Author: Carl Rollyson
Quotes of Author: Carl Rollyson
We had a lengthy discussion of the difficulties I had had working on other biographies and the efforts made by Martha Gellhorn, Susan Sontag and others to prevent publication. Gellhorn's representative, Bill Buford, sent a threatening letter to my publisher. Michael, a journalist first, called Buford a "dirty dog." I never dreamed, then, that he, too, would, in the end, assume a rather high-handed attitude towards my manuscript, ordering me to make changes and deferring to the feelings of others. On this day, I said: "I don't respond well to those threats. I don't allow them to intimidate me." "We don't believe in authorised biographies," Michael concluded. "All authorised biographies are hereby condemned." I would remember these words later when Michael the Apostate appeared. book-quoteMarch 29: Marilyn writes to Lester Markel at the New York Times. She likes the Sunday piece on playwright Sean O'Casey. She provides her assessment of various contenders for the presidency, including Rockefeller, Humphrey, Nixon, Stevenson, William O. Douglas, and Kennedy. She considers Rockefeller "more liberal than many of the Democrats," and declares that Stevenson "might have made it if he had been able to talk to people instead of professors." Nixon has no soul. Douglas is ideal, but his divorce is an impediment. She is disappointed with the Times's coverage of Castro and feels the United States should support and develop democracy. She includes some political slogans: "Nix on Nixon," "Over the hump with Humphrey {?}," "Stymied with Symington," "Back to Boston by Xmas-Kennedy. book-quoteFebruary 8: Marilyn does her "black sitting" session with Milton Greene. Marilyn poses in black hat and fishnet stockings, her face partially in shadow. She also appears in a shot where she lies down, her left leg extended in the air, as she covers part of her face with her hands. She also kneels, drink in hand, smiling. She props herself up with her arms and draws her knees into her body, with half her face in the dark-a study in moody bifurcation. Greene's photographs will eventually punctuate the text of Norman Mailer's Of Women and Their Elegance. In the evening Marilyn, wearing a white fur coat over a low-cut dress, long black gloves, and jeweled earrings that stretch all the way down her neck, attends the premiere of Middle of the Night, a Paddy Chayefsky play directed by Josh Logan. book-quote
