By Elliott West
“I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy”.
Marilyn Monroe
Introduction
On 5th August 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead by her psychiatrist in a bedroom in her Los Angeles home, 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood at 3 am. A later inquest found that she died between 8:30 and 10:30 pm on 4 August due to what the coroner described as an “accidental” overdose drug overdose of chloral hydrate and Nembutal. Marilyn was naked, lying face down on her bed and clutching a telephone receiver. She was only 36 years old. Monroe had called her psychiatrist, Dr Ralph Greenson at about 5:15 pm to say that she couldn’t sleep, to which he told her to go for a ride.
Her housekeeper, Eunice Murray had become worried when Marilyn hadn’t responded to numerous knocks at her bedroom door. Strange as she had seen a light go on in Marilyn’s room at 3 am. She then called Dr Ralph Greenson who had to break in through a window to gain access to her bedroom.
Misunderstood
Norma Jeane Mortenson always wanted to be a film star. Her double M stage name, a Hollywood cocktail, was created from her grandmother’s surname. This a brilliantly thought-out idea that showed that Marilyn wanted agency and control from the beginning. Rather than the orphan-to-riches story that Hollywood would have you believe, Marilyn was knocking on the doors of the film studios, looking for film work. Her mother, Gladys Pearl Baker was very much alive, living in a mental institution, having first been institutionalised when the young Marilyn was only 8 years old. A young girl who is illegitimate, not knowing her father. Her mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in the 1930s, a time when mental illness was seen as shameful and was not talked about. Monroe was taken to an orphan home and told to forget her mother and pretend she was dead.
Escapism
Through these bad times, Marilyn found her escape by going to the cinema for a dime or a nickel. This young and innocent girl went to watch films such as Cleopatra, living the movies, a place that was problem free and purely escapist. By 1941 and at the age of 15, Monroe had left the orphanage and moved in with a foster family. It was then that she blossomed, becoming voluptuous and developing a beautiful face. The boys turned their eyes in her direction, wolf-whistling as she walked past. Rather than ignoring the attention, she bathed in it. Even then, she unconsciously walked like a movie star, learning the machinery of womanhood early in life. She bought into the idea that beauty brought power. A body that was a blessing, weaponised but also a curse because it was weaponised against her.
Marriage
At 16, Marilyn’s life changed overnight, marrying a neighbour, James Dougherty who she barely knew. The marriage was the idea of her foster mother, Grace Macee. She was given an ultimatum, either marry this 21-year-old or go into a home. Marilyn was a pragmatist, seeing this as her best option, she chose marriage. She barely had any time to get to know her new husband as the Second World War meant he was sent away to the Marines to fight in the South Pacific. Meanwhile answered the call to help the war effort and went to work in an aircraft factory outside of Los Angeles. While she was there a photographer came to take pictures of the women and spotted Marilyn. See her, he commented, “Where have you been hiding?”. The photographer was so impressed with the picture that he asked for a photo shoot during her lunch hour, telling her to wear another sweater. So the bombshell of beauty exploded.
The Career Trail
Monroe spurred on by this success, tried her luck at the Blue Book Model Agency which was looking for models. She went to the Ambassador Hotel to audition. Seen as the “girl next door”, the agency instantly saw her potential. She oozed sex appeal and displayed her excitement at being in front of a camera. A woman who was comfortable in her skin would lead to a life-changing photo shoot, an affair with the photographer and serving divorce papers to her husband.
By 1946, Marilyn had signed a contract with 20th Century Fox, going from a young model to an aspiring starlit. However, she had to impress the movie moguls. This was a movie Mafia where the studio controlled everything. It was a difficult place for women and they were treated as being disposable and a commodity. It would be a long time before women were thought of as thinking beings. Monroe was seen at first as a straw head and so Marilyn had to begin a battle with the studio to keep her contract. So she did the right photo shoots and acting classes, a hard worker who didn’t wait for the studio to tell her what to do. She worked under her initiative. She strongly believed that opportunity would knock one day and she wanted to be there when it happened.
