In the spring of 1956, months before the wedding, preparations were underway for Marilyn’s arrival in England, with Laurence Olivier working with Terence Rattigan on his script of The Prince and the Showgirl, and auditioning the supporting cast.
When actress Vera Day walked into the office of Laurence Olivier Productions she was twenty years old, and had been in show business for about a year. Olivier looked at the blonde-haired actress and exclaimed, “Oh dear, she’s so like Marilyn.” While Vera Day was naturally flattered by such a comparison, Olivier feared the worst, knowing that Marilyn would not take kindly to another blonde on set. And so it was that before Day was allowed anywhere near the film, she found herself sporting a brunette wig to play Betty, one of Marilyn’s friends.
In recent years it has been said that a house called Tibbs Farm in Ascot was rented for Marilyn and Arthur Miller, purely as a red herring, on 13 June 1956; a way of putting the press off the scent of the real home, Parkside House. However, this cannot be correct, as on 25 April newspaper reports first surfaced to say that the owners of Tibbs Farm, Mr and Mrs Cotes-Preedy, had been asked to rent the home to Marilyn during her stay in England. More reports surfaced on 26 April and 14 May, and even included interior shots and interviews with Mrs Cotes-Preedy herself. This media intrusion was simply unacceptable and another home was sought, this time in the form of a Park Lane apartment. Unfortunately, on 16 June, the owner Michael Ferszt leaked the news to the press and those plans were immediately shelved.
While Milton and Amy Greene would still stay at Tibbs Farm, an ideal alternative was found for the Millers in the shape of Parkside House, a large mansion situated in Englefield Green, Surrey. The owners, Lord Moore and his wife, Joan Carr, were happy to move to London during Marilyn’s stay in their house, and it was agreed that the housekeeper, Elizabeth ‘Dolly’ Stiles, the gardener, Bernard Stiles, the butler, Franz Gettliner, and the cook (Gettliner’s wife) would stay on during the four months of Marilyn’s visit. Other members of staff would include a chauffeur and a detective to oversee Marilyn’s security.
Despite these arrangements, no one told Mrs Cotes-Preedy that the plans for Tibbs Farm had changed, and she continued her public-relations campaign, being interviewed and even appearing on television. It eventually came down to the cook to inform her of the change of plans, having seen the news on the television just hours before Marilyn’s arrival.
Meanwhile, preparations at Parkside began with the installation of new locks on the gates and the painting of Marilyn’s future bedroom. The Parkside staff were expected to work long hours during this period and discretion was of the utmost importance. Even the exterior of the home was revamped, when a gentleman called Gordon Bolton (who later claimed that he’d never heard of Marilyn Monroe) placed new tiles on the roof.
Next came a security meeting between London airport officials, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Marilyn’s publicity men. It was originally decided that there would be no extra security at the airport but the officials changed their mind at the last minute, after hearing about the fiasco that took place at Idlewild Airport on 13 July, during the Millers’ departure for London, with the plane being delayed due to a stampede of excited fans and reporters.
On the morning of 14 July 1956, around 150 British reporters gathered behind the newly erected security barriers, complained about the rain, and waited for Marilyn Monroe to arrive in England. Finally, at around 10.40 a.m., one hour after the expected arrival, the plane touched down and the reporters waited with baited breath.
The other passengers on board started to make their way down the steps, but Marilyn was nowhere to be seen. Several minutes later, a bouquet of flowers was carried into the plane and, later still, someone representing a knitwear company delivered a sweater. When she eventually appeared, Marilyn glided down the steps dressed in the same outfit she had worn at Idlewild Airport – a jersey dress, dark glasses and a raincoat thrown casually over her shoulders – she had flowers in her arms and Arthur Miller close by.
Airport staff were balanced on the wings of the plane to take personal snaps and get a better view, and although security was tight, there were a few fans who were able to say a few words. One of them, Frank Williams, remembered: “My job [at the airport] was to dig holes, tunnels and whatever was needed. We were told that Marilyn would be arriving one day with her new husband, Arthur Miller and in no uncertain terms [our boss] wanted no nonsense when she arrived – no whistles, no catcalls etc. Marilyn and her husband arrived right next to the foundations we were digging – probably only fifty yards away from where the aircraft came to rest. She walked straight up to the foundations trench and she said “Hello boys,” and we said “Welcome to England, Marilyn.” She was quite stunning and from four feet down in the trench, we had a very, very good view of her.’
