Reel Life: Marilyn Monroe

The Reelz Channel in the US has just announced a new documentary, Reel Life: Marilyn Monroe, to premiere on Friday, August 3rd.

“Hosted by television personality Dayna Devon, Reel Life: Marilyn Monroe explores the continued and unrelenting popularity of the woman who wanted nothing more than to be taken seriously as an actress. We’ll talk to the stars of the hit television series Smash, Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty, whose characters are vying to be the lead in a Broadway musical based on Monroe’s life as well as Oscar-nominee Michelle Williams, who played Monroe in My Week With Marilyn about Monroe’s enduring legacy.

Fellow Hollywood icons George Hamilton and Mitzi Gaynor – Monroe’s co-star in There’s No Business Like Show Business – reveal the personal side of the woman they knew. Reel Life: Marilyn Monroe also takes a look at Monroe’s rise to sex symbol, including candid interviews with Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, who discusses how Monroe’s nude photos helped launch his empire and catapult Monroe to superstar status. Also featured are interviews with photographers Lawrence Schiller and George Barris who share their personal stories of working with Monroe, including the story behind her last ever photo shoot.”

Marilyn and the Chicago Mob Wives

Nora Schweihs – currently starring in TV’s Chicago Mob Wives – is the daughter of Frank Schweihs, who was alleged to have been involved in bringing about Marilyn’s untimely death by authors Milo Speriglio and Adela Gregory, in their 1993 book, Crypt 33: The Saga of Marilyn Monroe – The Final Word.

Here’s what Nora has to say about those rumours:

“They say he was a hit man and committed murders. My dad was never convicted of the things they accuse him of doing. The whole Marilyn Monroe story is just hearsay. My father taught me ‘never believe anything you don’t hear or see yourself.’ I live by that.”

Read this article in full at Starcasm

And here’s an extract from a review of Crypt 33 by MM expert David Marshall, author of The DD Group:

“Here’s the deal. While the book does not supply any final answers, it is a good primer on Marilyn’s death and the various theories as well as the various suspects. Reading it as a novice, I would imagine that it would be quite a revelation. Reading it after immersing myself in everything I could find regarding the night of August 4, 1962, I see nothing new here at all…Who these two detectives interviewed or saw or investigated in their five years remains as mysterious as the events of August 4. The bottom line to this or any Monroe book is simple: Can we trust any author to tell us Marilyn’s thoughts or present a full conversation with no source notes?”

You can read David’s review in full here

‘Smash’ Episode 15: ‘Bombshell’

Katherine McPhee, ‘Smash’

The season finale of Smash has now aired in the US…

“Hilty is the real genius in the Marilyn role — even Anjelica Huston knows that, even if she couldn’t sway Derek — and if I were here, I would be contemplating the fistful of pills as well. The show wants us to care about Karen and to despise Ivy, who sleeps with other people’s boyfriends and tries to sabotage everything. But the best person in real life is not always the best person for the job, especially when it comes to show business. I hope that next season they let Ivy redeem herself and take her place. Bernadette Peters needs something else to do besides look devastated.” – Los Angeles Times

“There’s no denying that some people have that essence that just makes them watchable — Monroe, maybe more than any other actress, had it, was luminous on screen for reasons beyond just looks. But in trying to tell a story about that ‘it’ factor, ‘Smash’ actually ends up being about another aspect of stardom entirely, one that’s about the people dictating it rather than about who’s on screen…foisting a character on the viewers and insisting that despite how they might actually feel, that she’s the one to love.” – IndieWire

‘Smash’ Episode 14: ‘Previews’

The penultimate episode of this season’s Smash aired in the US last night, reports the Wall Street Journal.

‘The show ends with Marilyn’s death… but there is no applause…only Leo and Frank applaud and then everyone else joins in…but because they have to, not because they want to.

