “Maybe I could get through to Marilyn if I didn’t have this broad to deal with. This broad is gonna ruin her, I’m telling you.”