Once inside the terminal building, Mr and Mrs Miller were met by Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Photographs were taken and Marilyn chatted about Vivien’s recently announced pregnancy, before collecting her twenty-seven pieces of luggage and making her way officially to meet the world’s media.
The press conference at London Airport would go down in history as being one of the most bizarre ever. After walking into the room with Miller and the Oliviers, Marilyn surprised everyone by refusing to speak into a microphone; her reason being that she found it too impersonal, adding that she much preferred talking directly to reporters. This, of course, resulted in many of those present not hearing a word Marilyn was saying, and a mini-stampede began, with reporters clambering to get the best view, knocking over chairs and tables in the process.
Finally, in order to gain some kind of order, she was asked to stand on a raised platform behind a snack counter. Once there, the reporters were instructed, rather absurdly, to give their questions to Olivier, who in turn would pass them on to Marilyn. She then gave her answers back to Olivier, who passed them on to the rather impatient reporters.
The questions ranged from the serious (‘What are your plans whilst in England?’) to the tongue-in-cheek (‘What do you think of Diana Dors?’) to the plain silly (‘Can I have a lemonade please, Marilyn?’ referring to her position behind the snack counter). After declaring that the thing she most wanted to see was, ‘the little fellow with the bow and arrow in Piccadilly Circus,’ the press conference was over and it was finally time to leave.
Of course, when the Millers and Oliviers arrived at Parkside House, they were not alone. The dozens of reporters who had greeted her at the airport were now at the house and, after posing for numerous photos, Marilyn entered the drawing room in time for press conference number two. Again, the questions came thick and fast but when asked what she thought of her new home, Marilyn revealed that she had rather expected to find a cottage. Unfortunately, Parkside House would never live up to her fantasy and, by the end of her trip, she was rather glad to leave it.
When one reporter asked what she planned to do for relaxation, she replied, ‘Go for bicycle rides.’ However, on realizing that she did not have a bicycle, she added, ‘. . . if I can borrow a bike.’ This seemingly innocent comment would later cause considerable bad press for her, but for now the reporters were charmed.
Once the reporters had gone, Lord Moore took the Millers on a tour of their new home, although much to Marilyn’s bewilderment he missed out one long hallway, claiming that the walk was so boring that he didn’t go down there any more.
Tour over, the Millers were then formally introduced to their staff before retiring to their newly painted, white bedroom. Exhausted from the plane trip and the two chaotic press conferences, they rested for a number of hours, before having dinner served by the butler, Franz Gettliner. Later that evening when the sun had finally gone down, the Millers went for a stroll around the grounds of their new home, before finally retiring to bed.
The next morning, Marilyn dozed until 12.30 p.m. before Olivier visited to show her photographs of the Prince and the Showgirl set, along with the costume she would wear in the film. Afterwards she left for a scheduled press conference at the Savoy Hotel in London, stopping to chat first to the local people waiting outside her new home. Along with various items of small talk, the star was intrigued to know if any fans came from Scotland, declaring with pride, ‘I’ve got a Scottish name. Monroe is pure Scots you know.’
Eventually she was able to leave, but by the time the car arrived at the back door of the Savoy, she was extremely late and surrounded by fans once again, with only a human chain of policemen to protect her. Finally though, both Marilyn and Miller made their way into the hotel, and to the great relief of just about everyone, joined Laurence Olivier on a raised platform, in order to begin the press conference.
The questions asked that day were very much on the same level as those asked at the airport and Parkside House. If there were many questions related to The Prince and the Showgirl, they certainly didn’t make the press coverage the next day, the reporters being much more interested in comments of a personal nature and, in particular, anything related to the Miller marriage and Marilyn’s personal aspirations.
One item that caused a lot of interest was her outfit. The black dress was tightly fitted and included a window of net to show off her midriff. Photographs of the revealing outfit were beamed nationwide and caused such a stir that a copy went on sale just weeks later. When asked to describe what she was wearing, Marilyn hesitated, then answered that it was ‘a simple black dress’. She then showed her famous quick wit to reporter Donald Zec, by declaring that although the dress wasn’t her idea, it was her midriff, referring to the bare skin displayed under the net.
