Life's A Beautiful Thing

Sorry for not posting lately, but aside from working on new writing projects, I've been working with the design team on the layout for the front and back cover of the book. No excuse, I know, because it's only going to get more hectic when the book comes out. I have lots of GOOD news that I promise to share with you in the upcoming week. Meantime,  here's a wonderful quote of Marilyn's I think you'll enjoy that was sent to me by a dear friend. Thanks, Pam!

"This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess up. Girls will be your friends-- they'll acts like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything-- they're you're true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And babe, I hate to say it, most of them -- actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you;ll never find your soul mate. You'll never find that half who make you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fall flat at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about."
-- Marilyn Monroe --

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Editing Marilyn - Part II

Here is another excerpt that was edited from the book, which deals with my first physical meeting with Jane.

I had visualized Jane as a woman in her early 60s who was artfully nipped and tucked, glazed with perfect but slightly too troweled-on make-up, strutting in stilettos, and unable to let go of her platinum bombshell image that had served her so well 40 years earlier. I realize now I had been thinking of Marilyn’s best friend, Jeanne Carmen, the stylishly aging B movie actress who had ridden Marilyn’s coattails for so many years after her death. But my idealization could not have been more inaccurate. I was romantically anticipating a time traveler from Hollywood’s Golden Age, a vintage beauty ready to tell me the secrets of the stars.

            I was half right.

            “You must be Tony.” As I turned I fear my excited smile may have transformed into a slack jaw a little faster and bigger than was polite. I closed my mouth and forced a grin as I sized up Jane.

            She was no Jeanne Carmen.

            Propping the door with her foot, Jane was, as the snarksters might say, “short for her weight.” She used the door as a crutch and I could see by her body language, and stress in the corner of her eyes, she was in pain. Barely the thickness of a Daily Variety over five feet, my eyes immediately scanned down her attire, from the fresh (egg, I believe) stained pocket t-shirt, to the worn, baggy jeans, to the unlaced tennis shoes. On top of the shock of snow white short hair was a ball cap adorned in a Rainbow Flag and ACT UP pins. That little voice seemed to belie the woman I was seeing, someone with attitude, openly gay and a kind of salty old broad.

            I liked her instantly.

            “Jane?”

            “The one and only,” she said, as her eyes twinkled with a sweet innocence and her smile warmed the space around her. “Janice told me all about you.”

            I nervously used one of my favorite stock quips, “I was young, I needed the money.”

            “You’re even more handsome than she said,” finishing with a little giggle that I would come to know well.

            The ice sort of broken, I forced myself to abandon the fantasy and embrace the reality. Literally. I stepped forward, in more of a practiced move than an organic one, and made a clumsy attempt to hug her. Up close, I saw her eyes were a bright blue behind the wire rims and her tanned face was lined. As I put my arms around her, her squat little body felt like my grandmother’s. Despite an appearance that suggested she could handle herself, holding her I sensed her energy was delicate, even fragile. Between her face, her eyes, and her aura, I felt a life force that was not strong.

            I released her, stepped back, and to my horror, her already shaky balance sent her toppling backward, like a broken wind-up toy. A delicate hand caught the edge of the mailboxes – apparently, I would discover, in a move she was used to – and made the save before she crashed into the potted weeds.

            “Whoa,” she said, “my equilibrium’s a little off.”

            I rushed forward to help but she was already upright. “You okay?”

            She giggled. “Oh, yeah. Just the medicine. Sometimes it makes me dizzy. I guess the fact it keeps me alive is a small price for a little wooziness, huh?”

            I made sure she was stable before letting go. We were close, and for a brief moment, she studied my face. “Yup, definitely a looker,” with that little giggle again.

            “C’mon,” she said, hobbling away.

            We passed an open door with a screen on the unit marked “manager.”

            “Hey Mike,” she yelled. From somewhere inside, like a priest behind a confessional, came a garbled response. We stepped in the service elevator and she pulled back the metal accordion door and punched “3.” The elevator shuddered upward. At the second floor it inexplicably stopped and opened. There was no one around.

