Blogger and MM fan Bobby Rivers shares his thoughts on TV’s Smash:
“I am a Monroe fan. She was not a belter in her movie musicals. Not like a Patti LuPone, Liza Minnelli or Kristin Chenoweth on Broadway. Marilyn Monroe was not designed for theatre. She created herself for intimacy with a movie camera. She cooed. She purred. She was a satiny jazz baby singing ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’ in ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes‘. But she wasn’t a belter.
In ‘Smash’, she’s a belter. And the “Smash” Marilyn doesn’t have that sexy subtlety. Instead of pushing her dress down when the breeze from the subway blows her dress up, the NBC Marilyn assertively lifted her skirt up in a number without any breeze at all. But they probably had to add that kind of brassiness to make the Monroe character work onstage and play to the MTV-generation folks in the balcony. The ‘Smash’ version of the Blonde Bombshell seems more Joey Heatherton than Marilyn Monroe.
Joey did movies and musical work on TV shows. Joey could belt a tune. She could dance. She hurled sexy in your face like a custard pie. She hoped to follow in Monroe’s footsteps starring in ‘Sugar’. That was the 1972 Broadway musical version of ‘Some Like It Hot’.”