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Michael was astonished to see Reagan reading his speech off of the teleprompter. "I'd never seen it before. Everybody does it now. But it's an outrageous thing. It absolutely destroys the idea that the chap is making a real speech. Of course Reagan's delivery was amazing. He could give a very good speech."
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Carl Rollyson |
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Talk of Vanessa reminded Michael of the terrible 1963 accident. Vanessa and Jason (in the backseat) had escaped harm. "We were saved by the Health Service," Michael believed. Taken to the Hereford hospital, Michael regained consciousness and gave the staff there the name of their doctor and friend, Jerry Slattery, "a great supporter of the Health Service." Slattery knew how to work the system and called on specialist consultants. When Micha..
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Carl Rollyson |
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on an outdoor set, he watched a donkey braying at all the wrong moments, angering the sound technicians, who could not get the animal to perform on cue. (Walter loved to tell this story, and of course it got better every time he told it.) "I can bray," said Brennan, buttonholing the director. So he brayed, and both the director and the donkey were delighted. "How much?" Walter asked the director. "Ten bucks," came the reply. "Not enough," t..
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Carl Rollyson |
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January 15: Gladys is declared insane and committed to the Norwalk Mental Hospital.
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Carl Rollyson |
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January 15-16: Marilyn and Joe spend the first two days of their honeymoon at the Clifton Motel in Paso Robles. DiMaggio pays $6.50 a night for a room with a television. Marilyn's lawyer, Lloyd Wright, tells her the studio is going to lift her suspension.
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Carl Rollyson |
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January 15: Marilyn flies to New York, and Fox suspends her again. Joe DiMaggio also flies to New York.
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Carl Rollyson |
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January 15: Marilyn's lawyer sends a letter to Fox stating it has failed to honor its obligation to put her in a picture in 1957. She was now owed $100,000 for a picture she did not make, and she now owes Fox two pictures, not three. Fox points out that shooting of The Blue Angel was postponed at Marilyn's request.
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Carl Rollyson |
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January 15: Fox holds a press party for Yves Montand, who has been cast (at Arthur Miller's suggestion) to replace Gregory Peck in Let's Make Love. Marilyn seems in better health and ready to work. Group photographs are taken of Miller, Simone Signoret (Montand's wife), Montand, Marilyn, and Frankie Vaughan, a popular British singer, and Milton Berle, who also appears in Let's Make Love. Marilyn is photographed with producer Buddy Adler, go..
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Carl Rollyson |
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January 15: Marilyn and Joe eat dinner at the Le Pavilion restaurant, and then attend the closing night performance of The Hostage at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.
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Carl Rollyson |
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January 15: Columnist Bob Thomas publicizes Marilyn's doubts about the Something's Got to Give script.
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Carl Rollyson |
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January 19: Joe Wolhandler, vice-president of public relations firm Rogers & Cowan, writes Marilyn to tell her that the December 22, 1958, Life layout of her photographs sold more copies (6,300,000) than any other issue in the history of the magazine. More could have been sold, but no more copies were available.
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Carl Rollyson |
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Hazlitt, Swift, and Stendhal filled Michael with all sorts of conceits about the nature of love that grew to have for him a consecration of its own, perhaps best exemplified in Hazlitt's Liber Amoris, Michael's Bible of love and his justification for his affair with ''Lamia''.
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Carl Rollyson |
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Ursula wanted to know about how Michael was coping with Jill's death. Ursula knew that he had a regiment of women looking after him. I told him about Emma, the housekeeper-cook who had been married to two writers. She seemed to suit him perfectly. "Emma told me that he had stopped walking on the Heath [it had been a daily ritual]. But with me he's been walking. He walks ahead of us teasing that we can't keep up with him and Emma keeps pokin..
