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Tuesday Reads: Marilyn Monroe, Fifty Years Gone

Posted: August 7, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |24 Comments

Lawrence Schiller, “Marilyn Monroe,” 1962. (Credit: Courtesy of Judith and Lawrence Schiller; Lawrence Schiller © Polaris Communications, Inc.)

Good Morning!!

I’m writing this late on Monday night. I’m a little burned out on the news, and I haven’t been feeling so great today, so I thought I’d skip politics and devote my Tuesday morning post to noting the 50th anniversary of the day we lost Marilyn Monroe, August 5, 1962. We can talk about the news in the comments though!

LA Weekly has a report of the memorial. The main speaker was Professor Lois Banner, the author of a new biography of Monroe.

Lois Banner certainly must be considered one of the Marilyn religion’s rising gospel writers. Banner, a professor of women’s history at USC, is the author of Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox, her well-received, scrupulously researched and ten-years-in-the-writing biography, whose release was scheduled to coincide with the anniversary.

Banner’s book, which attempts to demolish any lingering image of Marilyn as a dumb blonde and merely the sexual object of male fantasy, asserts that the star was shaped by a complicated and deeply conflicted personality. Marilyn was marked by an intense intellectual curiosity but also by emotional and sexual abuse as child that would develop into full-blown sexual addiction and her ultimately tragic substance abuse.

Outside the memorial, the 73-year-old writer briefly spoke about Marilyn’s status as an “icon of the American character” and the key to her enduring fascination. The answer, according to Banner, is complex but begins with her tragically early death. Dying at the height of her beauty instantly made the star what Banner calls “the Aphrodite of the national imagination — the woman who represents our sexual desires and dreams.”

To that she adds the aura of mystery contributed by Marilyn’s involvement with the Kennedys and the conspiracy theories surrounding her death. Then there are the photographs. Marilyn was probably the most photographed woman of the 20th century, Banner says, “and the famous images of her literally run into the thousands. She realized herself in front of the camera, and many have said the camera was her real lover.”

Here are two Huffpo links to some lovely photos of Marilyn:

Marilyn Monroe Photos: Candid Shots Of The Woman Behind The Starlet

Marilyn Monroe ‘Intimate Exposures’: Exhibit Unveils Never-Before-Seen Bruno Bernard Photos

Between inventing pin-up photography, earning the nickname “Bernard of Hollywood” and discovering Marilyn Monroe, Bruno Bernard may just be the world’s most famous photographer.

In her new book “Marilyn: Intimate Exposures,” Bernard’s daughter, former Playboy Playmate Susan Bernard, has released a collection of her father’s most famous photographs of the one and only Marilyn Monroe–including 40 never-before-seen shots.

In the collection are the first professional photographs ever taken of Monroe (then named Norma Jean Dougherty), intimate backstage shots throughout her career, original negatives, Bernard’s work notes and letters from Monroe to Bernard, including one reading, “Remember Bernie, you started it all.”

Bernard is presenting the collection at the San Francisco Art Exchange for its United States premiere during the 50th anniversary commemoration of Monroe’s death.

The photos at both links are wonderful. I really enjoyed looking at them.

The LA Times reports on another exhibit of Marilyn photos.

One of the many disappointments to befall the actress’ tragic life was her struggle to have a child, having suffered multiple miscarriages. Very few images of a pregnant Monroe exist but famed celebrity photograper Phil Stern found himself at the right place at the right time during her last pregnancy with third husband, playwright Arthur Miller.

In 1958, Look magazine assigned Stern to capture what studio mogul Sam Goldwyn saw through his office window. Perched high and out of sight from the people below, he spotted Monroe walking across the lot during a break from filming “Some Like it Hot,” and snapped the photo just as the wind blew open her kimono, revealing her pregnant belly.

This photo is just one of many that Stern took of Monroe during an illustrious career that spanned six decades. Twenty-three images from his collection will be on view at The Phil Stern Gallery opening Sunday on the 50th anniversary of her untimely death. The exhibition continues through Nov 1.

