Marilyn’s Lockdown Reads on Kindle

If you’re still in lockdown or just looking for a Marilyn-related read, I can recommend three of the best recent publications here.

Amanda Konkle’s Some Kind of Mirror: Creating Marilyn Monroe looks in depth at her film career, and is available on Kindle for £9.85 (or $18.87.) With The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist, on Kindle for £3.99 (or $4.59), Michelle Morgan focuses on Marilyn’s Hollywood battles and escape to New York. And for those interested in uncovering mysteries, Donald McGovern’s Murder Orthodoxies: A Non-Conspiracist’s View of Marilyn Monroe’s Death, on Kindle for £5.19 (or $9.99) is essential reading.

Guiles’ ‘Norma Jean’ Bio Reissued

First published in 1969, Fred Lawrence Guiles’ Norma Jean was one of the earliest Monroe biographies. Drawing on interviews with figures close to Marilyn, it remains highly influential. In 1986, Guiles published a revised version, Legend. This included speculation on her relationship with Bobby Kennedy, previously referred to as ‘The Easterner’.

In 1993 Guiles published a third edition, reverting to Norma Jean and closer to his original manuscript. Oddly, he retained the standard spelling of ‘Norma Jean’ rather than the name she was born with and used for many years (Norma Jeane) in all three editions, which in retrospect seems as glaring an omission as Kennedy’s name. Guiles died in 2000, aged 79.

Norma Jean was Guiles’ first book, and is being reissued in May
by Turner Publishing in hardcover, paperback and ebook formats. It’s not clear if the photo sections are reproduced. While it’s good to see this classic biography back in print, the prior editions are still widely available from used bookstores. This is, however, the first time Norma Jean has been published digitally, although the price on Amazon is currently quite high.

Predictably, the media has focused on the book’s more sensational (and contentious) aspects. In an excerpt published this weekend, the Daily Beast highlights Guiles’ claim that Marilyn may have had an abortion at the Cedars of Lebanon hospital under an alias on July 20, 1962, two weeks before her death. This allegation came from a press aide (probably Michael Selsman, who wasn’t her publicist but worked for the same firm and has repeated the claim elsewhere.)

However, abortion was still illegal at the time under most circumstances, so it was unlikely to have occurred at Cedars of Lebanon. If indeed she was there at all, it’s more likely that Marilyn had surgery to alleviate symptoms of endometriosis, having undergone similar operations in 1954 and ’59. Furthermore, her autopsy report states that Marilyn wasn’t pregnant when she died. Any signs of a recent abortion would surely have been noted there.

Marilyn in Cinema ’62

Marilyn in Something’s Got to Give (1962)

In their new book, Cinema ’62, Stephen Farber and Michael McClellan make the case for 1962 as an all-time great year in film – citing The Miracle Worker, To Kill a Mockingbird, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane among its finest releases. While Marilyn’s abandoned last movie wouldn’t make the grade, the authors have referenced another prestigious title from 1962 first offered to her. (In John Huston’s Freud, starring Montgomery Clift, her role was played by newcomer Suzannah York – more details here.)

“Marilyn Monroe, the greatest star of the 1950s and early 1960s, was known not only for her sensual image and temperamental behaviour on the set. She was also, like many actors of the era, a passionate devotee of psychoanalysis who spent years sampling the wares of a series of fashionable doctors. In 1960 John Huston, who had directed her in one of her best early films, The Asphalt Jungle, and in her latest picture (which would turn out to be her last), The Misfits, offered her a key role in his ambitious tribute to the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Marilyn was intrigued by the opportunity to tackle such a demanding dramatic role, but she ultimately turned it down, partly at the urging of her current analyst, Ralph Greenson, a close friend of Anna Freud, who was vehemently opposed to the idea of a Hollywoood picture about her sainted father’s life. In a letter to Huston dated November 5, 1960, just after The Misfits finished shooting, Marilyn declined the role. ‘I have it on good authority that the Freud family does not approve of anyone making a picture on the life of Freud,’ she wrote, then added that she could not be involved in the project, in part because of ‘my personal regard for his work.'”

Marilyn by George Barris, 1962

Elsewhere in Cinema ’62, the authors discuss Marilyn’s demise and the loss felt within the movie industry and beyond.

“Tragically, Hollywood found its most luminous star permanently dimmed in August 1962 when Marilyn Monroe’s sudden death at the age of thirty-six rocked the movie industry and saddened fans worldwide. Monroe had been fired in June from George Cukor’s presciently titled and unfinished Something’s Got to Give after delaying production with her erratic behaviour. The emerging New Hollywood could no longer indulge its eccentric stars, not even the last great creation of the old studio and star system. Monroe had been the highest-ranked female box office draw three times in the mid-1950s but yielded that spot to Elizabeth Taylor and Doris Day by the start of the 1960s, when she dropped out of the poll. However, Monroe would soon be immortalised as a cultural and screen icon, while her passing symbolised both the decline of female stars in the Hollywood firmament and the demise of the classical studio era. Fortunately, thanks to the creative vision of some veteran filmmakers as well as some brand-new voices, the cinema of 1962 remained as vital as ever.”

