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Her mother was a film-cutter at RKO who, widowed and insane, abandoned
her to sequence of foster homes. She was almost smothered to death at
two, nearly raped at six. At nine the LA Orphans' Home paid her a
nickel a month for kitchen work while taking bac ...(read more)
Her mother was a film-cutter at RKO who, widowed and insane, abandoned
her to sequence of foster homes. She was almost smothered to death at
two, nearly raped at six. At nine the LA Orphans' Home paid her a
nickel a month for kitchen work while taking back a penny every Sunday
for church. At sixteen she worked in an aircraft plant and married a
man she called Daddy; he went into the military, she modeled, they
divorced in 1946. She owned 200 books (including Tolstoy, Whitman,
Milton), listened to Beethoven records, studied acting at the Actors'
lab in Hollywood, and took literature courses at UCLA downtown. 20th
Century Fox gave her a contract but let it lapse a year later. In 1948
Columbia gave her a six-month contract, turned her over to coach
'Natasha Lytess' and featured her in the B movie "Ladies of the Chorus" for
which she sang two numbers. Joseph Mankiewicz saw her in a small part
in Asphalt Jungle, The (1950) and put her in "All About Eve", because of which 20th
Century re-signed her to a seven-year contract. Niagara (1953)
and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) launched her as a sex symbol superstar. When she went to a
supper honoring her Seven Year Itch, The (1955) she arrived in a red chiffon gown borrowed
from the studio (she had never owned a gown). The same year she married
and divorced baseball great 'Joe Dimaggio' (their wedding night was spent in
Paso Robles CA). After "Itch" she wanted serious acting to replace the
sexpot image and went to New York's Actors Studio. She worked with
director 'Lee Strasberg' and also underwent psychoanalysis to learn more about
herself. Critics praised her transformation in Bus Stop (1956)
and the press was stunned by her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller.
True to form, she had no veil to match her beige wedding dress so she
dyed one in coffee; he wore one of the two suits he owned. They went to
England that fall where she made "The Prince and the Showgirl" with
Lawrence Olivier, fighting with him and falling further prey to alcohol
and pills. Two miscarriages and gynecological surgery followed. So did
an affair with 'Yves Montand' . Work on her last picture Misfits, The (1961) , written for
her by departing husband Miller) was interrupted by exhaustion. She was
dropped from "Something's Got to Give" due to chronic lateness and drug
dependency. Four months later she was found dead in her Brentwood home
of a drug overdose, adjudged suicide.
Ed Stephan
Probably the most celebrated of all actresses, Marilyn Monroe was born
Norma Jean Mortenson on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles General Hospital.
Prior to her birth, Marilyn's father bought a motorcycle and headed north to San Francisco, abandoning the family in Los Angeles. Marilyn grew up not knowing for sure who her father really was. Her mother, Gladys, had entered into several relationships, further confusing her daughter as to who it was who fathered her. Afterward, Gladys gave Norma Jean (Marilyn) the name of Baker, a boyfriend she had before Mortenson. Poverty was a constant companion to Gladys and Norma. Gladys, who was extremely attractive and worked for RKO Studios as a film cutter, suffered from mental illness and was in and out of mental institutions for the rest of her life, and because of that Norma Jean spent time in foster homes. When she was nine she was placed in an orphanage where she was to stay for the next two years. Upon being released from the orphanage, she went to yet another foster home. In 1942, at the age of 16, Norma Jean married 21-year-old aircraft plant worker James Dougherty. The marriage only lasted four years, and they divorced in 1946. By this time Marilyn began to model swimsuits and bleached her hair blonde. Various shots made their way into the public eye, where some were eventually seen by RKO Pictures head'Howard Hughes (I)' . He offered Marilyn a screen test,
but an agent suggested that 20th Century-Fox would be the better choice
for her, since it was a much bigger and more prestigious studio. She
was signed to a contract at $125 per week for a six-month period and
that was increased by $25 per week at the end of that time when her
contract was lengthened.