You can view some of the photos at the link.

On Sunday night, 60 Minutes ran a 1987 interview with Playwright Arthur Miller by Mike Wallace.

During their relationship, Miller wrote the screenplay for “The Misfits,” with the lead role played by Monroe. She played a wounded young woman, who falls in love with a much older man. It would be her last film.

Despite the success of 1961’s “The Misfits,” Miller’s marriage to Monroe had been struggling for months, and the couple ultimately separated. In addition to drug and alcohol dependency, Monroe had endured several miscarriages and was battling depression.

“I guess to be frank about it, I was taking care of her. I was trying to keep her afloat,” Miller told Wallace. “She was a super-sensitive instrument, and that’s exciting to be around until it starts to self-destruct.”

When Wallace asked Miller if he knew Monroe’s life was destined for disaster, he said, “I didn’t know it was doomed, but I certainly felt it had a good chance to be.” Less than two years later, Monroe was found dead at the age of 36 in her California home.

There are some more lovely photos in this NY Daily News article: Marilyn Monroe, famed blond bombshell, yearned to retire to Brooklyn in her twilight years

The blond bombshell, who lived in New York City on and off for several years before dying in Los Angeles in 1962, called Brooklyn her “favorite place in the world” in a radio interview with NBC’s Dave Garroway.

“When I retire I’m going to retire to Brooklyn,” Monroe told the late “Today” show host. “That’s my favorite place in the world, so far, that I’ve seen.”

Monroe, then 31-years-old and inbetween her marriages to New York Yankees Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller, admitted she hadn’t “travelled much, but I don’t think I’ll find anything to replace Brooklyn.”

….

When asked what it was about Brooklyn she loved, Monroe’s answer was simple: “Almost everything.”

“I just like walking around,” she said in her soft, whispy tone.

Monroe said one highlight was the view of Manhattan which can only be seen from Brooklyn, but stressed her affection for the borough was more than that.

“It isn’t only the view, it’s the people,” Monroe said. “The people and the streets and the atmosphere, I just like it.”

On Weekend Edition, NPR ran a piece on Marilyn Monroe As An ‘All-Around’ Comedian.

I love just about all of Marilyn’s movies, but I guess my favorite is The Seven Year Itch.

The Rachmaninoff fantasy scene:

And the famous subway scene:

It’s hard to believe it was all so long ago. Sorry this post is so short, I should be back to my regular self in the morning. Now it’s your turn to fill me in on the real news of the day. I’ll pitch in some links too, of course.

24 Comments on “Tuesday Reads: Marilyn Monroe, Fifty Years Gone”

  1. minkoffminx's avatar JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
    August 7, 2012 at 6:13 am

    Thank you BB for posting these links, I’ve never seen some of those photographs…going to look at the rest now but I wanted to post this:

    Financial crisis: 25 people at the heart of the meltdown – where are they now? | Business | guardian.co.uk

    In 2009 the Guardian identified 25 people – bankers, economists, central bankers and politicians – whose actions had led the world into the worst economic turmoil since the Great Depression. On the fifth anniversary of the credit crunch, what are they doing?

    Makes you scratch your head and think WTF?

  2. minkoffminx's avatar JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
    August 7, 2012 at 6:31 am

    Wait, I should have reserved that WTF moment for this one: 14 Wacky “Facts” Kids Will Learn in Louisiana’s Voucher Schools | Mother Jones

    Under Gov. Bobby Jindal’s voucher program, considered the most sweeping in the country, Louisiana is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars to help poor and middle-class students from the state’s notoriously terrible public schools receive a private education. While the governor’s plan sounds great in the glittery parlance of the state’s PR machine, the program is rife with accountability problems that actually haven’t been solved by the new standards the Louisiana Department of Education adopted two weeks ago.

    For one, of the 119 (mostly Christian) participating schools, Zack Kopplin, a gutsy college sophomore who’s taken to Change.org to stonewall the program, has identified at least 19 that teach or champion creationist non-science, and will rake in nearly $4 million in public funding from the initial round of voucher designations.

