The actor who betrayed Marilyn Monroe: “I was never so glad to have a film over and done”
In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe was Hollywood’s most beloved sex symbol, and her involvement guaranteed almost any film a lucrative run at the box office. Indeed, by the time she sadly passed away in 1962, her movies had made a staggering $200million, equivalent to around $2billion in the modern era.
However, money isn’t everything, and behind the scenes, Monroe and the actors, directors, and producers she worked with often clashed. She gained the dreaded reputation of being ‘difficult’ to work with, which is often career suicide in Hollywood, but was so famous on a worldwide scale that prominent figures in the industry would still line up to be sprinkled with some of her cinematic fairy dust.
One of these stars was Laurence Olivier, and the legendary English star eagerly signed up to star alongside Monroe in 1957’s The Prince and the Showgirl. It was based on a 1953 play by Terrence Rattigan, and its initial run in 1953 featured Oliver and Vivian Leigh in the lead roles of Charles, the Prince Regent of Carpathia, and Elsie Marina, the performer he becomes infatuated with. For the film adaptation, Olivier agreed to direct in addition to starring, but the production quickly turned into a nightmare.
According to various sources, Monroe didn’t cover herself in glory while shooting The Prince and the Showgirl. Co-star Jean Kent claimed she was routinely late for work and looked “dirty and dishevelled” when she arrived. She also alleged Monroe failed to hit her marks, never had any consistency in how she delivered her dialogue, and seemed afraid to do anything without consulting her acting coach, Paula Strasberg, first.
As an actor who staunchly railed against method acting, Olivier didn’t take too kindly to Strasberg’s influence, so he banned her from the set. Unfortunately for him, Monroe responded by downing tools and refusing to work until he allowed her coach to return. Olivier later quipped that working with Monroe made him age 15 years in a few short months, and he branded her a “thoroughly ill-mannered and rude girl.” In the end, he confessed, “I was never so glad to have a film over and done.”
However, as with any tale of a movie set filled with trouble and discord, there is more than one side to the story. In Monroe’s eyes, Olivier had “betrayed” her when he witheringly told her one day, “All you have to do is be sexy, dear Marilyn.” She was working hard to inhabit her character as fully as possible, but he was downplaying her efforts and scoffing at her process. To make matters worse, her husband, Arthur Miller, once revealed that she had idolised Olivier before working with him and believed he’d be a class above the usual “Hollywood flesh mongers she thought she had escaped.”
Ultimately, working with Monroe tested Olivier’s willingness to adjust his own processes to someone who worked very differently from him. It could be argued that he failed that test by refusing to compromise even a little bit. Interestingly, he later reflected on his behaviour and confessed that he may have been “tetchy” with Monroe because he felt his career was in a rut at the time. He even praised what she brought to the movie, saying, “She gave a star performance” and dubbing her “quite wonderful, the best of all”.
For Monroe, though, the damage was done during that tumultuous production. Her husband admitted she was the type to lose faith in someone forever if they wronged her, and even when he tried to bridge the gap between his wife and Olivier, it was to no avail. Sadly, she held on to that feeling of betrayal until the end.
