Making Sense of Marilyn

Making Sense of Marilyn, a new book by Andrew Norman, has just been published, reports the Daily Mail It is 144 pages long with 32 black and white photos, and is now available at the Book Depository (with free postage worldwide), and on order from Amazon stores worldwide.

“Author Andrew Norman, who worked as a GP in Dorset before a spinal injury ended his medical career, has previously penned biographies of such famous faces as Sir Francis Drake, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, T. E. Lawrence, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen and Robert Mugabe.

He says that, despite probable suicide and a host of contradictory reports about her life, there do still exist enough reliable materials to shed new light on the star. ‘Trustworthy and reliable first-hand accounts of Marilyn do exist,’ he writes.

Following Marilyn’s death, Inez Melson, Marilyn’s business manager from 1954 to 1956, was appointed by attorney Aaron R. Frosch who was a witness to Marilyn’s will and the court to act as administrator. It is thanks to Inez that two filing cabinets containing Marilyn’s personal effects were saved for posterity.

Norman added: ‘Film documentaries of the life and death of Marilyn contain invaluable, first-hand, eyewitness accounts from such important people in her life as George Barris, Hyman Engelberg, Eunice Murray, and Cyd Charisse.

‘In this way, by teasing out what is authentic from what is inauthentic, it is possible to shed new light on the enigmatic character of Marilyn Monroe, who is regarded, arguably, as the world’s most famous ever movie star.

‘To make sense of this complex, endlessly fascinating, and all too fragile person, it is necessary to embark on a journey that proves to be both rewarding, and an infinitely moving experience.'”

Making Sense of Marilyn is 144 pages long with 32 black and white photos, and as the table of contents indicates, brings a psychological perspective to Marilyn’s life story.

“Preface; 1 Birth: Parents: Forebears; 2 Childhood; 3 George Barris: Marilyn’s Confidante; 4 The Legacy of Marilyn’s Childhood; 5 Childhood Sexual Abuse, and its Possible Consequences for Marilyn; 6 First Marriage: James Dougherty; 7 James Dougherty’s Observations About Marilyn; 8 Early Success: Popularity: A Scandal; 9 Second Marriage: Joe DiMaggio; 10 Third Marriage: Arthur Miller; 11 Further Success for Marilyn; 12 Myths And Rumours; 13 Marilyn in Profile; 14. Marilyn’s Continuing Need For an Attachment Figure; 15 Encounters with Psychiatrists and other Would-Be Diagnosticians; 16 Marilyn and Borderline Personality Disorder; 17 Arthur Miller: After the Fall; 18 Mental Disorders in The Family: The Origin of Marilyn’s Condition; 19 Something’s Got to Give; 20 Death of Marilyn; 21 Epilogue.”

‘Mr DeWitt’ and Marilyn in Iowa

92 year-old Bill Homrighausen of DeWitt, Iowa has been collecting Marilyn memorabilia since the 1970s. His vast collection will be displayed at a fundraising ‘Valentine’s Dinner With Marilyn’ on February 10 at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, as Amanda Hancock reports for the Quad City Times.

“Some of the miniature Marilyn museum — including a framed black and white photo of Marilyn above the couch in the living room — was visible from the front door. Stacks of Marilyn Monroe-themed calendars, books, CD’s and photos covered Homrighausen’s dining room table. Magnets adorned with photos of the actress and model filled the refrigerator. Going up the stairs to the home’s second floor, dozens of framed photos and posters line the walls. Even Homrighausen’s business card is printed with a Marilyn Monroe smile.

He started collecting in the ‘70s and was ‘amazed’ by the variety of memorabilia he found. Examples include sets of playing cards, clocks, a cigarette lighter, coffee mugs, nesting dolls, a mouse pad, stamps, notepads and a few more neckties.

‘She was probably one of the most photographed people in the world,’ Homrighausen said. ‘How you could make that many books about someone who lived such a short life and not have any duplicates … it’s quite something.’

After working for Iowa Mutual Insurance for 42 years, Bill Homrighausen penned over 100 columns for the DeWitt Observer, which were later gathered in a book titled, They Call Me Mr. DeWitt — A Treasury of Recollections.”

Misty Rowe: From Hollywood to Savannah

Actress Misty Rowe – who played Marilyn in the splashy 1976 biopic, Goodbye, Norma Jean, and its 1989 sequel, Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn  – is still treading the boards today, with a longstanding role in Always … Patsy Cline, as Christopher Berinato reports for Do Savannah.

“Imagine if you got to meet your music idol and in one magical evening, become lifelong friends with them. That is exactly what happened to Louise Seger, a divorced housewife with two children, when she befriended the legendary Patsy Cline at a concert in Houston in 1961.

‘I tell this story on stage and, as I tell it, the night they met comes alive,’ says Misty Rowe, who plays Seger. ‘It’s funny, it’s poignant, and it has some of the best singing you’ve ever heard.’

Rowe has been performing in Always … Patsy Cline for about 20 years, but she might be best known for the 19 years she spent on television’s Hee Haw as a Hee Haw Honey.