            Jane smiled. “Ghosts.”

            “Ghosts?” I repeated, feeling the word needed repeating.

            “Yup,” she said, as the car jerked, then continued up, sending Jane off balance again. She flopped gently against the wall. “Even my mother sees them. The ghosts.”

            “Your mother lives here, too?”

            “No,” she smiled slyly, leaving a theatrical pause. “She’s dead.”

            At her floor we stepped out onto more of a catwalk than a walkway. I watched her clutch the hand railing and waddle with great effort toward her apartment. I stood ready to wrest her back from the brink should she lose her balance again. I briefly imagined the headline in the Hollywood Reporter: “Former Monroe Pal Exits In Apartment Plunge,” cringing that they would probably refer to me as a telemarketer.

            But, no need to fret because we arrived at her door, with Jane still intact and fumbling for the key pinned to her shirt. I looked back over my shoulder. The walkway was outside and from that elevation, along with the fact that her building was on a slight rise just below Sunset, her view was pretty spectacular – slightly higher and far better than the view from my rooftop.

            “How long have you lived here?” I asked as we entered.

            “Nearly thirty years,” she said. “Rent’s only six hundred. Can you believe it?”

            Before I could register my shock that a top floor apartment just off Sunset would be priced like it was 1975, she added, “But it’s going up. Maybe as high as six-fifty.”

            I smiled to myself.

            “Girls! We’ve got company.”

            Girls? Janice had not mentioned that Jane had kids or roommates.             

            A smoky gray tabby darted past, and a large calico eyed me from an end table. The question of the girls had been answered. As we walked inside, the rush of punishing heat made the boiler room seem like Baskin-Robbins. The drawn shades didn’t help, as a matter of fact it made the place seem like a sweat lodge for geriatrics. A crappy little fan whirred a wholly inadequate breeze across the room. In the shafts of sunlight on either side of the shades I could see gossamer tufts of cat hair floating like little cirrus clouds on the breeze. I made a mental note to try not to inhale one.

            From an arm of the sofa, Lola, a white Persian shorn in a ridiculous lion cut, eyed me with penetrating blue eyes. It stared a hypnotizing hole through me, forcing my eyes away only to have them come to rest on Marilyn’s equally brilliant blue eyes, these gazing back at me from the Bert Stern litho hanging over the sofa. Jane’s oldest girl, Sally, lay across the back of the sofa, purring like a small motorboat in the distance.

            The sofa was draped in a wrinkled sheet and arrayed with all shapes and sizes of pillows, leading me to believe this was both Jane’s sofa and bed. At short arm’s length was a classic 50s TV tray that looked more like the pick-up window at a Walgreens pharmacy, covered as it was in pill bottles, vials and pill organizers. These were all in aid of Jane’s heart condition and phlebitis. This alarming pharmaceutical hodgepodge confirmed that Jane’s unsteady gait was no act and, despite having known her for all of five minutes, I was already concerned. I also sensed from this short encounter that we would become more than just two people trying to do a little business on Ebay.

            “Go ahead, sit,” she said. ‘That’s my mom’s chair.” I eyed the salmon chair and matching ottoman next to the sofa. Both pieces were reupholstered in cat hair, but I did as invited and began to lower myself onto the ottoman.

            “Watch my mom’s feet!” she blurted and I jumped slightly, causing Jane to giggle then laugh out loud. “Gotcha!”

            I sat, making sure I avoided mom’s feet.

            “Isn’t she beautiful?” asked Jane, as my eyes went back to the Stern litho, then realized she actually meant the faux mini-lion, Lola.

            “Yes, she’s beautiful.”

            Lola picked up on the attention and brushed against my arm.

            “She doesn’t take to too many people. She seems to like you. Go ahead and pet the lovely Lola,” she suggested.

            Before my hand could caress her head, Lola did a Ninja and put four perfect little slices across the back of my hand then leaped away. I looked down as the quadruplet lacerations filling with blood. Jane snickered. “Naughty girl.” She nodded to a box of Kleenex behind the chair. “Sorry. You can put that on it.” I grabbed a tissue and compressed the wound.

