Marilyn and Bobby: The Not-So ‘New Item’

Jean Kennedy Smith

Among the items included in Julien’s November auction is a letter sent to Marilyn by Jean Kennedy Smith, apparently describing MM and her brother Bobby as ‘the new item’. This will already be familiar to many fans, as biographer Anthony Summers reprinted it in Goddess (1985.)

Martin Nolan, executive director at Julien’s, has cited the note as evidence that ‘there was in fact a relationship between Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.’ Several news outlets have followed his lead, including the Telegraph. However, other sources close to RFK do not believe they were romantically involved.

“Efforts to prove an affair between the two began in the 1960s. At the time Bobby Kennedy, who was married and had 11 children, was his brother’s Attorney General.

FBI Director J Edgar Hoover, as part of his titanic feud with Bobby Kennedy, tried and failed to catch the politician with the actress.

In his autobiography William Sullivan, Hoover’s Deputy Director at the FBI, wrote: ‘Hoover was desperately trying to catch Bobby Kennedy red-handed at anything he ever did. We used to watch him at parties.’

Eventually, Hoover concluded ‘the stories about Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe were just stories.’

Much of the speculation about Monroe and the Kennedys in the following decades centred instead on her alleged relationship with President Kennedy.”

In an article for Immortal Marilyn, Marijane Gray remains sceptical.

“Most occasions where this letter is quoted conveniently leave out the first few sentences because they certainly cast doubt on any romantic relationship. Here’s what the note says in full:

‘Dear Marilyn, Mother asked me to write you and thank you for your sweet note to Daddy-he really enjoyed it and you were very cute to send it. Understand that you and Bobby are the new item! We all think you should come with him when he comes back East! Thanks again for the note-Love, Jean Smith.’

The excised portions certainly put a completely different perspective on it, which explains why they’re excised…..it takes away from a possible scandal. The patriarch of the Kennedy clan, Joe Kennedy, had suffered a stroke and had to undergo months of physical therapy. More than likely, Marilyn had heard about his health issues from her close friend Pat Lawford and sent a get well note, as she was known to be very compassionate to anyone who was ailing. Although we don’t know the date Jean’s note was written, it could have been any time from February to June 1962. This is the time period that people severely lacking in credibility and the authors who believed them reported that there were affairs going on with one or both Kennedy brothers. However, no one can explain why the alleged mistress was being invited to family events (that the wives of both men would have attended), was writing cheerful notes to their father and being thanked for it by their mother and sister.  The reference to Marilyn and Bobby being an ‘item’ more than likely refers to them amusing dinner party guests by doing the twist at [their] first meeting back in February. However, these things tend to get overlooked because they don’t support the myths, which in turn doesn’t bring in high book sales or sky rocketing auction bids.”

China’s Glimpse of Marilyn

Ahead of the November sale at Julien’s, some of Marilyn’s personal property was showcased for Chinese collectors in Beijing on Tuesday, Louise Watts reports for ABC News.

“Around 800 items to be auctioned come from the estate of Lee Strasberg, the famed American acting coach who became a father figure to Monroe. The money will go to his widow, Anna. Other items come from the collection of David Gainsborough-Roberts, a major collector of Monroe’s costumes.

The hundreds of items include dresses and outfits, the negligee she wore in the movie Niagara and the green and black-sequined leotard she picked out herself from a studio wardrobe to wear in Bus Stop. There is a tube of her ‘non-smear’ Revlon lipstick in Bachelor’s Carnation shade, the shoes she wore to marry playwright Arthur Miller, and the pair of costume earrings that she wore to the premiere of The Seven Year Itch.

Then there are the personal notes, crayon drawings and watercolors.

Lee Strasberg’s son, David, said that he, his mother and brother found many of the items in suitcases and closets about six years ago during a clean-out, including one trunk he’d been throwing his football cleats on for years that turned out to contain some of Monroe’s personal writings.

Some items up for auction have never been seen by the public before. They include a first-edition hand-bound 1957 volume of her third husband Miller’s plays dedicated to Monroe, and a letter from a member of the Kennedy family.

