My Week with Marilyn Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  My Week with Marilyn

  INTRODUCTION

  TUESDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 1956

  WEDNESDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER

  THURSDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER

  FRIDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER

  SATURDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER

  SUNDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER

  MONDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER

  TUESDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER

  WEDNESDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER

  POSTSCRIPT

  APPENDIX

  The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me

  PREFACE

  THE DIARIES

  SUNDAY, 3 JUNE 1956

  MONDAY, 4 JUNE

  TUESDAY, 5 JUNE

  WEDNESDAY, 6 JUNE

  FRIDAY, 8 JUNE

  MONDAY, 11 JUNE

  TUESDAY, 12 JUNE

  WEDNESDAY, 13 JUNE

  THURSDAY, 14 JUNE

  FRIDAY, 15 JUNE

  MONDAY, 18 JUNE

  TUESDAY, 19 JUNE

  WEDNESDAY, 20 JUNE

  THURSDAY, 21 JUNE

  FRIDAY, 22 JUNE

  MONDAY, 25 JUNE

  TUESDAY, 26 JUNE

  WEDNESDAY, 27 JUNE

  THURSDAY, 28 JUNE

  FRIDAY, 29 JUNE

  MONDAY, 2 JULY

  TUESDAY, 3 JULY

  WEDNESDAY, 4 JULY

  THURSDAY, 5 JULY

  FRIDAY, 6 JULY

  MONDAY, 9 JULY

  TUESDAY, 10 JULY

  WEDNESDAY, 11 JULY

  THURSDAY, 12 JULY

  FRIDAY, 13 JULY

  SATURDAY, 14 JULY

  SUNDAY, 15 JULY

  MONDAY, 16 JULY

  TUESDAY, 17 JULY

  WEDNESDAY, 18 JULY

  THURSDAY, 19 JULY

  FRIDAY, 20 JULY

  MONDAY, 23 JULY

  TUESDAY, 24 JULY

  WEDNESDAY, 25 JULY

  THURSDAY, 26 JULY

  FRIDAY, 27 JULY

  SUNDAY, 29 JULY

  MONDAY, 30 JULY

  TUESDAY, 31 JULY

  WEDNESDAY, 1 AUGUST

  THURSDAY, 2 AUGUST

  FRIDAY, 3 AUGUST

  SUNDAY, 5 AUGUST

  MONDAY, 6 AUGUST

  TUESDAY, 7 AUGUST

  WEDNESDAY, 8 AUGUST

  THURSDAY, 9 AUGUST

  FRIDAY, 10 AUGUST

  SUNDAY, 12 AUGUST

  MONDAY, 13 AUGUST

  TUESDAY, 14 AUGUST

  WEDNESDAY, 15 AUGUST

  THURSDAY, 16 AUGUST

  FRIDAY, 17 AUGUST

  SUNDAY, 19 AUGUST

  MONDAY, 20 AUGUST

  TUESDAY, 21 AUGUST

  WEDNESDAY, 22 AUGUST

  THURSDAY, 23 AUGUST

  FRIDAY, 24 AUGUST

  SATURDAY, 25 AUGUST

  MONDAY, 27 AUGUST

  TUESDAY, 28 AUGUST

  WEDNESDAY, 29 AUGUST

  THURSDAY, 30 AUGUST

  FRIDAY, 31 AUGUST

  SUNDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER

  MONDAY, 3 SEPTEMBER

  TUESDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER

  WEDNESDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER

  THURSDAY, 6 SEPTEMBER

  FRIDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER

  SATURDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER

  MONDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER

  TUESDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER

  WEDNESDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER

  THURSDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER

  FRIDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER

  SUNDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER

  MONDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER

  TUESDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER

  WEDNESDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER

  THURSDAY, 27 SEPTEMBER

  FRIDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER

  MONDAY, 1 OCTOBER

  TUESDAY, 2 OCTOBER

  WEDNESDAY, 3 OCTOBER

  THURSDAY, 4 OCTOBER

  RUNNYMEDE, SUNDAY, 7 OCTOBER

  MONDAY, 8 OCTOBER

  TUESDAY, 9 OCTOBER

  WEDNESDAY , 10 OCTOBER

  THURSDAY, 11 OCTOBER

  FRIDAY, 12 OCTOBER

  CARPENTERS’ ARMS, SUNDAY, 14 OCTOBER

  MONDAY, 15 OCTOBER

  TUESDAY, 16 OCTOBER

  WEDNESDAY, 17 OCTOBER

  THURSDAY, 18 OCTOBER

  FRIDAY, 19 OCTOBER

  TIBBS FARM, SUNDAY, 21 OCTOBER

  MONDAY, 22 OCTOBER

  TUESDAY, 23 OCTOBER

  WEDNESDAY, 24 OCTOBER

  THURSDAY, 25 OCTOBER

  FRIDAY, 26 OCTOBER

  MONDAY, 29 OCTOBER

  TUESDAY, 30 OCTOBER

