There is a new book on the way about Marilyn Monroe. That would probably be an accurate remark to make any day of the week - one could say with equal confidence, and equal gut-wrenching tedium, that there are new books due out about Elvis Presley, the Bloomsbury group, Princess Diana and the Lost Generation. But let it pass.
Next week, Weidenfeld & Nicholson will publish Marilyn Monroe by Barbara Leaming, and the London Times has been running extracts in advance of the publication. Tuesday's piece, entitled "How Marilyn Hooked Miller" (though the question is surely how Miller hooked Marilyn) told the story of the relationship between the actress and Arthur Miller, and purported to answer the question "What made the incarnation of sexuality fall in love with the cerebral playwright?"
Anyway, Ms Leaming tells of how Miller first took Marilyn to meet his parents, Isadore and Augusta, in their Manhattan home. The illiterate Isadore notoriously disapproved of his son's ambition to write, and their relationship was edgy, so Arthur was cautious about the meeting with Marilyn. But it seems they got on well. "Such a charming girl, Arthur", said Isadore (we are told, making Isadore sound like an English Edwardian gentleman), as Marilyn finished her second bowl of matzo-ball soup. She was wearing "a simple grey skirt, a black silk blouse and no make-up" (shoes, we will never know). But when the famous guest declined a third refill, Isadore was disappointed - "You don't like our matzo-ball soup?". To which Marilyn supposedly responded: "Oh, I love it. But gee, isn't there any other part of a matzo you can eat?"
Well, this is an amusing story and it certainly adds to the lovable airhead image of Marilyn. But what Ms Leaming omits is how this apparently innocent remark affected the cook in the household of Isadore and Augusta Miller. I ought to know: I was that person.
When Isadore came to the kitchen and informed me that the third bowl of my matzo-ball soup, on which I had lovingly worked for four hours, had been declined by Marilyn, I could take no more.
Despite my great fame, I was of course a vulnerable, fragile cook. On the outside, I had everything - fame, money, talent and looks. But I was hurting inside. I was conflicted. That was when Marilyn, excusing herself from the company, came into the kitchen to take me under her wing. When I say her wing of course I am using a metaphor, the way writers do. I mean she looked after me. There we were - one vulnerable, fragile, waif-like, tired, hurt, bewildered misunderstood superstar ego meeting another.
She confided in me. I confided in her. In other words, we confided in each other. She first, then me, then, I suppose, both of us together. I suppose this is how legends are made, and books are written.
Marilyn apologised for the matzo-ball soup remark. She knew of course that a matzo, whatever it was (I hardly knew myself) was not an animal. All she was trying to do was to live up to her lovable airhead image, as carefully created by the studio.
Just as Ms Leaming has it, Marilyn told me that marriage to the great writer and a chance to prove herself as an actress were the Two Halves of her Dream. Still holding back a little, I told her two quarters of my dream, which involved alien abduction and porridge. It took most of the night. "You're only telling me half the story", Marilyn chided, yawning attractively as she lay on the kitchen table. I saw at once that she could add, or at least add two quarters. So much for her airhead image! I told her another three eighths of my dream. She had to lie down again.
When she got up, we had some more matzo-ball soup and Marilyn told me her classic rags-to-riches story built on a super-sexy image which was easily tarnished and was quite likely to leave her a frustrated, neurotic and tragic victim of the Hollywood which had created her.
I told her a similar tale, with Belmullet filling in for Hollywood. We cried again.
Marilyn now told me she was a superstructure with no foundation: "But I'm working on the foundation". We then talked of how her prospective marriage to Arthur Miller might pan out. Already she could see the headline - "Egghead weds hourglass". We sold it jointly over the phone to the New York News, adding the stand-first "What made the incarnation of sexuality fall in love with the cerebral playwright?" Marilyn and I found few answers in life, but we were never short of questions.