Marilyn knew that Rosten would never laugh or criticize her own attempts at writing poetry, and she would often send him rough drafts through the mail or show them to him in person. Looking at the pieces today, her words are prophetic and often heart-wrenching. In one titled “Life,” the actress ponders her place in the world, telling the reader that she somehow remains down but is as strong as a cobweb in the wind. In another, she describes the colors of the sidewalk, seen from the heights of her apartment. Some of the more lighthearted poems rhyme, such as the one written about hospital gowns revealing her bare derriere. Others are more like notes—the observations of a woman, an actress, and a human being.
In addition to writing and reading poetry, Marilyn was also deeply interested in art. She admitted to one interviewer in the mid-1950s that she had gone through a Michelangelo period and currently had an obsession for Francisco José de Goya. “I know just the monsters he paints,” she explained. “I see them all the time. And if Goya sees them too, I know I’m not out of my mind.” She wrote about these monsters in her private notebooks, describing them as her most steadfast companions that came out of the darkness as she tried to sleep.
She remained forever intrigued by Goya, and when a script about the artist was sent to Marilyn a few years later, she considered taking a role. However, the producer planned to push the moral boundaries and introduce a nude scene. Marilyn told Earl Wilson that she did not think the nudity was relevant, so in the end turned it down.
Marilyn greatly admired artists and was an occasional but keen sketcher herself. The pictures she drew and painted throughout the mid- to late 1950s show varying moods and sometimes a playful nature. All are abstract and often feature just a single color: red. In one, Marilyn draws a catlike woman, dancing and smiling broadly, with long eyelashes and a hat or elaborate hairstyle perched upon her head. In another deeply contrasting piece, there is a small girl in a plain dress, with short, curled hair and one sock falling down.
A wispy picture with great swirls and flair is titled A Cat Watching Its Own Tail Move. Viewed from a Night Table shows a variety of items, including a glass, what looks to be a part of a headboard, and a book of poems. Some of her artwork includes tiny, delicate features, but most are done with a sweeping, passionate hand. One of the most intriguing pieces of art that Marilyn created is titled Jumping into the Frying Pan from the Fire. It shows the profile of a woman with full lips, long hair, and arms sprawled out behind her. She is nude from the waist up, but her lower body is covered with fishnet stockings, flames lapping at her feet.
While Marilyn might never have exhibited her work, she relished the hobby. In 1958, she took her interest further by enrolling in a correspondence course with the Famous Artists School of Westport. Recently sold at auction, the letters show that the school was recommended to her by her friend Jon Whitcomb and her course of choice was painting. Alas, it is not known whether she ever submitted her work for critiquing, but that certainly did not affect the value of her portraits. One titled Lover Watching His Love Sleep sold in 2016 for $25,000, while a nude study drawn for Broadway set designer Boris Aronson went for $75,000 in 2015.
It wasn’t just painting that interested Marilyn. While she never attempted sculpture herself, there were several pieces that greatly intrigued her. One day she visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Norman Rosten, and he later recalled how she was spellbound by a work by Auguste Rodin titled The Hand of God, which depicts an entwined Adam and Eve emerging from marble in the hand of God. According to Rosten, the actress spent a long time walking around the sculpture, totally transfixed by it. Years later she bought a similar piece for display in her home.
When biographer Maurice Zolotow visited Marilyn in New York during the mid-1950s, she was just returning home with a statue of Queen Nefertiti. When asked what had intrigued her about the piece, the actress replied that somebody had once told her that she looked like Nefertiti. Interestingly, when Marilyn was a model in the 1940s, her boss, Emmeline Snively, kept the same bust in her office to show starlets that beauty was not a new phenomenon. The item was always a conversation piece, and so the likelihood of it being Snively who told Marilyn that she and Nefertiti looked similar was—no matter how bizarre—quite high.
CHAPTER SIX
Inspirational Woman
DURING THE MID-1950S, MARILYN’S fan mail averaged around five or six thousand letters per month. She received all kinds of correspondence. Young men would send marriage proposals and requests for signed photographs, while teenage girls would say how they too wanted to become an actress when they were older. One older lady fan even sent in underwear, just in case she was cold when wearing such skimpy clothing.
