By December 1947, Marilyn had moved from the home of the Carrolls – John Carroll and Lucille Ryman – into a house at 4215 Rowland Street, Burbank. However, they were still very much involved in Marilyn’s life, and agreed to manage her career from 1 December 1947 to 29 February 1948. The agreement gave Marilyn a $100 a week income, in exchange for the Carrolls receiving any money from her acting career, minus 10 per cent to be paid to agent Harry Lipton.
According to Lucille Ryman, Marilyn became something of a problem, and would repeatedly ring her and John at work, even though she was requested not to do this. ‘Under Marilyn’s baby-doll, kitten exterior, she is tough and shrewd and calculating,’ said Ryman, when interviewed in the mid-1950s. When the friendship later soured, it left bad feelings particularly with Lucille, who later claimed that Marilyn had attempted to seduce John Carroll on their first meeting, and asked Ryman to divorce him, so she could attempt a relationship with him herself.
But while still contracted to represent her, the Carrolls introduced Marilyn to Pat De Cicco, the ex-husband of slain 1930s film actress Thelma Todd. It was through De Cicco that she was introduced to sixty-nine-year-old Joseph Schenck, one of the ‘big fish’ at Fox. Schenck was immediately taken with the starlet, and she began spending many hours at his home at 141 South Carolwood Drive.
Much has been written about this relationship, with some implying that she was little more than a sexual plaything for the ageing mogul. However, Marilyn always publicly denied this, insisting that the two were just friends and that she spent so much time at his home because his cook served good food. She later told director Elia Kazan that the ageing mogul had asked her to marry him, knowing that she would be well taken care of if something ever happened to him. She refused the proposal, but enjoyed their friendship and the trips to his home.
Schenck himself denied any romantic involvement when interviewed by Ezra Goodman in the mid-1950s: ‘She used to come here quite often for dinner. I think she liked to eat. We have good food here. No, I never had any romantic thoughts about Marilyn and she never had any such thoughts about me.’
Although she never asked him for favours related to her career, shortly after Marilyn and Schenck became friends, he persuaded Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohn to take a look at her screen test. Unfortunately, the married Cohn was interested in Marilyn for more than her acting ability, and tried to persuade her to take a trip to Catalina Island on his yacht. Marilyn assured him that she’d only be interested in going if his wife came too, sending Cohn into a fury.
Shortly after the incident with Cohn, Marilyn met up with Aunt Enid and friend Catherine, during one of their regular coffee afternoons. There she shared the story of the executive trying to entice her on to his yacht. Catherine’s friend James Glaeg recalled: ‘Catherine told that story before I read it anywhere. “There’s one thing I can say for Marilyn,” Catherine said – as though there were a lot of things she couldn’t say for her – “She was a good girl.”’
Most authors claim that it was Schenk’s introduction to Harry Cohn that got Marilyn a contract at Columbia Pictures, but in an article entitled ‘The private life of Marilyn Monroe’, drama coach Natasha Lytess tells a rather different story.
Lytess was a failed actress who had once been contracted to RKO. According to her, she had been asked by Max Arnow from the Columbia talent department to take a look at a starlet called Marilyn Monroe. He didn’t think much of her possibilities and wanted a second opinion, but when Lytess first saw her, she wasn’t sure either: ‘The first time I met Marilyn Monroe, I thought to myself, “That voice!” My ears couldn’t take it. Her manner was also almost apologetic and plainly revealed an “I know I’m not good enough, but I’ll try” attitude.’
However, something about the girl impressed Lytess enough to know she wanted to help her, but had no idea what she could do, given the short time she had to work with her. According to Natasha, Marilyn was not under contract to Columbia at that time, and she paid for her own lessons. However, they had only worked together for a couple of weeks when Max Arnow called to complain: ‘I’ve just looked at the report card of Marilyn Monroe,’ he said. ‘You are spending a lot of time with her. Too much. I suggest you drop her.’ Natasha refused and instead the two of them worked together on an audition piece from a long-forgotten film called They Knew What They Wanted, which impressed the studio bosses enough to sign her.
