Saturday 28 November 2009

Marilyn Monroe



Her mother was a film-cutter at RKO Studios 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 (1948) in which she sang two numbers.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw her in a small part in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and put her in All About Eve (1950), resulting in 20th Century re-signing 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 The Seven Year Itch (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 The Seven Year Itch (1955), 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 (1957) with Laurence 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 The Misfits (1961), written for her by departing husband Miller was interrupted by exhaustion.
She was dropped from the unfinished Something's Got to Give (1962) due to chronic lateness and drug dependency.
Four months later she was found dead in her Brentwood home of a drug overdose, adjudged "probable suicide".

2 comments:

Aslan said...

Gee Allison you really took on the ultimate American in this one.
I didn't know that stuff about her mother, she had a tough start in life that's for sure
I noticed you stayed from the controversy surronding the circumstances of her untimely death. That was very polite of you to do that. I know the official conclusion was suicide, I remember hearing something about a couple phone calls that night and suicide note. But I think she just got to high and had too much to drink and took too many pills that night. Our systems can only take so much, even for an addict that has developed a high tolerance
My uninformed guess is that her death was an unfortunate self inflicted accident.
I didn't care for her performance in "Bus Stop." Well I didn't like the movie in general, not just picking out her performance.
I thought her performance in "The Misfits" was brilliant!!!
It is a shame she didn't get to explore her full potential as a performer.
I think she was headed in the right direction with "The Misfits"
A really nice piece you wrote here I think that Photo of her is fantastic.
You alwaysa pick the most intersting people and do such a good job

bluedreamer27 said...

i guess marilyn monroe is such an icon ,,, she will be remembered for the next future generation...
it's nice to see you back my friend
sorry for dropping by here so late

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