Page 30 of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

“I don’t think I’m going to be any good,” she admits to Huston when she comes in for the audition. “Would you mind if I read the part lying on the floor?”

Huston agrees, and a nervous Marilyn removes her shoes and lies on the ground. She does the scene once and then leaps up and requests to do it again.

There is something touching and appealing about Marilyn, Huston decides. He lets her run through the scene twice but assures her, “You got the part after the first reading.”

Even MGM chief Louis B. Mayer is impressed. He signs off on Marilyn for the role and agrees to employ Lytess as her private coach ahead of the fall 1949 shoot.

Mayer isn’t spending freely these days. Headlines likeJUDY GARLAND LEAVES PICTURE;COSTS SOARran in mid-May after MGM halted the musicalAnnie Get Your Gunand suspended Garland—eight months after the star exitedThe Barkleys of Broadwayfollowing a nervous breakdown. Mayer had put Garland under the care of two studio doctors, but she was too ill and addled to perform, costing MGM millions.

On the set ofAsphalt Jungle,Marilyn knows there’s no margin for error. After every take, she glances across to where Lytess is standing on the far reaches of the set, seeking her coach’s approval.

Shuttling between Johnny Hyde’s guest house in Beverly Hills, the Beverly Carlton Hotel, and Natasha Lytess’s apartment in Los Angeles, Marilyn is feeling the strain of displacement mirrored in the shooting script.

One evening, when it’s time to run lines, Lytess knocks repeatedly on Marilyn’s door—but gets no response, though she knows her student is there. When Marilyn finally answers, her eyes are wide with fear.

There’s a gang of men stalking me, a terrified Marilyn tells her.I can hear their voices, mocking and goading.

At first Lytess thinks that Marilyn is projecting, getting into character for the suspenseful scene they’re about to rehearse. In an unnamed Midwestern city, Marilyn’s character, Angela, is ensconced in a hideaway by the corrupt lawyer who controls her. But Marilyn keeps pausing, sitting in rigid silence to listen for voices that only she can hear.

The drama coach has been waiting for an excuse to complain about the pressure she feels MGM is applying. Marilyn needs to be nurtured and looked after, not exploited and used. Lytess marches into Johnny Hyde’s office at the William Morris Agency.

“She’s hearing voices!” Lytess declares, glaring across the agent’s desk.

Hyde barely reacts, conceding only, “We need to help her.”

MGM calls in the doctors, the same ones Judy Garland complained would “give us pep pills, then they’d take us to the studio hospital and knock us cold with sleeping pills … That’s the way we got mixed up.” Anything to get the scenes in the can.

A medicated Marilyn finishes the shoot.

MGM executives turn out in force to previewAsphalt Jungle. Spontaneous wolf whistling and generous applause erupt whenever “Angela” walks into the frame. In the darkness of the screening room, Marilyn sits beside Johnny Hyde, holding his hand as he beams with the pride of vindication. He was right all along.

On May 12, 1950,Asphalt Jungleopens in theaters.

“There’s a beautiful blonde, too, name of Marilyn Monroe,”Photoplaymagazine proclaims, who “makes the most of her footage.” Along with critical acclaim comes an outpouring of popular enthusiasm. The studio receives sacks of letters from fans inquiring about the pretty blonde.

Lifemagazine photographer Ed Clark gets an inside tip on Fox’s new “hot tomato” and brings Marilyn to Los Angeles’s Griffith Park, where she poses under the shade of the trees, reading scripts.

Not everyone is as impressed. When Clark sends a few rolls of film to his editors atLife,they wire back, “Who the hell is Marilyn Monroe?”

CHAPTER 22

JOHNNY HYDE BELIEVES in medical miracles. He also has a fear of wasting time. Since his heart attack in 1948, he’s been popping nitroglycerin tablets to keep his angina at bay. But his health is fading. He is weak, out of breath, and in considerable pain.

Working from his bedroom, he continues to push Marilyn’s career as if she’s his only client. He’s left all the others in the lurch, relying on his fuming colleagues at the William Morris Agency to pick up the slack. But lovelorn Johnny is obsessively determined to make her a star. Even if it is the last thing he does.

Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz is doingAll About Eveat 20th Century-Fox, a drama starring Bette Davis about the cycle of aging actors and the fledgling talent pushing to take their place. Hyde wants Marilyn to audition for one of the supporting roles. “It’s not a big part but it will establish you at 20th,” he tells her.

“But they don’t like me there,” Marilyn protests. It was onlythree years ago that studio boss Darryl Zanuck declined to renew her contract, calling her unphotogenic.

“They will,” says Hyde. “This is it, honey. You’re in. Everybody is crazy about your work.”

Sometimes party chatter offers a more honest assessment than even the least flattering mirror.

“There goes the chinless wonder.” Those are the words Marilyn overhears as she passes by a cluster of well-dressed Hollywood partygoers.

Whitey Snyder checked her makeup before she left the studio lot, but even his best work can’t hide a flaw in her bone structure.

Marilyn makes an appointment with Dr. Michael Gurdin. His UCLA medical practice caters to Hollywood stars. Gurdin’s receptionist keeps a list of aliases to ensure discretion for those booking appointments.

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