Among the quirkier items are a receipt for a bottle of champagne, her 1947 contract with Twentieth Century Fox and a recipe for stuffing jotted down on a slip of paper with an insurance company’s letterhead. Her final checkbook shows her payments to the window cleaner, her maid and the New York Telephone Co. She paid $200 to herself marked as ‘cash for trips.’

‘Marilyn kept everything. She was a hoarder,’ said [Martin] Nolan. ‘She bought a pound of butter, she bought a bottle of tonic water she kept the receipt. It’s incredible. We have a pair of strap sandals that she wore when she was Norma Jean, probably 1943, 1945. And all the money she made and how famous she became and she kept those.’

Although Western movies were banned in China during Monroe’s heyday, her pop culture image and aspects of her life are well-known among many Chinese.

Darren Julien, founder and CEO of Julien Auction’s, said about 40 percent of their client base are Chinese collectors interested in Western pop culture, and particularly Monroe.

‘A lot of people relate to her because she had actually a very difficult life in a lot of ways. She never had a lot of money, but she captured the hearts of so many people around the world,’ said Julien.”

Meanwhile, photographer Douglas Kirkland has spoken to Shanghai Daily about Meeting Monroe, a series of classic images by himself and Milton Greene, currently on display at Shanghai Tower.

“There was a very unique quality about Marilyn. She was a sex symbol but there was a sweetness about her that was very compelling. There is no one like her. It was not only her beauty, but her vulnerability that made her special. It was often said Marilyn was great with still photographers — and she was. She didn’t see stills as being a waste of time. She enjoyed the still camera, perhaps more than motion.”

When Whoopi Met Marilyn…

Whoopi Goldberg attended the opening night of Marilyn: Character Not Image (which she curated) at MANA Contemporary in Jersey City this weekend, reports NJ.com.

“‘We have pieces of her as the actress, but it’s not the actress acting,’ she said. ‘It’s the woman reacting to what’s happening around her.’

Pointing to a Greene shot of Monroe with playwright Arthur Miller, Goldberg said, ‘This is the Marilyn you know.’ Then, pointing to a photo of Monroe coming out of a pool, beaming and wearing a black-and-white bikini, she said, ‘That’s the Marilyn you don’t.’

The exhibit also includes some of Monroe’s drawings and videos of the late screen star narrated by readings of her poetry. The dress, though, is the star of the show.

Made of soufflé gauze and 2,500 hand-stitched crystals, the gown is displayed on a mannequin standing on a white pedestal. When Goldberg saw it, she said, ‘She had a big derrière.’

Monroe’s legendary performance — ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’— came at a Democratic Party fundraiser at Madison Square Garden held 10 days before Kennedy’s 45th birthday.

The gown is up for auction in November. It last sold in 1999 for nearly $1.3 million, then a record. Martin J. Nolan, executive director of Julien’s Auctions, which is handling the sale, believes it will go for up to $3 million, though he thinks it’s worth far more. He called it the ‘holy grail’ of collectibles.

‘It’s a piece of art, but it’s Hollywood, it’s pop culture, it’s Marilyn Monroe, it’s the Kennedys — everything wrapped up into one piece of fabric,’ he said. ‘It’s truly amazing.’

Nolan added that, despite Goldberg’s comment on Monroe’s backside, the actress was petite in May 1962, weighing about 112 pounds.”

Meanwhile, Priscilla Frank has reviewed the show for Huffington Post.

“The drawing above, titled ‘Lover watching his love sleep,’ was made by Monroe herself in the late 1950s, with Conté crayon on paper. The sepia-toned image depicts a woman who may or may not be Monroe herself, unclothed and reclining leisurely while her lover watches on, entranced.

It’s a simple drawing, but powerful nonetheless, not only in its aesthetic qualities but in what it reveals about its maker. The artwork hints at a different Marilyn than the bold vixen we see on screen. Rather, a Marilyn who is thoughtful, introspective, and creative ― an avid reader and obsessive writer. “

Marilyn’s ‘Love Happy’ Mink for Sale

Marilyn with Groucho Marx in Love Happy

The mink stole worn by Marilyn for her walk-on part in the final Marx Brothers movie, Love Happy (1949), is up for bids at Nate D. Sanders Auctions this Thursday, September 29,  with a starting price of $20,000. The sewn-on Western Costume Co. label includes her name in bold type. (A first issue of Playboy is also on offer at Thursday’s auction.)

