Page 47 of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

“But ‘Do It Again’ is a classy song,” Marilyn insisted. “It’s a George Gershwin song!”

There was no use arguing about it,she realized.I’d been up against this sort of thing before. People have a habit of looking at me as if I was some kind of a mirror instead of a person. They didn’t see me, they saw their own lewd thoughts. Then they white-masked themselves by calling me the lewd one.

“If I change the phrase ‘do it again’ to ‘kiss me again,’ will that be all right?”

The compromise is allowed. But she is warned, “Try not to put any suggestive meaning into it.”

Many among the crowds are huddled in blankets, but they give her a warm welcome, their deafening applause punctuated by wolf whistles. In the biting cold, Marilyn sings and dances and blows kisses to the boys as she dances in high heels. The exhausted troops don’t know what has hit them.

As they wave and cheer and shout her name at the top of their lungs, Marilyn glows with confidence. There’s no critical acting coach, no demanding studio head, no grumpy husband. Just Marilyn. And just Marilyn, it turns out, is enough.

It has started snowing. But I felt as warm as if I were standing in a bright sun,she thinks.I have always been frightened by an audience, any audience. My stomach pounds, my head gets dizzy, and I am sure that my voice has left me. But standing in the snowfall facing these yelling soldiers, I felt for the first time in my life no fear of anything. I felt only happy.

“The sky kept lighting up from the constant flashing of bulbs as cameras clicked,” writes one journalist at her show for the 7th Division, to the point that “the Reds probably thought the 7th Infantry Division was on night maneuvers.”

Marilyn impresses her handlers with how open and easygoing she is. “She was unspoiled to the nth degree,” says First Lieutenant George H. Waple III. “She gave us the feeling she really wanted to be there,” says Ted Cieszynski, a photographer for the public information office of the Army Corps of Engineers. “She took her time, speaking with each of us about our families and our hometowns and our civilian jobs. It was bitter cold, but she was in no hurry to leave. Marilyn was a great entertainer. She made thousands of GIs feel she really cared.”

Even after she spots a copy of her infamous “Golden Dreams” calendar, Marilyn’s only response is “I’m very pleased to have my picture hanging in a place of honor.”

Her visits are recorded and played on newsreels all over the world. The beautiful star, surrounded by our boys. “I’d say the highlight of my life has been playing for the soldiers,” Marilyn says. “I stood out on an open stage and it was cold and snowy, but I swear it didn’t feel a thing except good.”

This is what I’ve always wanted, I guess. I never really felt like a star. Not really, not in my heart. I felt like one in Korea. It was sowonderful to look down and see all those young fellows smiling up at me. It made me feel wanted.

Just before climbing aboard a helicopter after her last performance, for the 45th Division, she waves and blows kisses to the audience. “This is my greatest experience with any kind of audience,” she declares. “It’s been the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ll never forget my honeymoon—with the 45th Division.”

She returns to the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo—and a cold welcome from her husband.

“Joe,” she says, as she lies in bed, shivering with a chill that feels like the beginnings of the flu. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. Have you heard such cheering? Tens of thousands.” She smiles. “Have you ever heard such cheering, Joe?”

“Yes, I have,” he replies curtly. “Seventy-five thousand at a time. Just miss the ball once and you’ll see they can boo as loud as they cheer.”

The bittersweet honeymoon ends on February 24, when the couple returns to Los Angeles and a rented house in Beverly Hills.

On March 7, at her first public appearance since marrying Joe, Marilyn arrives at the Beverly Hills Hotel on the arm of another man. Alan Ladd and Marilyn are the Gold Medal couple for the evening, asPhotoplaymagazine honors them as most popular actor and actress of the year.

Wearing a new platinum-blond hairstyle and a daringly low-cut white satin sheath with an ermine stole, Marilyn is a sensation.

MARILYN MONROE MOST POPULAR STAR, Movietone headlines its newsreel.

Joe DiMaggio, cast in the role of jealous husband, plays the part with feeling.

“It’s no fun being married to an electric light,” he complains.

CHAPTER 35

“MARILYN MONROE, RITA HAYWORTH, and Lana Turner all fired me on the same day,” Charles Feldman jokes every chance he gets.

But withThe Girl in Pink Tightsshelved and the latest dustup with Fox archived in Hollywood’s past, Feldman has found a new project.

Adapting the Broadway hitThe Seven Year Itchfor film is generating so much enthusiasm, Feldman tells Marilyn, that it’s considered “a plum by every studio in the business.”

Feldman’s pitch to Darryl Zanuck is that he will produce, Billy Wilder will direct, and Marilyn will star for 20th Century-Fox.

On May 17, 1954, Feldman sends a letter addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Joe DiMaggio in Beverly Hills, California, updating them on the status of the negotiations.

Wilder, who won Oscars for directing and co-writing the screenplay forThe Lost Weekend,lobbies Zanuck that Marilyn“is an absolute must for this story … nothing would make up for her personality.”

Fox agrees to cast Marilyn inThe Seven Year Itch. There’s one catch—Marilyn must also join the ensemble cast of the Irving Berlin musical revueThere’s No Business Like Show Business.

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