Marilyn answered most of the reporters’ questions in good spirit. However, she was understandably a little curt when one journalist asked what her definition of an intellectual was: ‘I guess you could look it up in a dictionary,’ she said. Another asked if she believed in the idea of The Seven Year Itch, to which she exclaimed, ‘Do you know, I never understood the point of that film?’
Olivier played his part in the proceedings by once again repeating questions to Marilyn, before she answered them; while the press reported that the only time Arthur Miller seemed to smile was when the couple left the room. However, he did have his chance to speak, too, when one of the reporters asked him how he saw his wife; Miller replied, ‘With two eyes.’
The questions continued for the next hour, and just before they ended the Daily Sketch presented a surprised Marilyn with her very own bike, to enable her to ride through the English countryside. She was thrilled with her gift, which sported a huge gift-tag bearing the words, ‘To Marilyn Love From The Daily Sketch.’ While Miller looked on in amusement, his wife exclaimed, ‘There are so many things I must do first. It’ll be two or three days before you see me riding round the lanes.’
There was indeed a lot for her to do, and one of those things was meeting a young man called Alan who was chosen to work at Parkside House as Marilyn’s rehearsal pianist: ‘I was a music student and used to work during vacations. My agent provided temps for the theatre and I had done a couple of jobs for him, but one day he rang me up to tell me about an interesting job, that I’d be a nitwit to turn down. Apparently Marilyn wanted a pianist for singing practice and as she was limited on the amount of non-British people she could use, she had asked her New York agent, who rang someone in London to find a personal pianist for her.
‘I was summoned to Parkside and told, “Mrs Monroe-Miller will see you now.” It was like being sent to see the Headmaster and I was rather apprehensive and more than a bit nervous. I had met actresses before and knew they could be fearsome, so what on earth would such a great Hollywood star be like? I need not have worried. Marilyn was sitting on the sofa with her legs tucked up under her. As I went in she gave me that wonderful smile, uncoiled gracefully and came towards me. She put out her hand, took mine and said softly, “Hi, I’m Marilyn!” Her manner was so sweetly shy and modest that I felt instantly at ease. She was such a pleasant and thoroughly nice lady.’
Marilyn would spend a great deal of time with Alan over the coming months, but for now it was time for another press conference on 16 July, and then afterwards a trip to Claridges to meet her husband for lunch. Eating salmon, turkey and fruit, Mr and Mrs Miller looked every inch the newlywed couple, and restaurant staff spotted them kissing between courses. However, it was Miller’s outfit that caused the most concern, when staff commented on his grey sports coat, dark trousers and white shoes. Indeed, his casual dress caused such a scandal that it even gained its fair share of column inches the next day.
After lunch, Marilyn and Arthur departed from London and headed back to Surrey, for what they no doubt hoped would be a restful evening in the privacy of their new home . . .
Shoreditch Training College was located approximately two miles from Parkside House, and like most of the local people, the students who studied there had long anticipated the arrival of Marilyn Monroe. For two days before Marilyn’s arrival, gossip swirled around the college, and there was a great deal of lobbying to form a group that would be willing to go to Marilyn’s house and entice her out.
At around 8 p.m., on the night of 16 July, a group of eighty students met in front of the college to make the hike to Marilyn’s house. The plan was to sing under her bedroom window, and some of the students even took along trumpets and other musical instruments to add further excitement to the proceedings.
However, everything did not go to plan, when the College Principal, Ted Marshall, turned up to try to persuade the revellers to go home. Unfortunately for him, most of them had just finished their exams, so they felt that there was nothing the college could do to stop them and Mr Marshall’s attempts at discipline went unheard. The trip to Marilyn’s house further exasperated Mr Marshall when he discovered that one of the young men had borrowed his car to catch up with friends. The vehicle was even stopped by police during the short journey, and the driver cheekily gave his name as that of the Principal before abandoning it near Parkside House.
Once the group reached the vicinity of Marilyn’s home, they immediately started chanting, ‘We want Marilyn, we want Marilyn,’ before lifting the gates clean out of their hinges and marching up the driveway and singing the twenty-third psalm outside Marilyn’s bedroom window. However, it soon became clear to most of them that she had no intention of coming out to meet them.