An ecstatic Marilyn signed the six-month, $125-a-week contract on 9 March 1948, and told Natasha that this was the first time in her life she would have the security to work at her studies and not have to worry about rent or food. She saw the contract as a new beginning; a chance to make her dreams come true at last: ‘The Columbia contract was different,’ she later wrote, ‘I was sure that my big opportunity had come.’
Before her ‘big opportunity’ was able to develop, however, Marilyn was devastated to learn that her beloved Aunt Ana had passed away. The old lady had been ill for some time, but this did not prevent Marilyn’s heart from breaking with grief. ‘I was left without anyone to take my hopes and my troubles to. I was miserable,’ she remembered. She returned to the apartment she had once shared with her favourite ‘Aunt’, and going through her belongings she discovered that Ana had left a book for her, The Potter, along with a note on the title page that read: ‘Marilyn dear, read this book. I don’t leave you much except my love. But not even death can diminish that, nor will death ever take me far away from you.’ The young actress was devastated and never forgot the lady who had encouraged her through thick and thin, right from day one.
Marilyn’s grief was relieved somewhat when she was cast in a low-budget musical called Ladies of the Chorus, which began shooting on 22 April and finished on 3 May 1948. The film cast Marilyn as Peggy Martin opposite Adele Jergens, who was only nine years older than Marilyn, yet bizarrely found herself playing her mother. Marilyn looked young and beautiful in the role, although the plot was hardly exciting – Peggy and her mother, Mae, are working together in a burlesque show, when Peggy gets her big break and steals the heart of a wealthy young bachelor (Rand Brooks). The romance falters when her mother disapproves and his family finds out what Peggy does for a living, but like all fairy tales, romance wins out in the end and they all live happily ever after. Marilyn herself later admitted to hating the film, but could not deny that it had given her a great chance to sing and dance in a movie.
Her two songs, ‘Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy’ and ‘Anyone Can See I Love You’, were done under the guidance of musical supervisor Fred Karger, who worked for Columbia at the time. Karger was thirty-two years old when he met the twenty-one-year-old starlet, and had recently divorced. He was living with his mother, sister and child, and was in no mood for a serious relationship, but this did not stop him being attracted to Marilyn. She herself fell in love with the musician: ‘I fell in love with an ordinary man who played the piano,’ she said. ‘I had always been attracted to men who wore glasses and when he put his on the first time to read some music, I was overwhelmed. He stopped playing, came over and kissed me and a new life began.’
Unfortunately, the relationship was ultimately not a happy one for Marilyn. Fred Karger was feeling bitter after his divorce, and she often felt as though he was putting her down and belittling her intelligence and dreams. He did not inspire confidence, and in actual fact it would seem that she actually got along much better with his mother and sister than she did with him. But that said, she did fall heavily for Karger, declaring that, ‘when he came into my room and took me in his arms, all my troubles were forgotten. I even forgot Norma Jeane.’
Marilyn later told author Ben Hecht that Karger refused to marry her because he didn’t want his child to be raised by a woman like her. Then to add insult to injury, Karger happily helped her move into her next home; a room at an establishment especially designed for single women.
Built in 1926 to help women who worked in the industry, the Hollywood Studio Club was an attractive, three-storey building located at 1215 Lodi Place, in the heart of Hollywood. By the time Marilyn became aware of its existence, it had been home to some 7,000 girls, and on 3 June 1948, the young actress left her small apartment and moved into a double room at the club, where she paid $12 for room and board.
When Fred Karger dropped her off, she looked around the room she would share with opera student Clarice Evans, and was not overly impressed. It reminded her of the orphanage, and there were various rules and regulations to stick to – primarily no smoking in the lobby, no shorts in the dining room, and absolutely no men allowed on the upper floors. She decided to keep herself to herself, and soon gained a reputation of being curiously quiet, never taking part in any small talk about boyfriends or gossiping in any way. Still, Evans later told biographer Maurice Zolotow that she went on more dates than any of the other girls, and received more phone calls than anyone else, even though she was still dating not just Fred Karger but old flame Bill Pursel, too.