            Jane struggled to get seated and took a moment to get comfortable. She fumbled with several bottles of pills and found the one she wanted.

            I noticed several framed pictures of Ellen Degeneres and one of Gwyneth Paltrow. “I take it you’re a big Ellen fan?”

            “I love Ellen. She makes me laugh.”

            As Jane laboriously twisted caps off medicine bottles and popped various pills, we made small talk.

            “When did your mother die?”

            “Oh, it was about a year ago. I miss her. She lived in Arizona when she passed.”

            I pointed at the Stern litho of Marilyn. “Is that one you want to sell?”

            “Oh no,” then she smiled softly. “Marilyn watches over me at night when I sleep.”

            This confirmed the sofa/bed theory.

            As my eyes got accustomed to the shadows in the room I began to see Marilyn related memorabilia all over the place.

            “So Janice says you knew Marilyn really well. Is that true?”

            Jane nodded her head slowly, smiling wistfully. It was at that moment I realized that these were real memories and not just Hollywood hot air. “I knew her very well. We were the best of friends. And I mean the best.”

Editing Marilyn - Part I

For me, writing Marilyn Monroe: My Little Secret was like a magic act. Some days I could pull the words right out of my hat (or in my case, a baseball cap), while other days I hit the proverbial writer's block. When I finally did complete a manuscript that I was happy with, I sent a very alluring query letter to the ‘Top Dogs’ in the literary world stating the explosive nature of the book. Almost instantly, I received emails from agents who wanted to read the manuscript and, as I mentioned in previous posts, the response to the book was overwhelmingly positive. Their only concern was that Jane – who you should be familiar with by now if you’ve been following the blog – had since been deceased. And since I’m not a magician, there was nothing in my power that I could do to bring Jane back from the great beyond.

All of that is history now, since the book is in its final stages of being formatted for both Amazon and Kindle. However, I would like to tip my baseball cap to a couple of agents (who shall remain nameless) that helped me shape my book into the best it can be. You see, while they loved the relationship that had evolved between Jane and I, they reminded me that the story centers on Jane and Marilyn. So, I thought over the course of this week I would post  snippets of my initial chapters that were edited out of the book, keeping in mind that they don’t give away what the book itself is about. Just think of it as a  back history of how my journey began…

CHAPTER ONE

I parked my dusty Toyota Tercel in the lot, grabbed my briefcase, and what remained in my extra large 7-Eleven coffee cup, and headed inside to work. It was already in the mid-70s, a bad sign at 6:47 a.m., so I was dreading what it would be like in the boiler room. Technically, my employers referred to their company as a telemarketing firm and their employees as telemarketers, but it was a boiler room and I was a guy hawking cigarette lighters and condoms to gas stations and convenience stores all over the country.
          Now, I’m a really good salesman but I’m not a magician. The big sales hook was all of the items had the name of the establishment printed on them. Yes, the condoms, too. If you owned Big Bobbie’s Bass Farm in Bugtussle, Alabama, having your name on essentials like fire and contraception was a merchandising dream come true.

          And, in that respect, I was a dream maker.