Nevertheless, although they didn’t get Marilyn’s attention, they did receive a great deal of notice from the police, who had been tipped off and were making their way to Parkside House. As they approached, most of the fans scattered, as one former student, Allan R. Pemberton remembered: ‘It was dark and I had fled into long, wet grass. I got soaking wet and I recall clearly seeing the searching lights being scanned over the area where I was hiding. I’m not sure how long I remained in hiding, but when I thought it safe, I returned to the college, where quite a few of the group had already returned. Quite a few hadn’t, I remember [and] there were many stories of “escapes”, but no one saw Marilyn and we never knew whether she was aware of our escapade.’
Marilyn was, indeed, very aware of what went on outside her bedroom window that night. In his autobiography, Timebends: A Life, Arthur Miller described waking up to the sound of singing outside. Once awake, he and Marilyn both watched out of the window in amazement at the spectacle below, but because of security concerns, neither of them talked to or met any of the students. Housekeeper Dolly Stiles remembered the students’ obsession continued and they were often at Parkside, shouting for Marilyn.
On 17 July the Millers accompanied Laurence Olivier to the Lyric Theatre where Vivien Leigh was performing in South Sea Bubble by Noel Coward. The play opened at the theatre on 25 April and had received its fair share of newspaper coverage, but on this particular night, it was Marilyn who stole the show.
Shortly before the performance was due to start, the Millers and Olivier took their seats in row J. Marilyn, wearing a flesh-coloured, skin-tight dress and a raincoat almost identical to the one she wore on her arrival in England, immediately drew attention from the other theatregoers, and although the visit was supposed to be secret, word soon got round that Marilyn was in attendance.
By the time the performance had finished, a huge crowd had gathered around the theatre, but with Marilyn’s chauffeur parked at the stage door, and Olivier’s parked at the front, fans had no idea where to wait. This resulted in them crowding around both entrances in a bid to catch even the smallest glimpse of the star and her playwright husband.
Finally, at 10.50 p.m., and after several van-loads of police had been called, Marilyn and her companions made their exit from the front door of the theatre and were taken to Olivier’s London home at Lowndes Place, where they spent a few hours before leaving at 2 a.m. to return to Parkside.
Before Marilyn arrived in England, Bus Stop director Joshua Logan wrote a letter to Olivier, advising him on how best to work with her. Unfortunately, although Olivier wrote to Logan on 26 June to say that his comments had been ‘carefully noted’, it would seem that Marilyn’s way of working still came as a shock, since from the very first day of rehearsals on 18 July, the two stars did not get on at all well.
Olivier’s first and probably greatest mistake was to introduce Marilyn in what she took to be a patronizing manner. Whilst generally polite, Olivier made a large speech to the cast, explaining that they would have to be patient with Marilyn, as her methods were perhaps different to theirs. Enormously insecure, this comment made her suspicious of Olivier and she was on her guard from that moment on.
Marilyn’s pianist, Alan, remembers visiting the set on several occasions and being told to ‘stand over there and don’t breathe . . .’ From his corner, however, he was able to see firsthand what Marilyn went through during her time on set: ‘Olivier ran a very strict ship, as though he was working in the theatre, with rehearsals etc. Everyone was curious to see what Marilyn was like, but some were “sniffy” and thought Marilyn was wrong and amateur because she wasn’t from the West End. They had all worked with Olivier before and felt that it was like putting on slippers, but Marilyn just wasn’t used to working like that. Dame Sybil Thorndike was an angel though. She had put in a good word about me with Marilyn and told her that she’d known me since I was in short trousers.
‘Marilyn kept to herself on the set. She would have liked to have mixed with the others but there was a barrier there. She went into it wide-eyed, looking at Olivier as “my hero” but she got very upset by him and felt a lot of contempt for him and the other cast members who never went out of their way to be nice to her.’
Meanwhile, Marilyn’s personal life was becoming a constant source of speculation in the newspapers, and rumours appeared that she would be holidaying in Paris and Scotland, visiting the local cricket green and attending at least one wedding. All of these stories were false, but it didn’t stop people wishing them to be true, and just four days after her arrival, major excitement was caused when ‘Marilyn’ showed up in Shakespeare Country.
During one of the several press conferences that took place after the Millers’ arrival in London, Arthur had expressed his desire to visit Stratford-upon-Avon. This intrigued fans living in the town, who waited with baited breath to see whether or not they would make the trip. Imagine the excitement then, when on 18 July, a chauffeur-driven car pulled up outside Shakespeare’s birthplace, and a woman, looking remarkably like Marilyn, stepped out of the vehicle.
