How Marilyn drove drab 1950s Britain Monroe-mad, enraged Laurence Olivier and even made the Queen her No1 fan during four-month visit

• Her four month visit was a blaze of stardust in a drab post-war world
• But as a new book by Michelle Morgan reveals, it quickly descended into chaos 
•  Here is a extract of the book set to be published next week by Robinson 

Not since the Coronation had Britain experienced such a fever-pitch of excitement. Marilyn was coming! For four months in 1956, the sexiest of all Hollywood stars would be ours — and the prospect seemed to drive people slightly crazy.

Across the country, voice coaches were teaching women how to imitate Marilyn Monroe’s breathy delivery, while lookalike contests took place in every conceivable venue. 

In Airdrie, police had to be called to a Marilyn wiggle competition when hundreds rioted outside the North Lanarkshire town hall after failing to get in. At piers and other seaside venues, thousands queued to squeeze into wooden cut-outs of the star — to see if they shared the same curves as their idol.

Not since the Coronation had Britain experienced such a fever-pitch of excitement.

Meanwhile, a 64-year-old woman whose house in Ascot had been rented for Marilyn’s stay — at £100 a week (the equivalent of £2,600 today) — was becoming a celebrity in her own right. Posing for photos, Eileen Cotes-Preedy welcomed the media to have a look round.

One reporter lay down on the bed Marilyn would occupy, while another went one better and brought a Marilyn lookalike to perch on the edge. Mrs Cotes-Preedy confided she’d be buying an electric blanket — because she’d heard the 30-year-old star slept in the nude.

As Marilyn’s arrival approached, her landlady convinced herself they’d soon be best friends.

But it was not to be. Fed up with all the publicity, Marilyn’s film company had quietly rented another house — Parkside House in Englefield Green, Surrey.

By the time she found out, Mrs Cotes-Preedy had already ordered enough flowers for 40 vases to welcome her new tenant.

Incensed at the change of plan, she wailed to the Daily Mail: ‘I wish I’d never heard of Marilyn Monroe.’

As the actress’s plane touched down at Heathrow on July 14, 1956, Sir Laurence Olivier was waiting for her in the terminal with his wife Vivien Leigh.

In the hope she’d finally be taken seriously as an actress, Marilyn had asked him to be her leading man and director in a film called The Sleeping Prince — later renamed The Prince And The Showgirl.

At a joint press conference in New York, Marilyn had called Olivier ‘a dreamboat’ and said England sounded ‘adorable’

Who could ask for a more inspired pairing: the world’s most famous sex symbol and its greatest actor!

At a joint press conference in New York, Marilyn had called Olivier ‘a dreamboat’ and said England sounded ‘adorable’. As for the great man himself, he was so enraptured that he worried he might fall in love.

In the event, however, Olivier’s ardour was cruelly dented.

Just weeks before leaving for Britain, Marilyn had married her third husband, the intellectual American playwright Arthur Miller — and she was bringing him along for a prolonged honeymoon.

‘I have never been so happy in my life,’ Marilyn said shortly after their wedding. ‘This is the first time I think I’ve really been in love.’

Once the couple’s 27 pieces of luggage (for which they paid the equivalent of more than £11,000 in excess baggage) had been disgorged from the plane, Marilyn and Olivier attended the first of four press conferences.

With up to 400 jostling writers and photographers, there was barely any room to breathe. One newspaper compared it to the VE Day celebrations.

What did she want to do in England? Buy a bicycle to tootle down country lanes, she replied. And ‘see many things in London, including the little fellow with the bow and arrow in Piccadilly Circus — I’ve always wanted to meet him’.

Film star Marilyn Monroe (1926 – 1962) with her husband playwright, Arthur Miller

At the next press conference, two Daily Sketch reporters triumphantly wheeled in a blue and white bicycle and presented it to her. She was thrilled, but later complained that it was almost impossible to move in her hallway for bicycles.

Every single bike manufacturer in Britain had decided to send her a freebie.

Other questions gave Marilyn a gratifying opening to prove she was no dumb blonde.

Ambition? To play Lady Macbeth. Favourite composers? Beethoven and Berlioz.

When a sneaky journalist stood up to ask which specific Beethoven symphonies she liked, she replied: ‘I have a terrible time with numbers. I know it when I hear it.’

