Marilyn, TIME’s Icon for the Ages

Marilyn has been chosen as one of TIME‘s 100 Women of the Year, in a project marking the magazine’s centenary. She has been selected to represent 1954, the year in which she married Joe DiMaggio; entertained US troops in Korea; filmed There’s No Business Like Show Business and The Seven Year Itch; topped the hit parade with ‘I’m Gonna File My Claim’; and then she left it all behind to study acting, and form a production company in New York.

The photo shown above was taken two years previously by Frank Powolny, but remains one of the most iconic images of Marilyn. Other featured actresses include Anna May Wong, Lucille Ball and Rita Moreno. Aimee Semple McPherson, the evangelist said to have christened Norma Jeane, and Gloria Steinem, the feminist campaigner who wrote a book about Marilyn, are also listed.

“In 1954, Marilyn Monroe—already a sex symbol and a movie star—posed on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street in New York City, for a scene intended to appear in her 1955 film The Seven Year Itch. The breeze blowing up through a subway grate sent her white dress billowing around her, an image that lingers today like a joyful, animated ghost. Monroe was a stunner, but she was also a brilliant actor and comedian who strove to be taken seriously in a world of men who wanted to see her only as an object of desire. Today, especially in a world after Harvey Weinstein’s downfall, she stands as a woman who fought a system that was rigged against her from the start. She brought us such pleasure, even as our hearts broke for her.”

Stephanie Zacharek

Marilyn Photos Sold at RR Auctions

A 1953 Frank Powolny portrait, inscribed ‘To Cheryl, Love & kisses, Marilyn Monroe’, was sold for $13,636 at RR Auctions’ Fine Autographs and Artifacts sale yesterday. Bob Towers’ photo of Marilyn arriving at Phoenix Airport in 1956 sold for $578, while a photo taken during filming of The Misfits (attributed to Henri Cartier-Bresson), and a wire photo of Marilyn posing with U.S. servicewomen raised $525 each.

Meanwhile, the annual Legends event, featuring 135 Marilyn-related lots, is now open at Julien’s through Friday – more info here.

Young Marilyn Photos Sold at Heritage Auctions

Marilyn gets a makeover, 1947 (from the Aviv Wardimon estate)

Two signed photos were the highest sellers among the Marilyn-related lots in the Entertainment Signatures sale at Heritage Auctions yesterday. A Frank Powolny headshot (from the same session which later inspired Andy Warhol) sold for $13,750, and a classic pin-up image by Earl Thiesen fetched over $9,000. A restaurant menu from Trader Vic’s in Honolulu, signed by Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio in 1954, reached a top bid of $6,875. Among other popular lots were sets of rare photos showing a young Marilyn with security guard Aviv Wardimon (aka Blackman) on the Fox lot in 1947. You can see more photos from the auction here.

Marilyn with Aviv Wardimon, 1947

Marilyn’s Golden Earrings at Julien’s

Two pairs of earrings worn by Marilyn in Frank Powolny’s iconic publicity shots for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes will be auctioned on November 18, as part of a sale from the estate of legendary jewellery designer Joseff of Hollywood at Julien’s. Also coming up this month is the Entertainment Signatures sale at Heritage Auctions on November 11.

UPDATE: The gold-plated earrings have sold for a staggering $112,500; while the pair with simulated pearls fetched a none-too-shabby $81,250.

Marilyn’s Final Script Sold (Again) For $25,000

Marilyn in Something’s Got to Give (Photo edit by Laura)

Marilyn’s annotated script for her final, incomplete  movie, Something’s Got to Give, has been sold at the Nate D. Sanders Hollywood Memorabilia auction for $25,000. While reporters have poked fun at her minor spelling errors – such as ‘leeding him on’ – her comments are often perceptive. ‘Needs more jokes’, she remarked – an opinion shared by others during this troubled production.

If this script looks familiar, that’s because it sold at Julien’s only a month ago for $10,240. Other items from the event have also been spotted on auction sites like EBay, confirming that Marilyn’s personal property is becoming a magnet for investors. A disused grave marker from her crypt, also sold in November, attracted no bids this time around.