During this time, Marilyn’s career was still very much on her mind, and on 15 August she opened in a play entitled Stage Door at the Bliss-Hayden Theater. The three-act play was written by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman and centres on sixteen young actresses who all share rooms in a boarding house run by an elderly woman called Mrs Orcutt. The main character is a young woman called Terry, who is trying to make it big in the theatre. By the end of the play, she has won her dream role and is fully intent on never having to share a bedroom ever again. The story of the main character’s life and dreams in the boarding house reminded Marilyn of her own life at the Hollywood Studio Club, and it is no coincidence that around the time of being in the play she moved out of her shared room and into a private one at the club for $16.50 rent a week.
In September 1948 Bill Pursel found himself in Los Angeles again, when he enrolled at the Woodbury College, a business school where he planned to study advertising. Despite still being involved with Fred Karger, Norma Jeane began spending a lot of time with Pursel, and the two would often hang out together, lunching in the Columbia commissary, and enjoying each other’s company. As Pursel remembered: ‘We didn’t have a favourite place to go; we would just stop on the spur of the moment at a place that looked quiet and secluded. She was rather close-mouthed about her personal life, though she did talk about what happened in her modelling career or where she had been on certain shoots. But, most of our conversation was quiet and private like, and then there were the notes on restaurant and bar napkins – I sure wish I had those – we wrote back and forth about the kind of house she (we) wanted; the number of children, the type of dog, and all sorts of other stuff including little games back and forth.’
They also attended a dance at the popular and crowded Palladium dance hall in Hollywood, where clarinet player Woody Herman was playing with his band. Norma Jeane made quite an impression that night, as remembered by Pursel: ‘As the two of us danced close to the stage, Woody Herman was looking at Norma Jeane and almost walked straight off the edge of the stage! He just caught himself, but the clarinet came out of his mouth. She didn’t see this because her back was to the stage, but the oohs of the packed crowd got her attention. I jokingly told her it was all her fault and we laughed about it later.’
Perhaps one of the most interesting things about Marilyn’s friendship with Bill Pursel was her relaxed and interested attitude towards him, and as a result, their time together was both enjoyable and carefree: ‘She would always ask me about my studies at college and about my baseball playing and stuff like that. She never dressed up for me, this is one of the things I liked about her. She was very beautiful with little make-up and her hair pulled back with a ribbon.
‘I remember a date we had one night to go grunion hunting on the beach. When the grunion are running, loads of people flock to the beach with buckets and nets to catch these little fish. I remember Norma Jeane and I, pants rolled up to our knees, with a couple of buckets, frolicking in the surf with dozens of other people, scooping up these little swarming fish. Norma Jeane and I would look for some small children and give our catch away; it was a fun adventure and I enjoyed watching her gleefully bouncing about and yelling “I’ve got some, I’ve got some.” She was so much fun to be with; so childlike and free. Here she was, wet and sandy from falling in the surf, bubbling with laughter and scooping up these little wiggly fish to give to some child who was too small to compete in the splashing surf.’
But it wasn’t always children who were interested in Norma Jeane, such as on one occasion during another beach excursion with Bill when an overenthusiastic vendor gave her a whole armful of hot dogs, instead of just the one she ordered: ‘She was well aware of her attractiveness, but she didn’t flirt, and her appearance was always one of class. When we were together she was with me and when she talked to me (sometimes it was just a whisper) she looked me squarely in the eyes. She once asked me if the remarks and whistles bothered me. I joked, “Why would the whistles bother me – they are whistling at me, not you!’”
But while Norma Jeane may have joked about Bill’s envy, she did possess rather a lot of jealousy of her own. On one occasion she knew she couldn’t make a dance date with Bill, but left it to the very last minute to cancel, to make sure he couldn’t take anyone else. Then on another occasion, the two were sat in the Columbia cafeteria: ‘Norma Jeane asked if she could see my glasses so I took them off and handed them to her. She immediately smeared butter on the lenses to stop me looking at the many good-looking girls who were dining there.’