Brenda Porter, who was standing in the crowd of people who swarmed round the woman that day, remembered: ‘There were quite a few people in the crowd [and] we all stood and waited for quite a while when a chauffeur-driven car drew up outside Shakespeare’s house. A lady got out of the car and the crowd tried to cross the road to see her. There was no one with her, [and] she took video pictures of Shakespeare’s birthplace, but very quickly got back into the car. People in the crowd said it was not Marilyn. I can’t honestly say if it was either.’
Indeed, when questioned by people in the crowd, the chauffeur claimed that the woman was a Mrs Horace Dodge of Windsor, but refused to say anything else on the matter. However, with no security and no husband, the chance of ‘Mrs Dodge’ turning out to be Marilyn was pretty remote.
This may have been the first time a ‘fake Marilyn’ would make news during the England trip, but it certainly wasn’t the last. In October, another impersonator made headlines, this time by booking false appointments with five of London’s top dressmakers and booking singer Tommy Steele for a fake party. She gained a lot of column inches but this fake Marilyn was never found.
The first week in England had been a busy one, for both Marilyn and the press who were reporting anything remotely Monroe-related, however weird or wonderful it seemed. Coverage included a report which stated that Dame Edith Sitwell wished to visit the star sometime soon; and on 20 July The Times ran the story of a German communist magazine called Junge Welt which gave Marilyn the thumbs-up for daring to become a serious actress and for marrying Arthur Miller. Certainly for the first week of Marilyn’s visit she could do no wrong, but it quickly became apparent that the mood of reporters was beginning to change from one of excitement to one of impatience.
The reason for this sudden downturn seems to be related to Marilyn and Arthur’s desire to have privacy during their stay in England. Whereas she had made herself freely available to reporters during the first few days, once the press conferences were over, she almost completely dropped from public view, preferring instead to spend time at home, learning her lines for The Prince and the Showgirl. The British reporters did not like this sudden bid for privacy and were quick to comment on it in the newspapers.
Marilyn and Arthur had decided to spend the next weekend quietly at Parkside House, but quite bizarrely some members of the press took this stance to assume that Marilyn was now playing hard to get. They complained that not only had she stayed in her house whilst fans waited outside to see her, but had also changed her phone number to discourage unwanted calls. Added to this, when one reporter had his request for an interview turned down, it prompted some members of the press to compare Marilyn’s apparent aloofness with the friendliness of the English star, Diana Dors, who was in the United States at the time and giving many interviews, a lot of which had more than their share of questions about her ‘rival’. When asked about Marilyn, the blonde star stated quite plainly that she did not like to be compared to her. Talking to Art Buchwald she quipped: ‘The only similarity between us is that she’s a sex symbol of her country and I’m a sex symbol of mine.’
Meanwhile, back in England, there were some extremely personal comments being leaked to the newspapers, such as allegations that the honeymooning Millers actually slept in separate bedrooms (housekeeper Dolly Stiles confirms that this rumour was untrue), and there was even an article published in the News Chronicle that described Marilyn as dowdy, with a spare tyre and crumpled clothes.
During the weekend of 21–2 July, Oscar-winning cinematographer Jack Cardiff visited Marilyn in order to talk about his involvement with The Prince and the Showgirl. She knew all about his work and was very excited to meet him, and Cardiff later wrote that on meeting her, he was convinced he had just met an angel. While Marilyn couldn’t be described as an angel to work with, Cardiff always thought of her as a warm and lovely person, and was one of the only members of cast and crew to socialize with her off set. He gave her books to read, visited an art gallery with her and even accompanied her to a private screening of Bus Stop at the Fox offices in Soho Square.
Despite members of the Weybridge Division of the Surrey Constabulary working shifts around the clock, and a personal bodyguard in the shape of PC Hunt, there was a major security issue one afternoon, when journalists somehow managed to gain access to the roof of Parkside House. Once there, one of the enterprising men held on to the feet of his friend and dangled him upside down outside Marilyn’s bedroom. The aim was to take a photograph of Marilyn in her bedroom, but they were out of luck; the pair were spotted and escorted off the premises before any disaster could occur.
