Marilyn Monroe by Michelle Vogel

Author:Michelle Vogel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2014-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

For a number of reasons, The Seven Year Itch was a monumental event in Marilyn Monroe’s life and career. At her own initiative, it would be her last film under her restrictive and low-paying Fox contract. She would be suspended from the studio for refusing to see out their arrangement, but after retreating to New York for almost a year, she would return to Los Angeles triumphant. Monroe signed a lucrative new contract with the studio at a higher salary and with creative control. She also started Marilyn Monroe Productions, her own production company (with photographer, Milton Greene), whereby the studio would allow her to pursue her own film projects, independent of Fox. Considering the harsh confines of her previous Fox contract, it was as though she had been set free. Following the formation of her company, she talked about her dissatisfaction with her contractual studio work, saying, “I now want to do movies which won’t make me feel, after I drive away from the preview, that I ought to drive off a cliff” (Lyons, Advocate, July 5, 1956).

Monroe’s nine-month marriage to Joe DiMaggio ended before filming did, and her relationship with her long-time drama teacher Natasha Lytess was about to come to a screeching halt too. In fact, the film’s title could also refer to the end of their seven-year collaboration. The Seven Year Itch was their last film as teacher and student. Though Lytess was disliked by almost everyone that Monroe associated with, their relationship, though professional, was also a personal one. They were friends. As difficult as Lytess was, Monroe remained with her and relied on her for as long as she did for a reason. As hard and tough as Lytess appeared to be on the outside, she had grown somewhat dependent on her student too. Lytess left her position at Columbia Studios to exclusively coach Monroe. She put all of her eggs in one basket, as the saying goes, and while her run was a good one, by the end of filming on The Seven Year Itch, without a word to Lytess, Monroe went on strike and left for New York. Lytess remained in Los Angeles on the Fox payroll as the drama coach of a star who was not only no longer working, she was no longer in the same state! Not surprisingly, she was soon let go. Monroe had left her high and dry.

In New York, Monroe began work at the Actors Studio, under the direction of Lee Strasberg and his wife, Paula. With no explanation, Monroe refused phone contact from Lytess. When she returned to Los Angeles, she avoided personal contact with her. In order to support herself and her child, Barbara Lytess scrambled to get private students and survive on the payments from those sessions, but her salary was nowhere near the amounts earned as a private teacher to Monroe and an employee at Columbia and Fox Studios. When Lytess played the sympathy card and revealed that she was dying of cancer, Monroe sent Lytess a check for $1,000.

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