Bill also remembers a Spanish girl who worked in the office where he had a part-time job during his college days in Los Angeles. ‘She was kinda stuck on me; she was older than me but a very attractive gal.’ When Norma Jeane found out about his admirer, she became quite keen on moving in together. ‘I told her not to get the cart ahead of the horse as I wanted to finish college before starting to play house. She said, “But I’m not getting any younger Bill, and I’ve noticed those Spanish eyes where you work”.’ Bill had to convince Norma Jeane that he wasn’t interested in his admirer and the subject was eventually dropped.
Encouraged by Bill’s interest in opera, Marilyn was happy to learn that Madam Butterfly was to be performed at the Hollywood Bowl on 3–4 September 1948, with Eleanor Steber in the title role and Eugene Ormandy conducting. Bill picked her up in his car, and the two headed up to the Bowl to see the performance. Pursel remembered: ‘She sat very close to me, listening intently to the opera. She was very quiet and moody all evening, but I asked if she was okay and she said she was. When we went to eat after the performance, she was melancholy throughout our dinner, so we just sat quietly, with very little talk. It wasn’t until years later that I read Norma Jeane had been in some kind of pageant at the Hollywood Bowl when she was a little child, and she had missed a cue or something. As fragile and fearful of rejection as she was, I thought maybe this little goof may have stayed with her and being in the bowl had turned her thoughts back to that early time in her life, but I didn’t push it. She sure had a right to be blue without me or anyone else tugging at her to explain why.’
While it is very possible that the trip had stirred up unhappy memories for Marilyn, it is also likely that she was thinking about Fred Karger, who was growing ever colder towards their relationship. She was still in love with the musician but his lack of concern for her feelings and his often hurtful and tactless remarks were hard for her to bear. The relationship was failing fast, and Marilyn knew it.
For the rest of September, it seemed as though nothing went right for Marilyn. The first stroke of bad luck happened when she was called into the office at Columbia. She had been told by friends at the studio that the rushes of Ladies of the Chorus had gone well, and that she was up for an important role, so it was with happiness and hope that she went into the meeting. Unfortunately, she had not been brought in to arrange a part in a big production, and instead was told that although the studio felt she would go far in her career, there was simply no work for her at Columbia. On 8 September, the shocked actress was dropped from her contract, and was absolutely devastated. Later in her life, she was able to look back on her experience and admit that she hadn’t been ready for a career when she first had the opportunity, but at the time the news came as a crushing blow.
‘Things were tough,’ she said. ‘I limited myself to two meals a day – breakfast and dinner – and went back to modelling. I went without new clothes, everything, earning just enough to pay the rent and take my lessons.’ But doing the odd ‘cheesecake’ shot was not enough to keep the wolves from the door, as she was soon to find out. When she had signed to Columbia, a dress shop sent a representative to her home to ask if she would like to buy clothes on credit. Marilyn thought the deal was acceptable, and picked out two suits, a black dress, some shoes and hosiery, coming to $200 in total. However, as soon as the contract expired, the shop demanded she pay for the clothes and as a result, she almost lost her car. ‘Once again I had to scratch enough together to bail it out,’ she said.
On 12 September she finished her work on Stage Door, and on 21 September she was involved in a minor car crash on Sunset Boulevard, on the way to an audition. By pure chance, a photographer by the name of Tom Kelley was driving down Sunset at the time, and stopped to help. A tearful Marilyn explained that she was late for her appointment and had no money for a cab, so the photographer gave her $5 and his business card. It was an important introduction and one she would utilize in the near future.
In the autumn of 1948 Marilyn went on a few dates with an editor called Dan Cahn. He was a friend of Stanley Rubin, a producer who was developing a television series. Rubin had made a thirty-minute pilot programme that was a success, and now the American Tobacco Company had commissioned twenty-six episodes, which he was to adapt, cast and produce.
