Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings by Craig Brown
Authors: Craig Brown
Tags: Humor, General, History, Biography & Autobiography, Cultural Heritage, Form, Rich & Famous, Anecdotes & Quotations
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horror, mentally totting up thecost. He notes with indignation that Wright has added a final flourish to his painting – a huge limousine in the curved driveway, complete with a uniformed chauffeur.
Miller asks the cost. Wright mentions $250,000, but Miller doesn’t believe him: it might cover the cost of the swimming pool, ‘if that’. He also notes that Wright’s ‘pleasure dream of Marilyn allowed him to include in this monster of a structure only a single bedroom and a small guestroom, but he did provide a large “conference room” complete with a long board-room-type table flanked by a dozen high-backed chairs, the highest at the head, where he imagined she would sit like the reigning queen of a small country, Denmark, say’. 36
The marriage goes from bad to worse. Miller and Monroe have nothing to say to each other. ‘He makes me think I’m stupid. I’m afraid to bring things up, because maybe I am stupid.’ Marilyn adds that ‘I’m in a fucking prison and my jailer is named Arthur Miller ... Every morning he goes into that goddamn study of his, and I don’t see him for hours and hours. I mean, what the fuck is he doing in there? And there I am, just sitting around; I haven’t a goddamn thing to do.’
Miller fails to give the go-ahead to Wright, who dies in April 1959. Miller and Monroe divorce in 1961; Monroe dies in August 1962.
Thirty years later, the plans are dusted off and enlarged. Marilyn’s dream home finally emerges as a $35-million golf clubhouse in Hawaii, complete wtih banqueting rooms, a men’s locker room and a Japanese furo bath with a soaking pool, not to mention seated showers.
MARILYN MONROE
WEARS HER TIGHTEST, SEXIEST DRESS FOR
NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
The Café de Paris, Hollywood
September 19th 1959
In her bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Marilyn Monroe is preparing to meet the Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev. When she was first invited, his name hadn’t rung a bell, and she wasn’t keen to go. It was only when her studio told her that in Russia, America meant two things, Coca-Cola and Marilyn Monroe, that she changed her mind. ‘She loved hearing that,’ recalls Lena Pepitone, her maid. Marilyn tells Lena that the studio wants her to wear her tightest, sexiest dress. ‘I guess there’s not much sex in Russia,’ she concludes.
Her preparations are lengthy and elaborate, involving a masseuse, a hairdresser and a make-up artist. When they are halfway through, the president of Twentieth Century-Fox, Spyros Skouras, arrives, just to make sure that, for once in her life, Marilyn will be on time. As agreed, she squeezes into a low-cut, skin-tight black lace dress. Her chauffeur drops her at the studio before noon. The parking lot is empty. ‘We must be late! It must be over!’ gasps Marilyn. In fact, they are far too early. 37
Nikita Khrushchev’s American tour has had more than its share of ups and downs. He is a temperamental character, apt to flair up at the slightest provocation. Perhaps because of this, the American media cannot get enough of him. ‘It’s Khrush, Khrushy, Khrushchev!’ writes a columnist for the New York Daily News . ‘The fellow’s all over the dials these days ... The pudgy Soviet dictator is smiling, laughing, scowling, shaking his forefinger or clenching his iron fist.’ Others have been less generous. A rival columnist in the New York Mirror describes him as ‘a rural doltunwittingly proving a case against himself and his system’. The three main television networks show live coverage of his visit, repeating it every night in special thirty-minute bulletins. He is followed everywhere by 342 reporters and photographers, the largest travelling media group the world has ever known.
On the fifth day of his tour, Khrushchev arrives in Los Angeles, in time for lunch for four hundred people at Twentieth Century-Fox. There has been such demand for places that spouses have been banned unless they also happen to be stars. There are one or
Miller asks the cost. Wright mentions $250,000, but Miller doesn’t believe him: it might cover the cost of the swimming pool, ‘if that’. He also notes that Wright’s ‘pleasure dream of Marilyn allowed him to include in this monster of a structure only a single bedroom and a small guestroom, but he did provide a large “conference room” complete with a long board-room-type table flanked by a dozen high-backed chairs, the highest at the head, where he imagined she would sit like the reigning queen of a small country, Denmark, say’. 36
The marriage goes from bad to worse. Miller and Monroe have nothing to say to each other. ‘He makes me think I’m stupid. I’m afraid to bring things up, because maybe I am stupid.’ Marilyn adds that ‘I’m in a fucking prison and my jailer is named Arthur Miller ... Every morning he goes into that goddamn study of his, and I don’t see him for hours and hours. I mean, what the fuck is he doing in there? And there I am, just sitting around; I haven’t a goddamn thing to do.’
Miller fails to give the go-ahead to Wright, who dies in April 1959. Miller and Monroe divorce in 1961; Monroe dies in August 1962.
Thirty years later, the plans are dusted off and enlarged. Marilyn’s dream home finally emerges as a $35-million golf clubhouse in Hawaii, complete wtih banqueting rooms, a men’s locker room and a Japanese furo bath with a soaking pool, not to mention seated showers.
MARILYN MONROE
WEARS HER TIGHTEST, SEXIEST DRESS FOR
NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
The Café de Paris, Hollywood
September 19th 1959
In her bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Marilyn Monroe is preparing to meet the Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev. When she was first invited, his name hadn’t rung a bell, and she wasn’t keen to go. It was only when her studio told her that in Russia, America meant two things, Coca-Cola and Marilyn Monroe, that she changed her mind. ‘She loved hearing that,’ recalls Lena Pepitone, her maid. Marilyn tells Lena that the studio wants her to wear her tightest, sexiest dress. ‘I guess there’s not much sex in Russia,’ she concludes.
Her preparations are lengthy and elaborate, involving a masseuse, a hairdresser and a make-up artist. When they are halfway through, the president of Twentieth Century-Fox, Spyros Skouras, arrives, just to make sure that, for once in her life, Marilyn will be on time. As agreed, she squeezes into a low-cut, skin-tight black lace dress. Her chauffeur drops her at the studio before noon. The parking lot is empty. ‘We must be late! It must be over!’ gasps Marilyn. In fact, they are far too early. 37
Nikita Khrushchev’s American tour has had more than its share of ups and downs. He is a temperamental character, apt to flair up at the slightest provocation. Perhaps because of this, the American media cannot get enough of him. ‘It’s Khrush, Khrushy, Khrushchev!’ writes a columnist for the New York Daily News . ‘The fellow’s all over the dials these days ... The pudgy Soviet dictator is smiling, laughing, scowling, shaking his forefinger or clenching his iron fist.’ Others have been less generous. A rival columnist in the New York Mirror describes him as ‘a rural doltunwittingly proving a case against himself and his system’. The three main television networks show live coverage of his visit, repeating it every night in special thirty-minute bulletins. He is followed everywhere by 342 reporters and photographers, the largest travelling media group the world has ever known.
On the fifth day of his tour, Khrushchev arrives in Los Angeles, in time for lunch for four hundred people at Twentieth Century-Fox. There has been such demand for places that spouses have been banned unless they also happen to be stars. There are one or
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