In 1953, 21 year-old Alice Majcher was working at the Banff Springs Hotel as a chambermaid, and became good friends with a very famous guest – Marilyn Monroe. She shares her memories over at Banff Crag and Canyon.com. (Interestingly, she has yet to see the film Marilyn was shooting - River of No Return.)

“‘She was very sweet and very quiet, very soft spoken and very friendly. She was lovely,’ McDonald recounts while sitting at breakfast on Sunday, May 19, the morning after the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel’s alumni gala celebrating the castle’s 125th anniversary.

The King City resident also describes how Monroe shared her chocolates with her when she came to tidy up Monroe’s room and one time, McDonald even modeled a pair of Monroe’s own shoes for the actress. (The shoes were too big, but McDonald said it didn’t matter.)

‘I just remember her being so demure and just a very sweet person. She treated me nicely, too.’

McDonald has a photo album dedicated to the summer of 1953, including some snaps from the set with leading actor Robert Mitchum and of a few bus boys from the hotel dressed as Mounties for a scene.”

NBC Los Angeles reports on the Marilyn-inspired treats on the menu at one of her favourite haunts, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

“Yes, the home of the first Academy Awards has seen hundreds of other thespians over the decades, both as residents and as party or dinner guests, but Ms. Monroe far and away is the most famous. Guests today can stay in the Marilyn Monroe Suite – it’s a spacious 750 feet and overlooks the Tropicana Pool — and now they can dine on treats inspired by the silver-screen starlet.

Public Kitchen & Bar is the place, and the treats? There’s a trio. Order the miniature Strawberry Blonde Cupcakes and discuss The Seven Year Itch as you eat them (the white frosting is meant to mimic the subway grate scene). The Marilyn Suite cocktail is made with strawberry vodka and some other fruit-sweet touches, and Neapolitan Meatballs serve as a savory reminder of the dish Joe DiMaggio taught Ms. Monroe to make.

The last dish is available during Public’s weekday happy hour.”

Guy Rocha, a local historian who has researched Marilyn’s stay in Nevada during filming of The Misfits, will give a lecture at the Sierra Place senior residence, Carson City, on Thursday – St Valentine’s Day – at 10am.

More details at Nevada Appeal

This photo, featuring Marilyn relaxing at the 5-4 Ballroom, Los Angeles, in 1952, with costume designer Billy Travilla and an unnamed friend, was uncovered by the Travilla estate a few years ago. Previously, it had only been published in cropped form – with the man other removed, probably because he was black – in an era where segregation was still enforced in parts of America.

Over at his Travilla Style blog, author Eric Woodard investigates the background to this photo being censored – revealing how Marilyn took a stand against racism, and suggesting that the mystery man might have been Hank Jones, the renowned jazz pianist who, ten years later, would accompany Marilyn in her iconic performance of ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’ at Madison Square Garden.

 Street art by Mr Ramano, based on a publicity shot of Marilyn as bespectacled Pola in How to Marry a Millionaire, spotted by Mohamed in Culver City and posted at Melrose and Fairfax, a blog dedicated to street art in Los Angeles.

The brownstone building on 164 East 61st Street – where, in September 1954, Marilyn filmed a scene from The Seven Year Itch - has been sold for $5.9 million, reports the New York Observer.

“Mostly, Monroe’s ‘disrobing’ in full view of passersby was a publicity stunt, reported The New York Times. But hardly anyone got to view the real, live Marilyn rather than her celluloid double, with barricades blocking off the street between Third and Lexington. Most of the rest of the film, besides the famed subway grate shot, was filmed elsewhere.”

Photo by Mary Altaffer

A super-sized selection of Sam Shaw’s photos depicting Marilyn in New York are now on display inside the 42nd Street-Bryant Park station on the B, D, F, M and 7 lines. The exhibit is part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Arts for Transit program, reports the Associated Press.

Marilyn revisits Van Nuys High, 1951

A young Marilyn lived in the Van Nuys area of the San Fernando Valley, just outside Los Angeles, on several occasions during 1935-43, and attended Van Nuys High School. Now the Van Nuys Neighbourhood Council are proposing to rename the new post office after her, to be discussed at the next meeting on Wednesday, December 12th at 7pm, reports Van Nuys News Press.

“‘Marilyn Monroe is an American icon, and renaming the post office after her is going to be a part of our ongoing efforts to bring light to the history of Van Nuys.  Our community has a rich heritage of which many Valley-ites are unaware.  We will also be looking into making a life-size statue of Marilyn Monroe for either the front of the post office, or along the Erwin Street Mall,’ said Thomas.”

Marilyn’s graduation photo, taken at Emerson Junior High in 1941, has sold for £990 at Omega Auctions in Stockport, near Manchester, reports BBC News.

Can you spot Norma Jeane in there?

“The 8in x 24in (20cm x 60cm) photo from 1941 was sold by a man who had bought it from one of Monroe’s classmates.

