The naked actress was laughing, splashing, her flesh incandescent against the shimmer of blue, now on her back, then bottoms up, her happy sounds echoing, as if she were the only woman in the world-and wasn’t she?

She was, after all, Marilyn Monroe, and this was Fox’s Soundstage 14, where she was shooting the film Something’s Got to Give, under the supervision of legendary Hollywood director George Cukor.

Nude scenes were common overseas-Bardot had become famous flashing her fanny in And God Created Woman -but a major star like Monroe shedding for the CinemaScope camera? Just not done, even if she did have those notorious calendar shots in her past.

This was the closed set of all closed sets. A small army of security guards had been summoned by producer Henry Weinstein to cover the five entrances to the soundstage, after word of the nude scene wildfired across the lot. This was the toughest ticket in town, unless you had an in.

I had an in. Last night I’d heard from Marilyn’s personal publicist, Pat Newcomb (calling at the star’s request), that tomorrow would be the “day of days” on the Something’s Got to Give set.

“Marilyn says you wanted to visit,” Pat said, in her pleasantly professional way, “sometime during filming. And this is it.”

“Mind my asking what’s special about tomorrow?”