Part Four

To avoid the press as much as possible, Marilyn flew to Juarez, Mexico, on January 20 with her publicist Patricia Newcomb to end her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller. Taking Newcomb's suggestion, President Kennedy's Inauguration Day was chosen. During a two-hour layover at Dallas, the pair sat unrecognized in the airport's lounge and watched the president's swearing-in on television.

Walter Hawver's January 23 column "Rod Serling, who just got through saying he had enough of T.V. writing, has agreed to do the script for Marilyn Monroe's T.V. debut in Rain. The show is scheduled to be taped in March with Fredric March and his wife Florence Eldridge as MM's co-stars. N.B.C. plans to wait until fall to screen the program." That same day, internal MCA memos gave the go-ahead to proceed with contract negotiations. NBC had submitted their contract draft on January 17 to the agency. Aaron Frosch and George Chasin each received a copy and returned it to MCA on January 31 with revisions and details filled in.

By January 31, the Marches were on board except for the issue of equal billing in size and placement. March wanted billing before and the same as Monroe, but her contract specifically gave this position to her alone. M.C.A. didn't bother Monroe with this detail as she attended the premiere of The Misfits at the Capitol Theater with co-star Montgomery Clift. Photographs taken that night show her looking tired and somewhat melancholy.

The next day, M.C.A. announced that she and Strasberg had approved the Marches as Reverend and Mrs. Davidson, Rod Serling as the writer, George Roy Hill as director, and Leonard Blair as co-producer with Ann Marlowe.

Rod Serling spent three years as a paratrooper in WW2 before entering Ohio State University, where he began writing and selling radio scripts during his sophomore year. Upon graduation, he turned to television, where he scripted many shows on numerous anthology series before winning an Emmy in 1955, eventually leading him to create The Twilight Zone series in 1959. Serling had finished the current season's scripts and had time to devote to the project. To be paid $25,000 for his services, Serling turned in a script in February, though he would wait to sign his contract for another thirty days. Serling later told reporters, "I agreed to write it when N.B.C. told me it was for Monroe and the Marches, that they wanted an updated story, something that would come out fresh. I went back to the Maugham story but never looked at the play. But, my Sadie Thompson is not exactly Maugham's - she's a beautiful lost woman; she's Monroe."

George Roy Hill was a former Marine pilot who went to dramatic school on the GI Bill and toured off-Broadway and in Shakespeare Rep before interrupting his career to serve in the Korean War. Upon his return, Hill began writing and directing for television, including the Emmy-winning A Night to Remember, The Helen Morgan Story, and Judgment at Nuremberg. His Broadway debut, directing 1957's Look Homeward Angel, won a Pulitzer Prize, and he had just finished Tennessee Williams' Period of Adjustment when tapped for Rain. With early television productions like a stage play, Marilyn may have felt comfortable with Hill's experience as a director and former actor, enabling him to see both sides of the coin and hopefully sympathize with any difficulties Marilyn might have.

Negotiations proceeded smoothly, with the final hold-up that filming was completed no later than April 7 so Marilyn could return to Fox to begin filming her last commitment from her 1955 Fox contract.

Details were finalized on February 7 in the final meeting with N.B.C. regarding her contract.  Her salary would be the highest-paid actor (at the time) for a television production, though the ninety-minute program was the length of a theatrical film. Marilyn was to receive $150,000 (not the $100,000-$125,000 previously reported) for the first run of the show and an additional $75,000 if it repeated, plus 25% of net profits from the second showing. Also previously published, including Earl Wilson's February 6 column, of Marilyn donating her entire salary to the Actor's Studio for scholarships. $225,000 (minus commissions and taxes) would flow into the Studio coffers. Lee was approved as Artistic Director, and Paula as Monroe's private drama coach (a position she'd held since Bus Stop.) The couple were to receive $25,000 for the first showing and $12,500 for the second, with Lee possibly receiving billing, but Paula would not.

Marilyn was given final control over the producer, executive producer, set designer, wardrobe designer, costumer, and script (plus revisions), with them assigning top cameramen, writer, and principal cast members. She would surround herself with familiar faces on set. Sydney Gulliaroff creates her hairstyles, Whitey Snyder, her make-up artist since her first screen test; Agnes Flanigan, Snyder's wife, and Monroe's wardrobe lady; and stand-in Evelyn Moriarty at $350 each week plus $35 per diem and transportation. While no specific wardrobe designer is mentioned, Jean Louis, who'd created Marilyn's costumes for The Misfits, would undoubtedly be considered, as would William Travilla, who'd worked with Marilyn on eight of her Fox films. Travilla's one-up on Louis would be his 1941 two-week Pago Pago visit with his grandmother and aunts.

