Trifle though it might be, the picture was a remake of a comedy classic, My Favorite Wife, where remarried hubby Cary Grant is confronted by his suddenly-not-dead first wife, Irene Dunne, who’s been on a desert island with hunk Randolph Scott. Similar shenanigans should ensue second time around, with the current loosening of the Production Code meaning the sex stuff could be sexier stuff.

So the gig should have been painless for Marilyn, but the papers said she’d been out sick for half the production days. On the phone last night, I’d asked Pat Newcomb about it.

“So what’s up? Is Marilyn really sick?”

“She has been, yes. Sinusitis, flu, running a high temperature. The studio’s own physician has found her unfit for work.”

“So the columns saying she’s being a prima donna, that’s crap?”

A pause. “Mr. Heller, Marilyn is a star and has certain… eccentricities, and expectations. But no, she’s really sick.”

“Not so sick that she didn’t show up to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the president at Madison Square Garden the other night.”

It had been a big, gaudy televised event. Marilyn had done her dumb-blonde bit, not this new sixties model, and Jack Kennedy had damn near drooled over the attention. No wonder Jackie Kennedy had stayed away.

“That had been agreed to months ago,” the publicist said, defensively. “The studio tried to renege at the last moment, but how does a star like Marilyn turn down a command performance for the president?”

“She doesn’t,” I said. “But what kind of studio doesn’t see the PR value in that?”

“ This one,” the publicist said bitterly. “They let Elizabeth Taylor run wild and stick adultery in their faces and rack up cost overruns that would bankrupt a European nation, and then punish Marilyn for it.”