The Arthur Miller Tapes: A Life In His Own Words, a new book edited by his biographer, is published by Cambridge University Press.
“Christopher Bigsby and Arthur Miller shared a regular correspondence which stretched over nearly three decades of friendship. Their interaction and collaboration included a unique series of recorded interviews which now bring fresh and surprising perspectives to the life, thought and creative motivations of one of the greatest modern dramatists. The conversations range richly across topics such as the notorious McCarthy trials, the intent behind Miller’s own work, and his family dynamics and relationships – including his short-lived marriage to Marilyn Monroe. Containing new insights into Miller’s celebrated plays, including extensive meditations on Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, these illuminating interviews also give readers unrivalled access to the playwright himself.”
A chapter entitled ‘Mary and Marilyn’ examines the collapse of Miller’s first marriage and his doomed relationship with Monroe, as Donna Ferguson reports for The Guardian.
“He was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century and she was one of the greatest actors. In newly unearthed recordings made over a period of nearly three decades, Arthur Miller opened up about his short-lived marriage to Marilyn Monroe … In taped conversations with his friend and biographer Prof Christopher Bigsby, Miller said he had felt ‘death was always on her [Monroe’s] shoulder – always’. He had believed that if he did not ‘take care of her life’ she would come to a ‘catastrophic end’.
‘One time I brought doctors to pump her out because she had swallowed enough stuff [drugs] to kill her,’ he said. ‘So I felt she was in a very delicate psychological position. As it turned out, it took some years, but it happened. It was beyond my powers or anybody else’s to hold her back.’
Monroe’s death from a barbiturate overdose in 1962, at the age of 36, had seemed inevitable to him. ‘It was impossible for her to live, let alone with anybody. You couldn’t go on with that intensity of life, and those drugs, and manage to survive,’ he said.
The couple began a passionate extramarital affair in 1955 and married in 1956. Miller said it took him just months to realise he had made a mistake. ‘I was not really prepared for what I should have been prepared for, which was that she had literally no inner resources … She wanted a father, a lover, friend, agent, above all someone who would never criticise her for anything, or else she would lose confidence in herself. I don’t know if that human being exists.’
After Monroe had a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy, the couple sought medical help without success, the recordings reveal. Reflecting on their loss, Miller said he felt Monroe wanted to be a mother ‘in an ideal sort of way’, while working under ‘terrific pressure’ in Hollywood: ‘In a way, I am not sure how good it would have been for her to have a child. It would have been an additional problem … I am not sure how it would have worked out in practice.’
He described Monroe as ‘delightful to be with’ and ‘a very smart woman’ who had ‘a terrific sense of humour, irony and generosity’, but said ‘a kind of paranoia’ took over. ‘She began to suspect everybody of exploiting or damaging her.’
The couple became completely estranged while Monroe was starring in The Misfits, the film Miller wrote for her, in 1960. They started quarelling just months after their marriage, when Monroe was filming The Prince and the Showgirl: ‘We got into an argument about whether [the director, Laurence] Olivier was persecuting her … I found myself defending him, and that was the worst possible thing I could have done. But I don’t think any other course would have mattered either.’
By the time he left the set of The Misfits, their marriage was in effect over, he said. ‘We weren’t speaking. There was no way to approach her … She was genuinely hostile to me.’
From a career perspective, he felt he had spent the four years of their marriage ‘doing nothing basically’, apart from The Misfits, and that even if Monroe’s feelings had changed, he would have ended the marriage then. ‘I couldn’t have gone on. It would have killed me. I couldn’t work anymore.'”
The Marilyn Report 