A tentative production schedule had been set. The script was due on February 13, with one month of rehearsal before two weeks of pre-production. A final script was to be delivered on March 18. A week of filming to begin on March 27 and finish on April 2, allowing her one week of rest before having to report back to Los Angeles.

Unknown to anyone, Gable's death severely affected Marilyn's psyche, creating suicidal thoughts. She told her masseuse, Ralph Roberts, "I remember reading somewhere that people who fall from heights lose consciousness before they hit the ground." Marilyn climbed out onto the ledge of their 13th-floor apartment from the living room window. However, according to Roberts, "She recognized a woman waiting for the bus, telling him 'I was afraid if I jumped, I could splatter all over her. So, I couldn't.'"

On the advice of and accompanied by her psychiatrist, Marianne Kris, Marilyn checked herself into the Payne Whitney Clinic on February 7 for a few days' rest. Rather than a private room on a quiet floor, Monroe was placed in the psych ward with the other mentally ill patients in a multi-windowed room for observation. Monroe contacted the Strasbergs asking for assistance on February 8, the same day Burton Hanft, unaware of the situation, submitted the final contract to MCA from NBC.

"Dr. Kris has put me in the hospital under the care of two idiot doctors. They both should not be my doctors. You haven't heard from me because I am locked up with the poor nutty people. I'm sure to end up a nut too if I stay in the nightmare. Please help me, Lee. This is the last place I should be. Maybe if you called Dr. Kris and assured her of my sensitivity and that I must get back to class so I'll be better prepared for Rain. Please help me – if Dr. Kris assures you I am alright – you can assure her I am not. I do not belong here! I love you both, Marilyn."

"P.S. Forgive the spelling – and there's nothing to write on here. I'm on the dangerous floor. It's like a cell. Can you imagine – cement blocks. They put me here because they lied to me about calling my doctor and Joe [DiMaggio], and they had my bathroom door locked, and I couldn't get their key to get into it, so I broke the glass. But outside of that, I haven't done anything that is uncooperative."

Payne Whitney's only comment on the same day was, "Miss Monroe has been admitted for study and treatment of an illness of undetermined origin." The next day, she stated, "Her condition is satisfactory."

While Marilyn suffered locked above the busy streets of Manhattan, negotiations progressed. Earl Wilson's February 9 column confirmed the Marches as co-stars and Hill as director. With Marilyn at Payne Whitney, N.B.C. was forced to cancel a scheduled press event in which Monroe would sign her contract and answer questions. Notes in M.C.A.'s files show that the network wanted concrete evidence that MM could physically do the show before negotiations. Monroe's New York attorney, Aaron Frosch, promised to call N.B.C. the next day with a detailed report of the actress' condition. Her publicist, John Springer, assured them Marilyn's hospital stay would not be prolonged.

Finally, being allowed to make one phone call, Marilyn contacted Joe DiMaggio, who flew up from Saint Petersburg, Florida, where he was involved with the Yankees' spring training. Monroe's ex-husband threatened to disassemble the building "brick by brick" unless they released Marilyn into his custody. DiMaggio arranged for Marilyn to be transferred to Columbia University Presbyterian Medical Center. Accompanied by Dr. Kris and Joe, Marilyn stopped by her 57th Street apartment before checking into room 719 at the facility. For most of the ride, Ralph Roberts, Monroe's masseur and sometimes chauffeur, remembered taking Kris home and for most of the ride her repeating, "I did a terrible thing, a terrible thing. Oh God, I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to, but I did." Any trust Marilyn had with her doctor was now broken, and Kris soon became as unimportant as Natasha Lytess and those others who betrayed her. (Though Kris would remain a beneficiary in Monroe's will and eventually bring funds to a British children's charity for decades.) Monroe's time in the mental ward was horrific, telling told Ralph Greenson, her Los Angeles-based psychiatrist, in a March 3 letter, "There was no sympathy at Payne Whitney. The inhumanity there I found archaic."