Her first film was in 1947 with a bit part in Shocking Miss Pilgrim, The (1947) . Her next
production was not much better, a bit in the eminently forgettable
Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948) . Two of the three brief scenes she appeared wound up on the
cutting room floor. Later that same year she was given a somewhat
better role as Evie in Dangerous Years (1947) . However, Fox declined to renew her
contract, so she went back to modeling and acting school.
Columbia Pictures then picked her up to play Peggy Martin in Ladies of the Chorus (1948) ,
where she sang two numbers. Notices from the critics were favorable f0r
her, if not the film, but Columbia dropped her. Once again Marilyn
returned to modeling. In 1949 she appeared in United Artists' Love Happy (1949) .
It was also that same year she posed nude for the now famous calendar
shot which was later to appear in Playboy magazine in 1953 and further
boost her career. She would be the first centerfold in that magazine's
long and illustrious history. The next year proved to be a good year
for Marilyn. She appeared in five films, but the good news was that she
received very good notices for her roles in two of them, Asphalt Jungle, The (1950) from
MGM and All About Eve (1950) from Fox. Even though both roles were basically not
much mor than bit parts, movie fans remembered her ditzy but very sexy
blonde performance.
In 1951, Marilyn got a fairly sizable role in Love Nest (1951) . The public was
now getting to know her and liked what it saw. She had an intoxicating
quality of volcanic sexuality wrapped in an aura of almost childlike
innocence. In 1952, Marilyn appeared in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) , in which she played a
somewhat mentally unbalanced babysitter. Critics didn't particularly
care for her work in this picture, but she made a much more favorable
impression later in the year in Monkey Business (1952) , where she was seen for the
first time as a platinum blonde, a look that became her trademark. The
next year she appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) as Lorelei Lee. It was also the same
year she began dating the baseball great 'Joe DiMaggio' .
Marilyn was now a genuine box-office drawing card. Later, she appeared
with 'Betty Grable' , 'Lauren Bacall' and 'Rory Calhoun (I)' in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) . Although her co-stars got
the rave reviews, it was the sight of Marilyn that really excited the
audience, especially the male members. On January 14, 1954, Marilyn wed
DiMaggio, then proceeded to film There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) . That was quickly followed by
Seven Year Itch, The (1955) , which showcased her considerable comedic talent and contained
what is arguably one of the most memorable moments in cinema history:
Marilyn standing above a subway grating and the wind from a passing
subway blowing her white dress up.
By October of 1954, Marilyn announced her divorce from DiMaggio. The
union lasted only eight months. In 1955 she was suspended by Fox for
not reporting for work on How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955) . It was her second suspension, the
first being for not reporting for the production of "The Girl In Pink
Tights". Both roles went to others. Her work was slowing down, due to
her habit of being continually late to the set, her illnesses (whether
real or imagined) and generally being unwilling to cooperate with her
producers, directors, and fellow actors.
In Bus Stop (1956) , however, Marilyn finally showed critics that she could play
a straight dramatic role. It was also the same year she married
playwright, 'Arthur Miller (I)' (they divorced in 1960). In 1957 Marilyn flew to
Britain to film Prince and the Showgirl, The (1957) which proved less than impressive critically
and financially. It made money, but many critics panned it for being
slow-moving. After a year off in 1958, Marilyn returned to the screen
the next year for the delightful comedy, Some Like It Hot (1959) with 'Tony Curtis (I)' and
'Jack Lemmon (I)' . The film was an absolute smash hit, with Curtis and Lemmon
pretending to be females in an all-girl band, so they can get work.
This was to be Marilyn's only film for the year.
In 1960 Marilyn appeared in 'George Cukor's Let's Make Love (1960) , with 'Tony Randall (I)' and
'Yves Montand' . Again, while it made money, it was critically panned as stodgy
and slow-moving. The following year Marilyn made what was to be her
final film. Misfits, The (1961) , which also proved to be the final film for the
legendary 'Clark Gable' , who died later that year of a heart attack. The film
was popular with critics and the public alike.
