Amphetamine

Amphetamine, named in the novel through the brand Benzedrine, is part of Marilyn Monroe’s larger and increasingly hazardous prescription-drug regimen. Its significance lies not in an isolated use but in the way the stimulant is combined with sedatives and alcohol, while prescriptions are obtained from doctors who, according to the narrative, do not know about one another.

Use Within a Drug Combination

During the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl, the actress takes a substantial amount of Benzedrine to counter the effects of Nembutal and Miltown. She has also added gin to her hot tea. The combination precedes her fall on a staircase: her heel catches in the hem of her dress, and she tumbles down as people on the set call for help. The scene presents the drug not as a treatment in isolation but as one element in an unstable effort to offset the effects of other substances. The playwright, who runs to her side, later says he knew nothing about what she had taken.

Prescriptions and Access

The novel places Benzedrine among prescriptions obtained through several drugstores in Hollywood and Beverly Hills. The wider list includes Dexedrine, Miltown, Dexamyl, Seconal, and Nembutal. The prescriptions come from different doctors, each reportedly unaware of the others. This fragmented access makes the regimen difficult to treat as the oversight of a single physician: the drugs accumulate across multiple prescribers without shared knowledge of the combination.

Medical Context and Narrative Significance

The book also depicts psychiatric illness, hospitalization, and medication in the story of Gladys Mortensen. It describes Gladys’s diagnosis and treatment, including electroshock and a continuing medication regime, but does not identify those drugs as amphetamine. That distinction separates the specific stimulant references from the broader medical background of the novel.

Benzedrine’s recurring place beside sedatives and alcohol gives it a double function in the narrative: it is both a prescribed substance and part of a precarious attempt to manage the competing effects of other drugs. The staircase fall makes that regimen visible as bodily danger, interrupting the controlled surface of a film set with a sudden medical crisis.