Hollywood, 1962: Two Legends, One Secret Battle

Dean Martin was no stranger to beautiful women. He’d starred with Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Dorothy Malone. But Marilyn Monroe was different. Not because she was more beautiful—because she was more fragile. Dean saw it on the first day of rehearsals for The Last Summer, a film that would become legendary for reasons no one could have predicted.

Marilyn laughed too loudly at jokes that weren’t funny. She vanished to her dressing room between every take. Dean recognized the signs. This wasn’t just acting for the camera. This was acting for survival.

And then came the bedroom scene—the one Marilyn had been dreading, the one she’d been drinking to forget. When the director called “action,” Marilyn’s mask shattered. And Dean did something no director, no studio executive, no husband had ever done: he stopped performing, too.

What happened next wasn’t in the script, but it became one of the most honest moments ever captured on film.

Dean at a Crossroads

By spring 1962, Dean Martin was 44 and at a turning point. His partnership with Jerry Lewis had ended five years earlier in a bitter split. He’d proven he could carry a film alone—Rio Bravo with John Wayne, Some Came Running with Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine—but The Last Summer was different.

It was a romantic drama, no comedy safety net, no Rat Pack to lean on. If it worked, Dean would be A-list forever. If not, he’d be back to Vegas lounges and television specials.

The script was elegant and simple: Thomas Brennan, a world-weary songwriter who’d given up on love, and Laura Sinclair, a fading film star trying to reclaim her career. Both damaged, both pretending to be fine. Both terrified of vulnerability.

Dean saw himself in Thomas—the weariness, the performance, the fear of letting anyone see the real person underneath. He said yes.

Casting Marilyn: More Than a Sex Symbol

Casting Laura Sinclair was a challenge. Elizabeth Taylor passed. Natalie Wood was busy. Then someone suggested Marilyn Monroe. She was available—desperate, actually. Her last film, The Misfits, had been a critical success but a box office disappointment. Her marriage to Arthur Miller was over. Her rumored relationships with the Kennedy family were becoming dangerous. She needed a hit—a role that would remind Hollywood she was more than a sex symbol.

Marilyn read the script and wept. Laura Sinclair was her: a woman the world saw as one thing, but who was something else entirely. A woman tired of performing, tired of being desired, but never truly seen. Marilyn wanted the role more than anything, but was terrified. The script required something she’d been avoiding for years: real intimacy on screen, not manufactured sexuality. Actual vulnerability. Actual truth.

First Meeting: “Just a Body Going Through Motions”

Dean and Marilyn met for the first time at a script reading in March 1962. Marilyn arrived 30 minutes late, wearing dark sunglasses and an apology that felt rehearsed. Dean stood, shook her hand. Her grip was weak, almost lifeless, like she was just a body going through the motions while the real Marilyn hid somewhere safe inside.

They read through the script. Marilyn was brilliant—every line perfect—but there was no connection. She was performing at Dean, not with him. Reading words, not feeling them. The director, Harold Peton, noticed, but said nothing. It was just a table read. Chemistry would come in rehearsals, he hoped.

Rehearsals: Two Stars, Two Worlds

Rehearsals began in early April on Sound Stage 7 at Zenith Studios. The set was beautiful—a Malibu beach house, floor-to-ceiling windows, soft lighting. It was supposed to feel intimate, safe.

Dean arrived in jeans and a t-shirt, coffee in hand, ready to work. Marilyn arrived already in costume and makeup, already in character, already performing. Dean worked instinctively—he didn’t overthink, just listened and responded. Marilyn, trained at the Actors Studio, needed to prepare, to control every detail.

Their approaches clashed—not hostile, just incompatible. Like two musicians playing in different keys. Harold tried to bridge the gap: “Let’s just play with it. Don’t worry about getting it right. Just see what happens.” But Marilyn couldn’t play. She’d been performing her entire life, since her mother went into a mental institution, since the foster homes, since the first photographer told her to “smile like you mean it.” Playing meant losing control, and losing control meant people would see the real her.

Dean noticed. He’d been in show business long enough to recognize fear. He’d felt it himself—the terror of being exposed as a fraud. He hid it behind a cool persona, the guy who didn’t care. Marilyn’s armor was different: sex, beauty, the breathy voice, the wiggle, the dumb blonde routine. It kept people at a distance while making them think they were close.

The Bedroom Scene: “I Can’t Do This”

Two weeks into rehearsals, they reached the bedroom scene—scene 47. Thomas and Laura, after circling each other for days, finally let their walls down. They kiss. They make love. The scene was tasteful, romantic, but it required Marilyn to be vulnerable—to let Dean see Laura, which meant letting Dean see Marilyn.

