Her mother was a filmcutter at RKO Studios who, widowed and mentally ill, 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' (qv) and featured her in the B movie _Ladies of the Chorus (1948)_ (qv) in which she sang two numbers. 'Joseph L. Mankiewicz' (qv) saw her in a small part in _The Asphalt Jungle (1950)_ (qv) and put her in _All About Eve (1950)_ (qv), resulting in 20th Century re-signing her to a seven-year contract. _Niagara (1953)_ (qv) and _Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)_ (qv) launched her as a sex symbol superstar. When she went to a supper honoring her _The Seven Year Itch (1955)_ (qv) 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 (I)' (qv) (their wedding night was spent in Paso Robles, CA). After _The Seven Year Itch (1955)_ (qv), she wanted serious acting to replace the sexpot image and went to New York's Actors Studio. She worked with director 'Lee Strasberg' (qv) and also underwent psychoanalysis to learn more about herself. Critics praised her transformation in _Bus Stop (1956)_ (qv) and the press was stunned by her marriage to playwright 'Arthur Miller (I)' (qv). 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 (1957)_ (qv) with 'Laurence Olivier' (qv), fighting with him and falling further prey to alcohol and pills. Two miscarriages and gynecological surgery followed. So did an affair with 'Yves Montand' (qv). Work on her last picture _The Misfits (1961)_ (qv), written for her by departing husband Miller was interrupted by exhaustion. She was dropped from the unfinished _Something's Got to Give (1962)_ (qv) due to chronic lateness and drug dependency. August 4, 1962 Marilyn Monroe's day began with threatening phone calls. Dr. Ralph Greenson Marilyn Monroe's physician came over the following day and quoted later in a document "felt it was possible that Marilyn Monroe had felt rejected by some of the people she had been close to". Apart from being upset that her publicist slept too long, she seemed fine. Pat Newcombe, who had stayed the previous night at Marilyn's house, left in the early evening as did Greenson who had a dinner date. Marilyn was upset he couldn't stay, and around 7:30pm she telephoned him while he was to tell him that her second husband's son had called him. Peter Lawford also called Marilyn, inviting her to dinner, but she declined. Lawford later said her speech was slurred. As the dark and depressing evening for Marilyn wore on there were other phone calls , including one from Jose Belanos, who said he thought she sounded fine. According to the funeral directors, Marilyn died sometime between 9:30pm and 11:30pm. Her maid unable to raise her but seeing a light under her locked door, called the police shortly after midnight. She also phoned Ralph Greenson who, on arrival, could not break down the bedroom door. He eventually broke in through French windows and found Marilyn dead in bed. The corner stated she had died from acute barbiturate poisoning, and it was a 'probable suicide.'
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Marilyn Monroe
- 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.
- [on living with the Bolenders when she was a little girl] They were terribly strict. They didn't mean any harm . . . it was their religion. They brought me up harshly.
- [on meeting 'Joe DiMaggio (I)' (qv) for the first time] 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 why 'Joe DiMaggio (I)' (qv) didn't accompany her on one of her USO tours] Joe hates crowds and glamor.
- [on why she divorced 'James Dougherty (I)' (qv)] 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 her marriage to 'Joe DiMaggio (I)' (qv) didn't work] I didn't want to give up my career, and that's what Joe wanted me to do most of all.
- I want to be a big star more than anything. It's something precious.
- [on her favorite actress] 'Jean Harlow (I)' (qv) was my idol.
- [on drifting in and out of orphanages when she was little] 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 her early marriage to 'James Dougherty (I)' (qv)] 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.
- 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 her famous nude calendar pose in 1949] My sin has been no more than I have written, posing for the nude because I desperately needed 50 dollars to get my car out of hock.
- An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. 'Isaac Stern (I)' (qv) 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.
- ['Johann Wolfgang Goethe' (qv)] 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' (qv)] 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.
- [about 'Montgomery Clift' (qv)] 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.
- [on 'Marlon Brando' (qv) and 'Montgomery Clift' (qv)] Marlon's kinda hard to tie down, they say. He's never sure what he wants to do. He and Monty Clift have a lot in common, though they're totally different people, but they don't plan their careers too well and they're not ambitious enough for their talents.
- Personally, I react to 'Marlon Brando' (qv). He's a favorite of mine.
- [on 'Frank Sinatra' (qv)] He is a man at the top of his profession and is a fine actor as well. You know, he got an Oscar for _From Here to Eternity (1953)_ (qv). He has helped more people anonymously than anybody else. And the miserable press smears him with lies about his being involved with the Mafia and gangsters. And Frank just takes it.
