834O_tx.qxd 19/1/09 10:40 Page i The Genius and the Goddess 834O_tx.qxd 19/1/09 10:40 Page ii Books by Jeffrey Meyers BIOGRAPHY A Fever at the Core:The Idealist in Politics Married to Genius Katherine Mansfield The Enemy:A Biography of Wyndham Lewis Hemingway Manic Power: Robert Lowell and His Circle D.H. Lawrence Joseph Conrad Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy Scott Fitzgerald Edmund Wilson Robert Frost Bogart:A Life in Hollywood Gary Cooper:American Hero Privileged Moments: Encounters with Writers Wintry Conscience:A Biography of George Orwell Inherited Risk: Errol and Sean Flynn in Hollywood and Vietnam Somerset Maugham Impressionist Quartet:The Intimate Genius of Manet and Morisot, Degas and Cassatt Modigliani Samuel Johnson:The Struggle CRITICISM Fiction and the Colonial Experience The Wounded Spirit:T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom A Reader’s Guide to George Orwell Painting and the Novel Homosexuality and Literature D.H. Lawrence and the Experience of Italy Disease and the Novel The Spirit of Biography Hemingway: Life into Art 834O_tx.qxd 19/1/09 10:40 Page iii BIBLIOGRAPHY T.E. Lawrence:A Bibliography Catalogue of the Library of the Late Siegfried Sassoon George Orwell:An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism EDITED COLLECTIONS George Orwell:The Critical Heritage Hemingway:The Critical Heritage Robert Lowell: Interviews and Memoirs The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Reader The W. Somerset Maugham Reader EDITED ORIGINAL ESSAYS Wyndham Lewis:A Revaluation Wyndham Lewis by Roy Campbell D.H. Lawrence and Tradition The Legacy of D.H. Lawrence The Craft of Literary Biography The Biographer’s Art T.E. Lawrence: Soldier,Writer, Legend Graham Greene:A Revaluation 834O_tx.qxd 19/1/09 10:40 Page iv 834O_tx.qxd 19/1/09 10:40 Page v The Genius and the Goddess ARTHUR MILLER AND (cid:2) MARILYN MONROE Jeffrey Meyers HUTCHINSON LONDON 834O_tx.qxd 19/1/09 10:40 Page vi Published by Hutchinson 2009 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 Copyright © Jeffrey Meyers 2009 Jeffrey Meyers has asserted his right under the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,resold,hired out,or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition,including this condition,being imposed on the subsequent purchaser First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Hutchinson Random House,20Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA www.rbooks.co.uk Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm The Random House Group Limited Reg.No.954009 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 9780091925499 The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organisation.All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace approved FSC certified paper carry the FSC logo.Our paper procurement policy can be found at www.rbooks.co.uk/environment Mixed Sources Product group from well-managed forests and other controlled sources www.fsc.org CCeerrtt nnoo.. TTTT--CCOOCC--22113399 © 1996 Forest Stewardship Council Typeset in Bembo by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth,Stirlingshire Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd,St Ives plc 834O_tx.qxd 19/1/09 10:40 Page vii Contents Illustrations ix Acknowledgements xi 1. First Encounter (1951) 1 2. Marilyn’s Traumatic Childhood (1926–1946) 8 3.A Star Is Born (1947–1954) 25 4. Image and Identity (1950s) 50 5. Joe DiMaggio (1952–1954) 65 6. Miller’s Path to Fame (1915–1949) 86 7. Secret Courtship (1954–1955) 97 8. New York and the Actors Studio (1954–1956) 112 9. Betrayal and Guilt (1950–1956) 126 10.Witch Hunt (1956–1958) 139 11. Marriage and England (1956–1957) 153 12. Heading for Disaster (1957–1960) 168 13. Billy Wilder and Yves Montand (1958–1960) 190 14. Making The Misfits (1960) 208 15. The Misfits: Life into Art (1960) 227 16. Something’s Got to Give (1961–1962) 241 17. Suicide (1962) 260 18. Miller’s Tragic Muse (1964–2004) 277 834O_tx.qxd 19/1/09 10:40 Page viii viii The Genius and the Goddess Appendix: Marilyn’s Illnesses and Hospitalizations 297 Notes 299 Bibliography 325 Index 331 834O_tx.qxd 19/1/09 10:40 Page ix Illustrations 1. Norma Jeane and her mother,Gladys Baker,Los Angeles beach, 1928 2. Norma Jeane and her first husband, Jim Dougherty, 1943 3. Arthur Miller, Norman Rosten, Hedda Rosten and Mary Slattery Miller, 1940 (Patricia Rosten Filan) 4. Miller with Mary and his children, Jane and Robert, 1953 5. Marilyn and Johnny Hyde, late 1949 6. Marilyn and Natasha Lytess, c.1952 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 7. Marilyn and Louis Calhern in The Asphalt Jungle, 1950 (© Underwood & Underwood/Corbis) 8. Marilyn with Anne Baxter,Bette Davis and George Sanders in All About Eve, 1950 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 9. Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio, 1953 10. Marilyn entertaining troops in Korea, February 1954 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 11. Marilyn with Milton and Amy Greene, 1955 12. Lee, Paula and Susan Strasberg, 1963 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 13. Marilyn in airport bathroom,April 1955 (Eve Arnold:Magnum) 14. Marilyn, signed studio photo, 1956 (Charlene Hess) 15. Marilyn in The Seven Year Itch, 1955 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 16. Marilyn and DiMaggio at premiere of The Seven Year Itch,June 1955 (© Sunset Boulevard/Sygma/Corbis) 17. Miller and Marilyn on their wedding day,with his parents,June 1956 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 834O_tx.qxd 19/1/09 10:40 Page x x The Genius and the Goddess 18. Miller and Marilyn,July 1956(© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis) 19. Miller and Marilyn in English garden, July 1956 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 20. Marilyn and Billy Wilder making Some Like It Hot, 1958 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 21. Marilyn with Isak Dinesen and Carson McCullers, February 1959 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 22. Miller and Marilyn with Simone Signoret and Yves Montand, January 1960 (© John Bryson/Sygma/Corbis) 23. Marilyn with President Sukarno, 1956 24. Dr. Ralph Greenson, c.1960 25. John Huston,Marilyn and Miller on the set of The Misfits,1960 (Frank Taylor Archive) 26. Frank Taylor, Miller, Eli Wallach, Huston, Montgomery Clift, Marilyn and Clark Gable on the set of The Misfits, 1960 (© Underwood & Underwood/Corbis) 27. Gable and Marilyn in The Misfits, 1960 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 28. Miller and Marilyn estranged in Reno hotel room, 1960 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 29. Marilyn’s crypt,Westwood Memorial Park,1962 (Valerie Meyers) 30. Miller and Elia Kazan, c.1963 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 31. Barbara Loden and Jason Robards in After the Fall, 1964 (Inge Morath © The Inge Morath Foundation/Magnum)