Afterwards Bobby says “First preview, something always goes wrong.” “Like no applause?” Karen asks? And there’s Dev waiting for Karen — he needed space and she apologizes and whoops there’s Ivy…

Meanwhile there’s a meeting of the minds – Tom says you can’t end a musical on a suicide, Julia says that’s what she did, she killed herself and Derek says there are a lot of theories out there about how Marilyn Monroe died (some even say it was murder — Marilyn was only 36 years old when she passed away). Eileen plays peacemaker and suggests a reunion with her younger self — Norma Jean. Eileen is hell bent on making “Bombshell” run forever to standing ovations every night. And she wants a new ending by Monday morning.’

‘Smash’ Episode 13: ‘Tech’

This latest episode is the first to be filmed since the series began airing, and features Rebecca Duvall (Uma Thurman) in Marilyn mode:

‘Movie star/Bombshell star Rebecca Duvall grappled with mounting performance anxiety, and Derek slithered into her dressing room to urge her to use her insecurities to better understand Marilyn, and to revel in her own star power, too. “It’s your escape from the terror,” he insisted. (Srsly?) Rebecca then donned (not entirely convincing) Marilyn drag for a performance of “Happy Birthday, Mr. Director” – ”I wonder if she got Karen to coach her,” snarled Ivy Lynn, hilariously — and before you knew it, Derek was all “Marilyn glowed in the light. She was luminous like you.” And Rebecca was all looking for a compliment that went beyond Derek thinking she was pretty. And then Derek used his condescension – ”You, my darling, are a lovely little actress.” — as an aphrodisiac. Next thing you know the director and his leading lady were going at it in the dressing room, with Rebecca’s creepy manager, super creepy Ellis, and somewhat creepy Ivy standing outside, eavesdropping creepily. Rebecca and Derek doing the nasty brings a whole new meaning to “Let Me Be Your Star,” I guess.’ – TVLine

‘“Smash’s” big gamble, starting out, was whether or not anyone would care enough about Marilyn to care at all about “Bombshell.” The musical-within-a-musical could have been about anything — the Tudor dynasty, contemporary politics, Joni Mitchell, the roaring ’20s, you name it — but they went with an iconoclastic character partly because she’s familiar to a mass audience and partly because she is glamorous and fun and beautiful, qualities the producers wanted to stamp onto their own young stars. The Marilyn story comes with drama already baked in; the high-highs and the low-lows, the rapture and the fame and the suicide.  But as the show proves, there are complications that go with Marilyn, and hers is not a story that belongs in just anyone’s hands.’ – Rachel Syme, Los Angeles Times

Bobby Rivers on ‘Smash’

Megan Hilty in ‘Smash’

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’.”

‘Smash’ Episode 12: ‘Publicity’

Ivy Lynn (Megan Hilty) sings another Marilyn-themed number in this week’s episode:

‘It’s hard for me to hate Ivy when she sang “Second Hand White Baby Grand” as beautifully as she did. I don’t know that Karen could have sung that song as effectively as Ivy did simply because Karen isn’t “broken” the way Ivy is. With lyrics like, “Something secondhand and broken still can make a pretty sound” and “I still have something beautiful to give,” that heartbreaking song might as well have been written about Ivy instead of Marilyn.’ – TV Equals

‘Smash’ Episode 11: ‘The Movie Star’

Uma Thurman dominates this latest episode as movie star Rebecca Duvall, picked to play Marilyn. There’s just one problem – Rebecca can’t sing…!

“Uma Thurman gives Smash an added dimension this week that has been missing and it’s nice to have a new kind of plot line, instead of just Ivy vs. Karen. Uma gets her first Stage Marilyn musical number and since it’s at the end of the episode, Tom has changed the key for her and the singing improves. The episode is decent (once again, it’s even better if you forget about Frank and Leo) and the show seems to be back to moving in a good direction, rather than a ridiculous one.” – ScreenCrave

‘Finding Marilyn’ Slated For eOne

Finding Marilyn, a new reality series in which twelve contestants for the title of ‘the new Marilyn Monroe’, may be produced for US TV channel Entertainment One with the co-operation of Monroe’s estate, reports Leslie Kasperowicz for CinemaBlend.

Personally, I’ve had enough of these gimmicks and wish ABG would refocus their efforts onto promoting the real thing. Maybe I’m naive, but I thought Anna Strasberg would have more business acumen than to allow her brand to be cheapened like this.