Part Six

 Marilyn put all of this behind her, accepting the invitation by former husband Joe DiMaggio, who was coaching the Yankees at Spring Training in Saint Petersburg, to join him. She traveled to the West Florida coast, where she and Joe stayed at Reddington Beach's Tides Hotel. Photos of the couple show them walking or sitting in chairs on the beach, going out to dinner, and a casually dressed and scarfed Marilyn watching practice at Henley Field, where, according to DiMaggio companion George Solitare, Marilyn hit a three-baseline drive.

Plans were also made for Marilyn to get together with her half-sister Bernice Miracle and niece Mona Rae, who called their Gainesville home three times a day to arrange the clandestine meeting. She decides to be picked up at the Tides and tells Bernice, "I'll watch from the window for your car. You watch the hotel door for me. I won't be blonde. I'll be wearing a black wig and aqua linen suit." Unfortunately, their reunion, minus Mona Rae, would not occur until July at Marilyn's New York apartment.

Marilyn returned from Saint Petersburg on April 10. Waiting for her was a letter dated March 25 from Fox lawyer Frank Ferguson informing her they had lost the director for her next project. Her services were not needed for the next four weeks while a suitable replacement was found. "Suitable" meant a name from the sixteen directors (Cukor, Vittorio De Sica, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Elia Kazan, David Lean, Joshua Logan, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Vincente Minnelli, Carol Reed, George Stevens, Lee Strasberg, Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and Fred Zimmerman) Marilyn agreed to work with.

The project was Goodbye Charlie, based on the 1959 Broadway show starring Monroe's How to Marry a Millionaire co-star, Lauren Bacall. It was written by George Axelrod, who'd penned the successful stage show and film script for The Seven Year Itch. The director was George Cukor, who'd directed Marilyn in Itch and her last film, Let's Make Love.

The plot is centered on Hollywood agent/writer and philanderer Charlie Sorrell is killed by the husband of the wife he is cheating with while on a cruise. Falling from the ship's porthole, Sorrell is later found wandering on the beach, but his spirit has been reincarnated in a woman's body. Confiding in his best friend, Sorrell exploits his new identity and marries for financial gain – only to be killed, at which point he comes back as a dog. The show opened on December 16 at the Lyceum Theatre with Sydney Chaplin starring opposite Bacall. Critics dissed the show, audiences stayed away, and the show closed after 109 performances on March 19.

Marilyn's name had been attached to the project as early as November 3 when Dorothy Killgallen announced the actress was slated to take the lead after playing Mae West's daughter in a proposed film. However, it wasn't until July 1, 1960, when Marilyn received a letter committing both her and Cukor "in accordance with the next Photoplay....shall commence on April 14, 1961...If she is not otherwise engaged, we desire her to report one week prior on April 7." Later, Fox stated, "now have in effect with Mr. George Cukor a bona fide subsisting commitment for the rendition of Mr. Cukor's services as director of the photoplay." Cukor had been mentioned as director by Louella Parsons months before Monroe was being touted as the lead. Her August 15 column mentioned how he was in line to direct Lady L and the Goodbye Charlie before tackling Cherie with Sylvia Sydney in the fall of 1961. Now, filming delays at Metro-Goldwyn Mayer on Lady L forced Cukor to bow out as director for Charlie.

Parsons then announced to her readers on July 5, 1960, that I. A. Diamond, who'd penned Marilyn's Some Like it Hot a couple of years previous, would be writing the screenplay of Charlie with the actress to begin filming upon finishing The Misfits. On August 25, Motion Picture Daily wrote about how Robert Goldstein, interim production head of Fox, had approved Diamond's script, and the film would begin shooting that November, five months earlier than previously discussed. Two months later, on September 17, Shelia Graham said there was "a 90% chance statuesque Julie Newmar will land the lead in Goodbye Charlie. Monroe was supposed to have starred but won't be through with The Misfits in time. Besides, she has other plans."

Another major factor is Marilyn never wanted to play the role. The actress would complain in October, "The studio people want me to do. Goodbye, Charlie. But I'm not going to do it. I don't like the idea of playing a man in a woman's body, you know? I used to watch Clark Gable on the set of The Misfits in case I had to play a man. When I told him this, he laughed and said I didn't have that kind of equipment." She asked Shelia Graham in November, "Will people believe I'm a boy?"