  WEDNESDAY, 31 OCTOBER

  THURSDAY, 1 NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY, 2 NOVEMBER

  MONDAY, 5 NOVEMBER

  TUESDAY, 6 NOVEMBER

  WEDNESDAY, 7 NOVEMBER

  THURSDAY, 8 NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY, 9 NOVEMBER

  SATURDAY, 10 NOVEMBER

  MONDAY, 12 NOVEMBER

  TUESDAY, 13 NOVEMBER

  WEDNESDAY, 14 NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY, 16 NOVEMBER

  TIBBS FARM, SATURDAY, 17 NOVEMBER

  MONDAY, 19 NOVEMBER

  TUESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER

  POSTSCRIPT

  INDEX

  Copyright Page

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  In 1956, fresh out of Oxford, twenty-three-year-old Colin Clark was employed as a “gofer” on the English set of The Prince and the Showgirl, a film featuring Sir Laurence Olivier, Britain’s preeminent classical actor, and Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood’s greatest star. From the outset the production was bedeviled by problems, and the clashes between Monroe and Olivier have since entered film legend. As a lowly set assistant Clark kept a fly-on-the-wall record of the often tumultuous experience in a journal he published to great acclaim almost forty years later, in 1995, as The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me.

  But one week was missing from the middle of that book. For nine days during the filming, Clark found himself escorting an unhappy Monroe around England in an innocent and often idyllic adventure designed to help the actress escape the pressures of working with Olivier and an often hostile cast and crew. In the process Clark earned Monroe’s lasting trust and affection. From the notes Clark made shortly after the episode he wrote My Week with Marilyn, published in 2000, two years before his death.

  Here, for the first time, My Week with Marilyn and The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me are published together in the same volume.

  My Week with Marilyn

  For Christopher

  INTRODUCTION

  All my life I have kept diaries, but this is not one of them. This is a fairy story, an interlude, an episode outside time and space which nevertheless was real. And why not? I believe in magic. My life and most people’s lives are a series of little miracles – strange coincidences which spring from uncontrollable impulses and give rise to incomprehensible dreams. We spend a lot of time pretending that we are normal, but underneath the surface each one of us knows that he or she is unique.

  This book sets out to describe a miracle – a few days in my life when a dream came true and my only talent was not to close my eyes. Of course I didn’t realise quite what a miracle it was at the time. I had been brought up in a world of ‘make believe’. My earliest memory of my parents is of remote and wonderful beings, only seen late at night, wearing full evening dress. All their friends seemed to be exotic too. Actors, artists, ballerinas and opera singers filled our house with a wonderful feeling of excitement and unreality.

  And there was my older brother, Alan. Alan’s imagination knew no bounds, even then. My twin sister and I were completely under his spell, and he led us into a succession of fantastical adventures and games. It was hardly surprising that by the age of twelve I had decided that ‘show business’ would one day be the life for me; and so it has been ever since.
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  I got my first job in the summer of 1956, at the age of twenty-three, working on a film called The Sleeping Prince, starring Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe. I had just come down from university, and I had no experience whatever. I was only employed because my parents were friends of Olivier and his wife, Vivien Leigh. The Oliviers had been frequent visitors to our home, Saltwood Castle in Kent, and they had become part of my extended family.