On July 19, Marilyn joined Olivier and the rest of the cast at Pinewood Studios for a read-through of the script. It did not go well.

Introducing her to the others, Olivier explained it would take her a while to get used to the way they all worked because her acting technique was so vastly different.

Shocked by what she considered his snobbish attitude, Marilyn was immediately on edge.

Determined to become a ‘serious’ actress, she’d been attending a New York drama school famous for ‘the Method’, a technique for completely immersing yourself in a role. To help with her part — playing a showgirl — Marilyn had insisted on bringing along a Method coach, Paula Strasberg.

Marilyn Monroe with Husband Arthur Miller arriving in London

This didn’t impress Olivier, who despised the Method and was horrified that Strasberg was being paid only slightly less than he was.

Over the following days, the atmosphere on set degenerated.

Olivier grew increasingly exasperated: as far as he was concerned, Strasberg’s only talent was telling her insecure client how wonderful she was.

But she wasn’t the only one being fawned over.

Third assistant director David Tringham remembered: ‘Olivier was surrounded by cronies, telling him how great he was. It was frosty between Marilyn and Olivier — he couldn’t handle it that she didn’t defer to him.’

Whenever she fluffed her lines, Olivier urged her to try again — but he’d be largely ignored as she turned to Strasberg for comfort. And there were plenty of fluffs.

But if Olivier had reason to gnash his teeth, so did she — particularly when he said her teeth looked slightly yellow on film, and suggested she whiten them with baking soda and lemon juice.

Events came to a head when Olivier ordered Marilyn to be ‘sexy’ for a particular scene. Finding this impossibly condescending, she stormed off the set.

From then on, Marilyn almost always arrived late at the studio, or hid in her dressing-room with Strasberg for hours while the other actors tapped their feet, waiting for her to emerge. Holding up the production was her way of punishing Olivier — whom she referred to sarcastically as ‘Mister Sir’ — for his lack of respect.

From then on, Marilyn almost always arrived late at the studio, or hid in her dressing-room with Strasberg for hours

As filming progressed, he became increasingly moody, any idea of falling in love long since forgotten. And he wasn’t the only one nursing grave reservations.

Observing the minimal effort Marilyn put into each scene, some cast members began to fret she’d ruin the whole film. When the distinguished actress Dame Sybil Thorndike voiced these concerns to Olivier, he invited her to watch the daily rushes and come to her own conclusion.

She pronounced herself astounded at what she saw.

‘Instead of Marilyn’s timing being wrong, it was perfect; instead of muttering, her enunciation came through magnificently,’ she said two years later. ‘I consider Miss Monroe to be one of the best actresses in the world today.’

For Arthur Miller, his first real immersion in the Marilyn experience came as quite a shock. After falling out with Olivier, she’d asked her 40-year-old husband to come on set as part of her support system — so he was witness to the daily tensions.

When he tried to reason with his wife or come up with compromises, however, she took that to mean he was siding with the ‘enemy’.

The hoped-for honeymoon had not materialised. Sometimes, Miller felt like an employee who had to ensure Marilyn left the house on time — or to field angry calls from Pinewood if she had not.

A further source of anguish was her addiction to prescription drugs for suppressing her appetite and lifting her mood. In addition, she took sleeping pills for insomnia, yet would still occasionally wake in the middle of the night, weeping hysterically.

Aware of how ultra-sensitive she was to criticism, Miller couldn’t share his feelings with Marilyn. Instead, he wrote down his innermost thoughts in a private journal.

Six weeks after her arrival in Britain, she stumbled across it while searching for her script. Seeing her name in the open notebook, she started reading.

The contents of those pages have never been made public, but Marilyn told friends they were all about his disappointment in her. He no longer felt she was an angel in his life; he didn’t know how to answer Olivier’s complaints about her behaviour; and — according to Marilyn — ‘He said he agreed with Larry that I could be a b****.’

Soon after discovering the notebook, she was rushed to a local hospital, suffering from a suspected overdose.

On her return home, one witness to her state of mind was a young pianist called Alan who’d been hired to go to her rented house so she could practise the song she had to sing. ‘She was miserable and puffy and her temper was short,’ he said.

