Writing for Variety, Pat Saperstein remembers the golden age of studio commissaries. Marilyn was photographed in the Fox Commissary on several occasions – most notably in January 1960, when the studio hosted a press party as Let’s Make Love went into production.
“Fox built its first commissary on the Pico Boulevard lot in 1929, with actors Will Rogers and Fifi D’Orsay helping launch the Café de Paris restaurant. It was – and is – famous for its beautiful art deco murals.
The colorful stylised murals, depicting movie stars and world capitals, were added in 1932, designed by art director Haldane Douglas, an Oscar nominee for the film For Whom the Bell Tolls. The murals are part of the only original studio commissary that still exists, and although Fox has moved most of its operations over to Disney, the Commissary Dining Room is still open for lunch. During World War II, the Berlin part of the mural was painted over and replaced with Athens, the birthplace of then-studio head Spyros Skouras.
To oversee the commissary, Fox brought in former Brown Derby manager Nick Janios, who will go down in history as the inventor of the Cobb salad, and stayed at Fox from 1934 to 1971. Fox’s menus also had dishes promoting movies …”
Marilyn was first spotted in the Fox Commissary with fellow newcomer Jean Peters in 1946 – they would work together in Niagara (1953) – and later dined there with Macdonald Carey, her leading man in Let’s Make It Legal (1951.) However, director Joseph L. Mankiewicz would recall that she was too shy to join the cast of All About Eve (1950) in the banqueting suite; while Joan Collins, signed to Fox in 1954, was disappointed to learn that Marilyn usually ate in her dressing room.
Perhaps the most famous (or infamous) event in the Fox Commissary’s long history came in September 1959, when Marilyn returned to the studio for the first time in three years to bridge a ‘cold war’ of a very different order.
“One of the biggest news events ever at a studio commissary was when Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, dined at Fox in 1959 on his North American tour. Ronald Reagan and Bing Crosby turned down the coveted invitation, lest they get too close to Communism, but Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Judy Garland, Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Henry Fonda were just a few names on the star-studded guest list. The biggest name was Marilyn Monroe, whom Skouras begged to come, though her leftist husband Arthur Miller was not invited … The dignitaries and stars dined on shrimp, squab, wild rice, Parisian potatoes and peas with pearl onions. But word came down in the middle of the lunch that Khrushchev wouldn’t be able to go to Disneyland as he had intended, due to security concerns, so he spent much of his 45-minute long speech complaining about the change in plans.”
The Marilyn Report 