Rowe’s blonde-bombshell looks, cheerful persona and smart comic timing led to regular roles on many other television shows. She was Wendy the carhop on Happy Days, including the episode that marked Ron Howard’s directorial debut. Rowe also played Maid Marian on When Things Were Rotten, a Robin Hood spoof where she worked alongside comic greats like Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar and Dudley Moore. She made appearances on The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and Air Wolf (her personal favorite TV role).

Rowe even has the distinction of being the first actress to play Marilyn Monroe on film in Goodbye, Norma Jean. ‘Not a great film, but I was the first,’ jokes Rowe.

Rowe now lives on Callawassie Island, S.C., and is friends with the folks at Savannah Theatre. Rowe has worked with 11 different Patsys, so when she was asked to put on Always … Patsy Cline at the Savannah Theatre, she had a deep bench to choose from.”

Marilyn and the Presidents Club Scandal

Images of Marilyn have been used to promote a controversial gala held last night at London’s Dorchester Hotel for the Presidents Club, a men-only organisation, as Martin Belam reports for The Guardian. Female staff at the most recent ball have complained of groping and sexual harassment, leading to calls for better protection of workers in the hospitality trade. It’s unclear whether the use of Marilyn’s image has been approved by her estate, but regardless, this is yet another example of corporate branding at its most crass.

However, Monroe impersonator Suzie Kennedy, who has performed at a past gala, takes a different view, as she told LBC Radio‘s Shelagh Fogarty today…

“It was three years ago. It’s rich men having a night out. They are usually very powerful in business and are very generous to the charities. The charities need these balls to happen.

Everybody at that job was told what the job is. It’s a businessman’s night out. Everyone’s going to drink, they are going to have cigars, they are going to have fun.

I didn’t see any of the girls thinking ‘Oh no, I have to wear this’. They were fine with wearing it. In nightclubs in London, girls are wearing a lot less.”

Hillary Duff’s Marilyn Eye-spiration

The singer and actress, Hillary Duff, has launched a new range for Glasses USA, People reports. ‘Muse X Hillary Duff’ includes a frame named after Marilyn, available in clear/neutral, shiny black, tortoise or pink, at $125 – although the design is more reminiscent of the Rayban Wayfarer sunglasses favoured by Marilyn in the late 1950s, than the ‘cat’s eye’ spectacles she wore as Pola in How to Marry a Millionaire.

“Duff’s ultimate goal when designing her frames was to empower women to feel comfortable in their own skin, so she honored iconic women in history (including Marilyn Monroe, Jane Austen, Clara Barton and more) by naming the frames after them.

‘It’s from women in history that have really made their stamp on the world,’ Duff said. ‘We’re in a really great time for women … I feel like women are really getting to stand in the front. Naming them, it kind of came to me — just the inspiration was wanting women to feel confident and naming them [after] people that are badass.'”

 

Marilyn Brings Denim Back to the USA

Earlier this week we learned that the pencil skirt is making a comeback. Now it’s time for dark denim to re-enter your wardrobe, sported here by Marilyn and Arthur Miller. “This look, similar to that immortalised by Marilyn Monroe in 1961’s The Misfits and Martin Sheen in 1973’s Badlands, evokes a glory time in American history when the US was the leading purveyor of denim worldwide,” Scarlett Conlon writes for The Guardian.

Revisiting ‘The Misfits’ at Stanford

Marilyn with Montgomery Clift on the Misfits set, 1960

Following a recent screening of The Misfits for students at Stanford University,   Carlos Valladares has reviewed Marilyn’s swansong for Stanford Daily.

The Misfits comes out at the tail-end of the classic Hollywood era (1961), and it shows. The photographers who drifted on and off the set (Eve Arnold, Bruce Davidson, Henri Cartier-Bresson) showed off Monroe, Clift, Gable in all their un-Glamour, in a starkly honest look that would have been unthinkable in the studios’ heyday … The editing is odd and erratic, but these glitches actually contribute to its depth. At one point, Monroe’s lips go out of sync with her voice. At another, Monroe’s close-up is interrupted by a blurry soft focus. She has none of the leering, near-pornographic dazzle of her 1950s promotional photos. Here, the camera looks as if it were just crying, doing a terrible job at wiping away its tears, overwhelmed by the state of Marilyn.

The Marilyn performance is so brave precisely because, despite the odds, she survives … It is when the men, after all their hard work and physical exertion, decide to shoot the wild horses they just captured, selling their meat for a few lousy hundred bucks. Suddenly, Monroe darts off into the distance and screams … the exact catharsis needed to make us care again about the sanctity of human beings. The camera hangs far back in an extreme long shot, making me feel Rosalyn’s insignificance, and, contrariwise, Monroe’s strength. It’s a rare instance where Rosalyn/Monroe has privacy to herself. Huston wisely does not go in for a typically Hollywood close-up that would show her breakdown and emotional turmoil with dramatic, lurid tastelessness. The camera cannot go in for a close-up. To do so would completely negate the scene’s point: the breaking out of a woman from her banality. She screams: ‘ENOUGH.’

The dialogue in this remarkable scene (perhaps the climax of Monroe’s acting career) also predicts Monroe’s eventual suspected fate … She could just as well be talking back to Arthur Miller (and the viewing public — us) as she is to Gable, Wallach and Clift. It’s an amazing example of an actor taking back her agency in a narrative that, at first glance, seems to float above the actors.”