Actress Joan Collins has told the Daily Mailabout her early experiences in Hollywood, and how Marilyn warned her about sexual harassment. It’s not a new story, but in light of recent allegations, it makes for an interesting read. Interestingly, she recalled the meeting in her 1978 autobiography, Past Imperfect, but the ‘wolves’ story only appeared in Second Act, almost twenty years later. (Another star from Marilyn’s era, Rita Moreno, has also spoken out about how Fox executives preyed on young women.)
“Shortly after arriving in Hollywood aged 21, under contract to 20th Century Fox, I attended a party at Gene Kelly’s house. The star of An American In Paris and Singin’ In The Rain hosted a weekly gathering for an eclectic group of movie industry power-brokers, A-list actors and actresses, intellectuals and his friends. It was where I first met Marilyn Monroe.
At first I didn’t recognise the blonde sitting alone at the bar … Suddenly, it dawned on me that the woman in front of me was the legendary figure herself. We started chatting and after a couple of martinis, Marilyn poured out a cautionary tale of sexual harassment she and other actresses endured from ‘the wolves in this town’.
I replied that I was well used to ‘wolves’ after a few years in the British film industry. I decided it definitely wasn’t something I’d put up with. I told Marilyn I was well prepared to deal with men patting my bottom, leering down my cleavage and whatever else.
She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing like the power of the studio bosses here, honey. If they don’t get what they want, they’ll drop you. It’s happened to lots of gals. ‘Specially watch out for Zanuck. If he doesn’t get what he wants, honey, he’ll drop your contract.’ It was a timely warning, because days later, Darryl Zanuck, vice-president of production at 20th Century Fox, pounced.
Marilyn and Joan Collins in the audience at a studio screening of ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’, 1954
Hollywood studio bosses considered it their due to b*** all the good-looking women who came their way and were notorious for it. Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures, for example, had no qualms about firing any starlet who rejected him. He was totally amoral.
Another role I coveted was that of Cleopatra. The head of 20th Century Fox at the time, Buddy Adler, and the chairman of the board — [Spyros Skouras], a Greek gentleman old enough to be my grandfather — bombarded me with propositions and promises that the role was mine if I would be ‘nice’ to them. It was a euphemism prevalent in Hollywood. I couldn’t and I wouldn’t — the very thought of these old men was utterly repugnant. So, I dodged and I dived, and hid from them around the lot and made excuses while undergoing endless screen tests for the role of Egypt’s Queen.
At one point, Mr Adler told me at a party that I would have ‘the pick of the scripts’ after Cleopatra and he would set me up in an apartment he would pay for as long as he could come to visit me three or four times a week. Running out of excuses, I blurted out: ‘Mr Adler, I came here with my agent, Jay Kanter. Why don’t we discuss the deal with him?’
‘Honey, you have quite a sense of humour,’ he spluttered.
‘And a sense of humour is all you’ll ever get from me,’ I murmured as I left. In due course, Elizabeth Taylor got the role.
But it wasn’t just studio bosses and producers who were predatory. Many actors I worked with considered it their divine right to have sex with their leading lady … Anyone naive enough to believe the era of the casting couch had been consigned to history will have been shocked by the Weinstein scandal and the predatory institutional sexism of Hollywood power brokers it has revealed.
But it’s not just the film industry that’s been complicit in sanctioning this appalling behaviour, and it’s not just actresses subjected to it. It may occur in any business dominated by powerful, ruthless and misogynistic men, and it’s women (sometimes men) in subservient positions who are unfortunate enough to have to deal with them.”
This second extract from Alistair Cooke at the Moviesfocuses on‘The Script That Got Away: Mr Khruschev’s Propaganda Tour at US Expense’, an article about the Soviet premier’s historic visit, published in The Guardian after Marilyn attended a Twentieth Century-Fox luncheon in Khrushchev’s honour on September 20, 1959.
“He was whizzed so fast over the boulevards between the airport and the Twentieth Century-Fox studio that not one Angelino in a thousand could have guessed, without prior knowledge, that here was the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and not, say, Marilyn Monroe on her way to a dress fitting.
He was shown what any other distinguished tourist would have been allowed to see. He saw the dancing girls of Can Can. He was actually seated at the same table as Gary Cooper, Eddie Fisher, Marilyn Monroe and James Mason. The supreme accolade was reserved for his wife: she was seated next to Frank Sinatra. American hospitality can go no farther.