In 1962 Marilyn was chosen to star in Fox's Something's Got to Give (1962) . Again, her
absenteeism caused delay after delay in production, resulting in her
being fired from the production in June of that year. It looked as
though her career was finished. Studios just didn't want to take a
chance on her because it would cost them thousands of dollars in
delays. She went into seclusion in her home in L.A. On August 5, 1962,
her housekeeper found her dead body, nude and lying face down on her
bed, apparently the victim of an overdose of sedatives. She was only
36.
Marilyn made only 30 films in her lifetime, but her legendary status
and mysticism will remain with film history forever.
Denny Jackson
Trademarks:
* Lisp, breathless voice
* Platinum blonde hair
* Lisp, breathless voice
* Platinum blonde hair
Quotes:
* "I love a natural look in pictures. I like people with a feeling one
way or another - it shows an inner life. I like to see that there's
something going on inside them."
* "My problem is that I drive myself... I'm trying to become an artist,
and t ...(read more)
* "I love a natural look in pictures. I like people with a feeling one
way or another - it shows an inner life. I like to see that there's
something going on inside them."
* "My problem is that I drive myself... I'm trying to become an artist,
and to be true, and sometimes I feel I'm on the verge of craziness, I'm
just trying to get the truest part of myself out, and it's very hard.
There are times when I think, 'All I have to be is true'. But sometimes
it doesn't come out so easily. I always have this secret feeling that
I'm really a fake or something, a phony."
* "They were terribly strict. They didn't mean any harm...it was their
religion. They brought me up harshly." - on living with the Bolenders
when she was a little girl
* "I was surprised to be so crazy about Joe. I expected a flashy New York
sports type, and instead I met this reserved guy who didn't make a pass
at me right away! He treated me like something special. Joe is a very
decent man, and he makes other people feel decent too." - on meeting
Joe DiMaggio for the first time
* "Joe hates crowds and glamour." - explaining why Joe DiMaggio didn't
come on one of her USO tours
* "My marriage didn't make me sad, but it didn't make me happy either. My
husband and I hardly spoke to each other. This wasn't because we were
angry. We had nothing to say. I was dying of boredom." - on why she
divorced James Dougherty
* "I didn't want to give up my career, and that's what Joe wanted me to
do most of all." - on why her marriage to Joe DiMaggio couldn't work
* "I want to be a big star more than anything. It's something precious."
* "Jean Harlow was my idol." - on her favorite actress, the first
platinum blonde
* "The world around me then was kind of grim. I had to learn to pretend
in order to - I don't know - block the grimness. The whole world seemed
sort of closed to me... [I felt] on the outside of everything, and all
I could do was to dream up any kind of pretend game." - on drifting in
and out of orphanages when she was little
* "Grace McKee arranged the marriage for me, I never had a choice.
There's not much to say about it. They couldn't support me, and they
had to work out something. And so I got married." - on her early
marriage to James Dougherty
* "I'm not interested in money, I just want to be wonderful."
* "A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night."
* "Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die, young,
but then you'd never complete your life, would you? You'd never wholly
know yourself..."
* "A dollar for your thoughts..."
* "I've been on a calendar, but never on time."
* "No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little
girls should be told they're pretty, even if they aren't."
* "In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo.
You're judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood's a place
where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for kiss, and fifty cents for
your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough
and held out for the fifty."
* "Dogs never bite me. Just humans."
* "Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature."
* "Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, Fame. If it goes by, I've
always known it was fickle."
* "I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was
talented or even beautiful, but because I never had belonged to
anything or anyone else."
* "People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror
instead of a person. They didn't see me, they saw their own lewd
thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the lewd
one."
