I have even tried to be straightforward with women. This is more difficult than being straightforward with men. Men are often pleased when you tell them the truth about how you feel. But very few women want to hear any truth—if it’s going to be in any way annoying. As far as I can make out, women’s friendships with each other are based on a gush of lies and pretty speeches that mean nothing. You’d think they were all wolves trying to seduce each other the way they flatter and flirt when they’re together.
I found a few exceptions. There was one woman who helped me a great deal in my early Hollywood days—when I used to dream of getting enough money to own more than one brassiere. She gave me money and let me live in her home and wear her gowns and furs. She did this because she sincerely liked me and because she believed I had talent and would become a star some day. I’ll call her Della and so be able to write about her without embarrassing her.
Della was married to an important movie actor. He was not only a star but a man. This is unusual not because men movie actors are inclined to be pansies, but because acting is a feminine art. When a man has to paint his face and pose and strut and pretend emotions, and exhibit himself for applause, he certainly isn’t doing what is normally masculine. He’s “acting” just as women do in life. And he acquires a sort of womanish nature. He competes with women, even when he loves one of them.
Della’s husband brought me to his home one day. I had caddied for him in a charity golf tournament.
“Here’s a hungry little kitten,” he said to his wife. “Take care of her. She’s going places but she needs a little help.”
25
johnny dies
The person I wanted to help most in my life—Johnny Hyde—remained someone for whom I could do almost nothing. He needed something I didn’t have—love. And love is something you can’t invent, no matter how much you want to.
He would say to me, “What kind of a man do you think you will fall in love with someday?” And I’d answer I didn’t know. I would beg him not to think of any tomorrow but enjoy the life we were sharing together.
One evening in his home he started up the stairs to get me a book. I saw him stop on the landing and lean against the balustrade. I had seen my Aunt Ann do that a few months before she died of her heart attack.
I ran up to Johnny and put my arms around him and said, “Oh, Johnny, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you feel bad.”
“I’ll be all right,” he said.
A week later Johnny Hyde began asking me again to marry him. He had been to a doctor, and the doctor had told him he didn’t have long to live.
“I’m rich,” he said to me. “I have almost a million dollars. If you marry me you’ll inherit it when I die.”
I had dreamed of money and longed for it. But the million dollars that Johnny Hyde now offered me meant nothing.
“I’ll not leave you,” I told him. “I’ll never betray you. But I can’t marry you, Johnny. Because you’re going to get well. And sometime later I might fall in love.”
He smiled at me.
“I won’t get well,” he said. “And I want you to have my money when I’m gone.”
But I couldn’t say yes. He was right. He didn’t get well. A month later he went to the hospital. In the hospital he kept begging me to marry him, not for his sake anymore, but for mine. He wanted to think of me as never having any more hunger or poverty in my life.
But I still couldn’t marry him. Joe Schenck argued with me to do it.
“What have you got to lose?” he asked.
“Myself,” I said. “I’m only going to marry for one reason—love.”
He asked me, “Which would you rather marry—a poor boy you loved or a rich man you liked?”
“A poor boy I loved,” I said.
“I’m disappointed in you,” Mr. Schenck said. “I thought you were a smart girl.” But Mr. Schenck seemed to like me more after our talk.
Johnny Hyde died. His family wouldn’t let me sit among them at the funeral. I sat in the back of the church among Johnny’s acquaintances. When I passed by his coffin I felt such a sadness for Johnny Hyde that I forgot myself. I threw myself on the coffin and sobbed. I wished I was dead with him.
My great friend was buried. I was without his importance to fight for me and without his love to guide me. I cried for nights at a time. I never regretted the million dollars I had turned down. But I never stopped regretting Johnny Hyde—the kindest man in the world.
26
i’ll be smart—tomorrow
One evening I was listening to two friends of mine having an argument. We were having dinner in a small Italian restaurant. One of my friends was a writer. The other was a director.
The argument was whether Botticelli was a finer painter than Leonardo da Vinci. I kept my eyes wide with interest although I couldn’t understand anything they were saying. To begin with I didn’t know who Botticelli or da Vinci were.
“We’re boring Marilyn,” said the director. “I can always tell when she’s bored to tears. She opens her eyes wide and parts her lips slightly with bogus eagerness.”
“Let’s talk about something closer to her than the Renaissance,” said the writer. “How about sex?”
“At least I’ll know what side you’re on,” I said.
But I didn’t. The discussion about sex sounded completely unfamiliar. It had to do with Freud and Jung and a few other characters who seemed to me pretty mixed up.
Something occurred to me, however, as I sat listening to my two gay friends. I realized that about two-thirds of the time I hadn’t the faintest idea of what people (even women) were talking about. There was no hiding from it—I was terribly dumb. I didn’t know anything about painting, music, books, history, geography. I didn’t even know anything about sports or politics.
When I arrived home I sat in my bed and asked myself if there was anything I did know. I couldn’t think of anything—except acting. I knew about acting. It was a way to live in dreams for a few minutes at a time.
I decided to go to school. The next day I enrolled in the University of Southern California. I subscribed for an art course.
I went to school every afternoon and often in the evening. The teacher was a woman. I was depressed by this at first because I didn’t think a woman could teach me anything. But in a few days I knew differently.
She was one of the most exciting human beings I had ever met. She talked about the Renaissance and made it sound ten times more important than the Studio’s biggest epic. I drank in everything she said. I met Michelangelo and Raphael and Tintoretto. There was a new genius to hear about every day.
At night I lay in bed wishing I could have lived in the Renaissance. Of course I would be dead now. But it seemed almost worth it.
After a few weeks I branched out as a student. I started buying books by Freud and some of his modern disciples. I read them till I got dizzy.
But I didn’t have enough time. There were acting lessons and singing lessons, publicity interviews, sessions with photographers—and rehearsal of a movie.
I finally decided to postpone my intelligence, but I made a promise to myself I won’t forget. I promised that in a few years after things had settled down I would start learning—everything. I would read all the books and find out about all the wonders there were in the world.
And when I sat among people I would not only understand what they were talking about. I’d be able to contribute a few words.