But it wasn’t just journalists causing concern. Fans continued to hide in the bushes and dozens of admirers crowded around the gates, hoping to catch a glimpse of Marilyn coming and going. One of these was Mr G. Pearson, who was fourteen years old in 1956 and spent most of his school holidays at Parkside House. He was thrilled when Marilyn waved to him on two occasions, but was later involved in a more dramatic incident that showed security at Parkside perhaps wasn’t as tight as it should have been. Mr Pearson remembered: ‘I was outside the gates with my friend, when a couple of reporters approached us, and asked if we would like to earn a large, silver coin. We stated the obvious “Yes”, but what did we have to do for such a sum of money? One of the reporters handed me an envelope and said, “Go in and give this letter to Marilyn.”
The envelope just had “Miss M. Monroe” written on it. I remember we had to jump over the gates (about four to five foot high), as they were locked, and walked up to the house. Upon reaching the house we rang the bell, the door was opened by a maid and I said, “Would you give this letter to Marilyn please?” She then shut the door, and we waited.
‘Shortly after the door opened again, and we were confronted by Arthur Miller. He enquired as to how we got in, and who the letter was from. I answered that we had jumped over the gates and that a man had given us the letter. He then told us to go back the way we had come. His actual wording I cannot remember, but it was loud, abrasive and in words that I had heard adults use before.
‘We hastily retreated down the drive, and I do recall being photographed as we hurdled the white gates. The reporters then took details of what had happened and gave us half a crown each. As far as I am aware, a short report of the incident appeared in a national paper.’
Another fan with a delivery for Marilyn was fifteen-year-old Michael Thornton, who went on to become a highly successful author and critic. Michael was staying with friends during the summer holidays when he heard that Marilyn had arrived. After some initial research he discovered her address and set off on his bike, complete with some hand-picked roses strapped to the handlebars: ‘On arrival in the tiny village of Englefield Green, my breathless enquiries to highly suspicious locals – already alienated by the descent of countless Fleet Street reporters – elicited the information that Parkside House was in Wick Lane, which I eventually found. The house was white, with tall white windows and white chimneys, extremely attractive and very secluded, with a long drive through trees and hedges. I parked my bike opposite the main entrance, undid the rapidly wilting roses, and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.
‘In all, I think I must have been there for several hours, until finally a large black car drove up and turned into the drive. Inside I saw two men in the front (one the driver), and another man and two ladies in the back, one wearing a headscarf and large dark glasses. I later learned that next to the driver was a plain-clothes detective, that the man in the back was Arthur Miller, and the second woman – rather plain, round-faced and dumpy – was Paula Strasberg. The figure in the headscarf and dark glasses was Marilyn.
‘I moved up the drive, into a position where they could all see me standing with my bunch of wilting roses. The policeman/detective came towards me, waving his hands, and said, “This is private property. You cannot come into the drive.” At that moment, the lady in the headscarf and dark glasses divested herself of both and became instantly recognizable as the devastating siren I had only lately seen in The Seven Year Itch. In her unmistakably breathy voice, she called: “Hey, don’t send him away.”
‘She came trotting forward in a rather tight dress and white high heels, moved around the police officer and said: “Hello, honey, are you waiting to see me?” (in a tone that suggested that was the most unlikely thing in the world). I was conscious of blushing, and stammered nervously: “Miss Monroe, I just wanted to say, ‘Welcome to England’, and to give you these,” and I handed her the wilting roses.
‘The expression on her face and in her eyes was as if I had handed her something priceless from Cartier. “Oh sweetheart, that is so lovely of you.” I noticed that her blonde hair was rather dishevelled – possibly the result of wearing a wig – and that her face and eyes had traces of screen make-up that had not been entirely removed. There was nothing grand or stand-offish about her. One might have thought she had never been given flowers before in her life, and her simplicity of manner certainly did not suggest that this was the most famous woman in the world.
‘Behind her I saw her stern-faced husband, in heavy hornrimmed glasses, glowering and frowning at this encounter. He then called out to her in a very autocratic voice: “Will you come into the house now please?” “How old are you honey?” she asked. “I’m fifteen,” I said. “Fifteen? And you went to all this trouble to bring me these? I’m going to go and put them in water right away. Thank you, my darling.”
‘She turned towards the detective, then turned back, and to my amazement, she planted a very gentle kiss full on my lips – the sort of innocent kiss a child might give. “Bye bye honey,” she called as she walked away, leaving me in a state of surreal disbelief.
‘The detective said: “Don’t go telling your schoolfriends where the house is, will you?” I promised I wouldn’t.’