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Carl Rollyson |
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A letter from Brian Brivati, Gaitskill's biographer, led Michael to describe an incident at Porto Fino. On holiday there, Michael and Jill ran into Gaitskill, who was accompanied by one of Michael friends, Maurice Bowra, who had taught Gaitskill at Oxford. "We couldn't walk properly because every time we'd be cut by Gaitskill," who was evidently still sore about Michael's harsh criticisms of his party leadership. Gaitskill and Co. would go ..
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 11: Marilyn shows up for work, but is sent home because she seems unable to proceed.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 11: Actress Edith Evanson visits Marilyn's Brentwood home to work on the Swedish accent Marilyn is to use for her disguise as a maid in Something's Got to Give, an identity Marilyn's character adopts when returning home to her husband, who presumes she has died in an air crash. "Everything was dark, heavy and depressing. It had a creepy feeling about it but I thought nothing of it because she talked of her plans for decorating and ..
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Carl Rollyson |
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Whoopee!" Michael said as his barbecued fish arrived. "Look at that! Amazing." A meal was never just a meal; with Michael Foot it was a celebration. Nearly every mouthful got its own cry of satisfaction. I remembered, though, that on the boat he had been excited about the fishing and then sobered by seeing the fish pulled on board. He was going to eat it, but for that moment he did not like staring death in the face. Now, even with the whol..
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Carl Rollyson |
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I followed Michael upstairs to the living room, where Emma had prepared drinks. "I know we have some other matters [Michael's lovers] to talk to you about at some stage," he said, almost chuckling."
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Carl Rollyson |
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Brennan's contribution to The Wedding Night (March 8, 1935), starring Gary Cooper and Anna Sten--the Russian beauty Samuel Goldwyn was promoting as the next European import to rival Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich--was of a different order. The anxious producer, worried about Sten's accent (even though she was playing a Polish American), began to take notice of Brennan in a seemingly forgettable role he nevertheless freshened with his rapi..
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Carl Rollyson |
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A perkier bit at the beginning of a Three Stooges comedy, Restless Knights (February 20, 1935), has Brennan playing their father, decked out in a large night cap and a fake white beard, lying on his deathbed calling for his sons. He confesses in tremolo that they are of royal blood: "Years ago I was the royal chamberlain of the Kingdom of Anesthesia." Now, he urges them to offer their swords in service of their imperiled queen. The quality ..
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Carl Rollyson |
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Writing Michael's biography had not occurred to me when I first contacted him. I was not prepared for this conversation and dropped it. Julie warned me that I did not have quite as free a hand with Michael as I thought. When I repeated his oft expressed vow that he would not tamper with my book, she said, "Yea, but ... " In my enthusiasm about how the book was shaping up, I cut her off. It was still heady days, when Michael would wake up in..
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Carl Rollyson |
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My biography of Jill, the trips to Dubrovnik, were all part of Michael's effort to recoup his loss and turn it into a kind of celebration.
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Carl Rollyson |
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Sensation Hunters (January 3, 1934), features Brennan as a stuttering waiter in a nightclub, whose scenes usually end before he can finish a sentence. Dressed in a short cutaway jacket with a lock of hair curled in the middle of his forehead, he is ridiculously slow on the uptake when he is addressed ironically by his employer--"Hey, Handsome," "Hey, Honey"--as she brushes past him. Before he can say much, she is gone, leaving him to stare ..
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 14: Marilyn is photographed with Sidney Skolsky attending the wedding of gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, who appears in several two-shots with Marilyn.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 26: Grace McKee Goddard files papers to become Norma Jeane's legal guardian.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 26: Grace signs documents to prepare for Norma Jeane's release from the orphanage.
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Carl Rollyson |
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I suddenly asked him, "Why do you think you lost the election in 55?" A long silence ensued. "Not quite sure," he replied tersely several minutes later. Surely he lost because his views were out of sync with Plymouthians, a rather Conservative, even stuffy bunch, in Jill's opinion.1 He did not dwell on defeat--a healthy attitude, no doubt, but I had to wonder if his failure to examine election results indicated a certain wilful blindness to..
