Hollywood’s final flames. Legends from a set of ghosts

It may well be true that summer is the best time to read or reread, or watch or rewatch, the classics – especially those we assume we remember down to the smallest detail. It is an interesting exercise as it reveals something about ourselves and the changes we have undergone. The work remains the same; it is the reader or viewer, if anything, who has changed. This was confirmed to me a few days ago while re-watching John Huston’s The Misfits. Convinced that I remembered the plot, the most significant scenes and the characters portrayed by a legendary cast, I had assumed I might not make it to the end credits, yet I found myself completely absorbed, just as I was the first time. I had sensed the mythical aura surrounding the film even back then, when I saw it on television many years ago—if only because it was Marilyn Monroe’s final film—but at the time I did not know the behind-the-scenes story of its making; I did not know how much torment, how much ambiguity, how much anxiety had characterised the ninety days (fifty had been planned) of filming.

It is not always true that a work stands on its own; sometimes, understanding the genesis of its creation enhances its significance, and never has this been more true than in this case, where knowledge of the “making of” The Misfits (what a title!) is not merely necessary but, indeed, essential. The idea for the film originated in Reno, Nevada, the capital of quickie weddings and almost equally swift divorces. This is why Arthur Miller found himself forced to spend the six-week stay required to secure a divorce from his first wife there. From the ranch he had rented, the writer set off to explore the desert, visit bars and attend rodeos. He meets three cowboys who, instead of rearing livestock, hunt wild horses destined for dog and cat food, and writes a short story about them for Life. He titles it Mustang: ‘I wanted to write about people who no longer had a place in the world, like those wild horses’. Two years later, the short story became a screenplay in which the fragile, emotional, wonderful character of Roslyn (barely mentioned in the story) emerged; Miller modelled her on Marilyn, who had become his second wife. It is a role entirely different from those MM had played up to that point: on screen there would be none of the usual saccharine blonde, but a thirty-year-old misfit (or perhaps ‘misfit’, which is more in keeping with the original title), a misfit who, like the other protagonists, cannot find her place or her role in the world. She does, however, possess something they lack: a sensitivity so pure and authentic that it enchants anyone who comes near her. Roslyn is Norma Jean; no one else could play her: the same difficult childhood, the same anguish, the same terror of abandonment. It is a gift of love that is almost frightening; indeed, Marilyn has her doubts – she is not convinced, even whilst aware that this is the role that will mark her breakthrough. In the end, she agrees to bare her soul on the condition that the director is to her liking; she wants someone with whom she feels at ease. The choice, inevitable as it is, falls on the first person who placed his trust in her when she was starting out, and so fate decrees that John Huston will be the director of both Marilyn Monroe’s first and last films.

Filming began in Reno on 18 July 1960. The temperature reached 40°, and most of the scenes were shot on location. Marilyn has just finished the very long shoot for Cukor’s “Let’s Make Love” with Yves Montand (with whom she is having a scandalous love affair); she is tired and worn out, and is using and abusing psychotropic drugs, sleeping tablets to help her sleep, and amphetamines to stay awake. More than two years had passed since the screenplay was written, and her relationship with Miller had worn thin; the romantic feelings that had inspired the writing had faded. Marilyn was no longer the same; Huston would not be dealing with the shy twenty-year-old she had given her debut to in The Asphalt Jungle, but with an idolised yet insecure superstar, adored yet depressed, in the throes of an existential and emotional crisis (she has always reminded me of a little girl forced to bear the burden of her own unwitting divinity, Marilyn, like a little Tibetan Buddha)) with whom it would be no easy task to work. The film’s other leading actors, with the exception of Eli Wallach—who plays Guido, the war-veteran cowboy pilot—are no better off… Clark Gable, approaching sixty, has heart problems, smokes three packets of cigarettes a day and needs to shed the fifteen kilos he put on whilst filming The Bay of Naples with Sophia Loren. Montgomery Clift, as Marilyn put it when she saw him arrive: ‘He’s the only person I know who’s in a worse state than I am’, is on the brink of the abyss. He, too, is no longer the same after the car crash that changed him inside and out. He takes drugs and abuses alcohol. They are perfect misfits; they might not even need to deliver their lines, so painful and eloquent do their faces appear. And indeed, each of their performances is memorable; the script reserves scenes for each of them that are hard to forget. Take, for example, Perce/Clift’s long telephone call with his mother, the result of a single, unrepeatable take (who better than Monty Clift for the role of a self-destructive rodeo cowboy pining for his mother…?), or the famous sequence of Marilyn alone in the lunar desert, shouting “Murderers! Murderers!’ at the three men who have captured the horses (but also the one where she plays paddle in the pub, surrounded by men’s stares…). Clark Gable himself (who’d never been asked for talent—his face was enough) demonstrates surprising acting skills, especially in the heart-wrenching scene where, absolutely plastered, he cries out his despair as an absent and guilty father (nevertheless, I still believe that Robert Mitchum, the first choice, would have been better. Mitchum is always better than anyone else). Arthur Miller’s literary intrusiveness has often been criticised, but on listening to certain lines again, one cannot help but lament the loss of such meticulous attention to the words placed in a character’s mouth: “We’re all dying,” Roslyn tells Guido/Wallach during a languid dance, “every minute brings us closer to death,” and here we cannot help but be moved by what we know will happen in reality, just as when Gay/Gable says: “You have the gift for life, Roslyn” and, immediately afterwards, raising a glass in her honour, adds: “Here’s to your life, Roslyn, I hope it goes on forever”; it is difficult to hold back the tears.