Rubin had shared his news with Dan Cahn, who in turn told him he was dating a young actress who was beautiful, talented and in need of a job. Rubin remembers: ‘Dan asked if she could be used in the show, and I told him to get Marilyn or her agent to call and make an appointment to come in and read. Her agent called and he brought her into the office. She looked at the script for twenty or thirty minutes then said she was ready to read. She was pleasant and beautiful; she read for me, I thanked her and she left.’
Rubin liked the actress, but was worried that she was so inexperienced and nervous that she might hold up shooting. When Cahn rang to ask about Marilyn’s fate, Rubin told him that he would not be able to hire her for that particular series, but would possibly use her in the next. For Marilyn this was yet another disappointment on her road to stardom, but when the two finally did work together some six years later, on River of No Return, she never held it against him: ‘She was gracious enough never to mention the failed audition for the TV series,’ laughed Rubin, ‘and the fact that I was now eager to have her in ‘River of No Return’!’
Several months after being dropped by Columbia, Ladies of the Chorus, the only film she had made there, was released. It received little attention from audiences or critics but there was one person who did take an interest: her ex-husband, James Dougherty. As his nephew, Paul ‘Wes’ Kanteman remembered: ‘Uncle Jim had just come out of the police academy when her first picture came out and he was walking the night-time beat on Van Nuys Blvd. Just about every time he passed the movie theatre he would go in and watch a bit of the movie and continued to do this for a while. I would imagine he saw most of her pictures even though he would never tell anyone. We used to talk about these times when travelling to a place where we were going to hunt. He would open up to me but not to anyone else that I am aware of.’
Although James had moved on and claimed he was ‘too cotton-pickin’ busy to go to the movies’, Norma Jeane was never far from his thoughts, and as it turned out, his telephone. His nephew, Wes Kanteman remembered: ‘She had become rather disenchanted with the whole Hollywood thing and called Uncle and asked if she could come home. He was or could be pretty stubborn and told her no; that she had already made her bed and would have to sleep in it. She was pretty upset and hung up.’
For Jim, having Marilyn attempt a reunion – albeit a misguided one – must have been an extremely difficult time for him, but his heart had been broken once, and he was unwilling to let it happen again. Paul Kanteman knows just how much this must have hurt his uncle: ‘He really loved that woman and in my mind did till the day he passed away. I watched him many times and saw the tears come to his eyes. Yes, there was a great love there and I still believe it was mutual. It was a love that had gotten past both of them and they had gone in other directions and could do nothing about it. Of course he had married again which I’m sure was on the rebound but they had children together and that was important to him.’
By the end of 1948 any serious romance that she had shared with Fred Karger had fizzled out, and as Marilyn looked towards the New Year, a new gentleman entered her life, in the form of Johnny Hyde, an agent who was Vice-President at the William Morris Agency. Marilyn met Hyde one evening at a friend’s house, and they got along so well together that he called her the next day, inviting her to lunch. After that they became very close and it’s fair to say that the fifty-three-year-old Hyde was more than a little smitten with the twenty-two-year-old starlet.
The already married Hyde was a small, slightly built man with a heart condition, but he was nonetheless one of the most influential agents at William Morris. At first he didn’t know where she lived, but that didn’t stop Hyde bombarding Marilyn with letters, gifts and cards, asking her to write to him at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, where he was staying for a time. ‘What is your street address?’ he wrote in one early letter, ‘All is forgiven because you say you miss me,’ he wrote in another. He called her ‘My Precious Girl’ in one card, and ‘My Dear Marilyn’ in another, while in public he would refer to her as ‘Baby’. Simply put, Johnny Hyde had fallen heavily for Marilyn, and he very much hoped that she felt the same way.
When he saw her in person, he began to encourage her to continue her acting career and made plans for her to leave her agent, Harry Lipton, and sign with William Morris. Marilyn later remembered: ‘When I first mentioned my acting hopes to Johnny Hyde, he didn’t smile. He listened raptly and said, “Of course you can become an actress!” He was the first person who ever took my ambitions seriously and my gratitude for this alone is endless.’