The knock came in May 1947 in the film ‘Dangerous Years’ where she played Evie, a waitress with a sharp tongue. She has confidence, the beginnings of poise and she commands the performance and screen. A complete opposite of the bubbliness that Monroe would use in her later acting roles. However, the studio still saw her as a bit part and dropped her. Yet this determined woman, rather than giving up, overcame her devastation and vowed to work harder. She attended a party where there were lots of predatory men whose sole aim was to date the women, inappropriate gestures and too much leering. A normality that was wrong but a necessity that Monroe knew would gain her success. An avenue that she found by befriending the Hollywood studio mogul, Joseph Schenck.
Blonde Bombshell
Schenck adored her and saw her potential. An old but wise man who helped her get a six-month contract. Marilyn became a platinum blonde and so bought into the Hollywood star-building machine and so she met Natasha Lytess. A lady who saw her potential and trained her to become starlight, a drama coach who she lived with for two years and allegedly had a lesbian relationship with. Columbia Pictures cast her in a musical, ‘Ladies of the Chorus’, a picture where she was sexually attractive but made fun of it. A movie that led to Harry Cohn summoning her to his office. He was willing to sign a new contract but she had to spend time on his yacht to get it.
Cohn was married and a serial womanizer. She refused his offer and he threw out and didn’t renew her contract at the end of the six months. Four years later, she dared to speak out and co-authored a work called ‘Wolves I Have Known’, a poetic, metaphoric work about predatory men and sexual harassment, something unheard of in this era. The dangerous element of being pursued by a wolf. She exposed the cracks in society and told the world to watch out for these wolves of Hollywood because if you didn’t, they would cancel your contracts.
Working with Marx
In 1949, Groucho Marx was looking for an actress for his film ‘Love Happy’ and wanted someone who would “make his elderly libido rise”. He tested three different actresses and Marlyn fitted the bill. Monroe made jaws drop and showed sex in a veiled, exaggerated form. She was sent on a publicity tour of the East Coast to promote the film. She arrived in a sweltering New York in a thick wool suit. The publicity crew made light work of her mistake, giving her a fan and an ice cream to hold when she got off the train.
The Rising Star
Her eyes started to twinkle and she made love to the camera. She became Marlyn and started to shine. To do this, she chose a transaction, a series of nude poses that were photographed. Even now these pictures are breathtaking, showing the beauty and vulnerability of this future Hollywood star. She looked like something straight out of a portrait gallery. In 1950, she posed for another shoot, showing the jovial of her personality. Running around a garden and posing with a dog. It was a shoot that brings fruit, securing her an audition for the film ‘All About Eve, a tiny walk-on part, a film starring Betty Davis. Monroe is seen walking up the stairs, a showcase moment amongst stars. She delivers but 20th Century Fox is still sceptical about her worth. Yet she had one last throw of the dice in the film ‘As Young As You Feel’ in 1951.
This was not a particularly good film and Monroe had very little to do in the film but to stand around and look pretty. The New York Times called the performance “superb” but that was because she was being objectified. Yet the movie moguls could see that Monroe could bring more men into the cinema and make their money. She got her way through this mucky compromise and was signed up to a seven-year deal with Fox. Yet despite getting a foot in the door, Marilyn was now owned by the studio and had to dance to their tune, playing the parts they wanted her to play. She appears in seven films in the first year of her contract. Films such as ‘Love Nest’, ‘We’re Not Married’, ‘Monkey Business’ and ‘Let’s Make It Legal’. These were frankly appalling films, precisely because they gave no scope for Monroe to show her brilliance as an actress. She was boxed in and forced to play the dumb blonde.
The Strategy
Monroe had a plan up her sleeve to get herself notoriety. She would turn up to parties late in the tightest dresses. A lady had she been alive today would have been a social media influencer and a regular on Instagram. This was a woman who looked good in a potato sack as old Kodak safety film proves. The plan started to work as she would soon be dating the baseball superstar Joe DiMaggio. This began as a secret romance but the American press got wind of it and splashed it all over the front covers. The man they called ‘The Yankee Clipper’ was loved by American sports fans but they quickly started to believe this romance was a publicity stunt, aimed at elevating Marilyn’s success. None the less she was swamped by fan letters.
