My Story by Marilyn Monroe, Ben Hecht Page B

it. And even though my part was a minor one, I felt as if I were the most important performer in the picture when I was before the camera. This was because everything I did was important to the director, just as important as everything the stars of the picture did.
    Johnny Hyde was as excited as I was during the shooting. He kept telling me, “This is it, honey. You’re in. Everybody is crazy about your work.”
    When the picture was previewed, all the studio heads went to see it. It was a fine picture. I was thrilled by it. The biggest thrill, though, was myself. The audience whistled at me. They made “wolf noises.” They laughed happily when I spoke. They liked me very much.
    It’s a nice sensation to please an audience. I sat in the theater with Johnny Hyde. He held my hand. We didn’t say anything on the way home. He sat in my room beaming at me. It was as if he had made good on the screen, not me. It was not only because I was his client and his “discovery.” His heart was happy for me. I could feel his unselfishness and his deep kindness. No man had ever looked on me with such kindness. He not only knew me, he knew Norma Jean, too. He knew all the pain and all the desperate things in me. When he put his arms around me and said he loved me, I knew it was true. Nobody had ever loved me like that. I wished with all my heart that I could love him back.
    I told him about my love affair that had just ended and about all the pain I had felt. The affair was over in every way but one. It made it hard to love again. Johnnywas even kind about this. He didn’t scream and carry on. He understood. He didn’t blame or criticize. Life was full of mix-ups and wrong starts, he said. He would wait for my heart to get strong again and wait for me to love him, if I could.
    Kindness is the strangest thing to find in a lover—or in anybody. Johnny’s kindness made him seem the most wonderful human being I’d ever met.
    â€œThe first thing to do,” he said to me the next day, “is get you a contract with Metro.”
    â€œDo you think you can?” I asked.
    â€œThey’ve got a new star on their hands,” said Johnny, “and they know it. Everybody is raving about your work. Most of all, you saw and heard that audience. They bought you as I’ve never seen any small part player bought in a picture before.”
    A week later Johnny said to me, “I don’t want you to feel depressed, honey. We’ve had a temporary setback.”
    â€œMetro doesn’t want me,” I said.
    â€œYou guessed it,” Johnny smiled at me. “It’s fantastic. I’ve been talking to Dore Schary all week. He likes your work. He thinks you’ve done a wonderful job, in fact. But he said you’re not star material. He says you’re not photogenic, that you haven’t got the sort of looks that make a movie star.”
    â€œMaybe he’s right,” I said. “Mr. Zanuck said the same thing when 20th dropped me.”
    â€œHe’s wrong,” said Johnny. “And so was Zanuck. I have to laugh when I think how wrong they are and how they’ll both eat their words someday—and someday soon.”
    Johnny laughed, but I didn’t. It was frightening—to be up so high in your hopes and then take another tumble back to no work, no prospects, no money, and nowhere. But I didn’t quite take the full tumble this time. I wasn’t alone. I had Johnny with me. I wasn’t merely Johnny’s client, or even his sweetie. I was a Cause he had. That’s how my friend swarmed all over the studios.
    My heart ached with gratitude, and I would have cut my head off for him. But the love he hoped for wasn’t in me. You might as well try to make yourself fly as to make yourself love. But I felt everything else toward Johnny Hyde, and I was always happy to be with him. It was like being with a whole family and belonging to a