Harold scheduled three days to rehearse the scene, choreograph the blocking, work out the emotional beats. Day one: Marilyn didn’t show up. Her assistant called—food poisoning. Day two: Marilyn arrived two hours late, apologetic, shaking. She’d taken something—pills, probably. She couldn’t focus, kept forgetting her lines, kept asking to start over. After two hours, Harold called it.

Day three: Marilyn was on time, sober, determined. “Okay, let’s do this.” Harold walked them through the blocking. Dean could see her hands shaking, the fear in her eyes.

They ran the scene. The dialogue was good. Marilyn hit her marks. Then came the moment: the silence before the kiss. Thomas crosses to Laura, reaches for her face. She’s supposed to lean into the touch, let him in. Marilyn pulled away.

“Sorry, can we start again?” They ran it six times. Every time, Marilyn pulled away.

Harold grew frustrated. “Marilyn, you have to let him touch you. It’s in the script.”

“I know. I’m trying.”

But Dean saw something Harold didn’t. This wasn’t about the scene. This was about Marilyn. Something deeper. Something broken.

The Dressing Room Conversation That Changed Everything

Dean called for a break. Marilyn retreated to her dressing room. Dean followed, knocked.

“Marilyn, it’s Dean. Can I come in?”

Silence, then quietly: “Okay.”

Dean entered. The room was a mess. Makeup everywhere. Costume pieces scattered. Empty pill bottles on the counter. Marilyn sat on the couch, still in costume, crying—not the pretty crying actresses do on camera. Real crying. Ugly. Painful.

Dean sat down, not too close. “You okay?”

Marilyn laughed bitterly. “Do I look okay? No.” She wiped her eyes, mascara smeared. “I can’t do this scene. I know it’s in the contract. I know I’m being difficult, but I can’t.”

Dean didn’t ask why. Didn’t push. Just sat there, present.

After a long silence, Marilyn spoke. “Do you know what it’s like to be looked at your whole life and never seen?”

Dean thought about it. “Yeah, I do.”

Marilyn looked at him—really looked at him—for the first time. “You? You’re Dean Martin. Everyone loves you.”

Dean smiled, sad. “They love the guy who drinks on stage, who tells jokes, who doesn’t give a damn. They don’t love me. They don’t know me.”

Marilyn understood. “We’re the same. We perform.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, we do.”

“But that scene, the bedroom—it’s not performance. It’s real. And I don’t know how to be real. I forgot how.”

Dean sat with that. Then he said something that changed everything.

“You don’t have to be real. Let Laura be real.”

Marilyn looked confused. “What?”

“You’re not Marilyn Monroe in that scene. You’re Laura Sinclair. Let her carry it. Let her be vulnerable. You’re just the actress playing her. You can stay safe. Laura takes the risk.”

Marilyn’s eyes widened like a door opening. “I never thought of it that way.”

“That’s how I do it,” Dean said. “When I’m scared, when I don’t want to feel something, I let the character feel it for me. Thomas is braver than I am, more honest. I hide behind him, and it works because I’m not lying. Thomas is being real. I’m just watching.”

Marilyn processed this. Her entire training had been about using her real emotions, bringing her pain to the character. But Dean was suggesting the opposite: let the character hold what you can’t hold yourself.

“Can you teach me?” Marilyn asked.

Dean smiled. “I can try.”

They sat there for 20 minutes. Dean walked Marilyn through his process. “It’s not Method. It’s not Stanislavski. It’s just survival. You find the truth in the character—their fear, their hope, their love. You let them feel it fully, and you watch from a safe distance. You’re present, but protected.”

Marilyn listened. Actually listened. Not performing listening. Really hearing him.

The Scene—And What Came After

They went back to rehearsal. Harold was skeptical. “You two ready?”

Dean looked at Marilyn. She nodded. “Let’s try it.”

They ran the scene again. The dialogue, the approach, the moment before the kiss. Dean reached for Marilyn’s face, and this time she didn’t pull away. She leaned into the touch, her eyes filled with tears—not Marilyn’s tears, Laura’s tears, the character’s vulnerability. And Dean responded, not as Dean, but as Thomas—a man who’d been alone so long he’d forgotten what connection felt like.

They kissed, gentle, tentative, real.

Harold watched from behind the monitor. He didn’t call cut, just let it happen. When they finally pulled apart, Marilyn was shaking, but she was smiling.

“Did we get it?”

Harold was speechless. He nodded. “Yeah, we got it.”

They filmed the bedroom scene three days later, April 28, 1962. Closed set, just essential crew. Harold believed in privacy for intimate scenes—less pressure on the actors. Marilyn arrived early, nervous but determined. She’d practiced what Dean taught her: let Laura carry it. Stay present but protected.