In the midst of all this, Miller flew back to the United States. The timing couldn’t have been worse, but his trip had been planned weeks before. Marilyn started calling in sick, leaving Olivier struggling to find scenes to film without her. Rumours began to circulate that she’d had a miscarriage.

In fact, Marilyn was genuinely unwell: doctors had diagnosed her with neutropenia, a low white blood-cell count.

Having suffered from endometriosis [a womb condition which often results in pain and fertility issues] since her teens, she’d also long had excruciatingly painful periods — which the lower-strength painkillers prescribed by British doctors were doing little to alleviate.

On Tuesday, September 4, a top gynaecologist specialising in endometriosis arrived at Marilyn’s home to examine her under anaesthesia. Miller returned from America the following day, and she took the rest of the week off sick.

On the Friday, however, it didn’t escape Olivier’s notice that Marilyn managed to don her glad rags and go to the theatre.

On days off, she’d put on a floppy hat, drop her famous wiggle and escape with Alan the piano player to see the sights.

In Trafalgar Square, a little old lady poked her in the ribs. ‘’Ere, you’re that Marilyn Monroe tart, ain’t ya?’ she said.

Alan recalled: ‘Marilyn looked down and in her “Queen” voice said, “Oh thank you, you’re so kind. I’m often being compared to her.”

‘“Snotty cow,” said the old woman and stormed off. Marilyn was in hysterics, laughing.’ In fact, Marilyn — who was a talented mimic — was soon to meet the Queen herself at a celebrity line-up for a Royal Command Performance.

Monroe with her second husband, baseball star Joe Dimaggio, who remained devoted to her until the end

Warned to wear appropriately conservative clothing, Marilyn deliberately chose a gold-lamé gown with spaghetti straps and plunging neckline. This didn’t faze the Queen: she briefly looked the actress up and down, then allowed Marilyn to take her hand as she sank into a curtsy.

‘The Queen is very warm-hearted,’ Marilyn said afterwards. ‘She radiates sweetness. She asked how I liked living in Windsor, and I said, “What?!” And she said that as I was staying in Englefield Green, near to Windsor, we were neighbours. So, I told her that my husband and I went on bicycle rides in the park.’

In 1961, an unnamed ‘friend’ of the Queen said that after the 1956 Royal Command Performance, Her Majesty had become fascinated with Marilyn and watched every one of her movies. She apparently told the friend: ‘I thought Miss Monroe was a very sweet person. But I felt sorry for her, because she was so nervous that she had licked all her lipstick off.’

Footage of the event seems to back this up: in the line-up, Marilyn can be seen licking her lips as she waits for the Queen to reach her.

One of the toughest scenes of The Prince And The Showgirl to film — for both Marilyn and Olivier — was when their characters had to kiss. By then, they’d gone past the point where they even wanted to pretend to like each other.

It took all day before a usable kiss was finally in the can.

Monroe with singer and actor Frank Sinatra, who she dated for several months in 1961

 Cold Case: History will go into production with Story House this fall, but it isn’t the first series to look into Monroe’s mysterious death

The assistant director David Tringham recalled: ‘There was just no chemistry. It was a fatal flaw — Marilyn looked as though she was talking to her father.’

True, 49-year-old Olivier was nearly 20 years older, but it wasn’t just his appearance that was fatherly. He’d now taken to telling Marilyn off when she kept people waiting, and even made her apologise to the unit.

This was too much for Dame Sybil Thorndike, who accused Olivier of bullying tactics.

On November 16, the ill-fated film was finally completed. Marilyn presented gifts to the entire unit: jewellery boxes for the ladies, bottles of alcohol and wallets for the men.

Then she apologised to them for being ‘beastly,’ adding: ‘I hope you will forgive me as it wasn’t altogether my fault. I have been ill.’

Reviews for The Prince And The Showgirl were mixed, and most hailed Marilyn as the star of the film. Picturegoer magazine opined that, as the director, Laurence Olivier had ‘worked wonders’ with her, inspiring her to give ‘the performance of her life’.

Years later, he said: ‘I’ve never been so glad when anything was over.’

Adapted from When Marilyn Met The Queen: Marilyn Monroe’s Life In England by Michelle Morgan, published by Robinson on February 17 at £20. © Michelle Morgan 2022. 

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