Of Marilyn’s fans and detractors, director Billy Wilder had the following to say to Pete Martin: “There are two schools of thought about her—those who like her and those who attack her, but they both are willing to pay to watch her.” Young film fan Maureen Brown was definitely one of the former. She remembers the days in the early 1950s when she first discovered the woman she has now admired for over six decades:
I first became aware of Marilyn after seeing her in cinema newsreels. She was so beautiful, so vibrant. Since I was a skinny, dark-haired twelve/thirteen year old, I wanted to be her!… I had seen quite a few of her early films, but it was seeing her in these newsreels that made me love her before she was even a big star. I would buy film magazines—mostly Picturegoer and Photoplay—with my pocket money and pin pictures and newspaper cuttings all over my bedroom walls.
For a time I also had photos of Jayne Mansfield, Diana Dors, and Brigitte Bardot, but they were soon replaced by new ones of Marilyn, as she became more famous. I loved all the pinup pics of her when she was a model. In fact, I loved everything about her! Most kids had Elvis or Cliff Richard inside their desk lids, but not me. I had Marilyn! I was so excited when she came to England because by now we had television and she was in the news constantly. My love for her has never diminished and in fact it has grown even stronger over the years. Marilyn was way ahead of her time in so many ways and I was devastated when she died. If I had one wish, it would be that I could have known her in real life, but I’m grateful that I was able to know her through film and television during the time she was alive.
Maureen is a true example of the kind of teenager who was fascinated by Marilyn as a person and image, but not everybody was enraptured. One young fan remembered being forbidden to see her films because his mother considered the actress to be a bad influence on young girls and boys. When his friends arranged a trip to see a Monroe film, he went along anyway, praying that his mother would never find out. Of course she did, and within minutes of taking his seat, he was dragged out of the cinema, disappointed to be caught and embarrassed to be shown up in front of his friends.
It wasn’t just middle-aged women who did not particularly care for her. Virginia Nicholson, author of Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes, remembers Marilyn being famous when she was a little girl: “Like everybody else, I watched and enjoyed her films. But I never had any aspirations to be like her, as although she seemed beautiful, funny, and sexy, in the world I grew up in, she was really the personification of the ‘dumb blonde.’ We all much preferred Greta Garbo, who seemed way more mysterious and sophisticated! Yes, obviously, Marilyn Monroe was very much a 1950s ‘type’: ultra-feminine, aspirational, with all the wily pseudo-submissiveness and glamour that was unfortunately expected of women at the time. Her personal story is also deeply sad. I have always thought of her as a very damaged human being.”
Virginia’s recollection of Marilyn being the personification of a dumb blonde is an important one, because it reflects exactly what the studio chiefs wanted the public to think. It also illustrates just what the actress was fighting against during her rebellion and beyond. Feminist author and advocate Gloria Steinem had similar feelings. She actually walked out of a screening of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes because she was embarrassed and believed that Marilyn was a joke—someone
who was the complete opposite of everything Steinem wanted to be in her life. It wasn’t until the women’s movement some years later that she realized what had been going on in society and Marilyn’s life during that time and wondered if she could have saved her, given the chance. Steinem’s original negative feelings were forgotten, and in the 1980s, she contributed text to accompany George Barris’s photos in the book Marilyn: Norma Jeane.
While Marilyn was campaigning for acceptance and her rights as an actress and a woman, she was unknowingly starting a ripple effect that would filter down through the decades. Fans inspired by her determination and revolution sometimes go on to have creative lives themselves. Madonna and Mariah Carey are perhaps the most famous examples of how much Marilyn inspired subsequent generations, but they are far from the only ones. Filmmaker Gabriella Apicella finds strength and encouragement through being a fan:
Quite simply, I do not believe I would be working in the film industry if it were not for Marilyn Monroe. When I first saw her, I was only a child, skipping through television channels, and alighting on a fragment of a documentary. The clip on-screen was her performing “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” As a child of the ’80s, I thought at first it was a clip of Madonna’s “Material Girl” video. While I looked and saw that this was not Madonna, but someone else, I was instantaneously hooked.
She was magical to me. I could not believe at first that she was a real person who had actually existed! (In some ways I still catch myself feeling that way!) The following day, my mother bought me a second-hand copy of Marilyn Among Friends by Sam Shaw and Norman Rosten. It so happened that this was during some difficult changes in my home-life, and while chaos reigned around me, I sought solace in images and films of Marilyn. I became immersed in her world as much as I could, covering my walls with every image I could find.
As I grew older, I wanted to read what she read. I watched the other films of the directors she worked with, and actors she knew, or respected, or performed alongside. I read plays and books that she admired. All of my knowledge of film history is a spider web with Marilyn Monroe at the core.
