POSTSCRIPT

We never saw Marilyn again, but we knew exactly what was going to happen. She would fall out completely with Milton Greene (she did, in 1957), and Marilyn Monroe Productions would never make another film (it didn’t). Her marriage to Arthur Miller would collapse and end in divorce (it did, in 1961). She would become unable to work at all, and would eventually commit suicide (she did, in 1962). Had we been told about conspiracy theories and Kennedy connections, we would simply have shrugged our shoulders. The pressure of just being Marilyn Monroe was already making each day a painful struggle for her, and the end of the story was inevitable.

While she was making The Prince and the Showgirl, Marilyn was often in great distress. Of course she was in an unfamiliar foreign country, but even those with whom she had chosen to surround herself were from a completely different world to her. Milton and Amy Greene, Lee and Paula Strasberg, Arthur Miller, Hedda Rosten, Arthur Jacobs and Irving Stein all came from a New York, Jewish, immigrant background which was the opposite of Marilyn’s unstructured Californian upbringing. Not for her the possessive mother in the warm Bronx kitchen, giving a child a sense of its own worth, and the future confidence that goes with it. And yet, when she was in front of a camera, Marilyn radiated a joy and a vitality which made everyone else pale by comparison. No wonder we cannot forget her.

It was clear that The Prince and the Showgirl was not destined to be a big success at the box office. It was too ‘stagy’ and too claustrophobic. Nor would the film make much impact on the career of either of its two stars. Paradoxically, it was Olivier’s performance that was most affected by the problems on the set. Despite his unprintable comments about her inexperience and unprofessionalism, Marilyn had appeared in virtually the same number of films as he had (The Prince and the Showgirl was her twenty-fifth to his twenty-eighth), and her relationship with the camera was more intimate than his — Dame Sybil was right. Watching the film today, Marilyn appears happy and natural, while Olivier often looks stiff and awkward.

Marilyn’s next film role, in Some Like it Hot, brought her great critical acclaim, but no relief from the problems of production. Many years after it was made I met the director, Billy Wilder, at a Hollywood party. Stuck for something to say to this fierce old Austrian, I murmured that I too had worked with Miss Monroe. ‘Then you know the meaning of pure pain,’ he growled, and stalked away. Yes – but of pure magic too.

Laurence Olivier did not forget his promise to take me with him. He had found a play which would give him the new lease of life he had been looking for. The Entertainer by John Osborne opened at the Royal Court Theatre on 10 April 1957, and is still considered one of Olivier’s greatest performances. I became his personal assistant, and also the Assistant Stage Manager at the Court. We took the play on tour and then to the Palace Theatre in the West End. Halfway through the run Joan Plowright took over the role created by Dorothy Tutin, and Olivier’s marriage to Vivien Leigh finally collapsed. By this time I had accompanied Larry and Vivien on the Royal Shakespeare Theatre’s tour of Europe with Titus Andronicus, but that is the subject of a different diary.

I never worked on another feature film, and in the film world you are either in or out. Consequently I never saw David Orton or Mr Perceval again; but I owe them both a debt of gratitude. I continued my friendship with Tony and Anne Bushell, and I often visited Larry in his dressing room wherever he happened to be performing. Vivien I saw up until the last week of her life in July 1967.

After Olivier went to Hollywood to make Spartacus in 1959 I was offered a job by Sidney Bernstein, Chairman of Granada Television. Once more I had high hopes, but I soon found myself back where I had started, as a trainee Assistant Floor Manager. Eventually I did become a producer and director – of documentary films on ‘the Arts’, of which I made over a hundred. It has been a rewarding and enjoyable career, and I never forgot the lessons I learned on The Prince and the Showgirl.