Marilyn Monroe: A Life From Beginning to End (Biographies of Actors Book 1) by Hourly History

Author:Hourly History [History, Hourly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hourly History
Published: 2017-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia

“Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.”

—Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn made what would be her only self-produced film, called The Prince and the Showgirl, in 1957. For this movie she would work with an entirely British cast and the leading man of the picture would be none other than famed actor Sir Laurence Olivier. Marilyn and Laurence seemed to get off on the wrong foot from the very beginning, however, and the chemistry was just not working for them from the outset of the production.

If the on-screen clash she had with Olivier wasn’t enough, Marilyn also had to deal with his wife. Olivier’s wife Vivien Leigh had filled the role of leading lady in the theatrical production of the piece; she resented Marilyn for taking her role and starring alongside her husband, and she wasn’t going to let her forget it. Vivien often launched into tirades against Marilyn whenever she had the opportunity to speak to the press.

On one occasion she issued the statement, dripping with venom, “That girl has the audacity to give herself top billing in the film, even over my husband, Lord Olivier. What hubris! What a laugh! I mean, what does that little tart think? She’s popular for two reasons, and it’s pretty obvious what they are.” The general audience wasn’t much kinder either, and the reviews were mixed at best, leading to a big letdown for the ambitious starlet.

During this time, Marilyn began to show the symptoms of a dangerous addiction to alcohol and sleeping pills. She suffered from terrible insomnia and would often take handfuls of pills chased with shots of vodka just to get some rest. According to Arthur Miller, it was none other than Paula Strasberg who he derided as the “walking apothecary” who often provided Marilyn with her drugs of choice.

Miller was highly critical of the Strasbergs—especially Paula—and didn’t understand why Marilyn continued to finance them as her coaches and mentors. He didn’t believe in their methodology and felt that it was a waste of time at best and a con-job perpetrated against Marilyn for financial gain at worst. Miller was already coming to regret his marriage to the increasingly erratic Marilyn Monroe.

And soon these doubts would be made known in an incredibly painful fashion, when by chance Miller had left an open notebook on a table that contained a passage written about her, voicing his concerns. In it, he vented his frustration over Marilyn’s behavior on set, and to Marilyn’s horror he sided with Laurence Olivier and stated that he had every right to have “anger and resentment.”

He also criticized Marilyn on a personal level referring to her as an “out of control child woman with endless emotional demands,” and furthermore was worried that the energy he had to expend to deal with her was killing his creativity as a writer. Instead of Marilyn being his muse, Miller was stating that she was his menace. Marilyn was crushed to read these passages and was immediately sent into a state of deep depression.

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