I was also the best salesman in the place. Every week, my totals dwarfed everyone elses, but making seven hundred bucks a week schlepping imprinted tschotskes was not why I had moved to Hollywood. I had come here to be a writer. Actually, I was already a writer, and here I should make the extremely important distinction: paid writer.
          After moving from New York, I discovered that, to my amazement, most everyone here was a writer. Jagdish, the Punjabi at my 7-Eleven, Gwen, the sleeve-tatted barrista at Starbucks (where I would occasionally go when I was flush, but felt guilty about cheating on Jagdish), and even Abdul, the guy who fixed the air conditioning on my Tercel. All of them “writers,” all had screenplays or... “screenplay ideas.” Many were even “writers” who had not actually written anything yet. But again, the distinction. Not one of them had actually made any money writing.
          Not so with I.
          After graduating from The American Theater of Actors & Writers in Manhattan, unlike some of my fellow graduates, I did not go directly to Wall Street, but squandered my chance at riches and actually began writing. My Off-Broadway play, Tell Veronica! (an interactive theater piece that parodied TV talk shows) played to sold out crowds at the Grove Street Playhouse. We eventually brought it to L.A. where it debuted with “Dallas” star Charlene Tilton in the title role. I wrote other plays that were staged and won awards, and also penned a trilogy of published children’s books. I wrote screenplays that won awards (but haven’t yet sold), and even created two original reality television series that were optioned by KISS’s Gene Simmons. 
          Thus, I considered myself a real writer as I entered the sauna-like boiler room and braced myself to pitch various Joe Bob’s and Raylene’s lighters and rubbers to clutter the counter of their service station or diner somewhere in the mid-West or deep South. I grabbed my messages and walked to my desk, shuffling through the many call-backs, knowing these were as good as sold. I passed my fellow boiler-roomies, this crew of wannabes, hangers-on, and colorful collection of Bohemians -- many of whom would find this to be the apex of their careers -- and settled in to my four-by-six cubicle in the back. My eyes went to the desk thermometer. I estimated the countdown to 80 degrees as less than 15 minutes. 
          On my desk was good news. A glossy color flyer announced our newest product, one that every fiber of my salesman’s soul told me was gold: herbal Viagra. Dubbed Sta-Max, even the title was money to my eyes. I swept the crap back from my desk, tore open a pack of powdered ginseng and squared my shoulders for telephonic combat.
          As I carefully arrayed my call-back messages like Solitaire cards, I remembered one in my pocket. It was a yellow Post-it that I’d been given the night before. It simply said “Jane” and had a local phone number. This was not a call-back, and wasn’t even related to my present job, but it was the one that intrigued me the most. My desk calendar still had the date from the day before, July 4th, 2001. There was a factoid about founding rivals Jefferson and Adams both dying fifty years to the day after signing the Declaration of Independence, but my mind was on other things. I flipped the calendar to the 5th, thinking about how I’d come by the Post-it and what it might mean to me...

The previous evening, 4th of July festivities in L.A. were in full swing. The fourth floor rooftop of my West Hollywood condo was buzzing with partyers enjoying the wonderful vista of the surrounding city and hills. It was the perfect vantage point for various firework displays, from the Hollywood Bowl to Dodger Stadium. I sipped my wine and gazed at the sparkling starbursts in the distance when suddenly a sharp pain shot up my arm.

  I looked to see if a falcon had landed on me.
          “Is that something, or what?”

  Janice, my neighbor, had been a sort of rock goddess in the 80s, modeling for different products and rock bands. Her portfolio from that time, with the leather, lace and big hair, had rocked an Ann Wilson/Delta Burke vibe. Twenty years later, and now in her late forties, things hadn’t changed in terms of her still looking like them. Unfortunately. I looked down at her acrylic, mulitcolored press-on talons imbedded in my flesh and gently pried them back.

  “Yes, it is.”
          “Hey,” she said, out of the blue, “You remember my friend Jane I told you about?”

  My expression indicated I hadn’t a clue.
“At Christmas?” she insisted. “Your party? My friend I told you about? The one who knew Marilyn Monroe?”

  Marilyn Monroe, right. I used all my acting powers not to allow my eyes to glaze over and embarrass her. Since moving to Hollywood if I had dime for every time I heard of someone who knew someone...

  Concealing my lack of interest with a forced smile, I gushed, “Oh, yeah. Of course. How is she?”
          “Well, she’s looking for someone to help sell some stuff on Ebay. Some memorabilia. Probably some Marilyn stuff. I mean she really knew her, and Robert Mitchum and Ethel Merman and Lucy, too. She’s got tons of stuff to sell.”

  My ears perked up. Hmmm. Maybe she did actually know Marilyn and “Tons of stuff to sell” was Wagner to my ears. I didn’t even care what the stuff was, but in this case it might be Hollywood stuff which probably beat the crap out of rubbers advertising auto repair shops.

