Crypt 33 by Adela Gregory

another even more revealing skeleton came out of her closet. A reporter got wind of the truth—that her mother was not dead, but alive in a sanitarium. Ashamed of her exposed deception, Marilyn confessed falsely that she had never known her mother and only recently discovered she was alive in a hospital. She wanted more than anything to disassociate herself from her younger days, but she was to find that the dark truths would always surface.
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    The front office could not find that right vehicle for the actress, but they wanted to keep her on the screen as much as possible to satisfy the public’s craving for her. The studio tried to find a new way to exploit its new and precious commodity. Zanuck was stuck on the idea of an episodic film based on O. Henry’s short stories. It would contain five different casts and require five different directors... a risky venture for any producer. Zanuck failed miserably in this impetuous attempt at creativity. The critics made a mockery out of his choice of material and the public panned the film.
    Producer and writer Nunnally Johnson wrote We’re Not Married , a light comedy directed by Edmund Goulding. Revered as a director, Goulding was also known for his ability to handle actresses. Although her performance in the film was not outstanding, Marilyn was an eyeful for her fans, and the film was a hit.
    The entire creative staff at Twentieth was challenged to generate yet one more vehicle for their box-office success. Her presence on screen commanded at least half a million dollars in revenues per film, a windfall even then. Nunnally Johnson, Charles Brackett, and Sol C. Siegel were the producers most enthralled by her potential.
    While Sol Siegel had Monkey Business in mind for Marilyn, Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer and I. A. L. Diamond added the jokes. Siegel had written Love Nest and later created the wild fantasy scenes in Some Like It Hot , one of Marilyn’s crowning achievements. Cary Grant, whose career had been on the skids, Ginger Rogers, and Charles Coburn would costar in Monkey Business .
    Grant portrays a biochemist who has a fling with his dopey but voluptuous secretary. The wardrobe department worked overtime, and designer Bill Travilla made certain the star’s garments were as provocative as possible. He cinched the waistlines and fashioned revealing bathing suits. Gladys Rasmussen and Whitey Snyder made up Marilyn’s team of beauty advisers.
    The film critics enjoyed Marilyn’s performance and her ability to hold her own with her costars, but the dull film wasn’t the box office bonanza that Twentieth was expecting.
    But as Kate Cameron stated for the New York Daily News , “Ginger and Cary are assisted in this amusing nonsense by Marilyn Monroe, who can look and act dumber than any of the screen’s current blondes.”
    Marilyn’s “dumb blonde” routine was gaining attention.

8
    The Actress and the Yankee Clipper
    M arilyn. was again isolating herself. Unrecognized without her makeup, on weekends she would take long, solitary walks down Sunset Boulevard. Her career was finally flourishing, but she had no one to love. She had become a workaholic since Johnny’s death, running away from her needs by plunging headlong into her acting. Fraught with ambivalence all her life, no sooner would Marilyn lament her regrettably lonely life-style than she would have to focus on the hectic next-day schedule. Whenever she felt empty or sad, she instantly blocked it out by focusing on her desire for success. Her childhood fantasy of becoming the most beautiful and successful actress had been replaced by the demands of actually becoming America’s most beautiful and successful actress. The daily push-pull of her drive/avoidance pattern wore her down to exhaustion. Several days after production had commenced on Monkey Business , Marilyn had come down with a high fever and stomach cramps. Her personal physician, Dr.