    Many of these schools, Kopplin notes, rely on Pensecola-based A Beka Book curriculum or Bob Jones University Press textbooks to teach their pupils Bible-based “facts,” such as the existence of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster and all sorts of pseudoscience that researcher Rachel Tabachnick and writer Thomas Vinciguerra have thankfully pored over so the rest of world doesn’t have to.

    The list is unbelievable…

    Dinosaurs and humans probably hung out: “Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years.” – Life Science, 3rd ed. Bob Jones University Press, 2007

    […]

    Dragons were totally real: “[Is] it possible that a fire-breathing animal really existed? Today some scientists are saying yes. They have found large chambers in certain dinosaur skulls…The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke.” – Life Science, 3rd ed. Bob Jones University Press, 2007

    And check the date on those editions!

    • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
      August 7, 2012 at 8:18 am

      Wow!

    • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
      August 7, 2012 at 9:42 am

      Those poor kids are so screwed!

    • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
      August 7, 2012 at 11:39 am

      I wrote about this before. Even the KKK parts of the state are outraged. Plus, we have the LSEA which lets ‘creationism’ be taught as science. Jindal is just wrecking every thing in his path here. He’s now selling of state hospitals and jails. He’s blaming the resulting unemployment he’s causing in the universities and all state agencies on Obama’s short-lived new oil rig ban. He’s sold off the state’s employee insurance program and our medicaid too. State hospitals and state universities have had their budgets cut in 1/2 over the last five years. It’s seriously depressing.

      • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
        August 7, 2012 at 11:43 am

        and this guy is one of the top contenders for VP because of all of this …

        which is exactly his plan… he doesn’t give a f$%k about any of us … it’s all about his political future as a tea bagger

      • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
        August 7, 2012 at 1:36 pm

        LA seems to be in worse shape than TX with that nutbag. At least Perry has somewhat limited power here.

      • Beata's avatar Beata says:
        August 7, 2012 at 1:46 pm

        Jindal sounds like Mitt Shady’s kind of guy. “Creative destruction” indeed.

  3. Pat Johnson's avatar Pat Johnson says:
    August 7, 2012 at 8:36 am

    Fifty years after her death – which means she would be in her 80’s by now! – she is still a person of interest.

    Someone once said that you have reached “super star” level when you are known for one name alone.

    No confusion when someone refers to “Marilyn”. There is only one.

  4. Delphyne's avatar Delphyne says:
    August 7, 2012 at 10:14 am

    Marvin Hamlisch dies:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/marvin-hamlisch-dead-chorus-line-dies_n_1751084.html

  5. pdgrey's avatar pdgrey says:
    August 7, 2012 at 10:22 am

    BB, I really enjoyed this post. Thank you.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/barbie-real-woman-proportions-mildly-terrifying_n_1749204.html

  6. Delphyne's avatar Delphyne says:
    August 7, 2012 at 10:43 am

    And here’s Romney Girl:

    http://romneygirl.org/index.html

  7. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    August 7, 2012 at 10:56 am

    Richard Eskow says Mitt Romney reminds him of the Patricia Highsmith character “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” Wow! The comparison works too!

    The Talented Mr. Romney

    What does it say about this moment in history that an individual with no discernible core is the GOP candidate? Not that the man is evil or hateful. Romney’s lack of a self has led to the striking absence of even these qualities. Dick Cheney had a genuine, old school, castle-on-a-stormy-night-with-lightning-flashes kind of darkness. So did Dick Nixon. Mitt Romney just… really, really wants the job.

    In that sense Romney resembles no historical or fictional figure in recent memory more than Tom Ripley, the protagonist of Patricia Highsmith’s detective novel The Talented Mr. Ripley (played by Matt Damon in the movie). While the plots of the book and movie are somewhat different, both the literary and cinematic Ripleys had one quality in common: While he did very bad things — cheating, lying, even killing — Ripley never seemed like a particularly bad person. He just really wanted to be somebody.

