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Bumble made various tiny alterations and then announced that two more fittings would be needed to get it right. (These will be at Parkside.)
MM did some twirls for the camera, but this time no one held their breath and Jack hardly bothered to adjust the lights. We all know what it will look like – ravishing.
At the end of the day, I was the last to leave. SLO had gone back to Notley with Tony, in high good spirits, after calling everyone to tell them the news. I went over to the bar for a drink. It is out of bounds during the day but empty after 6 p.m. Sitting alone I saw Whitey Snyder quietly sipping Scotch so I joined him.
‘What an amazing transformation,’ I said.
‘Nothing to it,’ said Whitey in his calm Yankee accent. ‘The camera just loves some people,’ he explained, ‘and it sure loves Marilyn. Look at Bogart. Funny little man you wouldn’t notice in a crowd, but on camera . . . ! Look at Gary Cooper. Wonderfully tall and good looking, yes, but can’t act for toffee and never even tries. Doesn’t ever change his expression by a hair’s breadth, and yet when you see him on camera, everyone with him seems to be overacting. Just born with the magic. And so is Marilyn. However confused or difficult she is in real life, for the camera she can do no wrong. I tell her that all the time but she doesn’t believe me. And sometimes I feel like telling her directors – don’t fuss her, don’t tell her what to do, just let her rip.’
I can see that he is genuinely fond of MM. The only person I’ve met so far who is. I wish I could sit him down for a quiet chat with SLO, but that’s out of the question.
FRIDAY, 20 JULY
Last day of the tests. This time the hairdressers had lots of wigs to try, but we ended up with the first choice which has been so successful.
MM arrived in the car with Milton. Clearly he is trying to reassert his control, which may have temporarily been taken over by AM. He never stops whispering into MM’s ear. Is this the fashionable way of communicating with film stars in Hollywood?
(#litres_trial_promo) We also ran a test to choose MM’s stand-in. Jack chose a skinny little blonde who doesn’t look a bit like MM to me – no more a real blonde than MM either, I would guess. But it is Jack who will have to light her every day to get the set ready for MM, and he mumbled something about ‘perfect skin tones’. Hmm. Who is perfect is the little Wardrobe girl. She could not be cuter or more flirtatious, and I made many more visits to the Wardrobe Department than were strictly necessary.
I hope David hasn’t noticed. I didn’t have the nerve to ask her out this weekend, but I stressed that I would be back on Monday and come to see her again then. I definitely have to get my hands on her!
I have had to learn my way around the studios in a hurry. David is always telling me to check something at one end or fetch someone from the other, and I spend a lot of time dashing along that long concrete corridor. Before the camera rolls, or ‘turns over’, a bell rings, red lights flash and the soundproof studio doors are locked automatically. It seems like an age if you are the wrong side of the doors, but actually the camera never runs for more than a minute or so. It is stopped between ‘takes’ to save film and it is returned to its starting position if it has been moved.
David told me that for the filming, there will be two 2nd Ast Dirs on call, one in the office and one in the studio. However that will not alter my role as his slave: I do not work for anyone else (except for SLO, Tony, Milton, Mr P and Vivien, think I).
Tomorrow I’m going down to the country for the weekend, to boast about MM.
MONDAY, 23 JULY
We were all at Pinewood again today, this time to listen to the music, which has been specially written by Richard Addinsell. SLO, Milton, Tony B, Terry Rattigan, David and I were all crammed in a rehearsal room. RA hummed and sang the main song he had written, accompanying himself on the piano. He is a very gentle, sympathetic man and we were all on his side. I’m not musical and I find it extremely hard to catch a tune the first time I hear it played. I remember M and D playing us the record of My Fair Lady when they came back from New York after attending the first night. The songs that had brought the house down in a live performance left us unmoved until we had played the record several times. It was the same now. Out of nerves, RA had put in so many decorations and variations with his left hand that it was too hard for us. Nothing could obscure the melody from him, but we were baffled. There was a polite, embarrassed silence.
‘Can you play the tune alone,’ asked SLO, ‘to make it easier for us dullards, dear boy.’
RA was clearly very anxious. But he played it slowly and lyrically and gradually a very charming little waltz began to appear – the Sleeping Prince waltz.
‘Bravo!’ shouted Tony, and everyone began to applaud.
Then RA sang the song MM will be singing in the film, to another round of applause.
