REFLECTIONS: DON MURRAY ON MARILYN MONROE

Don Murray later remembered the difficulties of filming with Marilyn Monroe during "Bus Stop" (1956), who was essentially his boss on the movie. Paula Strasberg had replaced Natasha Lytess as Monroe's on-the-spot acting coach, and Murray recalled that, while Strasberg was "polite," she constantly "huddled" with Marilyn and paid no attention to anyone else. Murray said that, because of Monroe's problems with lines, every scene with her was "difficult... 

On some scenes there would be 30 takes. The average film scene requires about five takes. If Marilyn was having trouble getting through a particular scene, and finally got it, they would print it. It did not matter how the other actors did. I had a feeling of relaxation doing the scenes she wasn't in... She was detached, into herself. On the set, she appeared frightened, worried. Just thinking about what she had to do. There was not much interchange."

Murray recalled a scene in which director Joshua Logan wanted a "two-head close-up" shot, one of the first in the CinemaScope process being used for the film. Because of the width of the image, the top of Murray's head was out of the frame. "The audience won't miss the top of your head, Don," Monroe explained. "They know it's there because it's already been established." Another laugh came when Murray mistakenly used the word "scaly" in a scene and Monroe told him it had been "a Freudian slip" because the scene had a sexual connotation. "You see," she continued, "you were thinking unconsciously of a snake. That's why you said 'scaly.' And a snake is a phallic symbol. Do you know what a phallic symbol is, Don?" Murray's reply: "Know what it is? Hell, I've got one!"