  I was in.
          “I guess I could help her.” My friends knew I was very experienced with Ebay and made a tidy profit on the side finding items at garage sales and turning them into green.
          Janice’s face lit up. “Good. Let me go get her number. Call her tomorrow. I told her I’d ask, so she’s expecting you to call.”

  I hated being predictable but I was intrigued. If this woman did have authentic stuff to sell there might be a little something in it for me. I hoped so, but acknowledged in the back of my mind that I’d probably end up doing it for free because, well... that’s who I am. I also had a fascination with all things Hollywood, being a guy from New York who chose to live here. Plus, I was a sucker for all things Marilyn. 

I sat in my cubicle, looking at the Post-it, thinking about something Janice had told me. She had glanced around at the other guests within earshot, leaned in close, then, as if to seal the deal, conspiratorially whispered something in my ear. What she told me was a bit shocking, if true, but I had heard rumors about Marilyn so it wasn’t exactly a bombshell. Then, with a twinkle in her eye she added a bit of information that was a bombshell.
          She smiled slyly at my wide eyes and whispered, “True story... and that’s our little secret.” 
          As she walked away to get the phone number, I thought about the Ebay items, if they existed. Then I considered this piece of intel on her friend, Jane. If it was true... and that was a big IF, then the writer in me had just stepped in line next to the salesman.
          Maybe there was something here.

Pictures of Marilyn

This morning, when I read that a vintage black and white photograph signed by Marilyn Monroe (to her longtime makeup artist, “Whitey” Snyder) sold for over $22,000 at Julien’s Auctions, I immediately thought of my friend, Jane. For those of you have been following this blog, Jane is the focus of my soon-to-be-released new book, Marilyn Monroe: My Little Secret, who headed the star’s first fan club at 20^th Century Fox. At one time, Jane had over 4,000 pictures of Marilyn in her possession, many of which bore Marilyn’s name. Of the signed pictures, Jane kept two. Both were from the same publicity sitting as the one that sold at Julien’s, only they were inscribed to Joe DiMaggio and Jane, respectively. Jane remembered the day Marilyn autographed Joe’s picture. It was in the early stages of their courtship when Joe had dropped by the Fox lot to pick Marilyn up for a date. (Jane later gained possession of the picture when Marilyn and Joe divorced.) The other one, addressed to Jane, read: “To Jane, My Friend – Love & Kisses – Marilyn Monroe.”

Initially, when I met Jane, it was to help her sell her ‘Marilyn collection’ on ebay. Jane was in ill health, and any monies at the time would help pay some of her medical bills. When I learned of Jane’s connection to Marilyn and her passion to write about their friendship one day, I offered to pay for her life rights and tell it for her. Jane wasn’t a writer, and was ecstatic as I was to get started. I had photographed, or photocopied, the majority of Jane’s treasured memories of Marilyn, including the signed photographs before turning them back over to Jane. A few years prior to us meeting, Jane got an appraisal from Christie’s Auction House of Marilyn’s signed photographs, which were estimated at $5,000-$6,000, each. Today, judging by the one that sold at Julien’s Auctions, they would’ve been worth… Well, you do the math.

To this day, I don’t know what became of Jane’s signed photographs of Marilyn, or the rest of Jane’s collection, for that matter. Sadly, I wasn’t told about Jane’s death until a few weeks after she had passed. And by the time I had hurried to her apartment complex to get more details on her death, Jane’s entire apartment had been gutted…

I’ll admit, when I first saw how much the signed photograph of Marilyn to her makeup artist “Whitey” sold for at Julien’s, my heart sank a little knowing the joy that amount of money would’ve brought Jane. I also know that Jane would’ve ‘shared the wealth,’ because that’s the sort of person she was. But I’m content in what I “do” have, Jane’s story with one of the most iconic movie stars of all time, which in itself is priceless.

To see photocopies of Jane’s signed pictures of Marilyn, please visit the Marilyn Monroe: My Little Secret Facebook page @ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marilyn-Monroe-MY-LITTLE-SECRET/120852027954577