UPDATE: Marilyn’s mink stole went unsold.

Marilyn: Still Loved For Her Yellow Hair

Marilyn during filming of Some Like It Hot

‘Love me for my yellow hair alone’, Marilyn once wrote to her friend, Norman Rosten – it was an ironical misquote (perhaps intentionally so) of a line from W.B. Yeats’ poem ‘For Anne Gregory‘, which actually read  ‘Love me for myself alone/And not my yellow hair.’

This weekend, two locks of Marilyn’s hair – previously owned by Frieda Hull, a former member of the teenage group known as the Monroe Six, who befriended the star when she moved to New York – were sold by Julien’s Auctions for $70,000, as part of their latest Icons and Idols sale. Other items from the late Ms Hull’s collection, including many rare, candid photos, will be sold by in November’s Marilyn-only auction, also at Julien’s.

In a macabre footnote, the ashes of novelist Truman Capote – another friend of Marilyn’s – were also sold at Julien’s this weekend for $43, 750.  And in other hair-related news, a wig worn by Marilyn in The Misfits will be on sale at Heritage Auctions on November 12.

UPDATE: You can now read a CNBC interview with Remi Gangarossa, who placed the winning bid for a lock of Marilyn’s hair, over here.

Marilyn, Joe, Einstein and McCarthy in Clwyd

A new stage revival of Terry Johnson’s Insignificance (which was famously adapted for the screen in 1985), starring Sophie Melville as Marilyn, is currently playing at Theatr Clywd in North Wales until October 15, reports the Chester Chronicle.

Insignificance takes four iconic faces of the post Second World War era in America – Marilyn Monroe, her husband, New York Yankees baseball star Joe DiMaggio, physicist Albert Einstein and communist witch-hunter Senator Joe McCarthy – and explores their explosive interaction in an imagined meeting in a hotel room in New York in 1955.

Sophie said: ‘I’m thrilled to wear the white dress and play the part of Marilyn – it’s a dream, it really is. It’s been hard work because it’s the first time I’ve played a character who is a real person.’

‘I’ve tried to take on her quality but at the same time make the part my own rather than try to impersonate her. The main thing was getting the voice right and once I’d got that everything just fell into place.’

The show’s director Kate Wasserberg returns to Theatr Clwyd following her production of [Arthur Miller’s] All My Sons last year.

She said: ‘Insignificance is a play I’ve wanted to direct since I saw it at my local theatre when I was 12 or 13 years old. My dad took me along and thought we were going to see The Kiss of the Spiderwoman but it wasn’t on.

‘Even though I was very young, there are several moments from the play that are seared into my memory. I remember laughing a lot. It’s a play about politics, life, love and the stars. Terry Johnson’s work is incredibly intelligent, it works on several levels at once but, line for line, it’s properly funny. I read his plays and laugh out loud.'”

Lew  Baxter gives Insignificance a rave review in the Wirral Globe

“This latest rather spiffing theatrical production directed by Kate Wasserberg in Mold demonstrates just how on several levels the confrontations and verbal jousting between the protagonists still has potent relevance that surprises and amuses.

It is in many ways an emotional rollercoaster particularly when embracing the emotional fragility and conflicts that shaped the relationship of Monroe and DiMaggio, never mind the manic nature of McCarthy whose demonising of America’s intelligentsia leaves a stain on that country’s contemporary history.

And Einstein, branded a Soviet stooge, was himself vulnerable and is here played with considerable aplomb by Brendan Charleson.

Wasserberg has completely nailed the essence of Johnson’s work, which is enhanced by a really top-notch cast: there is a chemistry that fizzes like a sparkler between all four participants and each has that magnetic attribute that engrosses those watching.

Sophie Melville, relatively fresh out of drama school, is simply sublime as Marilyn … here is – if you’ll pardon the pun – a pitch-perfect portrayal of Monroe’s passionate if rather unsophisticated spouse Di Maggio by Ben Deery.

