David says most of them, women as well as men, are total rogues. They all try to skive off rather than work, even though ‘work’ only means standing around in a costume. It will be our job to get them all in front of the camera, and keep them sober. We can be tough, but if we are not scrupulously fair they can all walk out on strike and stop the filming completely.
I met the chief security man at the gate. As I will be first to arrive each morning, I won’t need a pass – but they will issue one anyway. I would imagine any reporter who did want to get in would be smarter than the Pinewood security men, and would have prepared a convincing story to fool them. But it would be tough to get past David.
I’m going to pick up my little Wdg at seven tomorrow night. She was very impressed that I have a car. Heavens, how adorable. I haven’t decided where to take her yet and I am a bit nervous. I have no idea what she expects.
SUNDAY, 29 JULY
What a super weekend. Not much to do with my film career, but all part of my film life, so I can’t resist writing it down. The little Wdg is as sweet and tasty as a sugar mouse. I am head over heels with infatuation. I picked her up last night in the faithful Bristol. (I fear it has rather a musty leathery smell to it but she didn’t seem to notice.) We went to Soho for dinner and I ordered champagne (!). She had one tiny glass and I nearly finished the rest. Lots of smarmy Italian service had a good effect. I didn’t dare take her to a night-club. She might have been frightened by their dark, red, velvet corners. So we simply drove round the West End for an hour. She is very naive and all the sights were greeted with oohs and aahs. We chatted and held hands, where traffic allowed, across the handbrake. Finally we came back here.47 It is hard to invite anyone in for purely social reasons since I only have a kitchen and a bedroom, but we were both flushed with passion and fell onto the bed immediately. Her figure is picture perfect, she kisses like an angel (so I’m not the first) and she happily allowed me to stroke her all over.
Neither of us wanted to go the whole way. It is much too soon, and she is a good girl and not a tart. But it was impossible for her not to see how excited I was. She was curious, I explained, and finally out of kindness she put her little hand where the tension was and I was soon in heaven. Actually I think she enjoyed herself too, if not in quite the same explosive manner. When I took her home we were still delirious and spent ages kissing goodbye in the car. Finally a light came on in the house and she fled. Now I can’t wait to see her again.
MONDAY, 30 JULY
Rehearsals at Pinewood all day. The principal cast members arrived at 9 a.m. David and I were outside to greet them and show them to an upstairs studio. It is just a large gloomy room with a few chairs scattered about, but David explained that to have rehearsals at all for a film is a great luxury. They are the essential preliminary of plays in the theatre, but evidently films very rarely have them.
MM will certainly never have had this sort of rehearsal before and I expect she was nervous. The normal procedure is to rehearse a scene 10 minutes before it is filmed. This is simply because an act of a play runs 45 minutes and a film shot lasts 45 seconds, more or less. I expect SLO has arranged for rehearsals on this occasion to ensure smooth, level performances right through the movie (a smooth level performance from Marilyn Monroe, to be precise). MM was only 45 minutes late, and was accompanied by Paula Strasberg.
Mrs Strasberg is not, at first glance, a very formidable figure. She is short and plump, with brown hair pulled back from a plain, round, expressive face. She has big brown eyes which are usually hidden by big dark glasses – like her protégée. Her clothes are also brown and beige – bohemian but expensive. Her influence over MM seems to be total. MM gazes at her continuously and defers to her at all times, as if she was a little Jewish Buddha. SLO was clearly put out by this, but remained theatrically gracious. He introduced MM to the assembled cast. First Dame Sybil, who radiates love and good fellowship so genuinely that even MM could not resist her. Then came Jeremy Spenser, who’ll play Dame Sybil’s grandson, very polite and bright-eyed, and Richard Wattis, who looks exactly like the Foreign Office dignitary which he will play. These three, together with MM and SLO, really are the movie.
Richard Wattis is in virtually every scene except the love scenes, and he even has to barge into two of those. Luckily he has a wonderful sense of humour behind his austere appearance.
Then SLO introduced Tony B, who had directed MM at the screen test, but whom MM had clearly forgotten, and then David and then me (two more blanks for MM).
Well, it has been 10 days since she saw any of us but frankly I don’t think she’d recognise Milton Greene in a crowd – especially if she was nervous. In this case she definitely was not at ease. The whole thing was rather theatrical and I sense that she doesn’t understand the language.
All these people (except for David and me) are old cronies of SLO’s. Paula understands them OK – she was once an actress herself – so she becomes MM’s interpreter, and MM relies on her alone. SLO, whom I love and worship, can be a bit condescending. He treated MM like a doll from a faraway land. It is almost as if he is already in the character of the film, and she is just ‘a little bit of fluff’. When SLO isn’t completely at ease, he tends to retreat into a role, and in this case that is a little unfortunate. If MM is working with ‘the greatest classical actor in the world’ to acquire a serious dramatic image, then she won’t be liking his attitude at all. Paula didn’t say a word but she radiated disapproval, which definitely means that MM is upset.
Then SLO introduced the film. He told the whole story, most magically, and in a dozen accents, from start to finish. We really should have filmed his performance and then gone home. MM listened, eyes and mouth wide open like a child, completely carried away by the little fairy story. At the end everyone clapped and MM joined in enthusiastically. Then David and I handed round marked scripts and SLO chose certain key scenes to read aloud. I must say that MM was enchantingly unspoilt. Compared to those ‘old stagers’ she sounded most refreshing and delightful. But her voice does seem to be coming from another world, floating out of the sky like a little moth. I hope it all mixes together in the end. It is a fairy story, I suppose.
TUESDAY, 31 JULY
MM and Paula were 45 minutes late again today and it was enough to irritate SLO. He sees it as a great professional discourtesy, especially to Dame Sybil. This is a pity because Dame Sybil really doesn’t care, or hardly notices. I think MM actually enjoyed yesterday’s readings and SLO should have taken advantage of this.
MM just doesn’t seem to know late from early, so when she is scolded she often can’t understand why – or is it that she doesn’t want to understand why?
I took MM and Paula up to the rehearsal room where everyone was waiting. Dame S is so divine; she was warm and welcoming to MM – as if really glad to see her, as a human being. SLO tempered his greeting with a hint of menace which I could see MM pick up. Paula was icy to me but I am incredibly polite and charming to her at all times. As she does not know that I am in love with her daughter (sorry, little Wdg!) she was rather taken aback, but obviously flattered. MM, of course, totally ignores me, and quite right too. In the film industry I am right at the bottom and she is right at the top.
Actually she seems a strange mixture of self-centred and sensitive, like a child, I suppose. I have heard adults like that described as ‘mimophants’ – as fragile as mimosa about their own feelings, as tough as elephants about other people’s.
I always thought being a big, big star would give you an armour-plated ego, but MM certainly has not got that. In fact I don’t think SLO realises, or perhaps even cares, how fragile she is. He takes the line that all actors and actresses are nervous, but they should have learnt to suppress their nerves by the time they work with him. I hope he remembers that MM is his partner in this production – his equal business partner. Milton Greene is just his partner’s stooge. Charming him won’t help much!
I didn’t