There is no doubt such a pretty tune could help the film immensely. David tells me there will be a grand ballroom scene with 500 people (‘extras’) waltzing to it in full evening dress. That is where the movie will differ from the play and hopefully be more of a spectacle.
After lunch I sneaked up to see my little Wdg
(#litres_trial_promo) again – pretty as ever. She is no Einstein, but who cares about that. I just want to get my arms around her tiny waist and squeeze. She doesn’t have a boyfriend, so I intend to make my move next weekend.
TUESDAY, 24 JULY
More arrivals from the USA. Most important is Paula Strasberg. SLO and Tony B have worked themselves into a lather about her already. She is MM’s drama coach and current Svengali. SLO has been warned by Josh Logan (MM’s last director on Bus Stop) that she is a total menace. She contradicted everything and she muddled MM up. I thought Lee Strasberg was the drama coach. I don’t know what qualifications his wife has, except by association, although I hear she used to be an actress herself.
SLO has determined to ban Paula from the set while we are filming. Several times he has given me a diatribe about her and drama coaches in general. Finally, he told me to throw her out if I see her!
‘She can stay in Marilyn’s dressing room.’
‘What about MM’s dressing room in the studio?’ (MM is to have her own sort of pre-fab, or ‘portable’ dressing room built for her right by the set. It too will be all decorated up in beige and soft lights.)
‘Oh, the devil take her!’ shouted SLO, seeing that he wasn’t going to win.
Other arrivals from the USA are Amy and Joshua Greene, Milton’s wife and baby son. Milton almost looks too young to be a father. He is evidently a famous photographer, although I hadn’t heard of him. He does look a little like Bert Stern,
(#litres_trial_promo) but that is hardly enough of a qualification. I will find an excuse to visit Tibbs tomorrow and meet everyone.
There is also a lady called Rosten who used to work as AM’s secretary and now is going to be MM’s secretary.
(#litres_trial_promo) She is said to be a chum of MM’s but I suspect she is still loyal to AM. She will live with them both at Parkside.
WEDNESDAY, 25 JULY
I drove down to Tibbs in the morning – with Mr P’s blessing. He loves a bit of spying, and I’m afraid he already sees the American and British camps as ‘Them’ and ‘Us’. As I know Tibbs so well, and I was the one who arranged it, I went in through the back door as if I was the boss. This has a calming effect on the servants who are already in semi-revolt. It seems that Milton and his friends never give them a thought and are very untidy. The Cotes-Preedys are definitely going to lose their staff if we are not careful. I persuaded everybody that the arrival of Mrs Milton Greene would change all the bad habits. They countered that by saying they had never been told there would be children.
‘Just one,’ I said, ‘very small, and I have been told he is very well behaved.’ (Absolute lie.)
But they may still walk out with no notice despite their huge wages. ‘As good cooks go . . .’
Milton, to his credit, does not seem in the least surprised or upset when I wander into his living room unannounced.
‘Hi Colin. Want a beer?’
I explained that I was just checking if he was comfortable and well looked after.
‘Sure am. Stick around and meet Amy. She’ll be down soon.’
Amy looks even younger than Milton. She is also extremely attractive – small, pale, dark hair, intense – very much a contrast to my little Wdg with her empty eyes.
The little boy is about 2½ and known as Josh. He toddles all over the place, pretty much unhindered and with very little sense as yet. Milton seems very involved with both of them. Perhaps he is not as much of a rascal as Mr P implies. I absolutely can’t help liking him.
In the afternoon I drove over to Parkside. Plod opened the front door cautiously (I don’t know the staff here so I can’t go round the back). It seems that MM and AM spend all their time upstairs, having meals and newspapers sent up. I met Hedda Rosten, MM’s ‘personal secretary’. She is very New York, middle-aged, but sympathetic and clever. She had a drink in her hand and seemed to me a little tipsy. I suppose she is still exhausted from the overnight flight.
Plod seems happy enough. It is a great relief to have him there.
As I was leaving AM appeared in a white towelling bathrobe and gazed round slowly over his hornrimmed specs. Plod explained who I was – the house etc. – but AM just grunted and went back upstairs.
And to think that this is the man the whole world envies – on honeymoon with Marilyn Monroe.
THURSDAY, 26 JULY
Mr P and I and Vanessa went to Pinewood again to check everything once more. (Vanessa is going to be Mr P’s production secretary.) We already have Studio A and the major set – or scenery – is being put up there. It is going to be the purple drawing room in the Carpathian Embassy in Belgrave Square, and it is built so that each of the four walls, with their windows, fireplace, doors etc. can be swung away, and the camera can film the other three. There will be various bedrooms and dressing rooms leading off it which will be built later. It is meant to be on the first floor of the Embassy, and a huge columned hall and grand double staircase will eventually be put up in Studio B when we have finished in A.