Announced on January 29, James Garner, a television actor best known for the lead role in the Western series Maverick, would take the Chaplin role opposite Monroe as Sorrell. Monroe told Parton in April in the (at the time unpublished) magazine interview, "They want me to do Goodbye Charlie for the movies, but I'm not going to do it. I don't like the idea of playing a man in a woman's body – you know? It just doesn't seem feminine."

Marilyn would not be one of the numerous celebrities among the audience of 3,165 people at Carnegie Hall on April 23, 1961, to watch Judy Garland perform live in concert onstage for over two hours, as she'd flown out to Los Angeles on April 20. Marilyn flew to Los Angeles on April 20 with information that would force Twentieth to allow her to play Sadie Thompson. Fox had failed to contact the sixteenth name on Monroe's list of approved directors for Goodbye Charlie—Lee Strasberg—and thereby "had not lived up to the letter of their contract." Perhaps it was the fact that Fox had no confidence in him as a director, as they had hired and fired him from a picture in 1945. A Story with Two Endings was a ten-minute short about "the disastrous result of runaway prices following the First World War and warning Americans against repeating the crisis as the Second World War nears an end."

When the four-week postponement ended on April 25 with nothing settled, the next day, Marilyn's M.C.A. agent George Chasin informed Spyros Skouras that Fox missed the deadline and would now have to make a deal with Marilyn Monroe Productions, including a say in what projects and with whom. Plus, a lot more money. When Skoures found out he only had until May 12 to "use or lose" Monroe, he threatened an injunction to prevent her from pursuing other projects, including Rain. If she refused Goodbye Charlie, he'd consider her to star opposite Pat Boone in Jerry Wald's Celebration.

Celebration was based on the play A Loss For Roses, written by William Inge, who also wrote Bus Stop. According to Dorothy Kilgallen's July 17 column, Inge had written the part with Monroe in mind. With Marilyn unavailable, the playwright held out that his current girlfriend, Barbara Baxley, could play the role. The studio executives wanted to get Shelley Winters interested in the script. The plot revolves around Lila, a washed-up entertainer who came to a small Kansas town in Depression-era 1933. Staying with an old friend, Lila has an affair with the woman's son, whom she'd babysat, while experiencing life-changing self-realizations. Carol Haney and Warren Beatty played the parts, with Beatty winning a Tony.

Mike Connolly reported in October 1960 that Fox bought the rights for Kim Novak to star, renaming it Celebration. By January 16, 1961, Louella Parsons told her readers producer Jerry Wald was very interested in starring Monroe opposite singer Pat Boone as both actors' productions were currently delayed - Monroe's Goodbye Charlie and Boone's State Fair. Boone refused on moral grounds, telling reporters, "Believe me, I would have loved to play opposite Marilyn Monroe. I went to the studio boos Buddy Adler and said I've got a lot of teenage fans, and they would be upset if I played a person who has an affair with an older woman. I can't do that." Monroe turned the project down because Jose Ferrer wasn't on her approved list of directors, at which point Wald began discussing with Joshua Logan, who was.

Two weeks earlier, on April 12, the Marches had withdrawn from the project as the delays would cause filming to interfere with a planned vacation with their three grandchildren visiting from Italy. Trying to convince them otherwise, Marilyn told Vernon Scott in his May 1st column, "I've always wanted to play Sadie Thompson in Rain. Darryl Zanuck tried to get it for me years ago, but Columbia beat him, and Rita Hayworth wound up with the part." (Not true.) She continued. "I told NBC I would tape the show on two conditions. One was that Lee Strasberg would have artistic control of the production, and two, Frederic March would be my leading man." The Marches had withdrawn from the production as filming would've interfered with an Italian vacation scheduled with their three grandchildren.

In response to remarriage rumors to DiMaggio, "I'm a lover, but I'm not thinking of getting married again." On the present: "I am happier than I've ever been in my life. As of today, I have absolutely no regrets. I think I am a mature person now who can take things in stride." "I am grateful for the people in my past. They helped me get to where I am, wherever that is. But now I'm thinking for myself and sitting in on all the business transactions. On the future: "In the past five years, I made only five pictures. I hope to work much more often in the next few years." On directors: "A good director is more important to me than a good script. I like my directors to be strong and sensitive--and a little bit susceptible to keep things interesting."