"BLONDE" (2022)

Blonde

From the novel by Joyce Carol Oates

Screenplay by Andrew Dominik

Jan 14 2016

What follows is fiction.

Biographical facts should be sought elsewhere.

SUPER: Los Angeles 1933

A LITTLE STRIPED TIGER:

A stuffed child’s toy.

She is cradled by Norma Jeane, 7 years old today, golden- * haired, with a rosebud mouth, who sits very still, just the way Mother likes her to.

Mother casts a sidelong glance at the child, seductive, for this is Gladys’ way, she draws you in.

Close on Norma Jeane with Mother’s hand over her eyes...

...as Mother guides her into the bedroom.

Norma Jeane looks; where is the surprise? Hidden? Under the bed? In the closet?

Norma Jeane looks to where Gladys is pointing. It is not a man: It is a picture of a man; hanging on the wall beside the bureau mirror.

Norma Jeane’s heart, so fluttery, like a humming bird’s wings.

Reverent silence as they contemplate the man-in-the-picture- frame, the man-in-the-photograph, the man-with-a-pencil-thin- moustache-and-dark-soulful-eyes.

Gladys removes the photo from the wall and cradles it at Norma Jeane’s eye-level.

Norma Jeane looks at the photo, from which a splintery light seems to be reflected.

A lone fly is buzzing, striking itself repeatedly against the window pane. Gladys’ eyes glaze, and seem to turn inward.

Gladys gets up and rehangs the photo on the wall. Steps back. Out of her trance.

And now a surprise! An angel-food birthday cake for Norma Jeane!

The telephone begins to ring. But Gladys, smiling to herself doesn’t answer. With hands shaking, she lights the seven candles of the cake.

Norma Jeane looks to the phone, and looks back to Gladys with anxiety. Why doesn’t Mother answer the phone?

Between Gladys’ brows a sharp crease appears.

Norma Jeane shuts her eyes and blows out all the candles save one in a single breath.

So much excitement, now she’s exhausted. Her head lolls on her shoulders as Mother walks her into the bedroom and lays her down on the sagging bed. Gladys tugs off her shoes and opens the top drawer of the bureau, to remove a towel to place beneath Norma Jeane’s head.

Gladys straightens, looks down into the empty drawer.

CUT TO

A STRANGE LOW ANGLE; LOOKING UP AT GLADYS, FROM WITHIN.

Norma Jeane shakes her sleepy head no.

Gladys shoves the drawer shut and we slide sickishly into darkness. Sealed up. Mute.

5 OMITTED 5 *

A single spark, the first spark, the first ever spark out of nowhere. An enormous tree, a hundred years old, bursts into flame. More sparks, like malicious seeds, borne by the wind...

Walls of flame, twenty feet high, leap across coastal highways like rapacious living creatures. Birds burst into flame in midair.

Fireballs roll down the Hollywood Hills like the wrath of Jehova. Stampeding cattle shriek in terror and run ablaze like torches! Buildings implode in the flames like bombs! Fields of fire! Canyons of fire!

Mother shaking her awake.

Gladys pulls her, in her pajamas and bare feet, out of the bungalow and toward the car.

Through the wind-born ash and dust. So many sirens! Men’s shouts! Strange high pitched cries that might be the shrieks of birds or animals. Norma Jeane sees the lurid firelight reflected upon the clouds in the sky.

Why is mother driving the car in the wrong direction? Not away from the fire-splotched hills but toward them.

Other cars head in the opposite direction; downhill, their headlights blinding. Norma Jeane squints at her mother with pale anxiety.

DR). NIGHT.

Ahead is a fire barricade. Flares on the road. The blinding lights of emergency vehicles. Gladys is forced to brake by uniformed officers.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY Where the hell do you think you’re going?

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY Where exactly? What’s the address?

He comes closer, shining the flashlight into her very face. Suspicious, skeptical.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY Who’s that in the car with you?

Norma Jeane sees, uneasily, that the Sheriff’s Deputy is fascinated by her mother, the way he’d be fascinated by someone leaning too far out of a high window or bringing her hair too close to a flame.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY (sighs) Go home ma’am, and put your little girl to bed. It’s late.

Gladys has spoken in her sexy-husky voice, and the abrupt change is disconcerting.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY Ma’am, you need to turn this car around. Now, I can give you an escort if you need one, but this is an order and if you don’t turn around right now you’ll be placed under arrest.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY Lady, go home. You’re drunk or doped up and nobody’s got time for it tonight. You’re saying things to get you into trouble.

Gladys clutches at his arm. The smeary cold cream face, the dilated eyes, the smell of alcohol on her breath.

Hot winds buffet the car, snaky spirals of dust fly past. Massed clouds turbulent with flamey light.

Gladys’ hand leaps from the steering wheel, dealing Norma Jeane a sharp backhand blow.

Norma Jeane whimpers and hunches in a corner of the seat, drawing her knees up to her chest.

A detour sign. Another detour. Gladys indignant, sobbing, desperate. A crying sniveling child beside her. She is thirty four years old. No man will ever look at her again with longing. Driving out into an intersection, rivulets of sweat on her face, looking from left to right to left.

‘MARILYN’ (V.O.) Because she loved the child and wished to spare her grief...

Norma Jeane, naked and sobbing, crawling through the flames to hide behind the spinet piano. No live sound, this sequence is as mute as a tomb:

‘MARILYN’ (V.O.) Because the fires in the hills were a clear summons and a sign.

Mother striking the piano keyboard with both fists, an outcry of sharp treble notes.

‘MARILYN’ (V.O.) Because the child was her own secret self exposed.

Norma Jeane defying mother, eluding mother. Scrambling across the carpet like a panicked animal.

‘MARILYN’ (V.O.) Because the very father of the child had wished it not to be born.

Scalding hot water rushing into the tub.

‘MARILYN’ (V.O.) Because he had given her money, scattering bills across the bed.

She raises the child, trying to lift her, and force her into the water. The child resists, screaming.

‘MARILYN’ (V.O.) Because he told her he’d never loved her; she had misunderstood.

Norma Jeane, plunged under the water.

‘MARILYN’ (V.O.) Because before the pregnancy he had loved her, and after he had not.

Norma Jeane, drowning...

‘MARILYN’ (V.O.) Because he would have married her. She was certain.

...Fighting free, running from the steamy bathroom, and out of Mother’s clutching arms.

CONTINUOUS.

Norma Jeane running through the burning apartment.

‘MARILYN’ (V.O.) Because no one could love a child so accursed.

Sound returns with these words flung after her, like stones:

Norma Jeane, naked, runs blindly through the corridor, pounds at a neighbor’s door:

She runs farther along the corridor and pounds at a second door:

As she runs toward the third door, it opens, and a young man, in an undershirt and beltless trousers, blinks down at her in astonishment. This frantic little girl, totally naked, her face streaked with tears.

He snatches up his shirt from the chair and wraps it quickly around the child, covering her nakedness. A woman appears from the back bedroom.

Miss Flynn looks down the corridor and sees tendrils of smoke unfurling under Gladys’ door.

NIGHT.

The child takes the proffered hand and folds gratefully into the Miss Flynn’s embrace.

Beat. Then:

Miss Flynn is smiling brightly. ‘Uncle Clive’ is behind her in the doorway. Like pallbearers they are.

‘Shall we go?’ This is movie talk; the child is alerted to danger.

Miss Flynn smiling, her mouth too full of teeth.

Norma Jeane comforts her Little Stuffed Tiger. She sings to it listlessly.

ANGLE ON: The Little Tiger; firescorched, most of its hair burnt away, and its glassy eyes fixed in an expression of idiot horror.

AVE. DAY.

She’s dressed in her good school clothes: A plaid pleated skirt, a white cotton blouse, Miss Flynn brushes at her curly- snarly hair.

She lets the hairbrush fall.

By the front door, with the suitcases, Miss Flynn notices the Stuffed Tiger.

But Norma Jeane hugs her Tiger tight.

Clutching desperately at her Tiger, Norma Jeane regards the backs of the heads of the adults.

All ride in grim silence. Play out.

23 NORMA JEANE’S POV OF... 23

...A brick building bearing a sign, above its front entrance, that makes no sense:

LOS ANGELES ORPHANS HOME SOCIETY

This is not a hospital. Where is the hospital? Where is Mother? The child begins to tremble uncontrollably. Uncle Clive gets out of the car an goes to retrieve the suitcases from the trunk. Miss Flynn turns to Norma Jeane in the back seat. The child in the grip of animal panic.

She has to pry the terrified child out of the backseat.

Half carrying, half dragging, alternately begging and scolding:

Turning his back on the struggle, ‘Uncle Clive’ strides away to light a smoke in the open air. He’s a bit player who’s had mostly walk on roles - he has no idea how to manage an actual scene.

CLOSE ON: Norma Jeane, weeping, stuttering:

Now we’re in the dank, airless corridor, Norma Jeane is being pulled along by a stranger’s hand, heaving raw with tears and snot, there is no sync sound, she’s sealed up mute, entombed.

MUSIC OVER: Every baby needs a Da-da-daddyby Marilyn Monroe

Every baby needs a Da-da-daddy

To keep her worry free

Every baby needs a Da-da-daddy

But where’s the one for me?

The song continues over...

26 A MONTAGE OF MAGAZINE COVERS... 26

Norma Jeane flowering into womanhood on the covers of...

Hit!Laff! Pix! Peek! Swank! Sir!

Rich or Poor I dont care who

If he hasn’t got a million then a half will do

27 A MONTAGE: MODELING JOBS (MUSIC CONTINUES). PHOTO STUDIOS.27 *

She is: Miss Aluminum Products 1949; in tight white Nylon.

She is: Miss southern California Dairy products 1949; in a white swimsuit.

She is: Miss Paper Products 1949; in a bright pink crepe- paper gown.

Every Baby needs a Da-da-daddy

Could my Da-daddy be you?