There is a lighting grid or gantry all over the ceiling of each studio, with literally hundreds of lights hanging from it. They are on telescopic, rotating metal rods so that they can be altered by the electrician working up above. The lighting cameraman, Jack Cardiff, will work out which of these lights he wants lit, how high they should hang and where they should point. He will make a plan beforehand and give it to the lighting foreman, or ‘gaffer’, to set up. Then Jack will fine-tune all the lights using the stand-ins – one for MM, one for SLO, one for Dame Sybil Thorndike etc. until all is ready for the stars to walk in and perform.
The stars will be made up in their dressing rooms and walk in costume to the set. MM will do most of it in her main dressing room and then walk to her ‘portable’ dressing room for her costume. The idea is to have her ready to go in front of the camera at the same time as the set has been lit and prepared, and all the technicians are ready.
I get the strong impression that the technicians are the bosses here. If MM has to be kept waiting, so be it. Woe betide the actor or actress who keeps the technicians waiting!
That seems to be the attitude to British stars, anyway, but I doubt if MM will see it that way. Nor do I. There is no doubt that the technicians are admirable men – calm, professional, efficient. But basically they are replaceable and MM is not. Skills are common. Talent is rare. One day someone will have the courage to sack every technician in the industry and only rehire them if they promise to do what they are told.
However if I said that, even to David, I’d get lynched, so I better keep my mouth shut.
To go back to the filming – you never shoot a scene in one go. You shoot all the bits with the camera pointing in one direction and then swirl round and shoot the others later. And each shot is done many times to get it just right. The boy with the clapperboard marks each one so that the editor can put the whole thing together in the right order later. The film goes off to a laboratory to be processed overnight. The sound is transferred from thin magnetic tape to wider tape in the Sound Department, and the editor uses the ‘Clap’ of the board to ‘sync’ the two up on his machine. The board also tells the production name, the shot number and the take number. The lab only prints the takes that look successful to the director – sometimes only one – in order to save money, but even so the editor ends up with hundreds of strips of film in his office, each one with a parallel piece of sound tape. I had asked David to explain all this and he took me round the studios showing me the various bits of equipment we would use. Cranes, dollies, B-P screens, arc lights, booms, concealed microphones etc!
I’ve got a lot to learn but David and Mr P have been very patient teachers. I really need to know as much as I possibly can before filming starts, so I don’t get caught out.
The editor of the film will be Jack Harris. He is an old pro. Thin, grey hair, stoop and perpetual cigarette. At the moment he is finishing up another (British) film here, and normally he wouldn’t join our production team until the actual filming was nearly over. An assistant would log all our footage, and sync it up for us to see in ‘rushes’ each evening.
But SLO (and Milton, I suspect) wants all the insurance he can get, so Jack H will start to work a week after filming starts in 10 days’ time. Then he can double-check that every single thing has been covered by the camera.
David explained that with an ‘inexperienced’ (his word!) actress like MM,
(#litres_trial_promo) there might be a little ‘um’ or ‘er’ or breath that the director didn’t notice at the time. The editor will catch it on his machine – which he stops and starts while he examines every frame. Then they can either look for another ‘take’ or the director can shoot something to cover it.
This seems a good idea, especially as SLO will be acting in most shots as well as directing them. Tony B, bless him, could easily miss something. He’s really not a professional director.
Jack Harris is as dour and thorough as Mr P – what politicians used to call ‘a safe pair of hands’.
FRIDAY, 27 JULY
Pinewood again. Mr P was occupied with the accounts and legal departments of Rank Films who run Pinewood. They will rent us the necessary facilities. Very dull!
I spent the entire morning flirting with the little Wdg. Very exciting!
I finally bucked up courage to ask her for a date.
‘Not tonight,’ she said sternly.
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve got to wash my hair, of course.’
I didn’t quite understand the ‘of course’, but pretty girls must be allowed their little ways.
‘What about Saturday night then?’
‘Oh, all right,’ smile, giggle and wiggle.
She really has the smallest waist and the most enchanting laughing eyes I’ve ever seen. And all those beautiful natural (I suppose) brown ringlets hanging down to her shoulders. I’m hooked. I wish I could decide where to take her.
