would have to do, she was told, was look pretty and pour drinks for Schenck’s friends, perhaps also give them a few cigars, but that was it. It sounded easy enough and also like a great opportunity, so she agreed. Of course, that’s not all that was going on at the party, as Marilyn found out once she got there. Some of the ladies present—all models and aspiring actresses—were willing and able to give themselves to any of the male guests since most of them were power players in show business. Marilyn, though, stayed close to Schenck. By the time the evening was over, he was mad for her, saying she “has an electric quality… she sparkles and bubbles like a fountain.” The next day, he sent a limousine to pick her up and drive her to have dinner with him. That night, she had sex with him.
“I can’t say that I enjoyed it,” Marilyn later told her movie stand-in, Evelyn Moriarty, of her assignation with Schenck. “But I can say that I didn’t feel as if I had any choice.” She said that she felt the whole event had been “very tawdry” and that she felt “terrible about it. It was like giving up my soul.” However, she also allowed that she was starting to understand what she called “the Hollywood game” and she knew she had no choice but to play it if she were ever to make a name for herself in show business. It was a sad realization, she said. “But it’s the truth,” she concluded. She and Schenck continued their relationship off and on for some time, and, by some accounts, eventually she grew quite fond of him.
Schenck persuaded Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn to take a look at Marilyn’s screen test. Cohn wasn’t that interested. However, her test footage started circulating through the studio system, and eventually ended up on the desk of Columbia talent head Max Arnow. Also unimpressed by it, he asked one of the studio’s drama coaches, Natasha Lytess, to take a look. She wasn’t thrilled either—it seemed that no one was impressed. Lytess noted that Marilyn seemed to suffer from a lack self-confidence. However, there was still something interesting about her, Natasha thought. Her quality was difficult to describe, but it had to do with her beauty and vulnerability. She wanted to work with her, believing that “perhaps she has some potential.” Harry Cohn decided to offer Marilyn a six-month contract at $125 a week beginning on March 9, 1948. Suddenly, she was signed to Columbia Pictures.
At the beginning of her work with Natasha, Marilyn was pretty much a clean slate upon which could be painted any artistic vision. “As a person, she was almost totally without fortitude,” Natasha would say of her. “You could say she was someone afraid of her own shadow, so terribly insecure, so socially uncomfortable and shy, and never knowing what to say. She would ask me, ‘What should I say?’
“I tried to get her to draw upon herself, to go into her own experiences, but I don’t believe she ever did. Marilyn denied who she really was, except for her sex appeal which she had confidence in. She knew it worked—and she was as graceful with her appeal as a swimmer or a ballerina.”
“I want to recreate you,” Natasha told Marilyn. “I shall mold you into the great actress I suspect—though I must say I do not know—you can be. But to do so,” she told her, “you must submit to me. Do you understand?” Her Sapphic intentions were clear.
Marilyn understood. However, she was not going to comply. She had submitted to Joe Schenck and regretted it, even if it did serve a valuable purpose in her career. She quickly determined that she was not going to do the same for Natasha Lytess. Still, she didn’t want to say no—not yet.
In the environment between an acting teacher and student, many emotions come into play. Student and teacher access feelings and transfer them into characters, into roles—and, sometimes, into each other. One day, according to Natasha’s unpublished memoir, she embraced Marilyn and told her, “I want to love you.” Marilyn’s response was, “You don’t have to love me, Natasha—just as long as you work with me.” For years, Marilyn was used to giving women what they wanted—Ida, Gladys, Grace. It was as if she had now drawn a line.
Helena Albert was a student of Natasha’s at this time, and also a confidante. “Natasha often blurred the lines,” she recalled. “She did with me, as well. But when Marilyn came into the picture, everyone else paled in comparison. I felt that Marilyn should have backed away when she knew how much Natasha cared for her, but instead I think she used it to her advantage. It was torture for Natasha—but not so bad for Marilyn. She had a good teacher, a smart woman in her life—someone to emulate, to learn from. You can’t blame her for wanting it to last. I actually cornered her about it.”
According to Helena, she went to Natasha’s office one day for a meeting. Just as she got to the cottage, Natasha was leaving it in tears. “I can’t see you now,” she said as she brushed by. Helena went into the cottage and found Marilyn sitting in a chair, staring into space with a faraway expression.
“Is everything all right?” she asked Marilyn.
Marilyn just continued to look straight ahead.
“No, it’s
“It’s more complicated than that,” Helena allowed. “And you know it, Marilyn.”
“No, it’s not,” Marilyn said. She rose and faced her. “You don’t always get what you want in this life, Helena,” she said. “I have wanted many things and have not gotten most of them. Do you know what I think? I think Natasha is spoiled. I think she has always gotten what she’s wanted, and doesn’t know how to handle it when she can’t.”
It was clear not only that Marilyn had lost her patience with Natasha, but also that she was cold to her and not very empathetic about her feelings. After spending so many years suppressing her emotions and trying to be what others wanted her to be, perhaps she didn’t understand why Natasha couldn’t do the same thing. She gathered her things and, before leaving, turned to face Helena. “If you see her, tell her I’m sorry,” she said, “but there’s nothing I can do about it. Tell her I hope she’ll continue with me, but if not, I will try to understand.” With that, she took her leave.
“The truth is, my life, my feelings were very much in her hands,” Natasha Lytess said many years later. “I was the older woman, the teacher, but she knew the depth of my attachment to her, and she exploited those feelings as only a beautiful, younger person can. She said she was the needy one. Alas, it was the reverse. My life with her was a constant denial of myself.”
And thus it would remain—for six more long years.