On 9 July, shortly before the Millers arrived in England, Vivien and Laurence Olivier sent a letter to ask if the couple would like to attend a party given in their honour. The get-together eventually took place on Tuesday, 24 July, and was hosted by Terence Rattigan at Little Court, his home in Sunningdale, Berkshire. It was a lavish affair that included a hundred guests, twenty chauffeurs, waiters, a porter, a chef and a huge candelabra hired specifically for the occasion. The garden was adorned by fairy lights and the whole atmosphere was one of romance and enchantment. The drinks bill, which came to £103, included forty-two bottles of champagne, seven bottles of Gordon’s gin, two bottles of sherry and various other items.
The guest list for the party consisted of such luminaries as Alec Guinness, Dame Margot Fonteyn, John Gielgud, Richard Wattis and Douglas Fairbanks Jr, but the person everyone had come to see was, of course, Marilyn Monroe. Everyone that is, except a policeman by the name of PC Packham, who had been asked to stand at the gate of Rattigan’s house to check invitations and prevent gatecrashers.
Unfortunately for PC Packham, the young constable hadn’t been told Marilyn was on the guest list, so when her car pulled up, he treated it like any other and asked to see the invitation. Newspapers took great delight the next day in describing how the policeman had never heard of Marilyn Monroe and hadn’t recognized her in the back of the car. However, PC Packham’s version of events differs greatly from the exaggerations of the newspapers: ‘The peace was shattered when what was clearly a VIP limo travelling from the Sunningdale direction, swung into the drive to stop abruptly at my feet. Some lunatic immediately leapt from the nearside front passenger seat and, actually brandishing an empty wine glass in my face, told me aggressively to get out of the way. It was, to say the least, an unusual greeting; neither did his arrival inspire confidence regarding the other occupants of the car. I relieved him of the wine glass and was desirous of knowing what precisely he was up to. “It’s Marilyn, you fool,” he hissed, “Get out of the way.”
‘Of course! In a blinding flash of the absolute obvious the penny dropped. Everyone in England must surely have known that Marilyn was in town. The tabloids were full of it.
‘I looked in at the open door of the limo. It was, of course, Marilyn and, had any further proof been necessary, she was accompanied by her then husband, Arthur Miller. I told the driver to carry on, closed the door, and they sped away without the little dogsbody, or whatever he was. He was last seen hoofing it up the long drive to the house, muttering as he went dire imprecations on all coppers.
‘Press cars which had tailed the limo down the A30 had by then been bumped up on to the grass verges at the side of the main road, their occupants coming hot-foot to join the fray. They were a trifle late, for their real quarry had by then sped off, but they were not too late to weave their usual fairy tales. The tabloids’ following day’s accounts were founded principally on the story of one of “yer ole tyme rural bobbies” who spoke with a rich West Country accent, called men “Zur”, and didn’t know Marilyn. Any semblance of accuracy in their reports was purely coincidental.’
An exaggerated version of the night’s events soon reached PC Packham’s boss, Sergeant Gray, who was told, incorrectly, that his constable had been threatened with a broken wine glass. This led Terence Rattigan to send a letter to Sergeant Gray, thanking him for the handling of the difficult situation, and enclosing a £10 cheque to be donated to a charity of his choice.
Thankfully for everyone who had come to see her, Marilyn finally entered the party, wearing a dress very similar to the one she was to wear in The Prince and the Showgirl. Looking happy and relaxed, Mr and Mrs Miller made a big impact on the other party guests and danced cheek-to-cheek during George and Ira Gershwin’s ‘Embraceable you’. Sir John Gielgud remembered: ‘Marilyn wore an Edwardian dress – she had, I think, worn it in the tests for the film – and she held court in a tent in the garden, where everyone queued up to shake her hand. As I was speaking to her, a rather formidable-looking lady in black suddenly appeared at Marilyn’s side and introduced herself as Louella Parsons. Arthur Miller kept at a discreet distance. I had no opportunity of talking further with Marilyn, but remember how graceful she looked, dancing with Terry Rattigan as I took my departure.’
Marilyn made an impression on everyone who attended the party, and Terence Rattigan received a great many letters after the event, thanking him for his hospitality and commenting on the famous guest. Marilyn herself was thrilled to have the party thrown for her, and wrote a very poetic letter on Parkside House stationery, thanking her host for the party, and commenting on the memorable Charleston, which she danced with him.