The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Giving Voice to the Voices

The second week of January 1960 found Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Miller in Los Angeles, ensconced in bungalow number 21 of the plush Beverly Hills Hotel, next door to the French actor Yves Montand and his wife, actress Simone Signoret. Montand had been cast to star opposite Marilyn in Let’s Make Love, replacing Gregory Peck, who had decided—wisely, as it would turn out—that making this film was a very bad idea. It was a new year and Marilyn seemed determined not only to make the movie an enjoyable experience, but also to somehow save her marriage in the process. Diane Stevens, an assistant to John Springer, who worked for Marilyn as a publicist at this time (through the Arthur Jacobs agency), recalled, “I remember thinking, no, she is not in shape to do a movie. Unlike Elizabeth Taylor—whom John also worked for and with whom I had a great deal of contact—Marilyn was not able to bounce back after personal tragedy. Rather, she seemed to lose herself in the personal chaos. It was as if she had no coping skills or, at the very least, it was as if she had exhausted her supply. I thought she should have been in a hospital by this time, not on a soundstage.”

In fact, Marilyn was primed to make this film a big success. How could it fail with the legendary “woman’s” director George Cukor at the helm, a script by the Oscar-honored writer Norman Krasna, songs by the triple-Oscar-winning tunesmiths Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, and with Gregory Peck as her leading man? But Peck left the project early on because he felt the script was terrible. Other big male stars who turned down the role were Cary Grant, Charlton Heston, Rock Hudson, Yul Brynner, and James Stewart. French actor/singer Yves Montand had no such misgivings, though. He had recently made a big success in a French-language film version of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. Married to Simone Signoret, an Academy Award Best Actress winner in 1960, he signed on to join Marilyn as her leading man in Let’s Make Love.

A strange thing occurred during the early part of rehearsals for the film, something that greatly impacted Marilyn’s marriage to Arthur. A Writers Guild strike had broken out, causing a problem for the film, the script of which was already such a mess Marilyn barely wanted to appear in it. There was some hope from her that the strike might cause the cancellation of the film as no union writer would be available to work on it. The film’s producer, Jerry Wald, asked Arthur Miller if he would mind doing some rewrites on the script. Miller agreed. In effect, he not only consented to rewriting the movie—an endeavor that, to most observers, seemed far below his station as a Pulitzer Prize winner—but also to break ranks with the guild. Marilyn was surprised. “She had always thought of Arthur as someone who championed the rights of the underdog,” said Rupert Allan, who was in Los Angeles visiting the Millers at the time. “For him to snub his nose at the strike first confused her and then made her lose respect for him. She had thought of him as a principled person, an Abraham Lincoln. And he suddenly turned on her. He became much hated, too, on the set. He would lord his wisdom and knowledge over everyone involved in the movie, to the point where people didn’t want to be around him. Suddenly Marilyn was ashamed of him. My, how the tables had turned.”

Actually, there was somewhat more to Marilyn being upset with Arthur than met the eye. She wasn’t upset with him just because he had betrayed his own ideals, though that was part of it. She also suspected from the start that he had taken the writing job just to put her in her proverbial “place.” After all, she signed on to do the movie at least partly because no one in the household was making any money. Arthur Miller may have been at least a little embarrassed by this situation. Then, suddenly an opportunity presented itself to him to not only bring in a paycheck but perhaps also to be the person responsible for the words his wife had no choice but to recite on camera. It may have seemed as if he were getting back at her. According to people who knew him best, that was his intention. Or, as one person put it, “It was an in-your-face ‘screw you’ to her.” It’s no wonder she was beginning to resent him as much as he seemed to resent her.

Of course, there were the usual problems with Marilyn during production of Let’s Make Love, having to do with her tardiness and pill-taking. Often, she seemed stabilized and well-balanced—her medication probably working—but other times she looked dazed and loopy. Tony Randall, also in the film, recalled, “You have to understand, we would all be in makeup and ready to roll in the morning and here she would come strolling in sometime in the early evening. It got to be tiring after a while. There were days when she seemed barely able to function. Still, she somehow managed to get through it, just as always, I suppose.” It should be noted that Marilyn was acutely aware of her constant disruptions on the set. After the film was over, for instance, she sent choreographer Jack Cole $1,500 with a note telling him she realized she had been “awful.” She suggested he take the money and use it for a vacation, “and act like it all never happened.” A couple of days later, she sent him another $500 and the suggestion that he “stay three more days.”

During production of this movie, Marilyn and Yves Montand at first formed a close bond of friendship. As it happened, he was insecure about his role in Let’s Make Love and about his grasp of the English language. (Actually all of his dialogue ended up having to be meticulously rerecorded.) In this kind of insecurity, he shared Marilyn’s own apprehensions. She was never sure she was very good as an actress, and to have a costar who had his own self-doubts was a provocative development in her life. She liked him very much and wanted him to feel the same way about her. However, Marilyn being Marilyn, she couldn’t help but be late to the set, which was a bit of a problem for Montand. One day when she didn’t show up for work, he left a terse note under the door of her bungalow:

Don’t leave me to work for hours on end on a scene you’ve already decided not to do the next day. I’m not the enemy. I’m your pal. And capricious little girls have never amused me.

She was horrified when she received his little missive. In fact, she felt so terrible, she overreacted and couldn’t leave her bungalow until Mr. and Mrs. Montand went to comfort her and tell her that it was all right, they would all survive. The shoot went on. Then… it happened in mid-April 1960. Montand was concerned about Marilyn because she was too exhausted to attend a rehearsal. Arthur Miller was in Nevada with John Huston scouting possible locations for The Misfits. Montand’s wife, Simone, was in Europe working on a film. Paula Strasberg suggested that Yves go to Marilyn’s bungalow to say hello and make her feel better about her absence. He did. So, there he was, asking her how she felt and hearing her tell him she would be fine when—one thing led to another. According to what he later wrote in his memoir, he couldn’t help himself and leaned over and kissed her, and then… they made love.

