Nine Years and Counting: the ‘Variety’ of Marilyn

Writing for Variety, Tim Gray recalls how the movie industry’s leading trade publication chronicled Marilyn’s ‘nine years of stardom and a legacy that won’t quit’…

“Few Hollywood stars have created such a powerful legacy based on such a small, brief output: starring roles in 11 films, released during a nine-year period.

Fox ran an ad in Daily Variety in 1952, the year Monroe starred in Don’t Bother to Knock, proclaiming her ‘a new star.’ Studios often took out ads to promote contract players and 20th Century Fox was building her career, so the promo wasn’t unusual. However, in her case, the words sound more factual than hype.

Her big breakthrough occurred in 1953, when she starred in Niagara, How to Marry a Millionaire and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, all for Fox. From that point until her death, at age 36, she was the hottest thing in Hollywood.

Her final completed film came in 1961 with The Misfits. The following year, Daily Variety ran regular updates on the progress of her planned role in Fox’s Something’s Got to Give, from which she was eventually fired for not showing up.

Undeterred, she sought other roles. When Grace Kelly, aka Princess Grace of Monaco, dropped out of the Alfred Hitchcock project Marnie, Monroe expressed interest in playing the role of the chilly, neurotic kleptomaniac. ‘It’s an interesting idea,’ a noncommittal Hitchcock told Variety’s Army Archerd. It is indeed. It would have been a very different film.

Monroe died on Aug. 5, 1962, and the coroner eventually declared the cause of death was ‘acute barbiturate poisoning’ resulting from a ‘probable suicide.’ Laurence Olivier, her co-star and director in The Prince and the Showgirl, said ‘She was a complete victim of ballyhoo and sensation.’ An op-ed piece in the Albany Times-Union said, ‘It’s hard to understand that a girl so many people loved could be so lonely.’

But, as always, the public had the final word. A week after her death, Variety reported a poll by Creative Research Associates of Chicago on public reaction. Men and women liked her equally, describing her as a sex symbol, ‘having a quality of innocence, an unawareness of her physical endowments.’ Of the films she starred in (or had supporting roles in), the respondents predicted she would be best remembered for Some Like It Hot, The Seven Year Itch and How to Marry a Millionaire.

Public tastes are very fickle, but her fans were on the money, even back then.

Though many of Hollywood’s biggest stars had long careers, like Charlie Chaplin, Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Bette Davis and Marlon Brando, two other notable names also had short resumes: James Dean and Grace Kelly, who, interestingly, also rose to fame in the early 1950s.”

‘1*9*5*6 Degrees of Separation’

1*9*5*6 Degrees of Separation, choreographer Killian Manning’s new play – exploring an imaginary meeting between Marilyn (played by J. Evarts), Grace Kelly, Diane Arbus and Margot Fonteyn – will be staged at the Manbites Dog Theatre in Durham, North Carolina from June 20-24, reports the Herald-Sun.

“They discuss life with their respective husbands – Roberto ‘Tito’ Arias, a Panamanian diplomat; Rainier III, Prince of Monaco; and playwright Arthur Miller. Later in the scene, photographer Diane Arbus (played by Marcia Edmundson) enters and takes a photo of Kelly. Monroe whispers into Arbus’ ear that all three women ‘met with horrible deaths’ (Fonteyn died of bone cancer, Kelly was killed in a car crash, and Monroe committed suicide). Arbus committed suicide in 1971, and in this play Arbus recites lines to Monroe from a poem her brother, Howard Nemerov, wrote for her after her suicide.”

Marilyn in Dior Ad

Marilyn appears – via the wonder of CGI – alongside Grace Kelly and Marlene Dietrich in a new commercial for Christian Dior’s J’Adore fragrance, starring Charlize Theron – an actress sometimes compared to MM.

For more details and to watch the clip, visit The Telegraph

Screencaps by Marilynette Lounge

Albert Wolsky’s Favourite Blondes

Marilyn in ‘Some Like It Hot (photo by Richard C. Miller)

Albert Wolsky has designed costumes for movies from All That Jazz (1979) to Revolutionary Road (2008.)

“Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly and Jean Harlow are the most glamorous, but in different ways. Grace was elegant, Marilyn was vulnerable, and Jean was extremely funny…Earlier actresses like Marilyn were very typed and had an image that never changed, but today’s leading ladies can be glamorous one moment and not glamorous the next…Men and women loved (Monroe) because she had an almost little-girl-like quality that made her sex appeal non-threatening…”

Hollywood Reporter