‘And yet, and yet …’ as the old silent movie captions used to say, the production blew up in the faces of hundreds of skilled politicos, directors and protocol experts who had written it. Nikita Khrushchev, the humble shepherd boy who grew up to play the starring role in the lurid melodrama known to the papers here as ‘The Hangman of Hungary’, retraced his spiritual ancestry and suddenly turned from the home-town boy made good into a frightening ‘baddie’.
He began, with amazing magnanimity, by greeting Spyros Skouras, the president of Twentieth Century-Fox, as ‘a friend and brother before Christ’. He ended by recalling again the futile invasion of his country by soldiers of America, France, Germany, Poland and Britain, by briefly catching himself in an apology for such a tasteless memoir, and then by swelling the veins in his neck in protest at the State Department’s denial of his wish to go down to Anaheim and make a tour of Disneyland…
The movie stars could not have been more uncomfortable if they had been sitting there in nothing but their mascara. Miss Monroe ventured that Mr Khrushchev’s speech ‘was interesting’. Winston Churchill could not have done it better.”
All the Best Lines, George Tiffin’s collection of movie-related quotes, anecdotes, is out now in paperback with a gorgeous cover photo of Marilyn on the set of There’s No Business Like Show Business (the hardback features Grace Kelly and Cary Grant on the cover instead.) A chapter entitled ‘I Just Want to Be Wonderful’ is dedicated to MM. All the Best Lines is available from The Works and other bookshops.
In August, I posted about a new Italian book focusing on Marilyn’s cinematic legacy, Marilyn Monroe Inganni. Fraser Penney – IM staffer and friend – has shared a preview with ES Updates.
Maurice Zolotow’s seminal 1961 biography has been released in Spanish, with an extensive photo section. Let’s hope it will be reissued in English as well, as it’s essential reading for any true fan.
Another old favourite, Michael Conway and Mark Ricci’s The Films of Marilyn Monroe, was also reissued in Italy recently. Finally, if you’re interested in learning more about the history of Marilyn’s home studio, Peter Lev’s Twentieth Century-Fox: The Zanuck-SkourasYears is out now in paperback. And a new retrospective of Eve Arnold’s long career features Marilyn on the cover.
Spyros Skouras, the Greek-born president of Twentieth Century-Fox, was an important ally of Marilyn during her early career. In September, the Greek America Foundation will research his life, including extensive study of the Skouras Papers at Stanford University, with the aim of producing a documentary. You can read more about the project here.
The Greek-born actor, Nico Minardos, died of natural causes in August. According to a memorial website, “He is survived by his wife Julie, his son George and daughter Nina, and three grandchildren Nico, Aris and Lexi. Nico was a husband, father, grandfather, actor, friend, philosopher, story teller, renaissance man, and bon vivant.”
Minardos made his screen debut as an extra in Monkey Business (1952) alongside Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe. He also appeared in films such as It Happened in Athens, starring that other blonde bombshell, Jayne Mansfield.
However, Minardos was best known for his work in television, making guest appearances in hit shows like The Twilight Zone and Alias Smith and Jones.
In 1966, Minardos was involved in a canoeing accident in which his partner, Eric Fleming, tragically drowned.
In 1975, Minardos produced and starred in Assault on Agathon alongside Marianne Faithfull. His last screen credit was for a 1983 episode of The A Team.
In 1986, Minardos was a defendant in a case related to the Iran-Contra Affair, resulting from his business association with the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. The case was eventually dropped, but Minardos was left bankrupt.
He retired to Florida and later sailed across the Atlantic to his Greek homeland. In 2010 he was the subject of a documentary, Finding Nico.
Minardos was interviewed by author Anthony Summers for his 1986 book, Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe, in which he claimed they had a 7-month affair in 1952 though it has not been mentioned elsewhere.
He told Summers that one evening with Marilyn was interrupted when another suitor, Fox executive Spyros Skouras, arrived at her apartment. ‘The fascinating thing with Marilyn was that she was acting in real life,’ he said. ‘She knew what the reality was, but she acted things out because she loved the drama.’
(Interestingly, Minardos also dated the dancer Juliet Prowse, who left him for a brief engagement to Frank Sinatra in 1961 – shortly after Sinatra’s affair with Monroe ended…)
This latest extract from Maurice Zolotow’s Marilyn Monroe: The Uncensored Biography, first published in the Los Angeles Daily Mirror on November 28, 1960, covers Marilyn’s rocky road to fame and her complex relationship with Darryl F. Zanuck, head of Twentieth Century Fox.
