My Week with Marilyn Read Online Free PDF

the wardrobe lady all follow and re-surround her. Now she has to steel herself all over again, only this time the studio lights are burning away and we are poised to start work. If Marilyn loses her nerve completely, a scarlet flush, which she cannot control, spreads over her neck and cheeks, and then she has to go back to her dressing room and lie down. That means that the dress has to come off, and the wig has to come off, and it will be two hours before we can start the whole process again. It really is a miracle that anything ever gets done.
    That afternoon it was clear that Marilyn was even more distressed than usual. By four o’clock she had left the set for the second time, and Olivier decided to call it a day. When I went into his dressing room to sort out the scripts – and the whisky and cigarettes – he was in an urgent discussion with Milton Greene as to what the cause of Marilyn’s distraction could be.
    â€˜Don’t you know anything, Colin?’ Olivier asked me. ‘You hired her bodyguard. Can’t you find out from him what ’s going on?’
    â€˜I know she and Arthur had an argument last night.’
    â€˜We all know that,’ said Milton. ‘She rang me at one a.m. to ask
for more pills. I know I promised Arthur that I wouldn’t involve him with filming problems, but I’m going to telephone him now and see if he ’ll tell me what’s up.’
    â€˜You’d better wait outside, Colin,’ said Olivier. ‘But don’t go away.’
    When they called me in again five minutes later, both men were looking pale.
    â€˜It seems that Arthur Miller has decided to go to Paris tomorrow,’ said Olivier stiffly. ‘Evidently he has to see a literary agent there. Milton says this is the very worst thing for Marilyn. She has a horror of being deserted, even for a day. Both her previous husbands did it, and it terrifies her. She ’s driving me absolutely crazy, but I suppose she ’s giving Arthur a hard time too, so I can’t say I blame him.’
    â€˜Marilyn is still in the studio,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she ’s too upset to go home.’
    â€˜Oh, God,’ said Milton. ‘Still in the studio at this time? I’d better go and see what she needs.’
    He dashed out of the room, but he was back in under thirty seconds, looking very grim.
    â€˜Paula won’t let me in. She says Marilyn won’t see anyone, and she shut the door in my face.’
    â€˜Colin,’ said Olivier, his voice like a spade in gravel, ‘go across to Mrs Strasberg and ask her very politely whether Miss Monroe intends to come to the studio and work tomorrow. Don’t go as my assistant. Say David needs to know.’
    This was pretty high-risk stuff. A direct question. Usually Marilyn and Paula are already in the car back to Parkside before the rest of us have left the set. And of course they never answer the phone once they are home. Now, for the first time, they were still in our domain, at our mercy, as it were.
    I marched across the thirty feet or so separating the suites of the two great stars and knocked on the door.
    No reply. Cowardice means dismissal. Knock again!
    The door opened a crack and Paula’s eye appeared. She gazed at
me for a full five seconds, in disbelief. Even from the little I could see of her, I could tell that she was in the grip of strong emotions.
    â€˜Come in,’ she croaked, standing aside. I edged past her, and she closed the door firmly behind me.
    She was alone in the pretty little sitting room that acted as a foyer to the sanctum sanctorum where Marilyn actually got dressed.
    â€˜Go in.’ She closed her eyes and pointed to the door. ‘Go in.’
    â€˜Go in?’ I didn’t understand what she meant. ‘Go in where?’ I felt like Alice through the looking glass. I’d never even been allowed in this reception room before, at least not when Marilyn was in it.