Ralph L Roberts.com

The next morning, she did make an effort to get up, have tea, Hazel getting things ready for the trip to location, me working on her back, but when Whitey came in for make-up, "I just can’t do it. Arthur, you’ll have to take care of it." And went back to her bedroom.

I went downstairs to the dining room, and found that the word had already spread. Coca and King were there. They’d planned to ride with me to watch some of the shooting and were very disappointed, they’d looked forward to meeting her and Gable. We drove out to Virginia City, had lunch at Edith Palmer's. Coca asked, "I hope I’m not prying, and don’t feel in any way that you should divulge any confidences, but what is Miss Monroe really like?" Automatically, I replied, "Well, really very much like you, Maureen, and Judy. Like almost everyone I know - especially women - in the theatre. There’s a motor continually going. But, I think when she gets depressed she gets more so than any of you. She withdraws more; she’ll go into that darkened bedroom and stay for days. She’s more moody than anyone I’ve ever known. She uses the word "blue" often to describe how she feels, and it seems to me that it’s the darkest shade of blue one can possibly imagine. I’ve seen all of you in the depths, but I believe she has devils to accompany her. On the other hand, I’ve laughed more with her than I think I ever have with anyone."

Paula wanted to take us to a restaurant on the outskirts of town. The food was wonderful and the feeling of the place was warm and you had a sense of desert pervading all. But I don’t remember much of anything that was said. Quite a few of the Mix company was also there. But I think all of us were preoccupied with our own thoughts. Coca and King were on something of a honeymoon and were also anxious to explore Reno, and weren’t all that involved in THE MISFITS. Paula and I on our own wave-lengths were concerned only about MM and the MISFITS. Later, I drove them back to the Mapes, and I walked Paula to the Holiday. "Ralph, I’m desperately concerned. She didn’t have enough time to recuperate. She should have stayed there (Westside) another three or four days. They have stuff they could shoot around her. Arthur and John won’t consult me about anything. They’re also beginning, insideously, to change the concept of the whole movie. They have meetings. They have disagreements, but overall the agreements, as evidence in the script rewrites, bode no good. I didn’t see her today. I just had to get away from everything, and try to arrive at some kind of perspective. Something's got to be done. I’ve come to the conclusion that she should move to the Holiday, out of all the Mapes intrigue. Perhaps Arthur will come to his senses. If not, then this whole venture id doomed and all that I have worked for with her could so easily go down the drain. I wonder now if I did right in London when she read his diary. I convinced her that she simply had to stay with him, that she had to understand that his artistic and emotional ego had simply been battered to such an extent that he had to flail out at her to assuage the hurt he’d suffered. Now, I don’t know." 

She told me about the diary but only that he’d written something terrible about her. 

Paula: "Marilyn said he’d written, ' I’ve done it again. I thought I was marrying an angel, and find I’ve married a whore." I felt, and persuaded her, that he had been terribly upset at the reception she’d had at the big party, when everybody had simply gone wild over her. That he must have felt a need to write something about her, then leave it next to her script and to turn around his meaning to make it more dramatic. I thought I was marrying a sexpot, and find I’ve married an angel adored by all.' "

MM: "Arthur and I are moving to the Holiday tomorrow. Paula feels that being on the other side of the Truckee River will ease the tensions that are worsening. Maybe, if we’d done like Clark and Kay, taken a house from the very first, there would have been like she says, more objectivity. I would like for you and Maysie to move there too, if you don’t mind."