  The news that Olivier, the best-known classical actor of his generation, was going to make a film with Marilyn Monroe, the famous Hollywood film star, caused a sensation. Marilyn was to play the part which had been taken by Vivien herself in the play by Terence Rattigan on which the film was based. Up to then she had only played strippers and chorus girls, in very limited roles. In 1955, after a terrific struggle, she renegotiated her contract with Twentieth Century-Fox and announced her intention to do more serious work. Typecasting is never easy to escape, especially in films. Her first new role had been that of a stripper (in Bus Stop), and the second, chosen for her by Milton Greene, her partner in the newly formed Marilyn Monroe Productions, was that of a chorus girl. The only ‘serious’ element was that both films were by so-called ‘serious’ writers. Bus Stop had been based on a play by William Inge, and The Sleeping Prince on a play by Terence Rattigan.

  Filming The Prince and the Showgirl, as it was finally called (it was decided that the title should include a reference to Marilyn’s character), went badly from the very beginning. Olivier patronised Monroe and treated her like a dumb blonde. This was exactly what she was trying to escape, and she resented it intensely. It also drastically affected her self-confidence, and as a result she constantly relied for advice on her ‘dramatic coach’, Paula Strasberg, whom Olivier distrusted. Paula’s husband Lee Strasberg, the head of the Actors Studio in New York, was trying to control Monroe from across the Atlantic. At the same time he was extracting a huge salary for his wife, which made him very unpopular. Monroe’s new husband, the playwright Arthur Miller, was treating her like a difficult child, and this also undermined her. Milton Greene was desperate to retain control of ‘his’ star, and was letting her take more prescription drugs than was perhaps wise. But Monroe was determined to show that she could act, despite her feelings of inadequacy when faced with Olivier and the super-professional English team that had been assembled specially for the film.

  From my first day on the production as third assistant director – the lowest of the low – I kept a journal of everything that I observed. I intended to transcribe it when the film was over, but my notes became messy and hard to read, and I simply put the volume away and forgot it. Forty years later I dug it out and read it again, and it was subsequently published under the title The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me.

  One episode, however, was not recorded in my diary.

  For nine days in the middle of filming, I made no entries at all. Suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, something happened which was, to me, so dramatic and so extraordinary that it was impossible to include it in my daily chatterings. For a short time the attention of the major participants – Olivier, Greene and, above all, Marilyn – seemed to be focused on me. It was as if a spotlight had swung round, for no particular reason, and singled me out as the hero or villain of the piece.

  When normal life resumed, I continued to write my diary as before. I made notes on what I felt had been the key events of those ‘missing’ days, but that is all. It was not until the filming was over that I could go back and write down what had happened, in the form of a letter to the friend for whom I was keeping my journal.

  This, then, is the story of those missing nine days. Of course it goes much further than the letter (the text of which is reproduced as an appendix to this book), but I make no apology for that. The whole episode is still as fresh in my mind as if it had happened yesterday.

  I could never have written this account while Marilyn was alive. I produce it now as a humble tribute to someone who changed my life, and whose own life I only wish I could have saved.

  TUESDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 1956

  ‘Can’t Roger handle it?’ asked Milton Greene.

  Milton and I were pacing up and down the small piece of new lawn outside Marilyn Monroe’s dressing room at Pinewood Studios. As usual, Milton could not make up his mind.

  ‘I’m not sure if anyone from the film crew should go near her home, Colin. Even you.’

  ‘I rented that house for Marilyn, just as I rented yours for you,’ I said. ‘I hired Roger as her bodyguard, and I also hired her cook, her butler and her chauffeur. I know them all well. If we aren’t very careful, everyone will just walk out. Roger is a very nice man, but Roger is a policeman. He’s only used to dealing with subordinates. You can’t treat servants like that. You have to behave as if they were part of the family. Believe me, Milton, I’m very familiar with these problems. My mother worries more about her cook than she does about me.’

  Milton groaned. He had gone to great lengths – and considerable personal expense, he told me – to make absolutely sure that Marilyn was happy in every way. A sumptuous dressing-room suite had been built in the old make-up block at Pinewood, all beige and white, and I had taken a lease on the most beautiful house I could find – Parkside House at Englefield Green, a few miles away, which belonged to Garrett and Joan Moore, old friends of my parents. Despite all this, Marilyn did not seem to be satisfied, and Milton’s pacing was distinctly uneasy.

  ‘OK, Colin, go over to the house if you must. We can’t have the servants leave. Marilyn would be mad. But whatever you do, don’t let her see you. You are Sir Laurence’s personal assistant, after all. And she definitely doesn’t seem too keen on Sir Laurence these days.’