- [on 'Mae West (I)' (qv)] A nice lady even though she turned down making a picture with me. That just shows how smart she is.
- Speaking of Oscars, I would win overwhelmingly if the Academy gave an Oscar for faking orgasms. I have done some of my best acting convincing my partners I was in the throes of ecstasy.
- [on 'Laurence Olivier' (qv) on the set of _The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)_ (qv)] Olivier came into my dressing room to give me hell for screwing up. I soothed him by telling him I thought his _Hamlet (1948)_ (qv) was one of the greatest films ever made. You know he won an Oscar for it.
- When 'Clark Gable' (qv) died, I cried for 2 days straight. I couldn't eat or sleep.
- [on 'Sigmund Freud' (qv)] I read his "Introductory Lectures," God, what a genius. He makes it so understandable. And he is so right. Didn't he say himself that ['William Shakespeare (I)' (qv)] and ['Fyodor Dostoevsky' (qv)] had a better understanding of psychology than all the scientists put together? Damn it, they do.
- [on 'James Joyce (I)' (qv) and the character of Molly Bloom in Ulysses] Here is Joyce writing what a woman thinks to herself. Can he, does he really know her innermost thoughts? But after I read the whole book, I could better understand that Joyce is an artist who could penetrate the souls of people, male or female. It really doesn't matter that Joyce doesn't have...or never felt a menstrual cramp. To me Leopold Bloom is a central character. He is the despised Irish Jew, married to an Irish Catholic woman. It is through them Joyce develops much of what he wants to say. Do you agree that the scene where Bloom is looking at the little girl on the swing is the most erotic in the book?
- [on 'John F. Kennedy' (qv)] When he has finished his achievements, he will take his place with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and ['Franklin D. Roosevelt' (qv)] as one of our greatest Presidents. I'm glad he has ['Robert F. Kennedy' (qv)]. It's like the Navy. The President is the Captain and Bobby is his Executive Officer. Bobby would do absolutely anything for his brother. And so would I. I'll never embarrass him. As long as I have memory, I have John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
- I remember when I got the part in _Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)_ (qv). 'Jane Russell (I)' (qv), she was the brunette in it and I was the blonde. She got $200,000 for it, and I got my $500 a week, but that to me was, you know, considerable. She by the way, was quite wonderful to me.
- Everyone's a star and deserves the right to twinkle.
- [on Sunday being the loneliest day of the week for her] All the men I know are spending the day with their wives and families, and all the stores in Los Angeles are closed. You can't wander through looking at all the pretty clothes and pretending to buy something.
- [on 'Marlon Brando' (qv)] He's very sweet and tender, not at all the Stanley Kowalski rapist people think he is.
- 'Arthur Miller (I)' (qv) wouldn't have married me if I had been nothing but a dumb blonde.
- I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I'm out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
- I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone's wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really.
- [on 'Peter Lawford' (qv)] I have a need to be frightened and nothing really in my personal relationships and dealings lately have been frightening me, except for him. I felt very uneasy at different times with him, the real reason I was afraid of him is because I believe him to be homosexual...Peter wants to be a woman and would like to be me, I think.
- Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you $50,000 for a kiss and 50c for your soul.
- If I'm going to be alone, I'd rather be by myself.
- It was the creative part that kept me going, trying to be an actress. I enjoy acting when you really hit it right.
- I did what they said and all it got me was a lot of abuse. Everyone's just laughing at me. I hate it. Big breasts, big ass, big deal.
- [on Arthur Miller's script for 'The Misfits'] Arthur did this to me. He could have written anything and he comes up with this. If that's what he thinks of me, well, then I'm not for him and he's not for me. Arthur says it's his movie. I don't think he even wants me in it.
- I won't be satisfied until people want to hear me sing without looking at me.
- Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
- The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.
- Wouldn't it be nice and get notches on your belt and sleep with most attractive men and not get emotionally involved?
- 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 love to do things that censors won't pass.
- I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
- I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.
- I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.
- Boys think girls are like books, If the cover doesn't catch their eye they won't bother to read what's inside.
- Your clothes should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to show you're a lady.
- [on shooting the famous scene in _The Seven Year Itch (1955)_ (qv) where wind from the subway beneath blows her skirt up] At first it was all innocent and fun, but when 'Billy Wilder' (qv) kept shooting the scene over and over the crowd of men kept on applauding and shouting, 'More, more Marilyn - let's see more.' What was supposed to be a fun scene turned into a sex scene.
- I've often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people.
- When you're young and healthy you can plan on Monday to commit suicide, and by Wednesday you're laughing again.
- Suicide is a person's privilege. I don't believe it's a sin or a crime, it's your right if you do. Though it doesn't get you anywhere.
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