PHOTOGRAPHERS lower their cameras, stare frankly. *

Norma Jeane is confiding to her HAIRDRESSER.

Norma Jeane is making out with CHARLES CHAPLIN JNR. (CASS) * and EDWARD G. ROBINSON JNR. (EDDY G.) (More on these two * later.) *

Hands slip between her legs and Norma Jeane’s eyes close.

The coach walks among the young men and women, including Norma Jeane, (and Cass and Eddy G.) all with eyes closed.

31 OMITTED 31 *

Her gnome-like agent, the Rumplestiltskin-esque I. E. SHINN:

Everybaby needs a Da-da-daddy

With silver in his hair

Norma Jeane enters an office of gleaming teakwood and glass. Taxidermy birds peer down at her. Mr Z., behind the desk, lifts his eyes, suspicious and assessing.

Every baby needs a Da-da-daddy

who has some gold to spare

And then he’s pushing her toward the white fur rug, shoving her sharkskin skirt up to her waist and tearing at her panties.

Some sweet softy , who enjoys

Bringing home his baby little diamond toys, oh ho!

His penis is being nudged into her, sharp as a screwdriver. Norma Jeane’s hair is white, as if with terrible shock, and her eyes as unseeing as stones. And she repeats, under her breath, like a mantra:

Walking out, passing by his secretary (Yvet); so sharp-eyed and disdainful, hobbling in pain & makeup streaked & bleeding through the back of her dress & too ashamed to raise her eyes...

36 IN THE BATHROOM. (MUSIC CONTINUES) SOON AFTER... 36

...Scrubbing at her skirt with trembling hands.

Every baby needs a Da-da-daddy

In case she runs aground

Norma Jeane, dazed, panicked, lost

Every baby needs a Da-da-daddy

To keep her safe and sound

looking for...

The Casting Director looks at his clipboard:

She bursts into tears, embarrassing the Casting Director and Assistants.

39 CLIP FROM: ‘ALL ABOUT EVE’ 20TH CENTURY FOX. 1950. 39

‘MARILYN MONROE’ at the top of a staircase with GEORGE SANDERS:

‘MARILYN’ (sighs) Why do they always look like unhappy rabbits?

Norma Jeane, disturbed by the movie, sitting between Cass and Eddy G.

CUT TO BLACK:

The sound of shrieking! Hysteria!

...And a voice is saying...

She comes back to this place...

41 (ACTING CLASS) 41

...where a girl is crying,

laughing - sobbing - it is herself, being walked to a chair, one of the folding chairs arranged in a semicircle, she is hyperventilating as in a fit or convulsion.

She looks at the scared faces around her. And she understands suddenly that this is not all right. She smiles uncertainly.

END MONTAGE.

Super: 20th Century Fox 1952

A light flashes on his desk, his Assistant calls out:

The DIRECTOR, hung-over, with Huston-esque features, sighs, and picks up the phone:

Her blue eyes are brimming with panic, both her hands trembling, holding the script. And her voice so breathy you almost can’t hear her speaking, like a school-girl nerved up, to declare:

The Director laughs.

She blushes, knowing she’s being mocked. I. E. Shinn stands there glowering, red-faced, spittle gleaming on his thick lips.

She holds the script in her trembling hands, the words blur on the page.

(N.B. Norma Jeane’s V.O. has the quality of chatter, background noise, the workings of an unquiet mind.)

She looks up from her script, in the grip of despair, and pleads in a choked voice:

NORMA JEANE AS ‘NELL’ But you haven’t any reason to l- leave now.

ASSISTANT AS ‘JED POWERS’ (flat) Sure I have. I want to.

NORMA JEANE AS ‘NELL’ (frantic) But she’ll be quiet.

ASSISTANT AS ‘JED POWERS’ It’s not her. I’ve got an appointment.

NORMA JEANE AS ‘NELL’ I’ll go with you. Let’s go dancing.

ASSISTANT AS ‘JED POWERS’ What’s the matter with you? You’re supposed to be here with that kid.

NORMA JEANE AS ‘NELL’ Stay. She wont b-bother you anymore.

ASSISTANT AS ‘JED POWERS’ You bother me. I can’t figure you out.

NORMA JEANE AS ‘NELL’ I’ll be anyway you want me to be.

ASSISTANT AS ‘JED POWERS’ Why? Why’s it so important?

NORMA JEANE AS ‘NELL’ B-because I belong with you, Phillip...

ASSISTANT AS ‘JED POWERS’ I’m Jed, Nell. Jed.

NORMA JEANE AS ‘NELL’ (interrupts) ...I didn’t think you were ever coming back. They told me you were lost at sea.

ASSISTANT AS ‘JED POWERS’ I’m not the man you think I am. Remember him Nell? Remember? Now think back. What did he look like?

She closes her eyes and imagines:

44 NORMA JEANE’S MEMORY OF THE MAN-IN-THE-PHOTOGRAPH: THE MAN-44 WITH-A-PENCIL-THIN-MOUSTACHE-AND-DARK-SOULFUL-EYES.

NORMA JEANE AS ‘NELL’ (V.O.) He had brown eyes and shiny black hair.

ASSISTANT AS ‘JED POWERS’ I’m not Phillip, I’m Jed, Nell. Jed.

NORMA JEANE AS ‘NELL’ Peoples names...? You’re not him? You never were.

She stammers and falters and...

The men in the room are visibly disturbed by the intensity of her performance. Norma Jeane looks up from her script.

An awkward pause.

The Director is astonished, doesn’t know what to say; looking at this beautiful ‘Marilyn’ and her Agent with his tragic gargoyle face.

The Director stands by the window, smoking.

The Director watches as, a floor below, I. E. Shinn and the blonde walk away from the building. The Director exhales smoke, coughs in pain:

That same ass approaching the main gate.

Dr. Bender, resident psychiatrist, with an oyster-round face:

Yet she recognizes her at once; a thin faded woman in a faded green shift, crookedly buttoned.

She awkwardly embraces Gladys, who neither embraces her in return, nor resists her. Norma Jeane bursts into tears, surprising herself with the rawness of her emotion. They are in a visitors lounge among strangers. Norma Jeane’s trembling badly and can’t seem to catch her breath. She looks around and sees the ward nurses whispering; comparing them.

Slowly and painstakingly they walk, Gladys’ swollen feet shuffling in the worn felt slippers. Norma Jeane has the urge to break free from her mother and run, run!

Gladys detaches herself from Norma Jeane and shuffles to the nearest bench, where she sits immediately, like a collapsing umbrella. Folding her arms as if she were cold, or spiteful. Norma Jeane draws a dove-grey shawl over her mother’s shoulders.

She can’t seem to control her voice, tasting panic, as if she’s found herself in movie scene without being given words to speak, and so she must improvise:

She squeezes her mother’s hand.

She rummages in her handbag and brings out an envelope containing recent magazine features and photos of herself. Exclusively ‘nice’ poses, nothing cheap or vulgar. Gladys stares at the photos and her thin lips get thinner.

In each of the photos Norma Jeane looks different - Girlish - Glamorous - Girl-next-door - Sophisticated - Ethereal - Sexy - Gladys frowns at the photos, as if examining a puzzle.

She pauses, waits for Gladys speak. To saysomething.

Gladys turns toward her, frowns severely.

Now there’s a reaction; fury:

Norma Jeane’s stricken face. She doesn’t know what to say.

Beat.

Gladys shifts uneasily in her chair. It is then that Norma Jeane notices the hands: Her mothers hands; restlessly stroking each other, wrestling each other for dominance.

‘JED POWERS’ (PRE-LAP) You mean she was in an institution?

50 ‘DONT BOTHER TO KNOCK’ B&W 1952 (A HOTEL BATHROOM.) 50

The hands! The restless, seeking hands! Hands of Madness, unwrapping a razorblade! Norma Jeane as ‘Marilyn’ as ‘Nell’ with Gladys Mortensen’s hands and mesmerized stare, lifting the razor. Gladys’ soul in young Norma Jeane’s body, bringing the razor to her throat!

‘JED POWERS’ (O.S.) Nell? Don’t do that! You don’t want to do that!

‘Jed Powers’ pushes through the crowd gathered in the Hallway...

‘JED POWERS’ Nell!

CLOSE ON: ‘Nell’ pressing the razor against her throat. Oh, so happy!

Norma Jeane; a wild look in her eye, hearing Mother’s voice! * Seeing Mother reflected in the mirror! *

GLADYS/REFLECTION * Cut! Yes! Cut! Don’t be a coward! * Cut! *

And then a bell is ringing, the take is over.