* "A sex-symbol becomes a thing, I just hate being a thing. But if I'm
going to be a symbol of something I'd rather have it sex than some
other things we've got symbols of."
* "The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool
themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead
they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They
were obviously loving somebody I wasn't. When they found this out, they
would blame me for disillusioning them---and fooling them."
* "To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no
foundation. But I'm working on the foundation."
* "If I had observed all the rules, I'd never have gotten anywhere."
* "I want to grow old without face-lifts... I want to have the courage to
be loyal to the face that I have made."
* "It's often just enough to be with someone. I don't need to touch them.
Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You're not alone."
* "I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the
image they've made of me and that I've made of myself, as a sex symbol.
Men expect so much, and I can't live up to it."
* "It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well, who
does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe? They feel fame gives them some
kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you, you know,
of any kind of nature - and it won't hurt your feelings."
* "Fame is fickle, and I know it. It has it's compensations but it also
has it's drawbacks, and I've experienced them both."
* "My illusions didn't have anything to do with being a fine actress. I
knew how third rate I was. I could actually feel my lack of talent, as
if it were cheap clothes I was wearing inside. But my God, how I wanted
to learn, to change, to improve!"
* "If I play a stupid girl, and ask a stupid question, I've got to follow
it through. What am I supposed to do, look intelligent?"
* On posing nude for the calendar in 1949: "My sin has been no more than
I have written, posing for the nude because I desperately needed fifty
dollars to get my car out of hock."
* "An actor is supposed to be a sensitive intrument. Isaac Stern takes
good care of his violin. What if everyone jumped on his violin?"
* "There was my name up in lights. I said 'God, somebody's made a
mistake!' But there it was in lights. And I sat there and said,
'Remember, you're not a star.' Yet there it was up in lights."
* "Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress,
they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft,
they laugh. Somehow they don't expect me to be serious about my work."
* "I was never used to being happy, so that wasn't something I ever took
for granted. I did sort of think, you know, marriage did that. You see,
I was brought up differently from the average American child because
the average child is brought up expecting to be happy - that's it,
successful, happy, and on time."
* "You know, when you grow up you can get kind of sour, I mean, that's
the way it can go."
* "Wouldn't it be nice to be like men and get notches in your belt and
sleep with most attractive men and not get emotionally involved?"
* "I used to think as I looked at the Hollywood night, 'There must be
thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie
star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the
hardest.'"
* "The trouble with censors is they worry if a girl has cleavage. They
ought to worry if she hasn't any."
* "I used to say to myself, 'What the devil have you got to be proud
about, Marilyn Monroe?' And I'd answer, 'Everything, everything.'"
* On stardom: "It scares me. All those people I don't know, sometimes
they're so emotional. I mean, if they love you that much without
knowing you, they can also hate you the same way."
* "Goethe said, 'Talent is developed in privacy, ' you know?And it's
really true. There is a need for aloneness which I don't think most
people realize for an actor. It's almost having certain kinds of
secrets for yourself that you'll let the whole world in on only for a
moment, when you're acting."
* "Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe...
I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity."
* "I've never dropped anyone I believed in."
* On John F. Kennedy: "It would be so nice to have a president who looks
so young and good-looking."
* "I restore myself when I'm alone. A career is born in public -- talent
in private."
* "Talent is developed in privacy... but everybody is always tugging at
you. They'd all like sort of a chunk at you. They'd kind of like to
take pieces out of you."
* "I want to be an artist... not an erotic freak. I don't want to be sold
to the public as a celluloid aphrodisiacal."
* "Hollywood is a place where they'll pay a million dollars for a kiss...
and fifty cents for your soul."
* (About 'Montgomery Clift' ): He's the only person I know that is in worse shape
than I am.
* "I've never liked the name Marilyn. I've often wished that I had held
out that day for Jean Monroe. But I guess it's too late to do anything
about it now."
* "If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything."
* "A smart girl leaves before she is left."
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