Actually he wasn’t the first person who had taken her seriously, but Marilyn was so grateful to him that she was willing to give him full credit. In return Hyde introduced Marilyn to a great deal of literature and classical music, and taught her how to manage her time. Usually when out of work, Marilyn would sleep late, have a long breakfast and while away the hours on the telephone, but Hyde encouraged her to stop that; to study and use every spare moment to better herself. As a result, she became more confident, started speaking up for herself and even improved her punctuality. Introducing her to a dramatic script entitled The Brothers Karamazov, Hyde encouraged Marilyn to aim for dramatic parts and take herself seriously, and as a result, he soon became an inspiration, a father figure, protector and, soon, her lover. Johnny Grant remembered: ‘He was a short little fellow and he really broke his ass on her behalf. I used to see them together at Ciros quite a bit – she was truly fond of him.’
Although Hyde was an obvious mentor to Marilyn, she was still experiencing the occasional let-down, as witnessed by model and contracted actress Annabelle Stanford. ‘I remember one day I was at Columbia studios when I came across Marilyn standing with a small, beautifully dressed man [Hyde]. She was wearing a black satin cocktail dress and I remember thinking that she shouldn’t be wearing such a dress at that time of day. Marilyn was crying because she had been turned down for a part; turned out that it was a part that had just been given to me.’
On 29 February 1949 Marilyn’s contract with the Carrolls came to an end, and on 2 March 1949, thanks to Johnny Hyde, Marilyn signed with the William Morris Agency. Later that month, on 13 March, she left the Hollywood Studio Club and moved into a one-bedroom suite at the Beverly Carlton Hotel, complete with kitchenette and plenty of room for her books. By this time Hyde had left his family and moved into a large house at 718 North Palm Drive, installing booths and a dance floor in the dining room, to emulate Romanoffs, Marilyn’s favourite restaurant in Hollywood. She spent many nights in the house – probably far more than she spent at the Beverly Carlton – but by keeping her room at the hotel, she was assured not only independence, but also respectability.
But just living part-time with Marilyn was not enough for Hyde. He had fallen deeply in love with the actress and on more than one occasion, begged her to marry him, emphasizing that if he were to die she would inherit everything if she was his wife. ‘A producer I discussed it with said, “What have you got to lose?” I said “Myself – I’ll only marry for one reason: Love.”’ Unfortunately for Hyde, Marilyn would never be in a position to marry him, and she was most certainly still seeing other men at the time.
Still, even though Hyde adored Marilyn, he didn’t consider her completely perfect, and made an appointment for her to see plastic surgeon Dr Michael Gurdin. Gurdin decided that she needed her chin reshaped (but not her nose as some have claimed) and inserted a prosthesis into her jaw to soften her profile. The scars from this procedure are revealed in James Haspiel’s book, Marilyn: The Ultimate Look at the Legend.
When Fred Karger discovered that Marilyn was dating Johnny Hyde he became extremely jealous and went to her house to ask for her hand in marriage. Despite any feelings she may have had in the past, she turned Karger down flat, but this didn’t stop his new-found infatuation, and eventually his mother paid a visit, asking Marilyn to reconsider. She refused, but the two women remained friends until the end of Marilyn’s life.
In April 1949, photographer Philippe Halsman was assigned to write a story for Life magazine, to find out how good eight Hollywood starlets were at acting. The starlets were found by editor Gene Cook, and Halsman photographed them in his room at the Beverly Hills Hotel, asking each girl to act out four basic situations: listening to a good joke, enjoying an invisible, delicious drink, being frightened by a monster and kissing a fabulous lover.
When Marilyn walked into the room Halsman discovered a painfully shy girl who was wooden in her actions, and he was not impressed. But when she embarked on the kissing part of the exercise, his opinion changed and he discovered that she was an intense and hard-working starlet. He wanted to encourage her and told her that while most models couldn’t act, she showed great promise and thought she should move to New York to continue her acting career. ‘I didn’t go,’ she later said, ‘but I was thrilled by his encouragement.’