As she calms herself, walks toward WHITEY, on shaky legs. * Pops a pill. *

She’s on the phone, in her apartment, listening to her agent * reading the ecstatic reviews: *

NORMA JEANE * Oh Mr Shinn! At the premiere I shut * my eyes a lot. I couldn’t believe * that girl was me. But everyone in * the audience would think it was me: * ‘Nell’. And afterward at the party: * ‘Marilyn.’ *

NORMA JEANE * No, it’s not. That’s no business of * yours! I’m not on painkillers, I’m * not. *

CUT TO: *

Norma Jeane and her lovers, going through the Tabloids: She * looks at a Newspaper photo of her with a baseball bat: BATTER * UP! *

NORMA JEANE * Oh, she’s pretty I guess. But it * isn’t me, is it? What about when * people find out? *

EDDY G. * (self-absorbed) * I hate this one, I look like an * asshole, with my mouth open, like * I’m panting. *

NORMA JEANE * (burrowing into Cass) * Oh! I wish I could just hide in * your arms! Forever and ever in your * arms! *

CASS * (laughs) * You don’t mean that Norma, an * actress wants to be seen. An * actress wants to be loved by a * multitude of people. *

NORMA JEANE * It’s as if it’s all happening to * someone right next to me. *

Eddy shows them Hollywood Confidential, with the threesome on * the cover: Dancing together in a bar on the strip. *

EDDY G. * (reading aloud) * ‘Young men-about-town Charlie * Chaplin Jnr and Edward G. Robinson * Jnr and blonde Sexpot Marilyn * Monroe: A threesome?’ *

CASS * (mock offense) * Vulgar. *

EDDY G. * Exploitative. *

CASS * ‘Marilyn’ is a serious actress. A * sexpot? What’s a sexpot? *

Grabbing at her buttocks. Her vagina. *

CASS * Is this the sexpot? Or this? *

Norma Jeane squeals, giggles, she leaps to her feet and they * chase her through the apartment. She’s cornered on the bed, * just the touch of them making her melt. Dreamy-sticky kisses, * the rapture beginning... *

They’re fucking her now. Or Eddy G is, while Cass smokes and * tenderly strokes her face. She’s lost in rapture that goes on * and on. *

CASS * Were you waiting for us, Norma * Jeane? Were you starved for us? *

NORMA JEANE * Yes. *

CUT TO: *

EDDY G. * Oh, Norma. I guess I do love you. * (His spoiled-boy face on * the verge of tears...) * I’m jealous of you and Cass. I’m * jealous of anybody who looks at * you. If I could love any woman, it * would be you. *

ON CASS; *

Those lovelorn woeful eyes: *

CASS * Norma? When you say you love me, * when you look at me, even - who do * you see, truly? The Little Tramp? * Do you see him? *

NORMA JEANE * No. Oh, no! I see only you. *

CASS * People think being Charlie * Chaplin’s son is a blessing. Like * it’s a fairytale and I’m the King’s * son. But we’re cursed, Eddy and me. *

EDDY G. * We’re Juniors. Of men who never * wanted us. *

EDDY G. * But at least you two have fathers. * At least you know who you are! *

CASS * Oh, we knew who we were before we * were born. *

NORMA JEANE * And how do you know they never * wanted you? You can’t trust your * mothers to tell you the absolute * truth. When love goes wrong, and a * couple gets (divorced) - *

EDDY G. * ‘Love’? Are you serious? Fucking * bullshit ‘love’ little fishie is * telling us. *

NORMA JEANE * I don’t like that name - ‘fish’. I * resent that. *

CASS * And we resent you telling us what * we should be feeling. You never * knew your father, so you’re free. * You can invent yourself. I love * your name: ‘Marilyn Monroe’: so * totally phony. I love it! Like you * gave birth to yourself. *

EDDY G. * Of course, my old man is * practically shit next to yours. Two- * bit gangster flicks. Anybody can * imitate him sneering. But Charlie * Chaplin- *

CASS * (interrupts) * I’ve asked you not to talk about my * father, Goddamn you. You know shit, * about him and me. *

EDDY G. * Oh, fuck yourself, Cassie, what’s * the big deal? Did he ever break * your ribs? Mine did. My mother * testified to it in divorce court. *

CASS * At least she could testify in * divorce court. My mother was too * drunk. *

EDDY G. * Your mother! What about my mother? *

CASS * Look, we’ve all got sick mothers. * I’ll spare you mine, if you spare * me yours. Deal? *

Eddy giggles. *

EDDY G. * I’ll drink to that. *

The champagne bottle he’s reaching for falls to the ground * and breaks. *

EDDY G. * Jesus! Not Again. *

And suddenly all three are laughing again. *

CUT TO: *

Norma Jeane, in dark glasses, exits her lime green cadillac * and nervously enters the building. *

64 IN HER WOMB: 64 *

We float through darkness. Gradually a figure comes clear * above us, a little nub of flesh around a beating heart: this * is BABY. *

She reaches for a tissue. *

NORMA JEANE * Oh I knew. I guess I knew. I’ve * been feeling so swollen. And so * happy. *

The Doctor, mishearing, seeing only this young woman’s tears, * reaches for her ringless hand. *

DOCTOR * My dear. You’re healthy. It will be * all right. *

NORMA JEANE * I’m happy I said! I want this baby. * My husband and I have been t-trying * for years. *

CASS * Hey, Norma, what’s it? You look-- *

...Sliding into the booth, grinning in dread, *

CASS * --Fraught. *

She bursts into tears. She takes their hands in hers and * kisses them, each in turn. The men are frightened of her, * exchanging glances between themselves. *

CASS * Oh, Norma. You think you are? *

EDDY G. * This what I think it is? Ohhhh, * man. *

Both grin, panic clutching at their hearts. Norma Jeane fixes * her beautiful anxious eyes on theirs. *

NORMA JEANE * Are you h-happy for me? Us - I * mean? *

What can they say but: *

CASS & EDDY G. * Yes. *

Drunk on red wine, giddy, excited and tearful, on their way * to the car, when something catches Norma Jeane’s eye: *

NORMA JEANE * It’s like the movies! The kind of * thing that only happens in the * movies. *

EDDY G. * What? *

NORMA JEANE * That little Tiger. I had one like * him once. A long time ago when I * was a girl. *

And there it is, abandoned on the sidewalk: The Little * Striped Tiger. *

EDDY G. * (picking it up) * Baby’s first plaything. Cute! *

NORMA JEANE * But who does it belong to? That * belongs to somebody. *

EDDY G. * (baby voice) * I found it, Mommy, it’s mine. *

A Nighttime drive. They are at Sunset turning east. *

NORMA JEANE * Cass, where are you taking us? I * want to go home. Baby’s so sleepy. *

CASS * This is a vision for Baby to see. * Just wait. *

And now begins the succession of brightly illuminated * billboards, passing overhead: Movies! Movie star faces! *

EDDY G. * Norma! You can look or not, but-- *

And most spectacular of all; approaching on the towering * billboard; thirty feet across; *

her voluptuous body, her beautiful taunting face, her red- * glistening lips parted so suggestively... *

CASS * ...There she is. ‘Marilyn.’ *

Off Norma Jeane’s reaction: *

Norma Jeane, with The Little Stuffed Tiger, talking on the * phone. *

She places a happy hand on her belly... *

62 INSERT: IN UTERO: 62 *

...Where ‘BABY’ sleeps his wordless sleep. *

BACK TO SCENE: *

NORMA JEANE * No. Nothing is wrong. I just can’t. * Not now. *

NORMA JEANE * My private life. *

NORMA JEANE * My private life. I have my own * life! I’m not just a ‘thing’ in the * movies. *

NORMA JEANE * (sighs) * How much would I get? *

NORMA JEANE * And how much would Jane Russell * get? *

NORMA JEANE * Yes, but how much? *

NORMA JEANE * How much? *

NORMA JEANE * One hundred thousand! *

63 IN HER WOMB 63 *

Baby feels a stab of hurt! Baby, too, is insulted. *

NORMA JEANE * I’ll get about eighteen thousand * dollars and Jane Russell gets a * hundred thousand? That’s an insult! * I’m going to hang up now. Goodbye. *

NORMA JEANE * Fuck ‘Marilyn’. She’s not here. *

She slams down the phone. Picks up her notepad and pencil. *

64 IN HER WOMB: 64 *

Baby floats in darkness. *

In you, *

the world is born anew. *

Before you - *

there was none. *

There is now a long deep scrape on the fender. Serrated dents * in the grill. Norma Jeane sits between her lovers in the * crowded front seat. Cass seems irritable, working his mouth * as if trying to swallow, an alarmingnot-thereness in his * eyes. *

NORMA JEANE * You know who rang my Agent again? * That ex-ballplayer. What nerve! You * see the billboard, you make a call * and an offer. What’s Marilyn’s * price? *

CASS * You can play hard to get. Hard to * get into. Great role for ‘Marilyn’. *

EDDY G. * (to Cass) * He’s famous. He must be rich. *

CASS * (to Eddy) * Marilyn’s famous. She’s not rich. *

NORMA JEANE * Oh, but I’m not famous like him. He * had a long career before he * retired. Everyone loves him. *

CASS * So why not you? *

She glances anxiously at Cass; not the reaction she was * hoping for. *

Cass whistles. *

CASS * I can see that, ma’am. *

EDDY G. * I can see that, and I’m totally * wasted. *

They follow the Realtor (female 45) towards the French * Normandy Mansion. *

NORMA JEANE * Oh! - it’s beautiful. Like in a * fairytale - but which one? *

REALTOR * The pool is cleaned every Monday * morning. I’m sure it was cleaned * this week. *

Eddy G clambers up onto the diving board and flexes his knees * as if about to dive in. *

CASS * Don’t dare him, please. Don’t even * look at him. I don’t intend to * drown trying to rescue him. *

EDDY G. * Fuck you, Jew-boy. *

Moving through the house now, Norma Jeane whispers to Eddy G: *

NORMA JEANE * Eddy, this is crazy. I can’t afford * this. *

EDDY G. * We’ll swing it somehow. We three. *

The sunken living room has parquet floors, furniture shrouded * in white, a gigantic stone fireplace. Mirrors reflect other * mirrors in an infinite regress that makes Norma Jeane’s heart * flutter. *

REALTOR * It’s a fantasy house, isn’t it * dear? So original and inventive. * The three of you are going into * seclusion? This is the ideal place * I promise you. *

The Realtor leads them into the... *

69 NURSERY... 69 *

NORMA JEANE * What a b-beautiful room. *

Though it isn’t - just large. The walls decorated with Mother * Goose Creatures and American Cartoon creatures: Mickey Mouse, * Donald Duck. Flat blank eyes. *

On the incessant wind, Norma Jeane hears voices, children’s * muffled laughter. *

REALTOR * The alarm system is complicated and * was expensive to install. The * previous owner had an extreme fear * of someone breaking into the house * and murdering her. *

EDDY G. * Just like my mother. That’s the * first symptom. But it’s not the * last. *

Cass stands there, working his mouth as if there is something * he can’t swallow. Surely he hears it too: a faint mewling, * whimpering, someone crying: Help! Help Me. *