  That was certainly true. After only three weeks of filming, a gulf had already opened between the two great stars, and everyone had started to take sides. The entire British film crew had been selected by Olivier to give him maximum support. Marilyn had brought only a small team from Hollywood – including her make-up man and her hair stylist – and they had all gone back by now. She was left with no one to support her in the studio but Paula Strasberg, her dramatic coach. Of course, she also had her new husband, the playwright Arthur Miller (their marriage – her third, his second – had taken place two weeks before they flew to England), but he had sworn not to interfere with the filming in any way.

  Milton was Marilyn’s partner and co-producer, but she didn’t seem to be listening to him as much as she used to – probably because Miller resented the fact that Milton had once been her lover – so he needed all the allies he could get. I was only the third assistant director on the film – the person anyone can tell what to do – and as such I was hardly a threat to anybody, but Marilyn had always seemed quite sympathetic when I got yelled at, if indeed she noticed me at all. At the same time, I was Olivier’s personal assistant, and I sometimes had access to him when Milton did not. So Milton had decided that he and I would be friends. On this occasion, he had probably guessed that what I really wanted was an excuse to go over to Marilyn’s house; and he would have been right. After all, he spent half his time trying to stop anyone getting near Marilyn, because he knew that she was like a magnet that nobody could resist – not even a little assistant director, seven years younger than her. I should have been used to ‘stars’ by now. After all, Vivien Leigh and Margot Fonteyn were both family friends. But those two ladies, wonderful as they are, are both human beings. Marilyn is a true goddess, and should only be treated as such.

  ‘I’m between a rock and a hard place, Colin,’ said Milton. It was a glorious summer morning, but we had been awaiting Marilyn’s arrival for over an hour, and he was getting impatient. ‘Why can’t Olivier accept Marilyn for what she is? You British think everyone should punch a timeclock, even stars. Olivier’s disappointed because Marilyn doesn’t behave like a bit-part player. Why can’t he adapt? Oh, he’s very polite on the surface, but Marilyn can see through that. She can sense that underneath he’s ready to e
xplode. Josh Logan1 used to yell at her occasionally, but he worked with her as she was, and not as he wanted her to be. She’s scared of Olivier. She has this feeling that she’ll never measure up.’

  ‘Vivien says that Olivier fell for Marilyn’s charm just like everyone else when he first met her,’ I said. ‘She says he even thought he could have a romance with her. And Vivien is always right.’

  ‘Oh, Marilyn can charm any man if she wants to, but when she gets mad, it’s a very different story. You watch out. By the way, what the hell has happened to her this morning?’

  ‘I thought you said she shouldn’t have to punch a timeclock.’

  ‘Yes, but when it’s her own money going down the drain – and mine . . .’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if she kept us waiting all day. Working in a film studio is hot, boring, tiring and claustrophobic. I sympathise with Marilyn a lot.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s her job.’

  At that moment Marilyn’s big black car came nosing round the studio block. It was instantly surrounded by a crowd of people who seemed to appear out of thin air. The new make-up man, the wardrobe mistress, the hair stylist, the associate director Tony Bushell, the production manager, all clamouring for attention before the poor lady could even get inside the building. She already had Paula Strasberg, with her script, and ex-Detective Chief Superintendent Roger Smith, late of Scotland Yard and protective as ever, carrying her bags. No wonder she fled inside like a hunted animal, taking no notice of Milton, or, of course, of me.

  As soon as Marilyn had disappeared, with Milton trailing behind her, I tackled Roger. I knew I had only a few seconds in which to explain. Roger returned to Parkside House as quickly as he could after dropping Marilyn off in the mornings, and David Orton, my boss on the studio floor, would soon be wondering where I was.

  ‘I’m coming over to the house tonight to talk to Maria and José,’ I said firmly. Maria and José were the Portuguese cook and butler I had hired to look after Marilyn at Parkside House. ‘Milton says it’s OK.’

  ‘Oh yes? Problems, are there?’ Roger looked sceptical.

  ‘It won’t take long, but we mustn’t let them get upset. They would be terribly hard to replace. We can have a drink afterwards, and maybe a bite to eat. Ask Maria to make some sandwiches.’