    Of course, Mitt Romney’s never killed anyone (that we know of, anyway — but that’s true of everyone, isn’t it?) He did brutalize that kid who dyed his hair in high school. You could argue that this incident happened so long that it doesn’t cast much light on Romney’s personality.

    But Romney’s reaction to the story happened in the present, and what was striking was his absolute lack of remorse when it came to light that the young man in question had been devastated by the experience. His reaction was eerily detached, even disinterested, as the suffering he had caused was revealed to him. He was cold and detached about it, like, like …

    … well, like a Patricia Highsmith character.

    • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
      August 7, 2012 at 11:50 am

      What does it say about our country that Mitt Romney is heading up the GOP ticket? Nobody in his own party seems to like him. Nobody outside his party, except some political insiders, seem to dislike him very much either. He’s just there — ingratiating himself, making himself useful, and always always always looking for the next opportunity.

      Who is Mitt Romney? Let him into your life and you’ll regret it. Before you know it your life will become his life.

      Who is Mitt Romney? He’s a public figure for whom, as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, there’s no “there” there. He’s a shape-shifter, an identity hijacker, a human being who would rather appear to be than actually be. He’s the living incarnation of the self-seeking, ethos-free, “always be closing” vacuousness of the hedge fund set. He’s the Golem of Grosse Pointe, the Dybbuk of Darien, the animated spirit of vacuous wealth. He is soulless and amiably amoral ambition made flesh as a candidate for the highest office in the land.

  8. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    August 7, 2012 at 10:59 am

    Women who are stopped and frisked in NYC feel sexually violated.

    Shari Archibald’s black handbag sat at her feet on the sidewalk in front of her Bronx home on a recent summer night. The two male officers crouched over her leather bag and rooted around inside, elbow-deep. One officer fished out a tampon and then a sanitary napkin, crinkling the waxy orange wrapper between his fingers in search of drugs. Next he pulled out a tray of foil-covered pills, Ms. Archibald recalled.

    “What’s this?” the officer said, examining the pill packaging stamped “drospirenone/ethinylestradiol.”

    “Birth control,” Ms. Archibald remembered saying.

    She took a breath and exhaled deeply, hoping the whoosh of air would cool her temper and contain her humiliation as the officers proceeded to pat her down.

    • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
      August 7, 2012 at 11:03 am

      Crystal Pope, 22, said she and two female friends were frisked by male officers last year in Harlem Heights. The officers said they were looking for a rapist. It was an early spring evening at about 6:30 p.m. The three women sat talking on a bench near Ms. Pope’s home on 143rd Street when the officers pulled up and asked for identification, she said.

      “They tapped around the waistline of my jeans,” Ms. Pope said. “They tapped the back pockets of my jeans, around my buttock. It was kind of disrespectful and degrading. It was uncalled-for. It made no sense. How are you going to stop three females when you are supposedly looking for a male rapist?”

      Besides, Ms. Pope said, she thought male officers were required to summon a female colleague when conducting a frisk.

      That belief, though incorrect, is shared by many women, said Andrea Ritchie, a civil rights lawyer and co-coordinator of Streetwise and Safe, a nonprofit organization that focuses on police practices that affect young lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who are also members of ethnic minorities.

      • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
        August 7, 2012 at 11:23 am

        I guess they don’t even need probable cause in NYC:

        Ms. Archibald, a 21-year-old hairdresser, said the encounter was made worse by the number of people out on the street that night. “There were a lot of guys from the neighborhood outside,” she said, “and here is this officer squeezing one of my sanitary pads in front of everyone.”

        One officer, she recalled, lifted up her long tank top and lightly brushed his hand over the elastic waist of her spandex leggings. They instructed her to pinch the shirt fabric between her breasts and yank at her bra.

        “They asked me to snap my bra, to pull and shake it a bit, to see if anything fell out,” Ms. Archibald said.

        Nothing did, she said. And they let her go.

  9. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    August 7, 2012 at 11:44 am

    How Romney might have paid no taxes

    http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2012/08/07/heres-how-mitt-romney-might-have-paid-no-taxes

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