Norma Jeane tries to slip an arm around him. *

NORMA JEANE * Cass, I want to go home. *

CASS * (shrugging her away) * Lay off. *

REALTOR * Norma Jeane is something wrong? I * thought, I’d take you through... *

The Realtor opens another bedroom, behind a brocaded drape * something is moving agitatedly. *

NORMA JEANE * (scared) * Oh-look! *

REALTOR * It’s nothing - I’m sure. *

She moves to investigate, but Cass restrains her. *

CASS * No. Fuck it; just shut the door. *

Norma Jeane and Eddy G. Exchange a worried glance. *

A sudden slithering sound, a scuttling-scurrying movement. A * shadow in flight. *

REALTOR * (screams) * Rattlesnake! *

Panicked, Eddy G leaps up onto a table, pulls Norma Jeane up * with him. Cass turns dead white. His face sweating, his * pupils dilated. *

CASS * It’s my fault. I’m to blame. I * shouldn’t have brought us here. *

EDDY G. * I don’t see the fucker. Anybody * actually see the fucker? *

CASS * They’re everywhere. In bathrooms, * in toilets, I can’t stop them. It’s * because of me they’re here. *

He drifts into a kind of fugue state, like a man in shock. *

NORMA JEANE * Cass? Cass? *

No response. *

EDDY G. * Let’s get him home. *

Driving back to the city. Eddy G at the wheel and Norma Jeane * beside him shaken and scared. *

NORMA JEANE * Did you know about this, Eddy? * These ‘things’ of his? *

EDDY G. * (Evasive) * I wasn’t sure whose they were, * y’know? His or mine. *

Cass in the back seat, shivering and whimpering, in a trance. *

NORMA JEANE * Oh, God. We should take him to a * doctor. It’s the D.T.’s isn’t it? * We should take him to the emergency * room. *

Eddy G shakes his head. Norma Jeane pleads: *

NORMA JEANE * We can’t just pretend like there’s * nothing wrong with him. *

EDDY G. * Why not? *

Off Norma Jeane’s reaction. MUSIC IN. *

71 A DREAM IMAGE: 71 *

Norma Jeane stands on Sunset Blvd. watching in terror as a * Gigantic Blonde Woman with a face so beautiful, so bright, * you can’t bear to look at it, steps out of a billboard. Her * hands reaching out... *

Norma Jeane on the phone: *

Driving to Norwalk, she passes a movie house where a gigantic ‘MARILYN MONROE’ is stretched across the marquee. ‘MARILYN MONROE’ smiling provocatively. ‘MARILYN MONROE’ in a red dress that barely contains her swelling breasts. A Sinister echo of her dream.

A panicky Norma Jeane arrives to happy news:

She bursts into tears and embraces her mother.

Gladys blinks tentatively at her and says worriedly:

The word hovers in the air. Norma Jeane has no idea how to reply.

Tenderly, Norma Jeane washes her mother’s feet and applies iodine to the cuts.Gladys yawns. She looks about to drift off to sleep.

Gladys opens her eyes wide.

Gladys shuts her eyes again.

Gladys is drifting off. Her face softening like melting wax. Norma Jeane’s eyes turn inward.

Gladys bloodless lips hang slack. Norma Jean looks scared.

On DR. BENDER, evasive. Pre-lap the sound of a phone ringing...

She’s in the Hallway on the payphone. Listening to it ring and ring and ring...

80 INSERT: ‘BABY’ IN THE WOMB: 80

The far away sound of a phone ringing...

...and then the ‘click’ of someone picking up at the other end.

Mr Z. with the phone to his ear, listens in silence. He’s heard these words many times before.

Yvet is Z.’s Secretary/Assistant, the woman fromthatmorning in his office.

Norma Jeane listening.

She untangles herself from Cass and Eddy G. and crawls out of * her sweaty bed. *

She downs down one, two, three! codeine tablets. *

She exits with a guilty backward glance toward the Little * Striped Tiger. *

The light outside is blinding! How can you see anything?

Is that a sleek black Studio car she’s walking towards? A chauffeur in uniform and visored cap?

...Swiftly through the streets? Is this a (dream?)

She raps at the glass.

A woman (Yvet?) grabs at her with gloved net hands.

A woman’s face, hard to see in the light. Are they in a corridor? Is Norma Jeane tied down?

Now there are BRIGHT LIGHTS! It’s very confusing! And FIGURES above her.

As she’s lifted onto the table:

A Doctor with pokey fingers, poking inside her. Everything at a distance: Like hearing screams in another room.

Rubber hands with a syringe...

...An injection.

She shoves the hands away. Rubber hands! Overhead, the light is blinding! Has she travelled (possibly?) into the future and the sun has expanded to fill the entire sky?

Oh, but she’s slipping from the table, thank god!

89 ALONG A CORRIDOR... 89

...Running barefoot, panting. It’s not too late!

Up a flight of stairs...

...there’s smoke, the door unlocked, so she pushes it open:

A familiar place...

90 THE APARTMENT ON 848 HIGHLAND AVENUE! 90

...though full of smoke! In the next room a muffled sound. Yes...

91 ...GLADYS’ BEDROOM. 91

The bureau. The drawer she must open.

Tug, tug, tug, at last it opens!

And there is BABY, flailing his tiny hands and feet, gasping for air.

Thank god! She’s saved him!

Knock-knock-Knocking...

VOICE (O.S.) Miss Monroe? Please. It’s time.

Knocking at her...

92 DRESSING ROOM DOOR. (SOUND STAGE)92

They’ve been calling her for how long?

Forty minutes she’s been sitting there, in perfect hair, perfect cosmetic mask, in a staring trance, in her gorgeous hot-pink silk gown, gloves to her elbows, glittery costume jewelry around her lovely neck. Listening to the playback out on the soundstage:

Remember you’re my baby

When they give you the eye...

I’ll be lonely

But even though I’m lonely

There’ll be no other guy...

LORELEI-LEE * I’m one of the winners of the * American lottery, I know it, I’m * grateful, and I never take it for * granted... *

She’s on a date with the darkly taciturn Ex-Athlete. *

A blush darkens his horsey-handsome face. *

NORMA JEANE * Oh, no! It must be awfully strange * to be a-- well, a hero. Anyway, you * don’t seem retired. You’re in the * papers so much. *

THE EX-ATHLETE * Not half as much as you, Marilyn. *

NORMA JEANE * (wincing) * Who? - me? That’s just studio * publicity. * (distressed) * Oh, they’re awful, the things they * make up. * (beat) * I know you’re supposed to get used * to it, but I just can’t. It really * hurts. *

He ponders this, but is uncertain of how to respond. He * tries: *

THE EX-ATHLETE * How did you get your start? *

NORMA JEANE * (puzzled) * What start? *

THE EX-ATHLETE * In movies. Acting. *

She tries to smile. Strange and unnerved, she becomes in this * moment an actress without a script. She stammers: *

NORMA JEANE * I don’t know. I guess - I guess I * was discovered. *

THE EX-ATHLETE * Discovered how? *

A more sensitive companion wouldn’t pursue this line of * questioning. She tears up. Looks lost inside herself. Looks * around the room, it seems full of leering faces: *

NORMA JEANE * M-maybe we should leave? I’m afraid * of some of the people here. *

Impulsively, the Ex-Athlete reaches across the table and * takes her hand in his. *

THE EX-ATHLETE * I know what it’s like to be lonely. *

She looks at him tearfully. *

NORMA JEANE * I just want to begin again from * zero. I want to live in another * world, a simpler world. *

He nods. *

THE EX-ATHLETE * I know what you mean... *

His smile is sagging under the weight of her ambitions. Like * a student in an improve scene, Norma Jeane understands that * she is mismanaging her cue and failing her audience. She * switches tack. *

Did she just hear herself? The expression on her face; like a trapdoor opening.

Floral displays crammed in her dressing room. Piles of letters and telegrams.

Her assistants (DEE-DEE, TRACEY) laugh.

She throws up her arms in stage distress.

They laugh.

WHITEY, (reproachful) Now, Miss Monroe. You don’t mean a word of what you say. If you weren’t ‘Marilyn’, who’d you be?

95 TIME JUMP: 95

They have stitched her into her gown for the‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ Premiere. WHITEY is working his magic with powder, pencils and paints.

Norma Jeane pops a Nembutal, while reading the letters:

NORMA JEANE * (sighs) Like Movie critics. Some of them love ‘Marilyn’, and some of them hate ‘Marilyn’. What’s that got to do with me?

Dee-Dee hands over a fan letter with an odd stricken expression.

Norma Jean unfolds it and reads the neathandwriting:

This is possibly the hardest letter I have ever penned.

A elderly man’s voice takes over:

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) Truly I do not know why I am contacting you now, after so many years. To speak the truth I have suffered a heart attack & have contemplated my life with gravity & have not been proud of my behavior in all cases.

Tears spring to her eyes.

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) I am your father, Norma Jean. (beat) I have before me an interview with ‘Marilyn Monroe’ in the new ‘Pageant’. Reading it, my eyes began to fill with tears. You told that your mother is hospitalized & you do not know your father but ‘await him with every passing hour’. My poor daughter, I did not know.

(As the V.O. Continues, Norma Jeane becomes overwrought, and a STUDIO DOCTOR is summoned to give her a SHOT.)

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) I will contact you again soon, Norma Jeane, in person. Look for me, my precious daughter, upon a special occasion in your life when both Daughter and Father can celebrate our long denied love.

Your Tearful Father.

At the clamorous premiere ofGentlemen Prefer Blondes amid klieg lights and camera flashes and whistles and hoots and chants and applause; Mr Z.’s trusted Yvet, comes up stealthy as a lion.

She cups a hand to her diamond laden ear:

A glass sliver in the heart.

But Yvet’s reply is drowned out by deafening music from the loudspeakers: ‘Two Little Girls From Little Rock’. Yvete presses her forefinger against her lips. A secret wink. And then Norma Jeane is swallowed by the clamoring crowd and an announcer’s amplified voice.