David and I checked the MM dressing room which had needed some alterations – not, I hasten to say, at MM’s behest. I don’t think she has even noticed where she is yet, but Milton feels he can interpret her wishes best. MM will use the suite to rest in from Monday, when rehearsals start.
We also checked the security arrangements. The idea is that no one can get in to our area unless they are on a casting call-sheet. For some of our scenes – the Coronation route, the Abbey, the ballroom – we will have as many as 500 ‘extras’ and it would be very easy to smuggle a journalist in, so everyone will have to be especially careful. The ‘extras’ belong to a union – the FAA, or Film Artists’ Association. It, too, is a completely closed shop – the film business seems full of them – and their members are the only ones who can do walk on parts in British films: passers by, crowds, people in shops etc. It is a small union so ‘500 extras’ means using virtually all of them.
David says most of them, women as well as men, are total rogues. They all try to skive off rather than work, even though ‘work’ only means standing around in a costume. It will be our job to get them all in front of the camera, and keep them sober. We can be tough, but if we are not scrupulously fair they can all walk out on strike and stop the filming completely.
I met the chief security man at the gate. As I will be first to arrive each morning, I won’t need a pass – but they will issue one anyway. I would imagine any reporter who did want to get in would be smarter than the Pinewood security men, and would have prepared a convincing story to fool them. But it would be tough to get past David.
I’m going to pick up my little Wdg at seven tomorrow night. She was very impressed that I have a car. Heavens, how adorable. I haven’t decided where to take her yet and I am a bit nervous. I have no idea what she expects.
SUNDAY, 29 JULY
What a super weekend. Not much to do with my film career, but all part of my film life, so I can’t resist writing it down. The little Wdg is as sweet and tasty as a sugar mouse. I am head over heels with infatuation. I picked her up last night in the faithful Bristol. (I fear it has rather a musty leathery smell to it but she didn’t seem to notice.) We went to Soho for dinner and I ordered champagne (!). She had one tiny glass and I nearly finished the rest. Lots of smarmy Italian service had a good effect. I didn’t dare take her to a night-club. She might have been frightened by their dark, red, velvet corners. So we simply drove round the West End for an hour. She is very naive and all the sights were greeted with oohs and aahs. We chatted and held hands, where traffic allowed, across the handbrake. Finally we came back here.
(#litres_trial_promo) It is hard to invite anyone in for purely social reasons since I only have a kitchen and a bedroom, but we were both flushed with passion and fell onto the bed immediately. Her figure is picture perfect, she kisses like an angel (so I’m not the first) and she happily allowed me to stroke her all over.
Neither of us wanted to go the whole way. It is much too soon, and she is a good girl and not a tart. But it was impossible for her not to see how excited I was. She was curious, I explained, and finally out of kindness she put her little hand where the tension was and I was soon in heaven. Actually I think she enjoyed herself too, if not in quite the same explosive manner. When I took her home we were still delirious and spent ages kissing goodbye in the car. Finally a light came on in the house and she fled. Now I can’t wait to see her again.
MONDAY, 30 JULY
Rehearsals at Pinewood all day. The principal cast members arrived at 9 a.m. David and I were outside to greet them and show them to an upstairs studio. It is just a large gloomy room with a few chairs scattered about, but David explained that to have rehearsals at all for a film is a great luxury. They are the essential preliminary of plays in the theatre, but evidently films very rarely have them.
MM will certainly never have had this sort of rehearsal before and I expect she was nervous. The normal procedure is to rehearse a scene 10 minutes before it is filmed. This is simply because an act of a play runs 45 minutes and a film shot lasts 45 seconds, more or less. I expect SLO has arranged for rehearsals on this occasion to ensure smooth, level performances right through the movie (a smooth level performance from Marilyn Monroe, to be precise). MM was only 45 minutes late, and was accompanied by Paula Strasberg.
Mrs Strasberg is not, at first glance, a very formidable figure. She is short and plump, with brown hair pulled back from a plain, round, expressive face. She has big brown eyes which are usually hidden by big dark glasses – like her protégée. Her clothes are also brown and beige – bohemian but expensive. Her influence over MM seems to be total. MM gazes at her continuously and defers to her at all times, as if she was a little Jewish Buddha. SLO was clearly put out by this, but remained theatrically gracious. He introduced MM to the assembled cast. First Dame Sybil, who radiates love and good fellowship so genuinely that even MM could not resist her. Then came Jeremy Spenser, who’ll play Dame Sybil’s grandson, very polite and bright-eyed, and Richard Wattis, who looks exactly like the Foreign Office dignitary which he will play. These three, together with MM and SLO, really are the movie.
