Marilyn Night on Sky Arts

Gemma Arterton in ‘It’s Me, Sugar’

Stock up on champagne and potato chips: It’s Me, Sugar, opening a new season of Urban Myths on UK TV’s Sky Arts tonight at 9pm, is part of a full evening’s programming dedicated to Marilyn, preceded by the 2011 documentary, Discovering Film: Marilyn Monroe (aka Stars of the Silver Screen), at 8 pm; and followed by Some Like It Hot at 9 pm; and two more documentaries, Billy Wilder: Nobody’s Perfect (2016) at 12:15 am, and We Remember Marilyn (1996) at 1:15 am. (Now, where’s that bourbon?)

‘It’s Me, Sugar’ Previewed on Youtube

A preview clip of the new short film, It’s Me, Sugar, set during production of Some Like It Hot and starring Gemma Arterton as Marilyn, is now on Youtube. Heading the new season of Urban Myths on the UK satellite television channel, Sky Arts, It’s Me, Sugar will be broadcast on April 12. If you’re in the UK but not a Sky subscriber, Sky Arts is also available on the Now TV streaming service.

The series has a somewhat checkered history: the last season included an episode featuring actor Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson, which was pulled after accusations of whitewashing. Further episodes will cover a wide range of celebrity subjects. ranging from the disappearance of Agatha Christie to the Live Aid concert in 1985.

At first glance, It’s Me, Sugar seems to perpetuate the myth of Marilyn as a dumb blonde, playing an even dumber blonde. It will be interesting to see if it covers the theory proposed by author Donald Wolfe, who witnessed her playing the scene, that Marilyn ‘played dumb’ and blew her lines on purpose, to wear down director Billy Wilder into letting her play it her way.

First Look: Gemma as Marilyn in ‘It’s Me, Sugar’

The first photo of Gemma Arterton in It’s Me, Sugar, the new TV comedy recreating the troubled production of Some Like It Hot, has been posted at Deadline (so at least they’ve got Marilyn’s orange robe right), along with a few more details: firstly, it’s produced by UK satellite channel Sky Arts; secondly, that Billy Wilder will be played by James Purefoy; and thirdly, it is just 30 minutes long and will be aired later this spring. You can read Gemma’s comments on the role here.

Marilyn and Arthur: Artists in Love

The Millers at the April In Paris Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, NYC, 1957

My review of Artists In Love: Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe, part of a 2016 documentary series for the Sky Arts satellite channel and presented by the British actress Samantha Morton (who played an MM impersonator in the 2009 film, Mister Lonely), is published today here.

 

Marilyn and Arthur on Sky Arts Tonight

For those in the UK who subscribe to the Sky Arts channel, Marilyn and Arthur Miller are featured in the latest episode of the documentary series, Artists in Love, tonight at 8pm.

“I’d been disgruntled by this series. Featuring famous partnerships, it had chosen pairings where the man was the genius and the woman merely his muse. Why not tell us about Leigh/Olivier or Plath/Hughes, marriages where the woman does a bit more than wash the dishes and spark up her man’s imagination?

The series corrects that tonight by focusing on the short marriage of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller. When Miller first met the blonde bombshell he immediately saw past her sexual image, saying to her: ‘You’re the saddest girl I’ve ever met.’

And yet, despite seeming a sad ‘girl’ to this intellectual man, he was in awe of her, recalling of this first meeting: ‘I had to flee or walk into a doom beyond all knowing. With all her radiance she was surrounded by a darkness which perplexed me.’ And this impressed Marilyn: he walked away rather than swooning, pawing and patronising her.” – Julie McDowall, The National

Marilyn’s Still Top of the Polls

Great Americans: Marilyn holding her lithograph of Abraham Lincoln. Photo by Milton Greene, 1954

While Marilyn is regularly cited in lists of the world’s greatest sex symbols, her historical and cultural impact is sometimes overlooked. Not so this week, as The Smithsonian magazine includes her in a special dedicated to the 100 Most Significant Americans, alongside Madonna, Bette Davis, Mary Pickford and Oprah Winfrey (on newsstands today for $9.99); meanwhile, the Daily Mail reports that she is ranked 17th in a Sky Arts poll of 40 Women Who Changed the World.