Laughter, cheers, whistles, and applause! She smiles, radiant as a high-wattage light-bulb, and squints into the crowd seeking him. If their eyes lock, she will know!

Sliding into her seat next to Mr Z, stitched into her dress like a sausage:

As the house lights dim, shrewd Mr. Z smiles his secretive smile, bringing a forefinger to his fleshy lips.

Big brassy swell of music.

98 ‘GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES’ 20TH CENTURY FOX. 1953 98

‘Marilyn Monroe’ as ‘Lorelei-Lee’ performing ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’; slapping away tuxedoed suitors with heart-shaped boxes.

‘LORELEI-LEE’ NoooO!

No!No!No!No!No!No!No!

NO!

No!No!No!No!No!No!No!

Staring up at the gigantic, gorgeous doll-woman looming above the audience.

‘LORELEI-LEE’ A kiss on the hand maybe quite continental

But diamonds are a girl's best friend...

A kiss may be grand.. but it won't pay the rental

on your humble flat

Or help you atthe automat

But Norma Jeane’s smile begins to fade as she watches: What, if he’s here in this crowd, must her father be thinking? Foam- rubber Lorelei-Lee moving her body suggestively through this Technicolor cartoon, this overproduced triumph of glitzy vulgarity.

‘LORELEI-LEE’ Men grow cold as girls grow old

And we all lose our charmsin the end

What if he’s disgusted? What if he decides against meeting his daughter after all?

‘LORELEI-LEE’ But square cut or pear shape

these rocks don't losetheir shape

Diamonds are a girl's best friend *

Applause. The house lights coming up. The audience loved it, every slick phoney minute of it. ‘Marilyn’ is urged to her feet by tuxedoed arms on either side. Look! Marilyn Monroe is crying genuine tears! So deeply moved. Whistles, cheers, a standing ovation.

Close on Norma Jeane, mortified:

She hurries down the corridor, her heart pounding - like a bird’s - so rapidly - she worries she might faint. She fumbles the key in the lock.

She enters, frightened.

He’s seated in shadow on a velvet love seat, a dozen long stemmed roses, a silver ice bucket, a bottle of champagne. She’s in childish terror, he rises awkwardly to his feet. They speak at the same time:

NORMA JEANE MAN

D-daddy? Baby?

He steps forward into the light: Of course, it is the Ex- Athlete.

He’s nervous, excited, he’s holding something in his hand.

He’s brought her a ringbox. She laughs nervously as it’s * opened. *

There is an uncomfortable pause. A nervous squeaky laugh:

The Blonde Actress is crying, suddenly. The Ex-Athlete is * deeply moved, and does what lovers do in sappy movies, he * kisses away her tears. *

THE EX-ATHLETE * I just love you so much. I just * want to protect you from these * jackals. I just want to take you * away from all this. *

CUT TO: *

103 THE LATEST ISSUE OF ‘SCREENLAND’... 103

...with the Blonde Actress on the cover, above the caption: MARILYN MONROE’S HONEYMOON MARRIAGE.

Norma Jeane, graciously signing the magazine for a nurse, in the airy sweeping script of ‘Marilyn.’

Norma Jeane follows the nurse down the hospital corridor.

Norma Jeane embraces her mother, feeling those frail bird bones. She’s surprised and pleased to see, propped up against a mirror, the framed wedding photo of herself and the Ex- Athlete: She didn’t throw it away! She must love me.

Gladys chuckles.

Gladys nods gravely.

They walk together.

Gladys cuts in abruptly:

Norma Jeane’s face, thinking:Oh no. Please no.

Norma Jeane laughs despite herself.

They sit.

Gladys nods gravely.

Off Norma Jeane’s reaction:

She swarms into his warm muscled arms. He’s startled.

He’s embarrassed, not knowing what to say.

She shivers and burrows into him.

She reads to him a poem she’s written. In her yearning girl’s voice.

The world is born anew.

As two.

Before you

there was but one.

On his face: What is he to say? What the hell? *

In the crowded living room with his family; so much shouting, * laughing, jostling, kids running in and out, she looks over * at him, like: help me! I’m drowning. His niece asks: *

HIS NIECE * Hey Marilyn, what’s it like being a * movie star? *

She blushes, tongue-tied with embarrassment. *

NORMA JEANE * Oh, I’m not a s-star. I’m j-just * some blonde. *

HIS NIECE * (scornful) * Oh, yeah. So the hair’s real? *

IN THE KITCHEN... *

...with HIS MOMMA, HIS ELDERLY GRANDMOTHER, HIS AUNTS. *

NORMA JEANE * People make pasta? I mean - not * just in a store? *

HIS AUNT hands her a marinated egg from the refrigerator. *

NORMA JEANE * Oh, is this to eat? I mean-standing * up? *

He listens to his Momma’s litany of complaints: *

110 IN THE BEDROOM... 110 *

He stumbles over clothes of hers he’s never seen her wear. Tissues caked with make-up! He starts cleaning up...

111 IN THE BATHROOM... 111 *

...ugly splotches of makeup in the sink, a toothpaste tube without the cap, blonde hairs in the brushes and combs, empty pill bottles. For Christ’s sake, she’s forgotten to flush the toilet!

He understands what she’s saying. Sort of.

She’s looking at him smiling and confused, like he’s speaking a foreign language!

The Ex-Athlete in the empty restaurant, with a ‘Photography Dealer’, pondering a plain brown envelope.

‘PHOTOGRAPHY DEALER’ It’s just a business transaction. You pay, slugger. And I deliver the negatives.

The Ex-Athlete opens the envelope and looks at the photographs: Calender-art nudes, she’s so young! Hardly more than a kid. A sweet-faced trusting girl, baring her breasts, revealing her pubic hair...

‘PHOTOGRAPHY DEALER’ Hey, now. That’s not the right attitude.

The Ex-Athlete says nothing.

‘PHOTOGRAPHY DEALER’ I’m on your side. And the lady’s too. She’s a real high class lady, in fact. What I feel strongly is, these negatives should be off the market so they can’t be misappropriated.

He comes home to a whirl-wind; strewn across the carpet are items of clothing, damp towels, books;Origin of the Species, by Charles Darwin - what the hell is that? Science Fiction?

She’s in the bedroom doing dance exercises, for Christ sake! She turns a bright actressy smile on him.

His hand shoots out and slaps her across the jaw.

She stumbles and cringes backwards, sitting down hard on the bed. Her face as white as a piece of china the instant before it shatters.

He holds up the envelope.

He softens, sits next to her on the bed, can’t she understand...

She’s nodding, she’s agreeing, but...

115 IN THE BLINDING WHITE LIGHTS (ON LEXINGTON & 51ST ST)115

She’s the Girl With No Name, standing with her legs apart on a New York subway grating. Her blonde head is thrown rapturously back as an updraft lifts her full, flaring skirt, exposing white cotton panties. White cotton!

At the edge of the light, at the edge of civility, behind barricades, there’s a crowd, a rouge-elephant crowd restless and aroused. Men in a pack. Men through whom, massed, sexual desire passes like an agitated wave through water. There’s a smouldering mood. There’s an angry mood. There’s a mood-to-do- hurt. There’s a mood-to-grab-and-tear-and-fuck.

And in the glaring white lights, focused upon her, upon her alone, we can see the shadow, just the shadow, of the bleached crotch: For the hair there is...

Blonde

The roar of the crowd rises and falls with her skirt.

And there, with the other men, anonymous like them, is the Husband. On fire.

She’s coming in the door, after a long night, with that soft breathy guilty voice.

His hands leap out, both hands, balled into fists. She backs away from him begging. The doll eyes shiny with fear.

Because she’s resisting him. Provoking him. Shielding her face from the justice of his blows.

knocking her out of frame, following after her, leaving us to contemplate the crystal chandeliers as they quiver overhead from the fury of the beating. Live sound out, we hear the familiar voice:

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) My Dear Daughter Norma Jeane,

(MORE)

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) (cont'd) I did not see your ‘new movie’ - the vulgar title & publicity attending it, giant billboards & crude likeness of you posed with you dress lifted for all the world to see your private parts did not make me wish to purchase a ticket.

I will say, I had hoped to meet your husband! I have been an admirer of his for many years. I was very disappointed that your marriage to this stellar athlete ended in divorce & such ugly publicity.

At least there were no children to reap the shame.

SUPER: NEW YORK CITY, 1955

FADE IN:

THE PLAYWRIGHT checks the papers on his desk. ‘A Poem for Magda’ is where he left it: More than three hundred pages of script, revisions, and notes. He lifts it, and a snapshot falls out - ballpoint on the back of it reads:

Magda, June 1930:

It’s in black-and-white, of an attractive blond girl with wide-set eyes.

He looks at her longingly.

Eager as a young lover, though no longer young, the Playwright hurries up the fight of metal stairs and into...

119 ...THE LOFT REHEARSAL SPACE 119

...A babble of voices, a haze of faces. He has to pause to calm his heart. To compose himself. He isn’t in condition to run up stairs as he used to.

Six actors on folding chairs on a raised platform, in a semi circle beneath bare bulbs. The sound of their dialogue fades away as the Playwright, seated in the front row, begins to stare at the Blonde Actress. She’s been placed at the center of the semicircle, as if for protection. He stares at her, now recognizing her, a heavy blush darkening his face.

Norma Jeane holds herself unnaturally still. She has no lines in the first scene. She’s nervous. Her eyes glisten with withheld tears.

He glances furiously at PEARLMAN, the Great Director, who leans against a wall close by, watching the scene with rapt absorption.

He looks back to the Blonde Actress as she opens her mouth, and draws her breath, to speak her first line.

Freeze frame:

121 TIME JUMP: 121

The House lights come up. The audience applauds. Many get to their feet. The playwright removes his glasses and wipes the tears from his eyes with his sleeve. Without his glasses, he sees the loft as a pulsing swirl of novalike lights and blurred motion and darkness. He sees no faces, he recognizes no one. He rises to his feet to escape. Glasses on now, he sees the Blonde Actress’ yearning eyes snatching at him as he flees; out of the rehearsal room...

