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By Root 135 0

Monroe Productions with the photographer Milton Greene. This was a tremendous challenge to the all-powerful studios and a gesture for which she would never really be fully forgiven. From then on her life would swing between the West Coast and the East Coast, a contest between the movie-star image and the cultural and artistic self-invention that the Actors Studio and her New York acquaintances made possible. After a few weeks spent at the Gladstone Hotel, she stayed in a three-room suite on the twenty-seventh floor of the Waldorf-Astoria from April to September 1955. The following documents were written on this prestigious hotel’s stationery. They include a long prose poem, the account of a nightmarish dream that is full of surprises (not least her drama teacher turning into a surgeon), thoughts and notes about what Lee Strasberg had said (she misspelled his name with a double “s”) during the classes she attended at the Actors Studio, the draft of a letter to a certain “Claude,” and a list of song titles. Some of these documents are discontinuous, and the links between texts, which might have been written in any order, have been left to the reader’s discernment.

Sad, sweet trees—

I wish for you—rest

but you must be wakeful

Sooooo many lights in the darkness

making skeletons of buildings

and life in the streets

The things What were was it I thought about yesterday

down in the streets?

It now seems so far away up here long ago

and moon so full and dark.

It’s better I learned they told me as a child what it was

for I could not guess it or understand it now.

Noises from of impatience from cab drivers always driving who

must drive—hot, dusty, snowing icy streets so they

can eat, and perhaps save for a vacation, in which they

will can drive their wives all the way across the

country to see her relatives.

Then the river—the part made of pepsi cola—the park—thank god for the park

Yet I am not looking at these things

I’m looking for my lover

It’s good they told me what

the moon was when I was a child.

What was that now—

just a moment ago—

from it was mine and

now it’s gone—like the

swift movement of a moment

gone—

maybe I’ll remember

because it felt

as though it

started to be wonderful

only mine

Best finest surgeon—Strasberg

waits to cut me open which I don’t mind since Dr. H

has prepared me—given me anaesthetic

and has also diagnosed the case and

agrees with what has to be done—

an operation—to bring myself back to

life and to cure me of this terrible dis-ease

whatever the hell it is—

Arthur is the only one waiting in the outer

room—worrying and hoping operation successful

for many reasons—for myself—for his play and

for himself indirectly

Hedda—concerned—keeps calling on phone during

operation—Norman—keeps stopping by hospital to

see if I’m okay but mostly to comfort Art

who is so worried—

Milton calls from big office with lots of room

and everything in good taste—and is conducting

business in a new way with style—and music

is playing and he is relaxed and enjoying himself even if

he is very worried at the same time—there’s a camera

on his desk but he doesn’t take pictures anymore except

of great paintings.

Strasberg cuts me open after Dr. H gives me

Make no more promises

make no more

explanations—if possible.

Regarding Anne Karger

after this make no

commitments or tie

myself down to engagements

in future—to save

not being able to keep

them and mostly to

avoid feeling guilty

which is now the

case.

Notes:

Anne Karger was the mother of the man sometimes identified as Marilyn's first real love, Fred Karger, whom she met in 1948 when he was a (then-married) voice coach at Columbia Pictures. She stayed on good terms with Anne all her life.

Dr. H. refers to Dr. Margaret Hohenberg.

Hedda Rosten had been a close friend of Marilyn’s since 1955 and became her personal assistant for a time. Norman was Hedda’s husband.

“Art” was one of the nicknames Marilyn gave to Arthur Miller.

Milton Greene took many photos of Marilyn before becoming