Save the Larry Edmunds Bookshop

The Larry Edmunds Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard has been serving lovers of movie literature and memorabilia since 1938. It boasts an entire section devoted to Marilyn, while one of its most famous customers, director Quentin Tarantino, recreated its Sixties facade for last year’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But like many other small businesses, the bookstore has suffered greatly since coronavirus forced the world into lockdown. Owner Jeffrey Mantor has launched a fundraiser, and you can also help by purchasing books now (enquiries welcome here.)

James Patterson on Marilyn, Jackie and JFK

James Patterson holds the New York Times record for the most books by one author to top their list. His novels account for 6% of hardback fiction bought in the US, and he is the most-borrowed author in UK libraries. He works with numerous co-authors, most recently the former American president, Bill Clinton. Now Patterson has turned his hand to non-fiction, co-writing a biography of another political dynasty with journalist and TV producer Cynthia Fagen. An excerpt from House of Kennedy has been published in Town & Country magazine, covering the Madison Square Garden gala celebrating John F. Kennedy’s 45th birthday, when Marilyn topped a star-studded bill, singing ‘Happy Birthday Mr. President.’

In truth, there’s little here that isn’t already known (and what more can be said, really?) But I would like to point out that MC Peter Lawford’s running gag about ‘the late Marilyn Monroe’ was pre-rehearsed, and not an attempt to cover up for any tardiness on her part. It is also often noted that the First Lady did not attend the gala, but this was common practice. Regarding Jackie Kennedy, who never held any malice towards Marilyn, there are a couple of interesting quotes that are new to me at least, though the sources aren’t named here.

Marilyn with the president’s brother-in-law, Stephen Kennedy Smith, after her Madison Square Garden performance

“‘It had been a noisy night, a very “rah rah rah” kind of atmosphere,’ recalls Life magazine photographer Bill Ray. ‘Then boom, on comes this spotlight. There was no sound. No sound at all. It was like we were in outer space. There was this long, long pause and finally, she comes out with this unbelievably breathy, “Happy biiiiirthday to youuuu,” and everybody just went into a swoon.’

Despite raised eyebrows, Jackie tells her sister, Lee, ‘Life’s too short to worry about Marilyn Monroe.’ Instead of attending Jack’s fundraiser, Jackie and the children are at the First Family’s Glen Ora estate outside Middleburg, Virginia, enjoying what she calls ‘a good clean life.’ As spectators, including her husband, ogle Monroe at Madison Square Garden, Jackie is winning a third-place ribbon at the Loudon Hunt Horse Show.

Jean Kennedy Smith and her husband, Stephen, are in attendance at the Madison Square Garden event as well as at Arthur Krim’s reception, where White House photographers also capture Stephen posing alongside Monroe.

The next day, Jackie is furious—not with the president, but with his brother. ‘My understanding of it is that Bobby was the one who orchestrated the whole goddamn thing,’ Jackie tells her sister-in-law over the telephone. ‘The Attorney General is the troublemaker here, Ethel. Not the President. So it’s Bobby I’m angry at, not Jack.'”

Joyce Carol Oates’ ‘Blonde’ at 20

Joyce Carol Oates’ controversial novel, Blonde, turns 20 this year. With a Netflix adaptation starring Ana de Armas on the way, the book has been reissued with a cover photo by Milton Greene (from the 1954 ‘ballerina’ session), and a new introduction by literary critic Elaine Showalter.

In an excerpt published in The New Yorker, Showalter describes Blonde as ‘the definitive study of American celebrity,’ but many readers feel that Oates did Marilyn a disservice by blurring fact and fiction, and depicting her as a sacrificial lamb of Hollywood.

This is illustrated most strongly by an entirely imaginary rape scene, referred to below. While Marilyn was certainly frank about her experiences with predatory men in the film industry, her shrewdness in keeping the worst of them at bay and using the best to her advantage has been distorted by Oates’ misrepresentation.

“Oates found herself obsessed by the intricate riddle of Marilyn Monroe. Blonde expanded to be her longest novel, and, indeed, the original manuscript is almost twice as long as the published book. As Oates writes on the copyright page, Blonde is not a biography of Monroe, or even a biographical novel that follows the historical facts of the subject’s life. Indeed, Monroe’s dozens of biographers have disagreed about many of the basic facts of her life. Blonde is a work of fiction and imagination, and Oates plays with, rearranges, and invents the details of Monroe’s life in order to achieve a deeper poetic and spiritual truth. She condenses and conflates events in a process she calls ‘distillation,’ so that, in place of numerous foster homes, lovers, medical crises, and screen performances, she ‘explores only a selected, symbolic few.’ At the same time, Oates develops and deepens background themes inherent in Monroe’s story, including the growth of Los Angeles, the history of film, the House Un-American Activities Committee’s witch hunt for Communists in the film industry, and the blacklist. Each of these story lines could be a novel in itself, but, like the chapters on cetology and whaling in Moby Dick, they heighten the epic quality of the novel.