It was taken at the Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High School in Los Angeles.

Karen Fairweather, of Omega Auctions in Stockport, said the only other photo from the event had fetched £15,000 because it boasted Monroe’s signature.

The photograph, which sold to an online UK bidder, had belonged to one of the actress’s classmates called Barbara Chapbaum, who had it signed by several of her friends but not the future Hollywood legend.

A collector from the North East of England bought it off Ms Chapbaum several years ago and has now sold it.

At the time of the photograph, Monroe, then aged 15, was a brunette whose real name was Norma Jeane Baker.”

Marilyn first met fellow actor Ralph L. Roberts at the home of Lee Strasberg, and in 1959 he became her personal masseur. She loved to hear stories about his hometown of Salisbury, North Carolina, and called him ‘brother’ – in fact, her final phonecall may have been to Ralph. He died in 1999.

Ralph’s nephew, Hap Roberts, will appear in a forthcoming documentary, Marilyn: Birth of an Icon, and extracts from an unpublished memoir, Mimosa, have been posted on Roberts’ website.

In today’s Salisbury Post, Mark Wineka looks back at their close friendship.

“Only two weeks ago, documentary filmmakers from Paris were here, interviewing Ralph Roberts’ nephew, Hap, who saw his uncle almost every day for the last three years of his life in Salisbury.

French Connection Films also spoke to Chris ‘Steve’ Jacobs, the man Hap Roberts has made archivist for his uncle’s papers and all things Marilyn.

Long after Monroe had died and mainly as a way to correct and set straight things written about her, Ralph Roberts started several versions of a memoir, which he titled Mimosa.

‘There’s constant interest in that manuscript,’ Jacobs says.

Hap Roberts and Jacobs hope to publish the memoir some day, though putting the Marilyn years in chronological order and dealing with Ralph’s writing style have been difficult.

‘He never took advantage of his relationship with Marilyn Monroe in any shape or form,’ Hap Roberts says of his uncle. ‘We don’t want to profit from it, either. We just want to do what Ralph would want done.’

Roberts actually met Marilyn Monroe for the first time at [Lee] Strasberg’s New York apartment in 1955. He wrote in his memoir that she was ‘one of the most radiantly beautiful creatures’ he had ever seen.

‘And when I say creature, that was it,’ Roberts wrote. ‘An animal. The blue-whiteness one sees sometimes in the stars of a desert night. White-blond hair, clear-white complexion framing violet-blue eyes.’

Roberts became Monroe’s official masseur in 1959, and for long periods, during her various marriages and romantic entanglements, would give her massages daily.

Roberts and Monroe forged a bond. She called him ‘Rafe,’ the British pronunciation for his name.

They connected on the Willa Cather books they read, their spirituality and, believe it or not, Salisbury.

As Roberts massaged her at night, he spoke to her about his hometown and all of its places and people – down to men such as Irvin Oestreicher and Julian Robertson Sr. to the roasted peanuts at the Lash store and the winged statue on West Innes Street. Together, Roberts and Monroe ran errands, ate meals together, attended parties and took plane trips across the country between New York and California.

Roberts was with Monroe the night she practiced singing ‘Happy Birthday,’ the version she would famously croon to Kennedy.

They watched the 1960 Democratic National Convention together when Kennedy won the nomination. They were on the set together every day of The Misfits, Clark Gable’s last movie.

In addition to massaging Monroe between scenes and being her chauffeur, Roberts played the part of an ambulance driver in The Misfits.

Hap and Annette, who also became close to Ralph, knew not to probe him for his memories of Monroe.

When he did talk about their relationship, they tried not to interrupt, savoring every detail and recognizing how much he loved and respected Monroe.

Ralph Roberts felt great remorse that he wasn’t home the night of Monroe’s death to answer her call. He lived close to the actress and could have been to her house quickly.

‘I do think he probably carried that to his grave,’ Hap Roberts says.

Hap Roberts tells a funny story, too, of another Monroe gift to his uncle. After Ralph’s death, Hap was gathering his uncle’s clothing together for a donation to Goodwill.

He noticed a woman’s Burberry trench coat in the closet, but he figured it was a friend’s coat, left at Ralph’s house in the past. He placed it with the other things for Goodwill.

‘About a month later, I found a list of Marilyn Monroe items,’ Roberts says. ‘Sure enough, on the list was Burberry trench coat.’

‘Well, Marilyn’s coat is now protecting some unsuspecting lady in Salisbury from inclement weather.’

When Ralph Roberts died April 30, 1999, at his home, he was 82. Hap Roberts said he sat alone in his uncle’s house and cried until he couldn’t cry any longer.

Roberts noticed the stacks of memoir papers spread out everywhere in the living room. In the den, he also saw the open Willa Cather book that his uncle had been reading.

Up to the end, Ralph Roberts was chasing his friend, Marilyn Monroe.”