“Monroe’s handwritten pencil notes begin with her character’s (Ellen Wagstaff Arden) introduction in the script on page 12 and carry through to the end on page 149, even including notes on the verso of the last page and back cover, such as a note reading, ‘Joke writers Mel Brooks / Herb Gardner / Need spice / raisins / Need some funny lines.’ There are notes in Monroe’s hand on approximately 42 pages in the script, ranging from simple dialogue corrections and changes to in-depth sense memory notes when doing a scene that required a deeper emotional connection and understanding. Regarding her character’s introduction, as she interacts with naval personnel who saved her after being marooned on an island for five years, Monroe writes, ‘1 – Gayity [sic] 2 – Excitement 3 – Then Dazed.’ In one scene, Monroe references Arthur Miller’s children to better help her relate to her character’s children, ‘Bobby M. / and early Janie / except their [sic] mine.’ Throughout the script, Monroe writes succinct dialogue and character notes: ‘Stunned / Dazed – sky high with adventure’, ‘dead pan/I really don’t know’, ‘anticipating the joys’, ‘Trying to think or remember’, ‘start to wonder what’s from now on’, ‘I don’t know he knows’, ‘easy/very intimate/very real’, ‘[L]et me get into something more comfortable / leading him on -‘. Included is a small card with call times and scenes to be shot, and a small scrap of paper with a note in Monroe’s hand wondering why they are shooting out of sequence, as well as notes about using Miss vs. Mrs.”

This copy of the script is dated March 29, 1962. Another version, including revisions dated April 23 and 27, and with eighteen pages annotated by Marilyn, went unsold, after being purchased at Julien’s last month for $12,800.

“Some of the highlights include notes Monroe made for Scene 168, in which she interacts with her children in the movie, who don’t recognize her as they were too young when she became stranded on an island for five years and presumed dead. These hand-annotated typewritten pages were inserted into the script for this particular scene – one of the few that Monroe completed before her untimely death. Within these pages, Monroe writes a series of notes regarding her preparation: ‘Real thought’, ‘Mental Relaxation’, ‘Look for the light’, ‘Place the pain/feeling where it is not in the brow’, as well as specific sense memories to help find the emotional truth with her character’s feelings toward her on-screen children, ‘Substitute children – B & J if necessary’, perhaps referring to Arthur Miller’s children Bobby and Jane. There are also some notes from Monroe regarding her work with a Swedish dialect coach. Peppered throughout the script are further dialogue notes, changes and line strikes. Interestingly, the script also includes notes in an unknown hand giving blunt, critical assessments and insights of the script’s scene descriptions, direction and dialogue. These notes start on the script’s first page, ‘Note for Marilyn/He has to woo her not the way it is / new blue pages’ and continue in blue pen, ‘Dull’, ‘Naggy, ‘Make it funny!’ and ‘Smugly’. Interestingly, Monroe reacts to some of these notes, either changing dialogue and scene direction or, in some cases, striking the note itself if she doesn’t agree with it.”

And in other news, a Frank Powolny portrait of Marilyn – signed by the lady herself to ‘Jimmie’ – was sold at R.R. Auctions for $24,959 this week, as part of the Tom Gregory Collection.

Sandra Chevier on Marilyn’s Superhero Struggle

Canadian artist Sandra Chevier’s Cages, currently on display in Hong Kong, blends images of Marilyn and other iconic women with comic strip superheroes, reports Time Out. (The portrait above is based on Richard Avedon’s 1957 photo, while the image below draws on a 1953 studio shot by Frank Powolny.)

“Cages is about women trying to find freedom from society’s twisted preconceptions of what a woman should or shouldn’t be. The women encased in these cages of brash imposing paint or comic books that mask their very person symbolise the struggles that women go through [facing] false expectations of beauty and perfection, as well as the limitations society places on women, corrupting what truly is beautiful by placing women in these prisons of identity. By doing so, society is asking them to become superheroes.”

When Warhol’s Marilyn Isn’t All It Seems

As most art lovers will know, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn was created – and endlessly reproduced – after her death in 1962, from a publicity still by Frank Powolny. Despite all outward appearances, however, the image shown above is not a Warhol but a 1965 ‘remake’ by the artist Elaine Sturtevant.  In a new book, Sturtevant: Warhol Marilyn, Patricia Lee examines the concepts of artistic originality, authorship and celebrity (both Marilyn’s, and Warhol’s.)

“There is an almost studious infidelity to the results of Sturtevant’s recreations, even while the processes of their production may be rigorous in the extreme. For her Warhol Flowers, Warhol himself lent her the very screen he had used to print from. In the case of her Warhol Marilyn, the original screen was lost but Sturtevant successfully tracked down the original publicity still that it was made from and took it to Andy’s own silkscreen guy to make the stencil. In later years, when people asked Warhol how he made his silkscreens he would simply answer, ‘Ask Elaine.’

‘Everyone says, So, Andy really understood!‘ Lee quotes Sturtevant in the book, ‘Well I don’t think so. I think he didn’t give a f***. Which is a very big difference, isn’t it?'”