The Past Bites
The anonymous nude pictures that she had previously done, hung in gas stations with no one knowing who the model was. Yet as Marilyn grew in stature, so people started wondering whether she was the woman in the pictures. This news reached the Fox Studios and she was hauled into the office for a meeting. They believe that sin was bad for business and this nude calendar could spell disaster for them and end her career. Yet Marilyn devised a plan, to let the public decide her fate. She confided in a journalist and tells her story as a scoop, taking ownership of the situation. A risky move to deal with this decision but one that she felt was necessary at the time, it was her body and she was not ashamed. It worked and she was embraced by the public precisely because she spelt out her life circumstances at the time and why she had to find a way out of them.
It led to a Life magazine feature, a true stamp of approval and one that made her a household name. Off of this, Marilyn was cast in the film ‘Niagara’ in 1952. An A-list film that showed her off in her full sexuality, complete with the pink suggestive dress. She swaggered in this film and it’s the first time that we saw the Monroe brand in full explosive colour. She was in charge of her sexuality and owned it.
Yet again this nude photoshoot that she paid only 50 bucks for would come back again to haunt her. Hugh Heffner, the Playboy owner printed the photographs again in his magazine and opened old wounds. However, her fears were unjustified because the edition sold out and made her not an outcast but instead a sensation.
Let the Good Times Roll
Marilyn Monroe would go on to make a string of hit movies. These include ‘Gentleman Prefer Blondes’, where she plays a dumb blonde, a joke because she was no gold digger and was very smart. It suited men to believe she was dumb but she used it to get what she wanted. Monroe was a rebel, funny and brilliant actress who controlled the camera. An example is brilliantly shown in ‘How To Marry A Millionaire’. Yet despite these films making Fox $15 million, her next film ‘The Girl In Pink Tights’, she labelled as trash. Frank Sinatra was paid three times her salary. This was even though the movies goers flocked to see her rather than Frank. Marilyn walked off the set in protest.
In Love
What started as a supposed stunt, turned into love. Marilyn and Joe had a love bond and so got married in 1954. The marriage would only last a year but it showed that Monroe found solace in the older man. It also allowed her to barter with Fox, refusing to come back to work until they improved her pay and conditions. She could no longer be brushed under the carpet by the studios. Rather than getting the old-fashioned woman who sat at home and cooked and cleaned, he got the modern woman. Joe didn’t want others to have a share of Marilyn’s sexual appeal and when she went to Korea to be with the American troops, he complained that didn’t see her anymore. The troops went crazy and so did Joe. She was not being an entertainer but also becoming a political animal.
Fox relented and gave Marilyn a significant pay rise but she still craved respect. ‘The Seven Year Itch’ showed again how Monroe could own the camera. The grill scene outside the cinema where her dress blows up was iconic and ahead of its time. It created cinema history and the image that remembers Marilyn. A woman having fun, a shot that Billy Wilder shot 80 times to get one shot. Yet in the background, Joe didn’t like it and it is reported that he beat her in rage. Three weeks later, her marriage was over. Marilyn produced genuine tears but got brave and divorced him. No man has the right to hit a woman once or continuously. Monroe said enough was enough. Purely courageous in this bygone era.
Deconstruct
Marilyn made the extraordinary move to walk away from Hollywood. She returned though, making the film ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ in 1954. She was now a huge Hollywood star. It was a film in a lot of ways summed up her life, she had the money and the fans but still craved inner happiness. She wanted more and that was something she felt would only be found outside Hollywood. She famously didn’t show up for the film’s premiere and instead put on a black wig and dark sunglasses, booked a plane ticket to New York and assumed the persona of Zelda Zonk. This was her chance to become a real actress. She fell in love with New York and had a romance with Malon Brando, had pillow fights with the writer Truman Capote and drank gin at the Subway Inn with Frank Sinatra. Lee Strasberg took her under his wing and coached her in his acting studio. She could walk along the New York streets unnoticed, visiting theatres and art galleries
Working with Milton Greene, the photographer, she posed for stripped-back photographs, showing the real Marilyn. The person, not the movie star commodity. The two worked and slept together. This was even though Milton was engaged and his girlfriend, Amy was two months pregnant. Greene opened up her eyes to literature and the good things in life, encouraging her to set up her own production company and escape the shackles of Hollywood once and for all. This led to the formation of Marilyn Monroe Productions in 1954. Greene bought her 50 pairs of shoes to celebrate and plenty of new clothes. She was being hounded by lawsuits and the studios were trying to track her down. An escape that lasted 29 days before she was ready to come out of hiding.
