Bombshell by Max Collins (most life changing books .TXT) 📗

and streams of crepe paper, and in the center of each table perched a lovely floral arrangement with a French flag—the tricolor justifying the red-white-and-blue theme that pretended to salute one country while invoking another.

A half dozen or so reporters were milling around by the entryway, in a haze of cigarette smoke, waiting for the event to start, when Marilyn approached.

One of the newshounds was saying, “… so the one-legged jockey says, ‘That’s all right, honey—I ride sidesaddle!’ ” He was a tall, thin hawkish-looking man Marilyn had never seen before. She knew most of the others by name.

His cronies howled with laughter until another of them, Bob Clemens, round-faced and beefy, a stub of a stogie tucked in the corner of his mouth, caught sight of Marilyn. The L.A. Times reporter nearly swallowed what was left of his cigar, so surprised was he to see her arriving early.

“Hello, boys,” she said innocently. She pretended to frown and shook a reprimanding finger. “I hope you aren’t telling off-color stories again.”

Pandemonium broke out as the men rushed her, flocking around, firing questions. For once she was prepared for the press—even glad to see them; she stood her ground and smiled radiantly, regally.

Clemens elbowed his way to the front of the pack, growling, “Hey, I saw her first!”

Marilyn had known Clemens since he covered her marriage to Joe DiMaggio in 1954, and the reporter had always treated her fairly—even after she’d divorced the baseball hero.

“Bob gets the first question,” Marilyn said, with a solemn nod. She was like a teacher with a bunch of unruly boys—though in the sheer black dress, she made an unlikely schoolmarm.

“Marilyn, what’s this about Khrushchev wanting to see you?” Clemens asked.

Publicist Rupert Allen must have called ahead, in spite of his misgivings about her attending. The dear man.

Marilyn slowly parted her lips. “I’m deeply honored that the premier of Russia would want to talk to me.”

“Not everybody thinks old Nikita’s worth meeting,” Bob said.

She beamed and shrugged. “Well, I think it’s just elegant!”

“What would Khrushchev possibly want to talk to you about?” the hawkish man asked snidely.

Marilyn studied the man’s face for a moment, her smile turning brittle; she made a habit of remembering new enemies. “World peace, I hope,” she responded.

The enemy snorted a laugh—several reporters around him winced, as they apparently understood what sort of special audience they were being granted—and he did not bother to write down her response.

“And where’s your husband?” he followed up, with a smirk. “Didn’t he want to meet the top commie?”

All eyes were on her, pen tips to pads, primed for her answer. This wasn’t just show business, after all, but politics—her husband Arthur Miller was one of America’s leading playwrights and had been a victim of what she considered a witch-hunt left over from the days of Joe McCarthy.

“Mr. Miller,” she said pleasantly, “couldn’t accompany me from New York because he’s finishing up a screenplay…” And now she turned the wattage up on her smile. “One that I’ll be starring in.”

In truth, Arthur could have made the trip, and had wanted to; he was as keenly interested in politics and world events as Marilyn was. But after much soul-searching and deliberation, he had decided—due to his past trouble with the House Un-American Activities Committee, regarding his refusal to name other writers sympathetic to the communist party—he had best not go.

“The press might make a meal of me,” he’d said.

And—obviously—Arthur had been right.

Paul Hays, from the Hollywood Reporter, asked, “Is there any truth to the rumor that you and your husband are separating?”

“None whatsoever,” Marilyn countered with a little laugh that she hoped didn’t sound too forced. “The rumors that I’m leaving Arthur for Nikita Khrushchev are just so much borscht.”

This made the boys laugh—even the hawkish enemy—and distracted them from digging deeper. For all intents and purposes, her marriage of three years to the brilliant playwright was over. She knew it; Arthur knew it. But the Millers had decided to keep up the pretense, through the filming of her next movie— and probably that of the following project, which he really was writing for her. Arthur believed she was ill-served by most of her scripts, and he still loved her enough to want to leave her with that gift, anyway.

Now other movie stars were arriving in through the commissary door, and when the attention of the newshounds turned their way, Marilyn slipped inside while the press swarmed new all-star victims, following them into the “Cafe de Paris,” as well.

Bob Hope, natty in a light gray suit, was bantering with his on-screen cohort, Bing Crosby, attired causally in a beige ban-lon shirt and yellow cardigan, the ever-present pipe in one hand. Several reporters cornered them, and Hope made a loud nasal remark about maybe making The Road to Moscow with Bing.

Several other reporters honed in on Marilyn’s nemesis, Elizabeth Taylor, those fat, bulgy bosoms of hers popping out of a low-cut emerald-green cocktail dress. Marilyn just knew that those were real emeralds around the munchkin’s throat, watching as the woman made her entrance with lapdog Eddie Fisher on her arm, Fisher looking bewildered, nervous, uncomfortable.

Almost at once the press rushed past Taylor and the singer to another woman who had just stepped in through the door: Debbie Reynolds, looking cute as the teenage beauty queen she’d been not so long ago, petite and nicely shapely in a blue and white polka-dot dress.

Marilyn liked—and felt sorry for—the pretty, perky Reynolds, who had just lost her husband to Liz. Debbie had always been friendly to Marilyn, and there was no rivalry between them. Reynolds was no threat.

As the reporters converged on Reynolds, the spurned wife and mother held her head high, smiling, even laughing. If Debbie was acting, Marilyn thought, it was a damn fine job of it—Lee Strasberg would have approved. The press obviously adored Debbie and were in her corner. And that pleased Marilyn, who hoped they would be as compassionate to her, the next time tragedy struck.

As the