LONDON, 1956
PACK YOUR SUITCASE, they had told him. You’ll depart for Britain in the morning. He’d received fifteen hours’ notice.
“And don’t fuck it up,” the studio staffer had threatened the young man, spewing cigarette smoke in his face.
Eighteen-year-old Del Corwyn had gotten himself hired as an errand boy at Warner Bros., where he had fetched coffee and water, delivered telegrams, endured verbal abuse, and completed whatever other menial tasks arose along the way. Del had gotten the job just a few months ago. He’d shown up and they had hired him. Simple as that. He was young and hungry.
And now, as luck would have it, they had shipped him to London.
The studio folks had assigned him to the set of The Prince and the Showgirl. They had instructed Del to serve Marilyn Monroe’s every whim for the duration of the production. He should consider this an around-the-clock gig, they’d told him. Marilyn calls at midnight? Put your pants on and deliver her a toothbrush.
The current scene took place in what was supposed to be the embassy of Carpathia, a fictional Balkan country. Marilyn Monroe portrayed Elsie, a showgirl who had captured the delight of the Prince Regent.
Marilyn—Elsie—lifted a glass of champagne and toasted President Taft.
“Cut!” yelled a man with a baritone, English accent. Laurence Olivier, the film’s director. “Take five!”
At that, Marilyn wiggled as if to shed the showgirl aura from her body. She strode past the camera to a folding chair, the one with her name affixed to it in block letters, and settled into it. A sheen of perspiration had broken through her powdered brow. The hair stylists had given her platinum-blond hair a classic, sexy appeal. Her snug, light-colored dress accentuated her ample bosom and, in Del’s opinion, her ample rear end.
“I’m parched from those hot lights,” she said to Del as she picked up a script and fanned herself. “Please bring me a glass of ice water, young man. A tall one.”
Without a word, Del fetched a glass from a table of refreshments. The handsome teenager returned to find the actress eyeing him with curiosity. With a word of thanks, she took a few sips with her perfect, red lips and sighed with relief. The ice cubes tinkled against the surface of the glass. Del could smell the actress’s perspiration beneath her perfume.
Setting the glass aside, she furrowed her brow, pursing her lips as she sized him up.
“How old are you, young man?”
“Eighteen, ma’am.”
“Eighteen! Why, you’re but a child!” she replied with a voice that bubbled. Closing her eyes, she went limp, as though she had escaped into her own private wonderland. “Oh, to be so young.” Her eyes shot open. “Not that I’m an old maid. Thirty isn’t exactly ancient!”
“Of course not,” Del ventured, measuring his words, cautious not to overstep his bounds and incur wrath from an actress who could get him fired if he inched out of line. Still new to his job, he’d made it his policy to keep his ears open and his mouth shut as much as possible. “You have happy memories of your childhood, I’d imagine.”
At first, she didn’t respond, and Del detected something askew in her silence. Her countenance lost its sparkle. Had he said something wrong? What would happen if they fired him in London? He couldn’t afford a plane ticket across the Atlantic.
“Happy memories? Oh, I had a few of those, I suppose…”
Narrowing her eyes, Marilyn scrutinized him again, to the point that Del felt self-conscious.
“Your accent—you don’t sound like a boy from the west coast,” she noted at last.
“No, ma’am. I’m from Nebraska. I grew up on a farm near a small town.”
“Nebraska! Well, how’s that for a coincidence!” she blurted. The upper register of her voice possessed the playful tone of a child’s. “I have a half sister who grew up in Kentucky. What do you know! You two were practically neighbors!”
Del tried to estimate how many hundreds of miles lay between Nebraska and Kentucky, then brushed the comment aside. Both smitten and awestruck, he would have agreed with anything this screen icon said. The fact that she seemed to treat him like a human being of equal stature made him lightheaded. If he were to pinch himself, he wouldn’t be surprised to discover this was a dream.
But it wasn’t. Marilyn Monroe was conversing with him like an old friend. Though wary and unsure, Del began to feel at home in her company. Why would a starlet like her want to chat with an errand boy like him?
“You live in Los Angeles, though?” she asked. “You moved there permanently?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All by yourself? All alone?” A flamboyant snap of her fingers. “Just like that?”
“Yes, ma’am. Just like that.”
“Why would a boy from a Nebraska farm town do that?”
Del blushed. His dreams outsized his status quo by a substantial margin. At this point, he couldn’t even see beyond the horizon of his menial errands. All he knew was that a fire burned in his heart.
“Well, ma’am…I’d like to be famous one day. An actor,” he said. “A film star, like you.”
“How grand! A future leading man!” Marilyn’s face lit up again. The overhead lights caused her eyes to twinkle. She reached out and, with the wisp of a feather, touched his hand with her fingertips, which felt creamy on Del’s flesh. Hand lotion, perhaps. “That’s what I shall call you: my bright star. What’s your name?”
“Delbert, ma’am. But everyone calls me Del. Del Corwyn.”
“Young man!” A shout. A female voice with what Del pegged as a New York accent.
Del turned to find a woman in her forties, slender with dark hair twisted into a bun the size of a cinnamon roll, scurrying in his direction. Not only had Paula Strasberg, Marilyn Monroe’s acting coach, joined her student on the film set, but from what Del heard, the woman made more money than everyone except Marilyn and Olivier. The woman seldom left the actress’s side, and crew members referred to her—in hushed tones, of course—as a nuisance. Upon meeting Strasberg, the first qualities Del had noticed were her sharp, intimidating eyes and her perpetual frown. Even when she smiled—another rare occurrence on the set—her teeth remained hidden, for she kept her lips sealed shut, like a tomb filled with centuries of tension. The crew attributed her prima-donna air to her former life as a stage actress. A handful of members in the lighting crew had secretly nicknamed her Bun Bitch.
Strasberg struck Del as possessive toward Marilyn, as though Strasberg were an authority figure, not a hired hand. And now she marched up beside her pupil, who stood several inches taller than the middle-aged coach, and glared at Del as if he were a mouse.
“Young man, leave Ms. Monroe alone! Can’t you see she must focus? She must remain in character between takes.” Sweeping her hand behind her, she added, “These people have already made the production a nightmare for her!” Then, with a dramatic pivot toward Marilyn, Strasberg jabbed a finger at her pupil. “Honey, you practice your lines and let Paula handle this.”
Del retreated a step to escape the harsh woman’s wrath. “I’m sorry, Ms. Strasberg,” he squeaked, “but I—”
“Oh, leave him alone, Paula,” interrupted Marilyn, who lifted her hand with panache. “Can’t you see you’re speaking of a future leading man?” Then, turning to him with a smile that reminded Del of the Pacific waters shimmering beneath the sun, she winked. “Del Corwyn, my shining star.”