MM: The Iconic Bombshell

“Jean Harlow may have been the original bombshell but Marilyn Monroe is the most iconic. Her image was simultaneously sexy and childlike. Monroe’s high-pitched voice and carefully curated dumb-blonde persona were paired with an intense sexuality and the most celebrated curves of any bombshell … She met a tragic death suspected to be at her own hand at 36-years-old but her image and career is the most celebrated of all the bombshells.”

Marilyn makes Elle magazine’s list of the Top 20 Bombshells

Michelle Williams as Marilyn

“I feel like we live together … At a certain point, something else does take over. I don’t quite feel myself these days … I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist, eventually. Physically and vocally, everything about her is different from me. I’ve kind of gone to school and had teachers to help me understand Marilyn, so I could project an essence of her. When I first approached the part, I thought that there were three, even four parts to Marilyn. It rearranges you, it shifts your molecules, lifts you up, spins you around, puts you back down and you’re not quite the same, for better or for worse.”

Baz Bamigboye visits the My Week With Marilyn set and talks to Michelle Williams in today’s Daily Mail

The BBC reports from location shooting in Duxford, Cambridgeshire

Happy Thanksgiving!

“Film star Marilyn Monroe has a hug for 12-year-old Donald Thompson, a victim of Muscular Dystrophy.  Donald is holding Miss Monroe’s personal advance donation for the nation wide 1955 Thanksgiving week March of Muscular Dystrophy, sponsored by the Muscular Dystrophy Associations of America, Inc.  At the left is Jack Bostick, of Fort Worth, Texas, Vice President of the International Association of Firefighters, which is spearheading the drive beginning Monday. November 17, 1955 New York, New York, USA.”

Thanks to The Marilynette Lounge

‘Marilyn in Canada’ Exhibit

Marilyn visited Canada at least three times: as 18 year-old Norma Jeane Dougherty, in 1944; and while filming two of her movies, Niagara (1952) and River of No Return (made in 1953, released ’54.)

In February 2011, the touring Marilyn Monroe: Life as a Legend exhibit arrives in Ontario. The McMichael Canadian Art Collection are also curating ‘Marilyn in Canada’, featuring photos by John Vachon and George S. Zimbel (taken in New York City during filming of The Seven Year Itch), as well as contemporary Canadian art inspired by Marilyn.

During the long ‘Family Weekend’ of February 19-21, the exhibition opens with guided tours, films and music along with special programming every day based on these shows.

I hope that photographer Jock Carroll, whose book, Falling for Marilyn, chronicled her time in Niagara, will also be featured.