122 ...DOWN THE STEEP METAL STAIRS. 122

123 ON 51ST STREET (NIGHT)... 123

...He steps into a wall of head hammering cold. There, across the street, above a movie marquee; looms a fifty foot plasterboard blowup of ‘Marilyn Monroe’ in her notorious ‘Seven Year Itch’ pose. Laughing, blonde Marilyn standing, legs apart, her pleated ivory skirt flying up to reveal her white cotton panties.

They are seated in a booth. He with his thinning hair, a figure of dignity, with something wounded, ravaged in his face.

Ideas? From an actress?

Out of her handbag she takes a copy of‘A Poem for Magda’and places it on the tabletop between them.

The Playwright says nothing. His offended heart beats hard.

Rebuked, The Blonde Actress can only agree.

She understands! Magda is superior to her, a higher form than herself.

She has one more thing to say. Does she dare say it?

His temple pounds...

Suddenly tears spring to his eyes. There is a well of grief, thirty years deep.

He looks at her, so grateful, so moved. How he underestimated her. He laughs:

A dazzling smile:

He puts his wedding-ringed hand on hers.

His frumpy wife, Esther, banging through the door with a suitcase. Returning from wherever she’d been.

Off the Playwrights guilty face:

126 (NEWSREEL FOOTAGE)EXT.RENTED HOUSE, UPSTATE NEW YORK DAY.126

Quick cuts of Photographers, Cameramen, Journalists, in a frenzy.

The Playwright and The Blonde Actress being interviewed on the lawn of a rented house.

...And the view of the ocean beyond. She’s excited, childlike:

The vast open water of the Atlantic. Light reflected off the water like metal. They stand shivering in the ocean wind.

She takes his hand and presses it against her belly.

129 ‘BABY’: TWO MONTHS, SIX DAYS IN THE WOMB. 129

130 NORMA JEANE... 130

Her pale hair whipping in the wind....

...as she climbs up the cliff, amid slippery, mossy rocks and ocean debris.

She devours mashed potatoes with chunks of unsalted butter.

She cleans her plate and presents it to him proudly.

He laughs and kisses her.

They’re on the couch. She’s running her hand up and down inside his trousers.

He looks for her in Baby’s room; A wicker rocking cradle, Little stuffed toys, old children’s books, Once upon a time...

He pushes open the bathroom door. She’s inside, naked, stomach bulging, she turns to him startled.

In the palm of one hand several pills, and in the other a plastic cup.

She meets his eyes in the mirror.

Norma Jeane enters the Playwright’s study; trespassing. In guilty excitement she sits at the playwrights’ typewriter, looking at the papers strewn across his desk so real like the scattered thoughts of genius. Her eye involuntarily skims-

X.: Daddy, you won’t ever write about me, will you?

Y.: Darling, of course not. Why would I do such a thing?

X.: It’s what people do. Sometimes. Writers.

Y.: I’m not other people. You and I are not other people.

On her face, betrayed:

She’s in the bed, shivering in his arms:

As they make love, she sees a crack forming in the ceiling. *

He’s on the phone, talking to a friend:

He watches Norma Jeane out on the back lawn cutting flowers with shears. His beautiful pregnant wife.

She feels an eerie ticklish sensation that means (maybe) someone is watching her. She looks up at the second floor of the house; to the Playwright’s study, where he’s placed a desk by the window. She’s a little scared, maybe, a little tense.

139 INSERT: 139

Baby in her womb, gripping her tight.

BACK TO SCENE:

She puts a hand on her belly to comfort him.

She goes back to cutting flowers with her shears.

She enters, happily:

Norma Jeane begins to arrange the hydrangeas, but they keep falling out of the vases.

She’s deflated at once. She shrinks back like a struck child. Her happy mood crushed.

He opens a cupboard.

He arranges the blossoms in shallow bowls, flower heads floating. She watches him, stroking her belly, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

He turns to look at her.

Their friends RUDY and JEAN arrive, embrace the Playwright.

The Playwright is drinking with RUDY and JEAN: *

He finds her hiding in the alcove, flattening grocery bags.

Trying to keep the irritation out of his voice:

She shakes her head.

Again she shakes her head. She is watching him sidelong, like a frightened cat, about to bolt.

At last she shivers, and laughs, and rubs her forehead against his chin. She takes from the table a large heavy platter of raw vegetables geometrically arranged by color, and he carries drinks on a tray.

Their friends Rudy and Jean, admiring a view of the ocean, turn now to see the handsome couple approach: The Playwright and the Blonde Actress. She is radiantly beautiful, wearing a floral print dress, and she smiles at them as if dazed by flashbulbs, and in that instant she stumbles on the porch step and the platter slips from her hands and crashes to the floor, vegetables, dip and broken crockery flying.

She’s at the bottom of the steps, moaning and writhing. THE * FLOWERS ON HER DRESS SEEM TO BE BLOOMING. She touches them * and her fingers come away BLOODY. Suddenly she understands * what’s happening: *

NORMA JEANE * Help me! Save the baby! *

She screams, as if in a nightmare, and HER HAIR TURNS * COMPLETELY WHITE! *

NORMA JEANE * Daddy, for God’s sake! Deliver the * baby! *

There is a roaring, like a waterfall in her ears. And * PHOTOGRAPHERS ENTER FRAME, bulbs popping, violating both this * moment and reality, and we *

CUT TO: *

145 OMITTED 145 *

...A CROWD surrounding her, SWAMPING her, practically * SWALLOWING her: PHOTOGRAPHERS, REPORTERS, TV CREWS, FANS. A * yawning maw of ugly humanity and her panicking at its center. * MUSIC IN: *

‘SUGAR KANE’(PRE-LAP) I wanna be loved by you, just you,

And nobody else but you,

I wanna be loved by you, alone!

Boop-boop-a-doop!

The frightened actress is escorted through their impatient clamor.

147 ‘SOME LIKE IT HOT’ B&W MGM 1959 (A NIGHTCLUB) 147

‘Sugar Kane’ sings:

‘SUGAR KANE’(SINGING) I wanna kissed by you, just you,

Nobody else but you,

I wanna be kissed by you, alone!

Boop-boop,

148 ON THE SET OF ‘SOME LIKE IT HOT’... 148

‘SUGAR KANE’(SINGING) I couldn't aspire,

To anything higher,

Than, filled with desire,

To make you my own!

Boop-boop-a-doop, boop-boop-a-doop!

She plucks the wrong notes on the ridiculous ukulele, bursts into tears, and pounds her thighs.

She begins to scream like a creature being killed, and in a fury tears at her fine-blown hair, brittle as spun glass, and she rakes her nails across her sweet baby-face cosmetic mask. W himself runs forward to prevent her.

DOC FELL, the studio physician, appears with a NURSE and leads his hysterically weeping patient away.

She holds Whitey’s hand as Doc Fell gives up on her bleeding inner arm, and sinks the long piercing needle into an artery just below her ear.

She closes her eyes and goes to sleep on the couch as ‘Marilyn’ dressed only her underpants, bare breasts exposed, and her body covered in sweat.

She wakes, as Norma Jeane, to a scene of devastation wrought by some stranger, a madwoman, who has dumped makeup jars and powder and talcum onto the floor, yanked clothes off hangers in the closet, torn pages from books and scattered them on the carpet, and the mirror’s cracked where a fist has been pounded against it (Yes, Norma Jeane’s fist is bruised) and across the wall there’s a long crimson smear, like a savage shout.

A faceless man follows her around the house, (he literally has no face) the faraway sound of his voice, droning on like the buzz of a fly:

At last she turns on him and angrily pushes at him.

152 ‘SOME LIKE IT HOT’ MGM 1959 B&W. (A MOVING TRAIN). 152

‘Sugar Kane’, desperate for a drink! Hacks at a block of ice with an icepick.

TONY CURTIS AS ‘JOSEPHINE’ Sugar! You’re going to get yourself into a lot of trouble!

‘SUGAR KANE’ Yeah! You better keep a lookout!

TONY CURTIS AS‘JOSEPHINE’ If Beinstock catches you again...! What’s the matter with you anyway?

‘SUGAR KANE’ I’m not very bright, I guess.

TONY CURTIS AS‘JOSEPHINE’ I wouldn’t say that. Careless, maybe.

She remembers...

153 FALLING ON THE STEPS, AND THE BLEEDING BEGINNING, 153 STAINING HER BEAUTIFUL FLORAL DRESS. IN THE WOMB, LIKE AN EARTHQUAKE, CONTRACTIONS BEGINNING...

‘SUGAR KANE’ (O.S. FAR AWAY SOUND) No, just dumb! If I had any brains I wouldn’t be on this crummy train with this crummy girl’s band.

154 ‘SOME LIKE IT HOT’ MGM 1959 B&W. (ON A MOVING TRAIN) 154

TONY CURTIS AS ‘JOSEPHINE’ Well, why’d you take this job?

She freezes stunned for a moment. Then...

‘SUGAR KANE’ You know it’s just a network of veins? arteries? holding us together? And if they burst and start bleeding?

And...

...She walks off the set, staggering like a drunk woman, shaking her wrists so hard, it’s like a hurt bird trying to fly. ‘Sugar Kane’, like a confectioner’s mask melting, and it’s Medea beneath. Looking at the crew.

She’s driving blindly, through miles of residential neighborhoods. Looking for him in all the men on the street.

In tears, a migraine coming on, certain she’ll recognize him if she sees him. Another man, another...

