Colin Clark - My Week With Marilyn

Luckily APJ is so loud-mouthed and overbearing that they would much rather disobey him. I have promised to get there really early tomorrow morning and go over the details again. I do remember from the days of Gaby Pascal and Jean Simmons 33 Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. that once show business retinues get on the move, it is very hard to influence them or deflect them. They are like rivers. They jolly well go where they want to, so you have to make the banks good and high. London Airport is very big and if we lose control there will be chaos. The police are efficient and charming, but like all men in uniform they will take orders from anyone in authority. It’s going to be a close-run thing.

APJ did have one success out there, I must admit. So oogle-eyed are the junior cops about MM that four motorcycle riders have volunteered to escort her car from the airport to Englefield Green. Evidently that is an honour never granted to anyone before except visiting royalty. I hope MM is impressed. It is not the sort of thing SLO and Mr P meant by minimum fuss, but I must agree it sounds exciting.

SATURDAY, 14 JULY

The first problem was that it rained.

After all the fine weather we’ve had, a light rain was falling when I woke up and it got heavier. I got to the airport early and went straight to the police office to make everything as clear as possible. But within an hour APJ and his minions were there trying to make everything as confused as possible.

Milton Greene arrived, very nervous, and was all too ready to listen to APJ’s panicky lies. Quite soon he too was trying to change the plans around. Rupert Allan also had ideas of his own, even if they were expressed a bit more calmly.

Luckily I had Plod on my side, and he could speak to the police in their own language. But he is so unflappable and monosyllabic that we often did not get heard.

As the time of arrival grew near, everyone began to get very crazy. MM is like Desdemona: ‘It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she was wont and makes men mad.’ 34 Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

By the time the plane from New York actually landed there were reporters everywhere. The first I saw of them was a bunch of yelling waving men in raincoats in Immigration. The Customs officers had lost their heads and been swept away. I suppose the very thought of searching MM’s person had been too much for them.

In the middle of this rabble stood Arthur Miller, teeth clenched on an unlit pipe, grinning like an amiable crocodile. The girl he had his arm around was unmistakably Marilyn Monroe. She looked so exactly like her publicity photographs – blonde hair, white face, scarlet lips in a pout – that it was hard to see the person. Added to this she had on huge very dark dark-glasses.

Poor woman. She must have been very tired after the flight. I suppose her life is permanent chaos. As for Jacobs, on whom she depends for help and guidance, he clearly had only one aim – namely to create the maximum confusion and even physical danger. Then he could step in and appear to save her from the very problems he himself had generated. In the blur of faces and cameras, he would be the only one she would recognise, and turn to with gratitude.

AM had clearly decided to grin whatever happened and be steered by the crowd. He recognised no one, not even APJ.

Milton Greene was too small to have any effect. Plod and I are total unknowns. We flung ourselves into the crowd and only added to the confusion.

Somehow the police managed to steer this whole mad rabble into the hall set up for the press conference where SLO and Vivien were waiting. I left the main group and went to defend Vivien, with Gilman, as the riot spread all over the room. MM and AM were lifted bodily onto the podium, and I was glad to see one of the cops giving APJ a good jab in the solar plexus. (He later threatened to have all the police at Heathrow fired!) Everyone was shouting at once and MM just looked confused and frightened. Finally Rupert Allan got onto the stage and quietened them all down. He announced that MM would make a short statement and then leave for a private destination to rest, until the main press conference at the Savoy tomorrow. Then MM took off her dark glasses and gave that famous smile and every flash bulb in the room popped at once creating such a blinding flash that she put the glasses back on immediately.

In a breathy little girl’s voice, MM said that she was very glad to be in England at last, with her husband (looking fondly at Arthur), and how excited she was to be making a film with SLO. SLO got up to reply but no one took any notice and they all started yelling questions at MM. So he gave up and we literally strong-armed it to the exit.

MM and AM got into the Princess with Milton and APJ and they swished off with the four motorbike policemen in dangerously close formation. SLO and Vivien got into the Bentley with Gilman and followed right behind. I had to go to get the Bristol with Plod so the press cars got in between us.

When we arrived at Parkside House the press were lined up outside the gate with the four cops preventing them from going in. Plod persuaded them to let us through and we found AM and MM and SLO outside the front door on the gravel.

AM whispered in MM’s ear, MM whispered to Milton and he nodded. Then he sent me over to the reporters to tell them they could all come up the drive for one last photo. MM and AM stood in the doorway and smiled, arm in arm, before disappearing inside. Plod and I followed and Milton introduced Plod (but not me) to MM and AM. I don’t think MM took in a word, but as Plod is going to live in her house she will soon get used to him.

‘Well, we are going to bed,’ said AM with a huge leer.

I thought this pretty vulgar. I saw MM notice it without much pleasure, but she pretended not to catch on so perhaps she is smarter than she looks. AM certainly doesn’t behave like America’s most eminent intellectual. More like an overgrown schoolboy. But MM has a very appealing aura, even if physically she is not my type. A bit too exaggerated.

Before SLO left he had said: ‘I hope things are better organised tomorrow.’

I’ll do my best but I think that even he has underestimated the press hunger for MM.

SUNDAY, 15 JULY

Except for the large crowd outside – and who organised that I wonder – the press conference was orderly. In fact it was predictable and dull. SLO arrived without Vivien. He was already in a bad temper – nose out of joint, perhaps? Mr P came sniffing around to have a look at how things were going on and a squint at MM. Irving Stein and APJ were already there – what a pair. APJ had clearly lost centre stage to Milton, who arrived with MM and AM.