Marilyn at North Doheny Drive, 1953

The luxury apartment building at 882 North Doheny Drive in Los Angeles, where Marilyn lived in 1953 and again in 1961, is up for sale, West Hollywood’s  Patch reports.

J.I. Baker, author of The Empty Glass, a new conspiracy thriller about Marilyn’s death, spent the last year in Europe, snapping images of MM for Condé Nast Traveler.

Westside Today reports on the opening of the Monroe Forum Theatre, a second stage at the El Portal movie theatre, which is located directly behind Lankershim Elementary School, once attended by Norma Jeane.

The inaugural performance was Sunny Thompson’s one-woman show, Marilyn: Forever Blonde, on the 50th anniversary of MM’s death.

“A little known fact is that the former Norma Jeane Baker, soon to become Marilyn Monroe, attended 6th grade from 1937-1938 at Lankershim Elementary School directly behind the then famous movie palace El Portal Theatre, where she often attended matinees with her guardian. The new Monroe Forum Theatre has been outfitted with a lipstick red love seat and collector’s item of seldom-seen black and white photos of Ms. Monroe. A lovely ribbon cutting ceremony took place attended by many celebrities and a few former friends of Marilyn.

After that was an amazing one woman show performance of Marilyn: Forever Blonde starring Sunny Thompson. Guests included Don Murray (Oscar-nominated for his role in Bus Stop opposite Marilyn Monroe), Stanley Rubin- Producer of River Of No Return, Renee Taylor- friend of Marilyn’s who took acting classes with her, legendary stage and film actor Theodore Bikel, Councilman Tom La Bonge, and Joe Razo- Principal of Lankershim Elementary School which is still there!”

Writing for Dallas News, Nancy Churmin investigated Marilyn’s possible connections with the city.

“When seeking as I always do for a Texas connection, I received a slender link courtesy of Gregory Schreiner, Marilyn Monroe expert and the President and founding member of the longest running Monroe fan club in existence today, Marilyn Remembered:  ’On January 20th, 1961, en route to Juarez, Mexico, to obtain her divorce from Arthur Miller, Marilyn had a two-hour layover at the Dallas Love Field Airport. Supposedly, Marilyn sat alone in an airport cocktail lounge, watching John F. Kennedy’s presidential inauguration.’

It turns out, however, I found a stronger Dallas link: my husband’s thoroughly Texan late parents met her in person when my father-in-law took the family to a business convention in Los Angeles in 1959. While Grandma Vaudie minded the kids in their hotel room, H.L. and Gene Granberry ran into a host of stars leaving the ballroom: Jayne Mansfield, who spent years in the Park Cities, Gina Lollobrigida, Dick Powell and his wife June Allyson, Chuck Connors and Marilyn Monroe.

H.L., being H.L., managed to get a laugh out of Gina Lollobrigida. When she told him she was working on a film called Go Naked in the World (that would be released in 1961), he responded, ‘I would LOVE to!’. And everyone was nice to them. But the one they were most impressed with was Marilyn Monroe. It wasn’t just her looks, although my mother-in-law used to say she had the most translucent, beautiful skin and natural beauty of any one she had ever seen.

‘The word they kept using was gracious,’ my husband recalled. ‘The thing that struck my mother was that she was very warm, very friendly, very unpretentious, down to earth and a little sad. She made the most lasting impression of anyone they met that day. They had a feeling she related more to them, to normal people, than she did to the Hollywood crowd.’

The people’s star. Maybe that is why. to this day, we still can’t let her go.”

Grace and Gladys with Norma Jeane

Michelle Morgan, author of Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed, has posted some interesting findings on her blog about Marilyn’s mother, Gladys Baker, and her friend Grace McKee’s life in Los Angeles during the 1920s.

“One of the things I loved, was when I discovered a news article about the Rayfield Apartments, where Gladys moved to with best friend Grace McKee, shortly after Marilyn’s birth.  The apartment block was situated at 237 Bimini Place and was fairly colourful - something that probably attracted the fun-loving Grace and Gladys.

I discovered a story that took place around about the very time the women lived at  the Rayfield, about a couple called Mr and Mrs Simpson, who also lived in the building.

Apparently the couple had had a big fight, and afterwards Mr Simpson took the unprecedented decision to phone the police, claiming that he had just murdered his wife.

Officers swarmed the block and began interviewing the ‘murderer’ Mr Simpson, but were shocked when Mrs Simpson – the murdered woman – walked into the apartment.  They interviewed her too and she of course denied all knowledge of ever being murdered by her husband!

Why Mr Simpson took it upon himself to phone the police and admit to killing a woman who was still alive and well is a mystery, but I always wonder – were Grace and Gladys at home when all this was taking place? Something tells me if they were, they most likely very much enjoyed the scandal going on just yards from their apartment!”

Another irony about this tale is that one of the songs from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - later cut from the movie – was called ‘When the Wild, Wild Women Go Swimmin’ in the Bimini Bay.’