book to a lamp, emphasizing the first and last letter of each word. Marilyn, who adored working with Natasha, never missed a session.
When Harry Cohn failed to renew Marilyn’s contract, she rushed to Natasha’s apartment in despair. Marilyn hardly knew her coach, but she had no other friends and nowhere else to go. Marilyn was crying and Natasha guessed that she might be about to try something foolish. Natasha asked Marilyn to do her a favor. She asked her to promise that for the next twenty-four hours she would not be afraid. Years afterward, Natasha traced the start of their friendship to that moment.
Their working sessions exploded with emotion. Both women were totally invested in Marilyn’s ability to become a star, and Marilyn was often in tears. Natasha never tired of reminding her that she had picked her up when she was nothing and given her life. Constantly she reiterated that her lessons were more valuable than anything money could buy. She frequently complained that she was humiliated when people gave her credit for Marilyn’s sexy mannerisms. It hurt Marilyn when, as she often did, Natasha treated her as though she were an imbecile.
Natasha’s attitude toward Marilyn was deeply contradictory. On the one hand, she resented her own dependence on this girl, whom she thought so vulgar and inferior. On the other hand, Natasha spotted something unique in Marilyn, something she believed that she, the teacher, could shape and create. Natasha gave Marilyn books to read: Rilke, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Proust. She made her listen to recordings of Schubert and Brahms. Natasha, confident that she already was somebody, seemed angry that the world no longer treated her as it should.
Marilyn, by contrast, was struggling to become somebody. She wasn’t trying to regain her rightful place; she was trying to discover it.
For
Love Nest
and
Let’s Make It Legal
, Marilyn insisted on working out her entire performance—every word, gesture, breath, and eye movement—before she even met the director and other actors. She prepared for these small roles as though she had the lead. Natasha discovered early on that Marilyn had an instinct for recognizing when she was doing something right. At the same time, she could detect any kind of falseness in her own performance. It wasn’t something Marilyn had learned; she couldn’t really explain it. But an alarm just seemed to go off inside her when she finally discovered the correct approach.
Marilyn was a perfectionist—but at immense psychological cost. Sensing that something was wrong didn’t mean that Marilyn had any idea of how to fix it. Even if Natasha had been tempted, she would never have suggested that something Marilyn did was good just to make her feel better. Marilyn might have sensed her dishonesty, and that would have been fatal to the partnership. Marilyn was determined to keep working until she got things right; when she didn’t, which was quite often, a sense of desperation pervaded the room.
One consequence of all this pressure was Marilyn’s increasing dependency on drugs. She haunted the prescription counter at Schwab’s drugstore in Hollywood. She couldn’t sleep, so she took barbiturates. She felt drowsy, so she took amphetamines. From the time Marilyn began to menstruate, she had suffered severe monthly pain, which doctors later attributed to the presence of endometrial tissue in areas other than the uterus, a condition called endometriosis. As she grew older, not only did the pain increase, but she built up a tolerance to medication, driving her to ever larger doses. She experimented with different kinds of pills. More and more, a diet of painkillers, tranquilizers, and stimulants left Marilyn perilously on edge.
In these months, the photograph of Arthur Miller remained on the bookshelf over Marilyn’s bed, a reminder of why she drove herself so hard. She told herself that Arthur might see one of her movies in New York. She imagined he would go to
When Harry Cohn failed to renew Marilyn’s contract, she rushed to Natasha’s apartment in despair. Marilyn hardly knew her coach, but she had no other friends and nowhere else to go. Marilyn was crying and Natasha guessed that she might be about to try something foolish. Natasha asked Marilyn to do her a favor. She asked her to promise that for the next twenty-four hours she would not be afraid. Years afterward, Natasha traced the start of their friendship to that moment.
Their working sessions exploded with emotion. Both women were totally invested in Marilyn’s ability to become a star, and Marilyn was often in tears. Natasha never tired of reminding her that she had picked her up when she was nothing and given her life. Constantly she reiterated that her lessons were more valuable than anything money could buy. She frequently complained that she was humiliated when people gave her credit for Marilyn’s sexy mannerisms. It hurt Marilyn when, as she often did, Natasha treated her as though she were an imbecile.
Natasha’s attitude toward Marilyn was deeply contradictory. On the one hand, she resented her own dependence on this girl, whom she thought so vulgar and inferior. On the other hand, Natasha spotted something unique in Marilyn, something she believed that she, the teacher, could shape and create. Natasha gave Marilyn books to read: Rilke, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Proust. She made her listen to recordings of Schubert and Brahms. Natasha, confident that she already was somebody, seemed angry that the world no longer treated her as it should.
Marilyn, by contrast, was struggling to become somebody. She wasn’t trying to regain her rightful place; she was trying to discover it.
For
Love Nest
and
Let’s Make It Legal
, Marilyn insisted on working out her entire performance—every word, gesture, breath, and eye movement—before she even met the director and other actors. She prepared for these small roles as though she had the lead. Natasha discovered early on that Marilyn had an instinct for recognizing when she was doing something right. At the same time, she could detect any kind of falseness in her own performance. It wasn’t something Marilyn had learned; she couldn’t really explain it. But an alarm just seemed to go off inside her when she finally discovered the correct approach.
Marilyn was a perfectionist—but at immense psychological cost. Sensing that something was wrong didn’t mean that Marilyn had any idea of how to fix it. Even if Natasha had been tempted, she would never have suggested that something Marilyn did was good just to make her feel better. Marilyn might have sensed her dishonesty, and that would have been fatal to the partnership. Marilyn was determined to keep working until she got things right; when she didn’t, which was quite often, a sense of desperation pervaded the room.
One consequence of all this pressure was Marilyn’s increasing dependency on drugs. She haunted the prescription counter at Schwab’s drugstore in Hollywood. She couldn’t sleep, so she took barbiturates. She felt drowsy, so she took amphetamines. From the time Marilyn began to menstruate, she had suffered severe monthly pain, which doctors later attributed to the presence of endometrial tissue in areas other than the uterus, a condition called endometriosis. As she grew older, not only did the pain increase, but she built up a tolerance to medication, driving her to ever larger doses. She experimented with different kinds of pills. More and more, a diet of painkillers, tranquilizers, and stimulants left Marilyn perilously on edge.
In these months, the photograph of Arthur Miller remained on the bookshelf over Marilyn’s bed, a reminder of why she drove herself so hard. She told herself that Arthur might see one of her movies in New York. She imagined he would go to
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