The scene was scheduled for six hours. They had multiple camera setups, different angles, coverage. But Harold wanted to start with a master, one continuous take, the whole scene from beginning to end. No cuts, just truth.

Positions. Marilyn stood by the window in a simple slip, vulnerable but not objectified. Dean was shirtless, human, real. The scene began with dialogue. Laura talking about her failed marriages. Thomas sharing his fear of commitment. They were both honest in ways they’d never been with anyone.

Then the silence. Thomas crossed to Laura, reached for her face. Marilyn leaned into the touch. Let Laura feel Thomas’s tenderness. Let the character experience something Marilyn had been running from her whole life—being seen.

They kissed. The camera captured everything: the hesitation, the surrender, the fear melting into trust. It lasted maybe 10 seconds. But in those 10 seconds, something shifted—not just in the scene, but in both actors.

When Harold called cut, the set was completely silent. The cinematographer had tears in his eyes. The script supervisor was frozen. They’d witnessed something rare: the moment when acting stops and truth takes over.

Aftermath: Grace, Grief, and Legacy

The rest of filming was different. Marilyn stopped showing up late, stopped disappearing to her dressing room. She was present, focused. She’d found a way to work that felt safe. Let Laura be brave. Let Laura be vulnerable. Marilyn could stay protected.

Dean and Marilyn developed a friendship. Not romantic—deeper than that. Recognition. Two people who understood the cost of performance, who knew what it meant to bury yourself so deep you forgot who you were. They’d talk between takes about life, about fear, about the industry that built them up and ground them down.

Dean told Marilyn about his childhood in Steubenville, Ohio. Being the son of Italian immigrants, feeling like he never belonged. Marilyn told Dean about the foster homes, the abuse, the men who’d used her, the industry that commodified her. They shared truth—not for the camera, just for each other.

The Last Summer wrapped in late May 1962. The studio was ecstatic. The footage was extraordinary. Marilyn and Dean had chemistry that felt genuine. The bedroom scene was the centerpiece—intimate without being explicit, romantic without being sentimental, real.

Zenith Pictures scheduled the release for December, Oscar season. They believed they had something special.

On the last day of filming, Marilyn hugged Dean, held on longer than expected.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For seeing me. Not Marilyn Monroe. Me.”

Dean understood. “You’re braver than you think.”

Marilyn smiled, sad. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m just a better actress than I thought.”

They promised to stay in touch, but Hollywood friendships are complicated. Dean went back to his life—concerts, recording, the Rat Pack. Marilyn went back to hers—solitude, pills, the chaos that had defined her for years.

On August 4, 1962, three months after filming wrapped, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her home. Overdose—accidental or intentional, nobody knew. She was 36 years old.

Dean heard the news while in Vegas preparing for a show. He canceled, flew home, locked himself in his house for two days. Didn’t speak to anyone. When Frank Sinatra called to check on him, Dean finally answered.

“She was the bravest person I ever worked with.”

Frank didn’t understand. “Bravest how?”

“She let herself be seen. Do you know how much courage that takes?”

The Scene That Became Iconic

The Last Summer premiered in December 1962 without Marilyn. The studio debated canceling the release—too morbid. But they decided Marilyn would have wanted it seen.

The film was a critical success. Audiences loved it. Critics praised Marilyn’s performance—her finest work, vulnerable, honest, devastating. Dean was nominated for Best Actor. Marilyn, posthumously, for Best Actress.

In interviews, people asked Dean about working with Marilyn. What was she like? He always gave the same answer: “She was real. More real than anyone I’d ever met. That’s what scared her, and that’s what made her great.”

The bedroom scene became iconic. Film students studied it, analyzed the intimacy, the chemistry, the honesty. But what made it possible was never captured on camera—a conversation in a dressing room, an actor teaching another actor how to survive. Seven words: “Let the character carry it for you.”

And a woman who’d been performing her whole life learning, for the first time, that being seen didn’t mean being destroyed. It meant being free.

A Legacy of Vulnerability and Courage

Years later, Dean rarely spoke about Marilyn. The grief was too deep, too personal. But once, in a 1983 TV interview, he was asked about his favorite performance. He thought for a long moment, then quietly said, “Working with Marilyn on The Last Summer—because she taught me something.”

“What?”

“That the bravest thing you can do isn’t hiding your fear. It’s showing it to someone you trust—and trusting they won’t destroy you for it.”

Today, The Last Summer is considered a classic, a time capsule of two icons at the peak of their craft. But for those who were there, who watched Marilyn and Dean work, it was something else. It was proof that even the most broken people can find moments of grace if they’re willing to be seen—if someone’s willing to see them. And sometimes, that’s enough.