The play begins, in this instance, with the soundtrack of David Bowie’s ‘Starman’, which under the circumstances is most appropriate … This is the kind of production that emphasises how live, breathing theatre, more so than film, can captivate an audience and keep them gripped to the last fading light.”

Revisiting Marilyn at Westwood

In an article for Atlas Obscura, Oleg Alexandrov investigates the story behind Marilyn’s final resting place at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

“After dying of a drug overdose in what was an apparent suicide on August 5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe was interred three days later at Westwood Village Memorial Cemetery. The funeral arrangements were handled by Joe DiMaggio …

Feeling some resentment toward the entertainment industry for Monroe’s demise, DiMaggio had no interest in making the funeral a Hollywood affair. Westwood was, at a the time, a quiet, out-of-the-way cemetery chosen because it was also the final resting place of Monroe’s childhood guardian, Grace Goddard, and her surrogate mother Ana Lower. The private service was restricted to a small group of the star’s closest friends and associates.

Ironically, thanks to the presence of Marilyn Monroe’s grave, Westwood has been a popular place for celebrity burials ever since …

For 20 years after her death, DiMaggio had red roses delivered to her simple grave three times a week. Today, it is regularly adorned with flowers, cards, letters, and other mementos left by the regular visitors it attracts.”

Marilyn Symposium in Melbourne, Australia

Marilyn at UCLA, 1952 (photo by Mel Traxel)

Following the ‘Exhibiting Culture: Marilyn‘ program at LaTrobe University which accompanied the Marilyn: Celebrating an American Icon exhibit at MAMA Albury in Australia earlier this year, a Marilyn Monroe Symposium will be held at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne  on November 12, with biographer Lois Banner as keynote speaker.

This Symposium creates a further outcome for the research undertaken by ten La Trobe University academics in preparation for Exhibiting Culture: Marilyn. Our interdisciplinary approach to the topic of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic status is unique. The intention of this Symposium is to go beyond nostalgia and offer a genuinely contemporary perspective on performance, celebrity and artistic response, as well as to make Marilyn provocative for us in our times.

Program:

Session 1: Keynote Address
9.30-11.00am The Cube, ACMI
Speaker: Professor Lois Banner

Morning tea: 11.00 – 11.30 am

Session 2: Matters of Performance
11.30am-1.00pm The Cube, ACMI
Felicity Collins; Margaret Hickey; Nicole Jenkins; Sofia Ahlberg

Lunch: 1.00 – 2.00 pm

Session 3: Image, Identity, Icon
2.00-3.30pm, The Cube, ACMI
Speakers: Sue Gillett, Kristian Haggblom, Terrie Waddell, Kevin Brianton

Afternoon tea: 3.30 – 4.00 pm

Session 4: Property, Power, Profession
4.00-5.30pm The Cube, ACMI
Tansy Curtin; Francine Rochford; Edgar Burns

Thanks to Marisa

Going Dutch With Marilyn

With collector Ted Stampfer’s latest exhibition, Happy Birthday Marilyn, opening in Amsterdam on October 1, an accompanying catalogue (in Dutch) will be made available from online bookstores worldwide. Mr Stampfer previously compiled a catalogue for The Private Marilyn, a 2013 exhibition in Switzerland.

Also coming from the Netherlands in October is Marilyn and Audrey: The Battle, a children’s book by Hanneke Groenteman, about two girls studying MM and Audrey Hepburn for a school project – and as they dig into the stars’ lives the girls learn about friendship, love and jealousy.

Legendary Marilyn at WH Smith

Marilyn Monroe: Movie Legend, a small box-set containing a DVD documentary and magazine focusing on her illustrious film career, is available now for £4.99 at WH Smith stores across the UK. If this looks familiar to you, it was first published in the US as Marilyn Monroe in the Movies (with text by Timothy Knight) back in 2010, then reissued as a gift set, Big Screen Legends: Marilyn Monroe in 2013, and in paperback (minus the DVD) in 2015. Marilyn Monroe: A Life in the Movies, a ‘video-enhanced’ ebook, is also available.

Thanks to Fraser Penney – read more about his incredible collection here