The evening, an early January night in 1960, began as you might imagine any couples’ get-together would have back then. The husbands mixed cocktails near the gas-burning fireplace. The hostess, in her familiar Scotch-plaid slacks, shook out napkins while her friend lounged on the sofa dreamily perusing the jacket of a record album. Later, the men stayed talking in the living room as the women moved into the kitchenette.
But this was no ordinary foursome socializing in the suburbs. They were two of the era’s most glamorous couples. Yves Montand had just completed a triumphant U.S. tour that elevated him to the rank of a French Frank Sinatra in the eyes of the American public. His wife, Simone Signoret, the husky-voiced star of French cinema, was weeks away from winning Hollywood’s highest accolade, an Oscar for best actress in Room at the Top. Arthur Miller was in the middle of writing The Misfits for his wife, Marilyn Monroe, who would play the leading role that spring. And Monroe herself, despite insecurity and frustration over her acting career, was at the height of her power as a box office star.
The setting was Bungalow 20 of The Beverly Hills Hotel, where Montand and Signoret were living while he prepared for his role opposite Monroe in the romantic comedy Let’s Make Love. Conveniently, Monroe and Miller had set up camp next door, in Bungalow 21. The couples, already acquaintances, soon got into the habit of sharing late night dinners. Montand, a Communist, revered Miller for his political views. He and Signoret had performed The Crucible in France. The women established their own brand of closeness, spending evenings swapping tales about previous film roles and Saturdays getting their hair touched up—a weekly ritual for Monroe.
The growing intimacy between the two couples was too perfect a situation for studio publicists to ignore. They commissioned a series of photos, coyly entitled the “Millers and Montands,” of the foursome sharing a cozy, home-cooked meal.
When it was time to eat, both couples pitched in to set the table, shoving aside scripts and books to make room for plates. Signoret cooked spaghetti in two small saucepans, serving the pasta with a red sauce and a fat meatball plopped in the center. This simple dish got an elegant boost from a salad course, pastries delivered by room service, and two bottles of Château Lafite- Rothschild. A quart of milk sat unceremoniously among the wine bottles as the evening lingered past dessert.
For photographer Bruce Davidson, that quart of milk at Monroe’s elbow was what made the composition work. “I am always drawn to something that’s unexpected, that might open a door to some kind of truth,” Davidson said recently, speaking from his home in New York City. The milk, he sees now, conveys something about Monroe’s extraordinary feminine energy as well as the striking naïveté she brought to this cultured table: “Marilyn had an openness and a vulnerability where the others were worldly sophisticates.”
Of course, months later, when news of the affair between Monroe and Montand hit the gossip sheets, fans would read tension in the riveting sensuality of the photos. The liaison temporarily shattered Montand’s marriage to Signoret, but the French-woman, ultimately, was remarkably forgiving of her husband—and of Monroe. She told the press, “Do you know many men who would sit still with Marilyn Monroe in their arms?” Later, in her autobiography, Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, published after Monroe’s death, Signoret noted regretfully, “She never knew ... how thoroughly I had understood the story that was no one’s business but ours, the four of us.”
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