Of all the legends (yes, that is the right word) surrounding the making of the film – from Marilyn’s notorious tardiness, where, having been summoned to the set at nine, she would not turn up (when she did turn up…) before eleven, to the extent that she had become the subject of sarcastic bets amongst the crew: “Will she turn up today…?”, to the sandstorms that disrupted filming, the unbearable heat, Gable refusing to use a stunt double and risking breaking his bones, Huston’s refusal to shoot in a studio or use colour, insisting on black and white (as well as shooting in sequence, an immeasurable luxury), and who, after gruelling days’ work, would squander his last reserves of energy (and money) at the casino; and the insurance companies’ refusal to cover Montgomery Clift because he was deemed unreliable. Of all these legends, two struck me more than the others.

The first concerns the notorious presence – contractually imposed by Marilyn – of Paula Strasberg, acting coach, co-founder of the Actor’s Studio alongside her husband Lee, and the actress’s constant shadow for over seven years. Fifty-year-old Paula (who looks twenty years older in the photo) arrives in Reno preceded by her reputation. Anyone who has worked with Marilyn knows what to expect; the echoes of the thunderous outbursts of Billy Wilder or Laurence Olivier still reverberate through the industry – the only directors who had the courage to fire her, only to rehire her later so as not to risk losing Monroe. Monroe does not take a single step without her consent, does not repeat a line without her approval, and does not seek the director’s assent but hers – Paula’s – who, just like the director, stands beside the camera. She is nicknamed ‘the Black Baron’ because of her standard attire: a black overcoat, hat and sunglasses. She always carries a bag containing a flask of coffee, chocolate bars and tablets for her protégée. She wanders around the set like a Victorian ghost and keeps tabs on everything, bolstered by the power she wields over Marilyn, who can only overcome her panic attacks, memory lapses and insecurities if she knows Paula is by her side – which is why Miller, albeit grudgingly, puts up with her.

Whilst learning the method at the Actor’s Studio in New York, Paula and her husband Lee capitalised on Monroe’s vulnerabilities, convincing her to turn them into strengths; not to hide her pain but, on the contrary, to make use of it; to prioritise being over pretending to be (one can well imagine the impatience of an actor such as Laurence Olivier on this matter…). The problem is that when the pain resurfaces, a simple ‘Stop!’ from the director is not enough to drive it away. While her personal tragedies helped Marilyn Monroe to be credible on stage, Norma Jean Baker fell apart. Strasberg’s manipulation of Marilyn was total: she was the one who decided what clothes she should wear, what food she should eat, and who she should speak to. In fact, she isolates her from the rest of the cast and, most chillingly, has herself called ‘Mum’, exploiting the most painful void in MM’s life. Everyone detests her. Huston, who has seen it all, puts up with it (at the end of the film he’ll say: ‘There were two directors on set; one of them had never directed a film in his life’).

The photos taken on set speak volumes, and this brings us to the second legendary event: the exceptional presence, throughout the entire shoot, of nine photographers from the Magnum agency (an event never repeated), including Cartier-Bresson, Haas, Erwitt, and Inge Morath (who would marry Arthur Miller shortly after the film wrapped: this, too, is a significant detail regarding the energy that flowed on set…), tasked with documenting the making of the film. The material produced forms part of the history of cinema and photography and offers us a first-hand account of a twilight – the twilight of the Hollywood gods. Gable, who suffered a heart attack two days before filming ended, died shortly afterwards. He would never see the film of which he was so proud. Monty Clift was a man adrift, destined for what would come to be known as ‘Hollywood’s longest suicide’. As for Marilyn, we know – and undoubtedly those who had been by her side during the filming of her last film had witnessed the inexorable decline that awaited her. Huston recounts that after being discharged from hospital following admission for a severe bout of depression – which had forced the production to halt filming for two weeks – she had returned to work, but the situation had not improved in the slightest: “One Sunday afternoon I went to visit her in her suite to get an idea of what to expect for the coming week. She was wearing a grubby nightdress, her hair was dishevelled, and her hands and feet were dirty. She greeted me euphorically, then fell into a sort of trance. She was in the worst state I had ever seen her in.”

One is left wondering how Huston managed to complete the filming of "The Misfits", and, even more surprisingly, to turn it into such a beautiful, magnificent ghost film.