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 9: Gladys enters Rockhaven Sanitarium. Marilyn pays $250 a month to support her mother. Marilyn is honored as "A Rising Star" at the Photoplay Awards Dinner at the Crystal Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Sidney Skolsky accompanies her after Joe DiMaggio refuses to do so. Her gold lame dress causes a sensation. Columnist Florabel Muir writes that the dress seems painted onto Marilyn's body and is so striking (photographs of it are ..
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 9: Marilyn visits the Brady Airbase and is photographed with several women. She fits right in with her attire, which is like the conservative high-collar fashion displayed by the women who are pictured with her.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 9: In the company of Laurence Olivier, Marilyn calls a press conference in the Terrace Room of the Plaza Hotel to announce their joint project, The Sleeping Prince (later titled The Prince and the Showgirl). Publicity shows a smiling Marilyn, flanked by Olivier on her right and Rattigan on her left, gazing at her. In front of more than 150 reporters and photographers, one of the straps on her dress breaks, setting off a flurry of p..
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 9: Marilyn is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 9: Marilyn's institutionalization is reported in the press. She is permitted a call to Joe DiMaggio.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 9: Marilyn arrives at 6:00 p.m. for the photo shoot with Rizzo and apologizes, pleading extreme fatigue. Another appointment is scheduled for the next day.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 15: Marilyn appears on the cover of Votre Sante (France) in a close-up. Her hair is somewhat shorter than in earlier 1940s poses, but not yet perfected as the lighter, more subtly curled style featured in the 1950s.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 15: Marilyn accompanies Kazan and Miller to Santa Barbara for a preview of A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Kazan. Marilyn moves out of Natasha Lytess's apartment and into another apartment with Shelley Winters.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 15: Inez Melson, Marilyn's business manager, writes a memo about her conversation with Jo Brooks regarding Marilyn's offer to host a party for Ella Fitzgerald, but Fitzgerald's opening occurs when Marilyn is out of town, and Marilyn is not able to host the party.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 15: De Post (Belgium) puts a very business-like Marilyn, dressed in a black suit, on its cover.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 13: On its cover Se Og Hor (Denmark) features a shot of Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) and Marilyn (dressed in a fur stole and low-cut dress) smiling over a large manuscript.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 13: Marilyn and Yves Montand appear on the cover of Paris Match
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 13: Marilyn attends the premiere of Franco Zeffirelli's production of Romeo and Juliet at Manhattan's City Center. She attends a party afterward organized by Lee Strasberg. Marilyn arrives home at her 57th Street apartment at 2:30 a.m.
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Carl Rollyson |
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In the only picture Brennan ever did for the legendary director John Ford, the character actor worked well beside Ford stalwarts such as Ward Bond, playing one of Earp's brothers. Indeed, what is most remarkable about this film is the contrast between Clanton and his boys and Earp and his congenial brothers, the youngest of whom is killed when the Clanton gang rustles cattle the Earps have been driving to California. Brennan personifies the..
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 26: Picture Week features a smiling Marilyn in black-and-white, dressed casually in a loose blouse, resting the right side of her face on her hands and her upper body on her elbows. "A Glimpse into Marilyn's Future" is the promising headline. Joe DiMaggio takes Marilyn to a birthday party for Jackie Gleason at Toots Shor's restaurant. Marilyn is photographed signing autographs, laughing with Gleason and DiMaggio, and with a very sa..
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 20: Marilyn is crowned California Artichoke Queen in Salinas, California. Holiday features Marilyn poolside in swimsuits.
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Carl Rollyson |
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What miffed Brennan about working with Ford was the director's lack of respect for fellow professionals. Unlike Howard Hawks, Ford was not much of a collaborator. He never gave Brennan the feeling that they were in a project together. Hawks, on the other hand, treated Brennan as a crucial part of a film's success. In Red River (September 17, 1948), Brennan gets nearly as much screen time as John Wayne and co-star Montgomery Clift, in the ep..
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Carl Rollyson |