Richard Wattis is in virtually every scene except the love scenes, and he even has to barge into two of those. Luckily he has a wonderful sense of humour behind his austere appearance.
Then SLO introduced Tony B, who had directed MM at the screen test, but whom MM had clearly forgotten, and then David and then me (two more blanks for MM).
Well, it has been 10 days since she saw any of us but frankly I don’t think she’d recognise Milton Greene in a crowd – especially if she was nervous. In this case she definitely was not at ease. The whole thing was rather theatrical and I sense that she doesn’t understand the language.
All these people (except for David and me) are old cronies of SLO’s. Paula understands them OK – she was once an actress herself – so she becomes MM’s interpreter, and MM relies on her alone. SLO, whom I love and worship, can be a bit condescending. He treated MM like a doll from a faraway land. It is almost as if he is already in the character of the film, and she is just ‘a little bit of fluff’. When SLO isn’t completely at ease, he tends to retreat into a role, and in this case that is a little unfortunate. If MM is working with ‘the greatest classical actor in the world’ to acquire a serious dramatic image, then she won’t be liking his attitude at all. Paula didn’t say a word but she radiated disapproval, which definitely means that MM is upset.
Then SLO introduced the film. He told the whole story, most magically, and in a dozen accents, from start to finish. We really should have filmed his performance and then gone home. MM listened, eyes and mouth wide open like a child, completely carried away by the little fairy story. At the end everyone clapped and MM joined in enthusiastically. Then David and I handed round marked scripts and SLO chose certain key scenes to read aloud. I must say that MM was enchantingly unspoilt. Compared to those ‘old stagers’ she sounded most refreshing and delightful. But her voice does seem to be coming from another world, floating out of the sky like a little moth. I hope it all mixes together in the end. It is a fairy story, I suppose.
TUESDAY, 31 JULY
MM and Paula were 45 minutes late again today and it was enough to irritate SLO. He sees it as a great professional discourtesy, especially to Dame Sybil. This is a pity because Dame Sybil really doesn’t care, or hardly notices. I think MM actually enjoyed yesterday’s readings and SLO should have taken advantage of this.
MM just doesn’t seem to know late from early, so when she is scolded she often can’t understand why – or is it that she doesn’t want to understand why?
I took MM and Paula up to the rehearsal room where everyone was waiting. Dame S is so divine; she was warm and welcoming to MM – as if really glad to see her, as a human being. SLO tempered his greeting with a hint of menace which I could see MM pick up. Paula was icy to me but I am incredibly polite and charming to her at all times. As she does not know that I am in love with her daughter (sorry, little Wdg!) she was rather taken aback, but obviously flattered. MM, of course, totally ignores me, and quite right too. In the film industry I am right at the bottom and she is right at the top.
Actually she seems a strange mixture of self-centred and sensitive, like a child, I suppose. I have heard adults like that described as ‘mimophants’ – as fragile as mimosa about their own feelings, as tough as elephants about other people’s.
I always thought being a big, big star would give you an armour-plated ego, but MM certainly has not got that. In fact I don’t think SLO realises, or perhaps even cares, how fragile she is. He takes the line that all actors and actresses are nervous, but they should have learnt to suppress their nerves by the time they work with him. I hope he remembers that MM is his partner in this production – his equal business partner. Milton Greene is just his partner’s stooge. Charming him won’t help much!
I didn’t stay for the rehearsals in the morning but went on the set with David. I’ve been on sets before and one thing hasn’t changed. There is nowhere to sit! That’s why directors and stars have their names on their chairs. The only place I know is the wheel of a sound boom, which is not popular with the sound boom operator. David thinks a 3rd Ast Dir should never sit, night or day, by definition. ‘A 3rd Ast Dir is “he who never sits”,’ he barked.
I also had to pop up and see my little Wdg (sorry Susan!). Very sweet and soft and I stole a kiss behind the racks of costumes. The wardrobe mistress, her boss, has obviously been told the news of our night out together, and gives me looks which are both fierce and benevolent. ‘Don’t hurt my baby,’ she implies.
I took a spare copy of the shooting script home, from rehearsals, and I’m going to study it very carefully tonight. Work before pleasure – but Saturday night seems far away.