The affair lasted for just two months, from April until June, when the film wrapped. When it ended, the Montands tried to put the pieces of their marriage back together. It was difficult, though, because anytime someone tumbled into bed with Marilyn Monroe it ended up front-page news. The Montands had their hands full not only with their broken marriage but with an avalanche of publicity about it. Yves Montand and Simone Signoret proceeded to make statements that surprised the American public. They suggested it was perfectly fine for Yves to have had an affair with “someone like Marilyn Monroe” because that is how the machinery of marriage works. It was just that Marilyn mucked up the works by taking it all too seriously.

From Yves: “[Marilyn] is a simple girl without any guile. Perhaps I was too tender and thought she was as sophisticated as some of the other ladies I have known. Had Marilyn been sophisticated, none of this ever would have happened… she is known throughout the world, but she is still a child. Perhaps she had a school girl crush. If she did, I’m sorry. But nothing will break up my marriage.”

From Signoret: “Let us say Marilyn felt Yves’ charm. Who doesn’t? But everything that might be natural among us is twisted and deformed right from the start by publicity and talk. The real problem is that when a woman feels the physical attraction of a man who is not her husband, she must also feel she is in love to justify it. It is no longer casual even in passing. A man, on the other hand, doesn’t feel he has to confuse an affair with eternal love and make it a crisis in his marriage.”

When reporter Alan Levy read Mrs. Montand’s comment to Marilyn, she said softly, “I think this is all some part of her problem, not mine.”

“It was all very hurtful,” said Rupert Allan. “It was despicable of Yves Montand to say what he did. And I’m not sure Yves came out looking much better. Of course, Marilyn was wracked with guilt and embarrassment. I remember her saying, ‘I shouldn’t have done it because he’s married.’ I think she felt shame about it. Of course, she was married, too, but that seemed a secondary concern. You can imagine her reaction to all of this if she wouldn’t come out of her bungalow because he had chastised her for being late. This kind of public thrashing took a lot to get over. It was as if the Montands were saying, ‘Well, of course he had sex with her. She’s Marilyn Monroe after all. Then, silly girl, she thought it meant something. How stupid of her. Now, let’s just all move on, shall we?’ It was very reductive.”

Rupert Allan’s observation that Marilyn felt guilt about the affair rings true in that, generally, she was conflicted about her feelings relating to marriage. On one hand, she had great respect for the notion of wedded bliss and constantly told her half sister, Berniece, how fortunate she was to be married to the same man for so many years. She even mentioned the Montands to Berniece as a couple she very much admired for their commitment to each other. On the other hand, she seemed to not have a problem with having affairs with married men. Simply put, she seemed to believe that if a man would have sex with her then he must not be happily married—and therefore he was fair game.

The premise of Let’s Make Love has Marilyn portraying musical comedy actress Amanda Dell, appearing in an off-Broadway revue that satirizes celebrities, including the fictional Jean-Marc Clement (Montand), a French-born billionaire industrialist who is now headquartered in New York City. Clement attends a performance just as Amanda is going through Cole Porter’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” a full-on production number with a half dozen chorus boys, staged by Jack Cole. He is instantly smitten by Amanda’s beauty and sets in motion a plan to win her heart without revealing his identity as the super-rich businessman being parodied in the revue. The balance of the film follows the development of Jean-Marc’s pursuit of Amanda, complete with the two rehearsing the musical numbers, and also including acting out love scenes together. As expected, the sexy continental wins the heart of the musical comedy star without ever revealing his true identity.

It’s clear from Marilyn’s work in this movie that she was trying to expand her horizons, yet it was difficult for her. She wrote these words in a notebook in her dressing room:

What am I afraid of? Why am I so afraid? Do I think I can’t act? I know I can act, but I am afraid. I am afraid and I should not be and I must not be.

She actually had no reason to be afraid of this movie, this script. She was much better than the film deserved, actually, and that may have been the problem. The weak script forced her to fall back on her tried-and-true image of sexy blonde bombshell in order to make the movie work. In other words, Arthur Miller did her no favor with this one. Still, it was well received. In fact, Daily Variety gave it a surprisingly rave review, which read, in part, “After the film is underway about 12 minutes, the screen goes suddenly dark… and a lone spotlight picks up Marilyn Monroe wearing black tights and a sloppy wool sweater. She announces with appropriate musical orchestration, that her name is Lolita and that she isn’t allowed to play (pause) with boys (pause) because her heart belongs to daddy (words and music by Cole Porter). This not only launches the first of a series of elegantly designed [by Jack Cole] production numbers and marks one of the great star entrances ever made on the screen, but is typical of the entire film—which has taken something not too original (the Cinderella theme) and dressed it up like new.”

Let’s Make Love would be released September 8, 1960, and gross $3 million at the box office. It would also be nominated for an Oscar for the best scoring of a musical.

In the summer of 1960, Marilyn stayed on in Los Angeles while Arthur was busy with preproduction of The Misfits. Yves and Simone were back in Europe. Feeling more confused than ever, Marilyn did what perhaps she should not have—she continued with her therapy. Her New York psychiatrist, Marianne Kris, had recommended that when Marilyn was in Los Angeles she begin seeing a colleague named Dr. Ralph Greenson, which Marilyn agreed to.