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we began to make love, I could tell that this was not her first time. She moved easily, and seemed comfortable, which made me comfortable too.
    It was very satisfying. Something about it just seemed so right. I was bedding more than a few great-looking girls at this time in my life, but I liked Marilyn more than any of the others. She was different. She was very fragile and vulnerable, which attracted me greatly. We continued seeing each other for a while. I would arrange a place we could go, or she would. We would go to her friend Jeannie Carmen’s place, or Howard’s bungalow, and once we even went to Marilyn’s hotel room. We almost never went out at night in public, though.
    Marilyn was the first woman I felt truly close to. For the short time we were together we both depended on each other. We had real feelings for each other, although I wasn’t ready for a serious relationship, and neither was she. Neither one of us was willing—or able—to take what we had between us to the next level.
    Eventually our relationship began to take a backseat to our careers. I started making movies, and she did too. As her career took off I could sense Marilyn was looking for men who could move her up the ladder in Hollywood. She met Greg Bautzer, a big-shot entertainment attorney who represented Howard Hughes and was a good friend of Joe Schenck’s. Greg was very handsome, and he knew everyone in the business. In
The Asphalt Jungle,
she played the girlfriend of Louis Calhern, a good character actor. Then Marilyn got a tiny part in
All About Eve,
which was nominated for fourteen Oscars and won six. You could see her developing as an actor with each role.
    After Marilyn and I stopped seeing each other, we’d run into each other at various Hollywood parties. She’d say to me in that sweet way of hers, “Whatever happened to your Buick convertible with the Dynaflow Drive?” Her affection was obvious, and I felt the same for her. We just couldn’t find any time to be together. We were both so busy. We were also both changing—and liking it. But as Marilyn’s success grew, lots of people seemed to want something from her. That was one of the nice things about our relationship. Neither of us wanted anything but companionship and a little romance, and that’s what we provided for each other.
    Marilyn and I were together a relatively short time, but we both felt that time was something special. When fate put the two of us together there was bound to be a physical attraction, and there’s nothing we would have done to change that. Nevertheless, I was very respectful of her, and we were both careful to put the emphasis on our friendship. In fact, we were both trying so hard to avoid a sexual relationship that it became the elephant in the room. So when we finally gave in to our desires, it was truly something unforgettable. No other woman I’ve known made me feel that way until I met my wife Jillie almost fifty years later.

A Battered Childhood

    My parents, Emanuel and Helen Schwartz, on their
wedding day, 1922.
    W hen I was a little boy, two or three years old, my parents would go out for dinner and a dance at the First Hungarian Independent Lodge. Because I carried on so much about being left with anyone else, they had to take me along. While they were eating dinner, I sat by my mother on the floor, and when she got up to dance with my father, I would latch on to her and not let go. She’d be dancing with my father, and I’d be holding on to her leg for dear life.
    Neither of my parents was very demonstrative with their affections. My father, Emanuel (Manny) Schwartz, was a first-rate tailor, and I can see him even now, hunched over his sewing machine, making alterations to people’s clothes. As talented as he was, during my childhood he made very little money. I remember one time he had come home only to discover he had lost the little yellow envelope with his twenty-two-dollar salary in it.
    He ran out of the house. I