She spins the wheel in a fury and veers dangerously toward * cars parked on the sidewalk: *

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! She smashes into three cars in a row. * Reverses back and then smashes again! Finally getting out of * her wrecked car, disorientated. She stands on the pavement * swaying & confused, bewildered, looking to the east, looking * to the west, somewhere in LA & with no idea suddenly: *

NORMA JEANE * Oh God! Which way is home? *

157 OMITTED 157 *

She’s woken naked in the sheets of a dishevelled bed. In a squalid adjoining bathroom, a freckled man (?), also naked, * pisses noisily into a toilet bowl. The T.V. Droning on and on, The Democratic Nominee for President:

The Pissing Man comes into the room and looks at her hand wistfully.

Returning to the house on Whittier drive, she has to be assisted, by the Driver, to the door, which is opened abruptly by an anxious man of middle age whose features immediately disappear from his face:

Entering to the incessantly ringing phone which she yanks off the hook:

She hangs up, and the phone immediately begins to ring again so she takes it and shoves it in the top drawer of her bureau and slams it shut. Suddenly she’s horrified; the ringing, sealed up, entombed in the drawer, sounds like a baby crying.

161 THROUGH HER WINDOW: 161

She sees: A car pulling up outside.

What a relief to see Whitey! Beloved Whitey! He sees her misery and the absence of all magic from her sallow, frightened face.

She bursts into tears and begins speaking addled nonsense:

But Whitey understands exactly what she means.

She lies on the bed, in a prone posture, like in a mortuary - and Whitey the embalmer laboring over her. Tears begin to leak from the corners of her eyes.

163 TIME JUMP: 163

Whitey leads the trembling beggar-maid to the vanity and his practiced hands go to work on her.

164 TIME JUMP: 164

She sits before the mirror, trembling lower lip, eyes lowered in prayer.

Begging the very one she scorns. This ‘Marilyn’ she despises. Whitey’s voice begins to quicken with excitement.

And there in the mirror, laughing at the beggar-maid’s fears, is the most beautiful face she’s ever seen, a wonder of a face, the face of the Fair Princess:

She appears at last, fragile and breathless, and without apology. Pretty Brooklyn-boy C, glares at her: He’s been forced to stand around all day in high heels and female drag, like a cross between Frankenstein and Joan Crawford. She laughs at him.

166 DAILIES ‘SOME LIKE IT HOT’ (INTERCUT LATER WITH SET) 166

TAKE #1:

NORMA JEANE?‘MARILYN’?‘SUGAR KANE’? (nonsensical) It’s, Sugar, me.

TAKE #3:

(sweetly) Sugar, it’s me.

TAKE #10:

(tentative) Sugar, it’s me?

TAKE #25:

(angry) Sugar! It’s me.

TAKE # 42:

(crying) It’s, Sugar, me.

TAKE # 48:

A crew member holds up a cue card: ‘It’s me sugar’.

(confused) It’s m-me? Sugar?

TAKE # 54:

Opens drawer - and there’s BABY, bloody and mangled:

Off her scream, we...

Thousands of people line the Boulevard, pressing up against LAPD barricades to stare in wonderment at the motorcade! As the limousines near Graumans, there’s a quickening beat in the air, the noise becomes deafening, the gigantic heartbeat of the crowd accelerates...

168 IN THE LIMOUSINE... 168

...She recognizes her kinsmen outside, reaching out to her with their claws, their popping flashbulbs. She begins clambering over Mr Z’s bony knees, clawing at the limo door, trying to roll down the window, as Mr Z protests:

She has to yell over the seething, cheering, ecstatic waves:

Bat-faced Mr. Z silently shakes his head.

Only now do we reveal The Husband, beside her, uncomfortable in his tuxedo. She laughs:

He leans toward her, indicating that he hasn’t heard amid the screams&cheers&noise of the police bullhorns and she says in his ear:

Applause washes around her like maddened surf as she emerges from the limo into a cataclysm of light, smiling, waving, as the chant increases to deafening volume - Mari-Lyn! Mari-lyn! This crowd adoring her: Troll people, creatures of the under- earth.

Hunchbacked gnomes & Beggar-maids & homeless females with mad eyes & straw hair. Disfigured faces & shrunken limbs & glaring eyes & holes for mouths. (Digital effect.)

‘MARILYN’ (smiling, waving) Oh, Hey! Oh, I love you! Love love love you all!

The film passes in a blur, an undercranked, mad-cap, ephedrine blur, the accelerated motion halting only for Joe E. Brown’s classic final line...

...Then back to Keystone Kops acceleration; for the standing ovation, the crowd clapping insanely fast, waterfalls of applause, the Blonde Actress bowing.

The party has a brittle speedy edge (rotated shutter). The people seem sharp, their movements like razor blades.

TUXEDO #2 Marilyn, congratulations!

TUXEDO #3 Marilyn baby! Con-grat-u-la-tions!

She laughs happily, champagne squirting out of her nostrils. The Playwright following like a lap dog.

we glide past stars of the period: MARLON BRANDO!, AUDREY * HEPBURN!, BOGEY & BETTY!!! (rotoscoped in), bumping into * Clark Gable, handsome & mature in his tux & smiling in gentlemanly mystification at her girlish stammer:

CUT TO BLACK

FADE IN:

172 (NEWSREEL FOOTAGE) DIVORCE PRESS CONFERENCE; 172 LAWN OF RENTED HOUSE. DAY.

Her Lawyer and Studio Personal attempt to calm the dozens of Journalists outside the frame.

A ripple of excitement as she appears. She is dressed in black, white-skinned as a geisha, agitated and distraught.

‘MARILYN MONROE’ They are g-great men. Great Americans. I revere them as human beings of fame and achievement in their fields though I c-could not remain married to them as a woman. Oh - I’m sorry. Oh, forgive me! I c- can’t say anything more.

Overcome, she hides her face. Dozens of cameras flash simultaneously; the effect of a miniature A-Bomb!

The Blonde Actress is being quickly escorted by her two male companions to the waiting limousine. The journalists press forward now, lunging out of control like maddened dogs, a pack, frenzied shouts:

JOURNALIST#1 Miss Monroe, one question please!

JOURNALIST#2 Marilyn, wait!

JOURNALIST#3 Marilyn, tell our listeners in radio land: will Marlon Brando be your next?

Despite Studio Security Guards fending off the crowd, a wily little Reporter manages to slip under her Attorney’s arm and thrust a microphone into the Blonde Actress’ face with such violence that he strikes her mouth. BIG CLOSE UP: Her tooth is chipped!

Another Audacious Party, gleaming with sweat, with a boiled looking face, thrusts an envelope at the frightened Blonde Actress. It’s addressed to MARILYN MONROE in red ink and decorated with valentine hearts.

Then she’s thrust into the limousine and the rear door is shut. Her escorts speak sharply to the crowd.

The limousine moves off, slowly, the crowd still clamoring for attention and cameras still flashing.

After a beat.

They ride in silence, then:

Uncomfortable beat. She sees by their faces that she must have asked this question already.

She sits clutching the valentine envelope in her fingers.

A man clears his throat.

She opens the valentine envelope. The P.R. Man sees her stricken face and quickly takes it from her.

It’s a square of toilet paper upon which someone has block printed in what appears to be actual excrement:

WHORE

Super: Palm Springs 1962

She drifts uncertainly around the terrace like a sleepwalker, vaguely smiling, that look about her of such vulnerability, such not-thereness, that others keep their distance too.

The boyishly handsome leader of the free world - THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - staring.

THE PRESIDENT’S PIMP Luscious, eh? But a little crazy.

Uneasily, in a lowered voice, conscious of the many admiring eyes on them:

THE PRESIDENT’S PIMP Chief, She’s a tramp. She’s been a tramp from the get-go. She’s sucked every cock in town, and more from out of town. She used to live with two faggot junkies out in Hollywood. She’s had a dozen abortions, she’s addicted to Coke, * Benzedrine, had her stomach pumped * out a dozen times at Cedars alone. * She was carried into Bellevue stark * naked and raving, streaming blood * from both arms. This was in * Winchell’s column. *

THE PRESIDENT’S PIMP She’s a poor risk for a relationship, Chief.

He looks at the Blonde Actress; swaying at the edge of the shimmering aqua pool, eyes shut, mouthing the words to Sinatra’s ‘All the Way’. Platinum hair glowing like phosphorescence. That red-lipsticked mouth a perfect sucking O.

They’re cuddled naked together on tossed down beach towels and terry-cloth robes: Her Prince frames her naked face in his hands. Speaks to her sincerely, from his heart:

The room seems to brighten!

He’s hurting her, gripping her hips so hard:

Biting her breasts, biting the nipples.

The President dressing.

And with a final kiss, he’s gone.

She’s watching the telephone. For once in her life she wants it to ring!

His image on the T.V. talking to her alone...

The kitchen phone: RiingGG!!! *

The Living room phone: Riiinnngggg! *

The bedroom phone: RiinGG!!!!! *

She picks up, feeling giddy:

MAN’S VOICE (ON PHONE) Miss Monroe?

MAN’S VOICE (ON PHONE) Will you be home to take a call at 10. 25 PM, tonight.

She laughs, has to sit, she feels so weak.

A bemused murmur on the other end.

... RiinGG!!!!!

He laughs.

She opens the door to Secret Service agents whose expressions shift to disgust like coagulation.

What? She’s wearing new clothes from Saks in understated cream and heather tones, her hair’s been brightened, her lipstick’s bright, but isn’t lipstick meant to be bright?

Walking to the plane with little mincing steps.

INSERT: AN AIRPLANE EXPLODING! A BALL OF FLAME!

She shakes out some Miltown, some Amytal, some Codeine. Considers.

She takes the glass, she downs the pills.

Now she’s vomiting into the miniature toilet.

Now somebody is shaking her awake:

On shaky legs the first to disembark.

The Stewardess leads her along the tunnel ramp from the plane. And there at...

187 THE GATE... 187

...Two unsmiling men wait in dark suits and fedoras. She panics:

She drops her overnight bag, her hands shaking. The Agents look at her in disgust, averting their eyes from her fuchsia mouth, her heaving breasts. All watch with alarm as she lowers herself to the floor.

