The film was produced and cowritten by Fox mainstay and Oscar-nominated screenwriter of The Grapes of Wrath, Nunnally Johnson, and directed by Jean Negulesco, also Oscar-nominated, as director of Johnny Belinda. Costumes were by Travilla under the direction of wardrobe supervisor Charles LeMaire, with both eventually receiving Oscar nominations.
When this movie was announced, the Hollywood press rubbed its collective hands together, practically salivating for a dustup between the queen of the Fox lot, Betty Grable, and the pretender to the throne—Marilyn Monroe. But they would be disappointed. They had not calculated the genuine unselfishness of Grable toward her ten-years-younger costar. In fact, she told the press that Marilyn “was a shot in the arm for Hollywood.”
Later, on the set during the shoot of Millionaire in front of witnesses, Betty reportedly told Marilyn, “Honey, I’ve had it. Go get yours. It’s your turn now.” If Betty now felt she was playing second fiddle to the upstart Marilyn, it was something she apparently felt no need to articulate.
The situation with Lauren Bacall was different. Only two years older than Marilyn, Bacall was a disciplined actress; she had been a star since she was nineteen and was said to be put off by Marilyn’s constant tardiness on the set, but she remained quiet and did not make an issue of it. But in her autobiography, By Myself, Bacall wrote about how irritating it was with Marilyn, prompted by Natasha Lytess sitting just off camera, calling for take after take, “often as many as 15 or more.” She wrote that she didn’t dislike Marilyn; that she had no meanness in her, no bitchery. “There was something sad about her,” Bacall wrote.
Still, Marilyn’s comic genius was on full display in How to Marry a Millionaire, as she achieved a level of physical comedy so subtle as to be almost invisible. Playing her nearsightedness for all it was worth, her sexy vulnerability raised the humor to new heights as she tripped over stairs and bumped into walls, her dignity intact. How to Marry a Millionaire would premiere in New York on October 29, and open nationally on November 5. It would wind up as the second highest grossing movie of 1953, after Columbia’s From Here to Eternity. The picture was a success with both the public and the critics, with Marilyn being singled out in the reviews for her beauty and comic timing. Over the years, Marilyn’s biographers and industry insiders have maintained that her true calling was comedy, and when one reassesses the Monroe filmography, it is hard to argue against that point.
River of No Return
Also at about this time, Marilyn made another film, River of No Return, with Robert Mitchum, directed by Otto Preminger.
Earlier, in 1949, the movie’s producer, Stanley Rubin, had been coaxed by film editor Danny Cahn to audition Marilyn for a TV show he was manning called Your Show Time. It was a series of short stories dramatized for television. After her reading, he thought Marilyn was beautiful, of course, but extremely nervous and inexperienced, thus he didn’t give her a job. However, he remembered her when it came time to cast this film. In fact, he says that he realized how much she’d improved after seeing some of her recent movies, and had the part in River written with her in mind. When he contacted her, Stanley says that she didn’t want to do the movie, “because she didn’t want to do what she thought was a western. I told her I thought of it as a piece of Americana, but she still figured it to be a western. However, when I sent her a tape of the songs she would be singing in the film, she said, yes, she would do it. So, really, she did it so that she could sing those songs more than for any other reason.”
Those who predicted the oil-and-water lack of chemistry between the autocratic Austrian-born director Otto Preminger and the sensitive, shy, insecure Marilyn would be right—to a point. Curiously, the director began the film seemingly quite pleased with Monroe as a person and artist, treating her on the set with truly European courtliness. However, by this time, Natasha Lytess had Marilyn reading her lines with exaggerated facial gymnastics, enunciating every syllable like a robot—and while no one liked it, no one could change it, either, not even Preminger. Again, the big problem on this set was the same as always—Natasha telling Marilyn how to act and usurping the director’s influence over her. It caused major problems between Marilyn and Preminger.
Set in the American Northwest during the gold rush, River of No Return depicts Matt Calder (Robert Mitchum), his young son Mark (eleven-year-old Tommy Rettig), and saloon gal Kay Weston (Marilyn) as they follow her ex, a handsome horse thief and gambler, Harry Weston (Rory Calhoun), who needs to get upriver to Council City to register a claim on a gold mine he has cheated another gambler out of. With no transportation and time running out, Kay and Harry make the trip via raft. The trip is fraught with gripping, heart- stopping action, including a swamping of the raft in the treacherous river rapids. Wringing wet, out of sorts and out of breath, Marilyn is still a vision.
Shot on location in two national parks in the Canadian Rockies—Banff Springs and Jasper in Alberta—in Technicolor, CinemaScope, and released initially in 3–D, River of No Return gives Marilyn, sexier and more sensuous than ever, a chance not only to flex her dramatic acting muscles, but to prove her real muscles are up to the physicality the script demands of her character, as she raft-rides the swirling, potentially deadly whitewater of the river of the movie’s title. Marilyn also sings four songs in the film and performs them admirably. She’s more than admirable in her acting. She’s forceful and vulnerable by turn as she comes to realize what a no-good rat Harry is and what a good man and father Matt is.
The ninety-minute film began shooting on July 28, returning to Hollywood on September 29 to complete the shoot. River of No Return would open toward the end of April 1954, to generally favorable reviews. *
PART FIVE
Difficult Times
Grace’s Upsetting Secret
One day in May 1953, Marilyn Monroe returned home from a day of shopping to find Grace Goddard’s car parked in front of her house. Grace was not in the habit of dropping by without calling first, so Marilyn must have suspected that something was wrong. “They were pretty inseparable during this time, after Gladys went back into the institution,” Grace’s stepdaughter, BeBe Goddard, confirmed. “I think Marilyn called her every single day. She still depended on her. Grace was doing office work for her, arranging her schedule, keeping things organized. Marilyn was always filling her in on what was going on at the studio or in her personal life with Joe. Grace loved hearing her stories, especially the show business stories. Everything that the two of them had dreamt about so long ago had come true. It almost seemed unfathomable that Norma Jeane had become this … sensation.”
After inviting Grace inside, Marilyn listened in stunned silence while her aunt shared a secret that she had been hiding from everyone in her life—she had cancer.
The concept of a life-threatening illness and its treatment was quite complex for Grace. She had been a Christian Scientist for a long time, and in recent years passionate about it. One of the core beliefs of the faith is that doctors are unnecessary. The body, as devout believers claim, has within it everything it needs to remain healthy. However, Grace had been feeling under the weather for many months and, despite her long-standing opposition to the medical profession, had secretly sought help at a Los Angeles clinic. That’s how she learned the devastating news that she had uterine cancer. Sadly, she was embarrassed by her condition and not sure how to cope with it.
