Teeny-weeny ego trip

Vicki Weissman

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN by Colin Clark HarperCollins, £14.99, pp. 159 This has been a good week for Now It Can Be Told'. We've had Sir Walter Mon- ckton's papers — though quite what the Queen Mother said about that nasty Mrs S is still deemed too hot for us to handle then wicked, wicked Talullah's goings-on with Eton boys and, to ensure that our cups run over, Colin Clark's memories of how he narrowly escaped being bedded by Mar- ilyn Monroe. Of all the books written about that exquisite icon, My Week with Marilyn surely has to be the oddest. Perhaps its greatest oddity is that despite the publish- er's lure in the title, this book is not about Marilyn, but rather tells how

for a short time the attention of the major participants ... seemed to be focused on me ... a spotlight had swung round ... and singled me out.

Unfortunately 'me' is not a very nice young man. How about this?

She had her own supporters whom she brought from the USA ...They are certainly not the team I would have picked ... They are all Jewish ... while Marilyn is a typical California blonde; so how they can under- stand the way her mind works, goodness knows.

Or: Forget about Mr Miller...You'll have plenty of time to make him a nice Jewish wife when you're back in the Bronx [!!].

There are other indications of character:

Roger is a very nice man, but Roger is a policeman. He's only used to dealing with subordinates. You can't treat servants like that ... Believe me, Milton, I'm very familiar with these problems.

He reminds me of the drill-sergeants I knew when I was a pilot-officer in the RAF, so we get on very well.

Or:

This seemed to me pretty egotistical reason- ing, even by the standards of domestic ser- vants.

`Me' makes Proust look like a communist.

Leaving aside this 26-year-old's personal- ity, we come to another hurdle. His is no fine writing style. As appendix we have the letter written to a friend in 1956, detail- ing `me's torrid week during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl because I stopped writing my diary for a whole week, and when I started again I changed the dates in case anyone got their hands on it. I seri- ously thought that I might be sued or bumped off.

(Humour and proportion appears to be a lesson 'me' skipped.) But he feels safe to tell his friend: I took her to Windsor Castle and we saw my godfather...who is librarian there. He gave us the grand tour, which Marilyn seemed to enjoy, and then we went and had a look at Eton. It was a glorious sunny day and Mari- lyn could not have been jollier or more natu- ral.

For atmosphere, beat that. Sadly things have not changed much stylistically in the intervening years, although recollection has sharpened: I realised that Marilyn was naked, at least from the waist up. The sensation of her lips and bosom pressed against mine, combined with the icy water, [my italics] nearly caused me to pass out.

Quite so.

It is hard to imagine why a man of 68 with a solid career should want to tell this story, which ranks pretty much with 'I had that Marilyn Monroe in the back of me cab'. For a start the approach he has cho- sen obliges him to re-enter his youthful self. Most of us would wish to forget we once said: I love you like I love the wind... You are like a beautiful force of nature, Marilyn, forever out of reach.

But whatever `me's motive, it allows him to tell us:

I spent the rest of the night there (No I behaved impeccably)... I was a bit of a hero.

Not with a bang, but a simper.