The disgusted agents take her arms and drag her up.

She laughs nervously in the silence.

NORMA JEANE * It isn’t sexual. Between the * President and me. It has little to * do with sex. It’s a meeting of our * souls. *

Doughy-faced JIGGS grunts. DICK TRACY, in profile, gives no sign of hearing. The DRIVER bears an uncanny resemblance to the comic-strip character JUGHEAD. (Digital alteration) It’s a little scary! Comic-strip people populating the world!

DICK TRACY * Miss Monroe. Sorry. That’s * classified. *

The limousine passes the front of the Carlyle Hotel on Fifth avenue, and turns into a narrow alleyway behind the massive landmark building, pulling up before a rear entrance.

She is handed a cheap plastic raincoat with a hood.

She is furious, but complies. She removes from her handbag a pair of very dark glasses and puts them on, hiding her face. JIGGS hands her a tissue.

She stares at them indignantly.

Outside the car we witness the struggle within. Then the Limousine doors unlock, and they climb out, and escort the blonde actress the twenty feet to the rear entrance.

She’s escorted almost violently through a ventilator blast of rancid cooking odors and quickly ushered into a freight elevator.

They creak upward to the sixteenth floor, the men’s faces distorting, now literally animations: DICK TRACY, JIGGS, leering cartoon characters.

The doors open, and she is urged out, in haste.

Though she stumbles a little in her high heeled shoes. So they lift her, and whisk her along, her feet no longer touching the floor.

The door the Presidential suite is opened by another BUGS- BUNNY-faced secret service agent.

The scene begins to move in a swerving zig-zag course as if the camera is being jostled. She is moved toward a bathroom.

In the elegantly appointed gilt and marble cubicle, as she sits on the toilet and washes herself between the legs, she notices in the waste basket beside her: TISSUES BLOTTED WITH PLUMB-COLORED LIPSTICK.

On her face: Oh, no. Not this.

She shakes out a Miltown tablet for her nerves and a Benzedrine for courage.

She follows Bugs Bunny along a corridor.

Breathless, she finds herself entering a spacious but...

197 DIMLY LIT BEDROOM... 197

...And there; upon the canopied four poster bed, among the soiled linens, ashtrays, dirty plates, a depleted bottle of burgundy, wineglasses marked with the same plumb-colored lipstick; the naked President is sprawled with a telephone resting on his chest as he speaks into the receiver. Seeing the Blonde Actress make her entrance, the President beckons her to him, even as he holds the receiver to his ear.

He gestures for her to sit beside him on the bed, which she does, and he begins absently stroking her; hair, breasts, hips.

The President takes her hand away from his unshaven jaw, and encloses her fingers around his now-upright penis. (Off- screen, of course) Gamely, the Blonde Actress begins to stoke him, yet the President does not hang up the phone. His handsome face turns ugly.

He looks at her, irritated.

He tugs at her hair. Pulls her toward him, to kiss her roughly, as he grips the phone receiver between his neck and shoulder. Out of the receiver’s plastic interior a miniature male voice drones. Rusk? McNamara?

She knows what she’s expected to do, what the script demands of her, but resists. She’s looking at a wine glass with a plumb-colored lipstick stain.

He grips her by the nape of the neck and pushes her head to his groin. We are tight on Norma Jeane’s eyes, confused and frightened, as we hear her thoughts.

Her jaws ache, the nape of her neck where he grips her, so hard. His hips buck.

On the television: Flying Saucers are destroying Washington.

And then it’s over. He lays there panting, a forearm flung over his eyes. She anticipates that he will speak to her but he does not.

Long uncomfortable beat.

She‘s desperate for lines, any lines.

There’s a seismic upheaval in the bed, he’s lunging and then she’s falling...

198 FALLING DOWN A LONG ELEVATOR SHAFT... 198

199 OR IS HE?... 199

Pressing on her windpipe. A palm over her mouth. An elbow against her neck. Darkness creeping in.

200 LATER... 200

Her eyes flutter, she’s too weak to protest, another man, a stranger, mounted upon her vigorously, a man in a hurry, in a white shirt, thrusting blindly.

The Man thrusts into her doggedly, like he’s kicking into hard packed sand.

201 LATER STILL... 201

They’re trying to revive her. Shaking her, her head lolling on her shoulders. Bloodshot eyes rolled back into her skull. A voice, cold with fury:

She’s being led from the suite by a side entrance, DICK TRACY to her left, JIGGS to her right, both men gripping her by the upper arm. Through a partly opened door she sees the President! In a dark pinstripe suit laughing with a red haired young woman in jodpurs. Norma Jeane stares at them, her heart beating hard.

She means to slip into the room to say goodbye, but Dick Tracy and Jiggs yank her away with such violence that her arms are loosened from their sockets. The President is staring at her; his face is flushed with anger as he strides to the door and shuts it in her face. She tries to struggle with her captors. One shakes her and the other slaps her face and suddenly her mouth is bleeding:

She begins to cry. She is bleeding through her fingers.

In the gilt and marble bathroom; blazing with light that hurts her eyes, she sits and pees into the toilet, a scalding flaming pee, that causes her to whimper out loud. A sharp rap on the door.

In the mirror is her Magic Friend: Sallow skinned and exhausted, an eyelash hanging loose, a crust of puke lining her lips.

SFX: The sound of an airliner touching down.

She wakes and sees herself with a monster’s mud face in the mirror and screams! screams!

Whitey comes running in, his hand on his heart.

(He was just in the other room, while she was dozing in her mud pack.) She laughs.

And they laugh together, who knows why. She reaches for the open bottle of cherry brandy, and from this they each have several swallows and laugh again, tears in their eyes.

She follows Whitey through the house; strewn with discarded clothing, towels, paper plates, food containers, books and newspapers, and unwanted scripts forwarded by her agent, like debris on the beach in the aftermath of a storm.

At the front door, Whitey is overcome.

She says gently, careful of Whitey’s feelings:

They embrace. On Norma Jeane as he departs.

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) I see your beautiful face often & wonder how you appear so untouched.

We move through the sad, debri-strewn house...

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) I heard of your most recent sorrow in a time of sorrow of my own for my beloved wife of many years has passed away. I am awaiting a period of calm before considering what direction my life must now move in.

We discover Norma Jeane reading this letter by a little safe, which contains all his treasured letters.

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) Dear Daughter, the thought has come to me: It may be that your life has also changed, that you might wish to live with me.

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) (as the camera moves on) My house is spacious I assure you, realtors call it a mansion.

I hope to contact you soon, dear Norma. Forgive an aging man his recalcitrance to awaken old hurts.

Your tearful Father

She’s looking at her swollen breasts in the mirror. Placing a hand on her belly.

208 BABY... 208

...misshapen in the womb, no larger than a seahorse, floating in liquid darkness.

She wakes, heart knocking in terror, the sound of someone bumping in the house.

Through the door:

Can she see the shadow of one of them? Dick Tracy? Jiggs? Maybe it’s just the drugs?

Sitting there like a zombie. When the phone rings suddenly, startling her! She looks at it in terror. Approaches it, and lifts the receiver:

She’s hears the clicking-crackling on the line, is it being tapped?

Through the window:

A van parked unobtrusively in a neighbor’s driveway. Monitoring equipment?

Handing her a prescription:

Then, apropos of nothing:

The smashing of glass, the sound of someone entering the house. She lays in bed, rigid and paralysed with animal fear, hiding under the covers.

Then, suddenly, the sheets are pulled back and a wadded cloth soaked in chloroform is being pressed over her nose and mouth and she cannot draw breath to scream and... *

213 ...HOUSE... 213

...to a...

214 ...WAITING VEHICLE... 214

...And the bright lights of an...

215 ...OPERATING THEATRE 215

...and (is she going mad like Gladys?) a surgeon above her, in the BLINDING LIGHT, with surgical instruments and the RUBBER HANDS poking at her with pokey fingers...(this happened before, right? Has she traveled backwards in time?)

...and she wakes exhausted and panting. In her... *

And then she’s getting to her feet, breathing hard, not seeing the mattress, now revealed under the covers, soaked through with dark brackish blood.

Hanging onto the doorframe, fighting waves of nausea in her...

...Staring at her haggard face in the mirror, she never left home?

There, written on the mirror in lipstick are the words:

Help! Help

Hunched forward, a fist jammed in her mouth.

She has no reply.

A Hispanic boy in a Cal Tech T shirt.

She takes from his hand the lightweight package, with an envelope, wrapped in candy-cane striped tinsel with a dimestore satin bow.

Searching for her purse...

She begins to perspire, searching for the wallet amid a confusion of items in the shadowy living room...

...and in the bedroom...

...at last finding it in the kitchen, fumbling through it to locate a bill, and hurrying back to the front door, but...

...The Messenger has vanished. In the palm of her hand, a twenty-dollar bill.

She pulls away the tinsel with trembling fingers:

It is the Little Stuffed Tiger. The one Eddy G had picked up for Baby.

She opens the card Cass has included with the toy. It has the distinct handwriting...

To MM in her life, Your Tearful Father.

Off her scream:

She’s burning the letters in her fireplace, the only use to which it will ever be put.

She’s opening the bottle of Nembutal, seventy five-tablets, and taking them all, slowly, methodically...

...and a strobing light filling the bedroom, a beautiful ecstatic light...

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) Keep your concentration Norma Jeane don’t be distracted the circle of light is yours you enclose yourself in this circle you carry it with you wherever you go

...And coming out of the light, a figure coming clearer, a handsome, smiling man, a man with a pencil thin moustache and dark, soulful eyes. A man who seems to Norma Jeane about to speak. A man who seems about to take her in his arms. You see that man, Norma Jeane. That man is your father.

(MORE)

ELDERLY MAN’S VOICE (V.O.) (cont'd) Every baby needs a Da-da-daddy

To keep her worry free .

Every baby needs a da-da-daddy

But where’s the one for me?

Song continues over credits.