The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe by J. Randy Taraborrelli

Author:J. Randy Taraborrelli
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Film & Video, Performing Arts, Biography & Autobiography, cinema, Biography: The Arts, Entertainment & Performing Arts, General, Films, GeneralC, Individual actors & performers, Biography: arts & entertainment
ISBN: 9780330461351
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2011-09-15T09:34:26.134000+00:00

PART SIX

Voices

The Misery of Arthur Miller

One of the major components in the Arthur Miller–Marilyn Monroe relationship was that Miller loved how well Marilyn Monroe listened to him, the way she hung on his every word. One mutual friend of the couple’s put it best: “She was all about listening and receiving and he was all about talking and sending. He lectured her constantly. She was mesmerized by him. She drank him in like a sponge and let him affect her through osmosis.”

Arthur Miller could do no wrong, as far as Marilyn was concerned. He was smart and interesting. He was invested in social change and had a real conscience. He was also supportive of her ambition—unlike her last husband. However, despite all of his good qualities, she was reluctant to marry him. In fact, she didn’t want to encourage him to divorce his wife—even though his mind was made up about that. She didn’t want him to break up his family for her, because she wasn’t sure she was right for him. He could continue to dazzle her with his intelligence, but on some level she must have known that he would eventually need some input from her. How did she feel about literature, about culture… about the world? She was a smart woman, smarter than even she knew. However, she was so insecure in herself, she never thought of herself as intelligent. She always felt that she was less than… whoever she was with at any given time. She confided in friends that she didn’t think she had the tools to really meet Miller at his intellectual capacity, “and what will he do when I’m found out,” she fretted. “I’m a good actress, but I don’t know that I’m that good.” Her great fear was that he would wake up one day and believe that he was with someone who didn’t know a lot about anything that mattered to him.

During production of Bus Stop, she leaned on him during times of great stress. That he was there for her meant the world to her. Desperate late-night telephone calls had become a recurring theme to their relationship. She could never seem to sleep, no matter how many pills she took, so inured had she become to their effects. Sometimes she would wash them down with champagne, and then not only was she wide awake, she was also inebriated. There was no telling what she might say in such telephone calls. “I can’t do it. I can’t work this way,” she cried to him in one call during production of Bus Stop. “I’m no trained actor. I can’t pretend I’m doing something if I’m not. All I know is real. I can’t do it if it’s not real.” She was talking about her role in the movie, but it also seemed as if she were referring to her role in his life.

On weekends, the two would meet at the Château Marmont Hotel in Hollywood for a romantic rendezvous. For days afterward, she was miserable.

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