I didn’t like going to fancy cafés and sitting around with some ambitious profile. I didn’t like people thinking of me as being romantic about somebody I didn’t know. And I knew Johnny wouldn’t like it. So I stayed out of the cafés and the movie columns as a romance dizzy starlet.
The only trouble I had during the making of Eve came from Zsa Zsa Gabor (again) and Lincoln Steffens. They were both mild troubles but they confused me. The Lincoln Steffens trouble began when Mr. Mankiewicz asked me one day what was the book I was reading on the set. I told him it was the Steffens autobiography and I started raving about it. Mr. Mankiewicz took me aside and gave me a quiet lecture.
“I wouldn’t go around raving about Lincoln Steffens,” he said. “It’s certain to get you into trouble. People will begin to talk of you as a radical.”
“A radical what?” I asked.
“A political radical,” Mr. Mankiewicz said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of Communists.”
“Not much,” I said.
“Don’t you read the papers?”
“I skip the parts I don’t like,” I said.
“Well, lay off boosting Mr. Steffens, or you’ll get into bad trouble,” said Mr. Mankiewicz.
I thought this was a very personal attitude on Mr. Mankiewicz’s part and, that genius though he was, of a sort, he was badly frightened by the Front Office or something. I couldn’t imagine anybody picking on me because I admired Lincoln Steffens. The only other political figure I’d ever admired was Abraham Lincoln. I used to read everything I could find about him. He was the only famous American who seemed most like me, at least in his childhood.
A few days later the publicity department asked me to write out a list of the ten greatest men in the world. I wrote the name Lincoln Steffens down first and the publicity man shook his head.
“We’ll have to omit that one,” he said. “We don’t want anybody investigating our Marilyn.”
I saw then that it wasn’t just a personal thing with Mr. Mankiewicz but that maybe everybody in Hollywood was just as scared of being associated with Lincoln Steffens. So I didn’t say anything more about him, to anybody, not even to Johnny. I didn’t want to get him in trouble. But I continued to read the second volume secretly and kept both volumes hidden under my bed. Hiding Lincoln Steffens under my bed was the first underhanded thing I’d ever done—since my meeting with little George in the tall grass.
The third and last act, I hope, of my one-sided Gabor feud took place during Eve. I was sitting in the studio commissary having lunch with Mr. George Sanders, who was the hero of the picture. We had sat down at the same table more or less by accident, having entered the commissary together, also by accident. The whole thing was an accident. Mr. Sanders was just beginning to eat his chicken salad when the cashier’s assistant came to the table and told him he was wanted on the telephone.
About five minutes later Mr. Sanders returned to our table, called for the waitress, and paid his check.
“If you’ll pardon me, I must go now,” he said to me.
“But you haven’t had your lunch yet,” I said.
“I’m not hungry,” said Mr. Sanders.
“You said you were terribly hungry when you sat down,” I said, “and would have to be careful not to overeat. Why don’t you just have a bite so you’ll have some strength for your big scene this afternoon.”
Mr. Sanders looked so pale that I was really worried.
“Unless you’re sick,” I said.
“I’m in perfect health,” said Mr. Sanders, “and I must leave now.”
“I’ll drive you over to the stage,” I said. “I came in my car, and I noticed you walked.”
“Oh no, thank you very much,” said Mr. Sanders. “I don’t want to bother you.”
“It’s no bother at all,” I said. “I’ve finished my lunch. It’s a shame for you to walk all that distance on an empty stomach.”
I stood up and started to leave the commissary with Mr. Sanders, but he pulled briskly away from me and I couldn’t have kept up with him unless I broke into a trot. So I walked out slowly alone wondering what I had done to make Mr. Sanders rush away from my company.
On the set ten minutes later, Mr. Sanders’ stand-in, who was almost as charming and polite as the star himself, came to me and said, “Mr. Sanders has asked me to request of you that hereafter when you say good morning or good-bye to him, you will make those salutations from afar.”
I turned red at being insulted like this but I suddenly realized what had happened. Mr. Sanders’ wife, Zsa Zsa Gabor, obviously had a spy on the set, and this spy had flashed the news to her that he was sitting at a table with me, and Miss Gabor had telephoned him immediately and given him a full list of instructions. I laughed when I realized this, and I thought about it for some time. I could imagine loving a man with my whole heart and soul and wanting to be with him every minute. But I couldn’t imagine being so jealous of him that I would have spies planted everywhere to watch him. But maybe I was too young to understand about such things.
22
about men
I could never be attracted to a man who had perfect teeth. A man with perfect teeth always alienated me. I don’t know what it is but it has something to do with the kind of men I have known who had perfect teeth. They weren’t so perfect elsewhere.
There’s another sort of man I’ve never liked—the sort that’s afraid of insulting you. They always end up by insulting you worse than anybody. I much prefer a man to be a wolf and, if he has decided to make a pass at me, to make it and have it over with.
First of all, a pass is never entirely unpleasant because men who make passes are usually bright and good-looking. Secondly, you don’t have to sit around with a wolf and listen to a lot of double-talk about income taxes and what’s wrong with the situation in India while he gets up enough courage to get into action.
Worse, though, than these double-talkers are the Good Samaritan pass-makers. These are the ones who are interested in my career and want to do something big for me. They are usually married men, of course. I don’t mean that married men are all hypocrites. Many of them are straightforward wolves. They will ask you straightforwardly to overlook the fact that they are wedded to wives who seem to adore them—and go on from there.
There is variety among men, always. Even the wolves differ from each other a little bit. Some wolves like to talk about sex a great deal. Others are terribly polite about saying anything offensive, and act as if they were inviting you to some important social event.
The nicest thing about wolves is that they seldom get angry or critical of you. This doesn’t apply, of course, if you succumb to them. Then they are likely to lose their tempers, but for a different reason than most men. A wolf is inclined to get very angry if a woman makes the mistake of falling in love with him. But it would take a rather foolish woman to do that.
The only time I ever knew a wolf really to lose his temper was the time a girl friend of mine dated a famous director.
“Here’s the key to my apartment,” she told him. “I have a dinner date. You go there and wait for me. I’ll join you around ten-thirty.”
The famous director went to her apartment. He undressed and lay down in bed. He had brought a script along to read. At eleven-thirty he had finished reading the script. The phone rang. A man’s voice inquired for Miss B.
“She is not home yet,” the famous director said.
After that the phone kept ringing every fifteen minutes. There was a way to shut off the ringing, but the director didn’t know where the switch was, so he had to keep answering. Each time it was another wolf like himself asking for Miss B.