Of the hundreds of characters who appear in the book, some are identified by their real names, including Whitey, the makeup artist who created and maintained Monroe’s iconic look, although the name also ironically suggests the white-skinned, platinum-haired doll he crafted. Others, including two gay sons of Hollywood, Cass Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson, Jr., are invented. Monroe’s famous husbands are given allegorical names—The Ex-Athlete and The Playwright—and are fictional characters rather than portraits of Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. Similarly, fragments of poems by Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, and George Herbert appear along with bits of poetry attributed to Norma Jeane, which Oates composed herself.

Oates also drew on the literary traditions of the fairy tale and the Gothic novel. In a 1997 essay on fairy tales, she notes their limited view of female ambition and the way they promote simplistic wish fulfillment … The Hollywood version of that fairy tale is the romance of the Fair Princess and the handsome Dark Prince, the plot of the first movie Norma Jeane ever sees, and the recurring fantasy of her life … Moreover, in the Gothic version of the fairy tale, the Dark Prince is a powerful male who imprisons the princess in a haunted castle. The Studio stands for this macabre space, as Norma Jeane works her way up through a system run by ruthless, predatory men she must pacify, satisfy, and serve.

When Blonde was published, in 2000, it was nominated for literary prizes and widely reviewed as Oates’s masterwork. But it was also called lurid, eccentric, and fierce. Darryl F. Zanuck, the model for Mr. Z, had been called a cynical sexual predator—but that was just rumor. Readers of Blonde today, however, will recognize in that hellish rape scene a script from the casting couch of Harvey Weinstein and other Hollywood moguls, whose years of molestation, harassment, abuse, and sexual assault of aspiring actresses were brought to light in 2017, when accusers came forward to create the #MeToo movement … Just a few years ago, it could still be read as sensationalizing the story of Monroe. Now it must be seen as a passionate and prophetic defense.”



From Stage to Page: Patricia Bosworth 1933-2020

The actress turned author Patricia Bosworth, who met Marilyn at the Actors Studio, has died aged 86 from complications of coronavirus, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Bosworth starred with Audrey Hepburn in The Nun’s Story (1959), and later published critically acclaimed, yet controversial biographies of Montgomery Clift, Marĺon Brando and others. She appeared in documentaries such as Marilyn Monroe: Still Life (2005) and Love, Marilyn (2012), and wrote ‘The Mentor and the Movie Star,’ an article about Marilyn and the Strasbergs, for Vanity Fair in 2003. Her final book, The Men in My Life: Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan, also featured memories of Marilyn (see here.)

“At a party for new members, as Bosworth later wrote, she witnessed ‘a barefoot Marilyn Monroe, in a skintight black dress, undulating across the floor opposite Paul Newman.’ At the end of the evening, director Lee Strasberg offered her a ride home in his car. Bosworth slid in to find Monroe in the back, dreamily smoking a cigarette. ‘From outside came a voice,’ she later wrote. ‘”Hey Lee, going my way?” And Harry Belafonte hopped in beside me.’ The group fell silent as the ride got underway, each star daunted by the others. Finally Bosworth commented on Monroe’s gigantic pearls. ‘Yeah, the emperor gave them to me,’ Monroe said, offhandedly. She meant Emperor Hirohito of Japan, who had presented them to her at Monroe and Joe Dimaggio’s private wedding ceremony.”

Vanity Fair

Marilyn: A Readers’ Guide

Photo by Jock Carroll, 1952

Over at Book Riot today, Jeffrey Davies suggests six great reads about Marilyn. Among them are several titles I’ve reviewed in depth, including Lois Banner’s MM – Personal, Michelle Morgan’s The Girl, Charles Casillo’s Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon, and Marilyn’s own Fragments; plus old favourites like Gloria Steinem’s Marilyn: Norma Jeane, and Marilyn’s 1954 memoir, My Story.

Ernesto Cardenal, the Poet Who Prayed for Marilyn, Has Died

Ernesto Cardenal, the Nicaraguan poet, priest and revolutionary whose works included Prayer for Marilyn Monroe, has died aged 95, the New York Times reports. “I was studying for the priesthood in a seminary in Colombia,” he explained, “and, during a theology class, we got the news of Marilyn Monroe’s death. That’s when I wrote the poem.” (You can read it in full here.)

“Forgive her, Lord, and forgive us
for our 20th Century
for this Colossal Super-Production on which we all have worked.
She hungered for love and we offered her tranquilizers.
For her despair, because we’re not saints
                                            psychoanalysis was recommended to her …

And her life was unreal like a dream that a psychiatrist interprets and files.

Her romances were a kiss with closed eyes
and when she opened them
she realized she had been under floodlights
                                      as they killed the floodlights!
and they took down the two walls of the room (it was a movie set)
while the Director left with his scriptbook
                                                    because the scene had been shot…

… The film ended without the final kiss.
She was found dead in her bed with her hand on the phone.
And the detectives never learned who she was going to call.
She was
like someone who had dialed the number of the only friendly voice
and only heard the voice of a recording that says: WRONG NUMBER.
Or like someone who had been wounded by gangsters
reaching for a disconnected phone.

Lord
whoever it might have been that she was going to call
and didn’t call (and maybe it was no one
or Someone whose number isn’t in the Los Angeles phonebook)
                                   You answer that telephone!”