The New Marilyn
Weeks after this flee tactic, journalists were invited to an Eastside apartment to reveal the new Marilyn. From behind a curtain, came this goddess, dressed all in white with heels. Flash bulbs went crazy and she dropped the scoop they all wanted, she was setting up her own film production company. This was a bold brand, a powerful and feminist brand. This was her chance to do the films she wanted to do. Yet when the newspapers came out the next day, they said this project was doomed for failure. Fox picked up on this and was furious.
Marilyn fought back and pounded the television stations and gave Fox an ultimatum, change or I won’t come back. They didn’t listen and slapped a lawsuit on her. It didn’t phase Marilyn. She had become empowered and was mixing with the stars in New York. She fell in love with jazz music and became friends with Ella Fitzgerald. Marilyn pulled the strings for Ella to play the Mocambo Club, a whites-only club. Monroe got annoyed and called the manager of the club and said if you rebook Ella I will come every night to hear her sing at both shows. A woman who was ahead of her time and didn’t even know it.
The Miller Factor
“I am so concerned about protecting Arthur. I love him—and he is the only person—human being I have ever known that I could love not only as a man to which I am attracted practically out of my senses—but he is the only person—as another human being that I trust as much as myself.”
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn began a romance with the playwright Arthur Miller. A person who had penned plays such as ‘The Crucible’and ‘Death Of A Salesman’. Miller was married to Mary Slattery and they met through mutual friends. Monroe was conscious of this and the romance was kept secret for a year. She was attracted to intelligence and so Miller was the ideal candidate. By 1955, Arthur and Marilyn were in a full-blown affair which became more serious when both split up with their partners. However, Miller was also being investigated for Communist connections in the McCarthy trial. A move that meant he was subpoenaed. The studios said Monroe should end the relationship but she refused and was then investigated by the FBI for her connection to Miller. Arthur was besotted with her and when they married, she converted to Judaism.
However, a miscarriage ensued and Marilyn’s workload didn’t help matters. Despite taking 18 months off work to try for a family, she had an ectopic pregnancy and a further miscarriage. The cracks started to show in their marriage and Monroe was reported to have an affair with Yves Motand. Miller was also having an affair with the photographer Inge Morath, who he later wed and had children with. A chance reading of his notebook when it was open, left Marilyn devasted. In it he had written:
“The only one I will ever love is my daughter”.
Arthur Miller
The couple split after the filming of the film The Misfits and Monroe died shortly afterwards.
The Kennedy Connection
Marilyn supposedly had a relationship with John F. Kennedy but from reports from close friends, it was merely a weekend fling. Much is said about her singing Happy Birthday Mr President at his Madison Gardens event in New York. Monroe was ill at the time, suffering from sinusitis and had a dependency on barbiturates. This was the last time that the two crossed paths and their close friendship faded afterwards. JFK was said to have been embarrassed after her rendition and cut all ties with her. The two would die in a short space of time between each other.
The Final Curtain
Ironically Fox had renewed her contract for a staggering $1 million. Yet this parting gift came too late. Monroe never got to complete her movie career. Her life was cut tragically short. Her great triumph was that she fought the studio and won. Marilyn showed that women have the same worth as men. She blew apart the pathetic theory that this a man’s world. Yet despite blowing away so many misconceptions, ultimately Marilyn never got to fly like a butterfly or found continual love. She chose men older than her, perhaps trying to find the father figure she never had but all were short-lived.
Marilyn showed how sex appeal works, not crudely but shown in an artistic form. Even now, she remains the subject of advertising campaigns and her face can always be seen somewhere in the world. Sadly Monroe was born and died alone. She never had true parents and never became a parent. If she had been alive today, I am sure she would still have a role in the media and would have been interviewed many times about her career. A true movie icon who died far too young.