When I went to university and discovered Italian neo-realist films, I was elated to discover that the iconic director of Bicycle Thieves—Vittorio De Sica—was on Marilyn’s list of approved directors. As a new dimension of understanding about film and its history opened up to me, Marilyn was still there in the heart of it all!
As a screenwriter, I am fixated on visual storytelling, and how the language of cinema has the power to translate emotions through the screen to millions via nuance, gesture, and behavior. Marilyn taught me this in Bus Stop, The Misfits, The Prince and the Showgirl, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and The Seven Year Itch. The tremor of lips, a wink, a raised eyebrow…. In cinema, these convey more than words can hope to.
Because Marilyn Monroe made me feel so very much through the power of film, I know in every cell of my body that cinema is the most powerful art form on earth. While I spent a long time keeping this world at a safe distance while working in office jobs, never risking my dreams seriously enough to see if I could succeed as a filmmaker, I am now a few years in to my own magical journey, and will always thank Marilyn for her inspiration from the very beginning.
ON JUNE 12, 1955, Marilyn gave a short but revealing interview to NBC’s David Garroway. During the chat, she revealed that she kept a journal; did not mind if she fell from the top of show business, as long as she could be a great actress; was grateful to be famous but missed her anonymity; and when she retired, she would like to move to Brooklyn. The last revelation raised laughs from Garroway, but Marilyn insisted that it was true—that she loved walking the streets, meeting the people, and looking at the view of Manhattan.
While this might have been the case, Marilyn’s affection for Brooklyn might also have come as a result of a new, unexpected love. Arthur Miller was the famed playwright of such theatrical works as Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. He had met Marilyn some years earlier, when she was still a starlet and he was hoping to sell a script to Hollywood. She was mourning the loss of her agent and lover, Johnny Hyde, after his death in December 1950, and Miller gave her a shoulder to cry on. They also found a lot to talk about, and spent hours discussing great works of literature. Miller realized that Marilyn was far more than the image she portrayed on-screen, while she discovered that in addition to being a great writer, he was also a skilled carpenter, tennis player, and could strip down a car engine just as well as a mechanic.
However, Miller was married at the time, and fearing that he’d fall in love with the starlet, he’d quickly fled from Hollywood and headed back to New York. The two kept in touch for a while, exchanging book lists and notes, but there was no romantic attachment. Interestingly, in 1954, when asked by Pageant magazine to name ten men who interested her, the current Mrs. DiMaggio gave Arthur Miller a glowing report:
He is one of the few contemporary playwrights who has found a way to successfully mirror our times. Like in Death of a Salesman. Or, he’s also adapted Ibsen’s Enemy of the People. Like in his new play, about a witch hunt. In his plays, he has a way of waking people up with what he says. I know there are wonderful things to come from him still. Yes, I’ve met him. He’s very attractive personally. I think his play that meant the most to me was Death of a Salesman, but the thing I liked most was a book he wrote, called Focus. It was about anti-Semitism. I wish he’d write more books. It was a very serious, wonderful book.
While she may have raved about him in 1954, it wasn’t until a year later, when Marilyn was in Manhattan and Miller’s marriage was crumbling, that they reintroduced themselves properly. This time, he did not run away. Instead, he became even more estranged from his wife and fell madly in love with Marilyn. Because the DiMaggio divorce was not yet final, and Miller was still living in his marital home, the romance remained a closely guarded secret. During this time, whenever asked if there was any relationship in her life, Marilyn always—without exception—told reporters that there was nobody and she wished there was.
This period of secrecy must surely have been difficult, but somehow the couple managed to carry out their romance with just a few rumors here and there. Together they explored Brooklyn, met in friends’ homes, and went to offbeat restaurants and on bike rides to districts not known to be frequented by fans or press. The relationship was so secret that even her hairdresser, Peter Leonardi, was surprised when it was eventually revealed. “I was with her morning, noon, and night during this time, and I never even heard the name Miller,” he said.
Years later, the actress told Louella Parsons about her admiration for the playwright: “I am in love with the man, not the mind. When I first met Arthur, I didn’t even know he was the famed writer of plays and the Arthur Miller I became attracted to was the man—a man of such charming personality, warmth, and friendliness. I won’t say that later I didn’t fall more in love with him after I grew to know him and to appreciate his great talent and intellect. But I would have loved him for himself without his fine achievements.”
IN EARLY SUMMER 1955, Milton and Amy Greene left on a trip to Europe to try to find suitable projects for MMP. This revelation intrigued and amused columnist Hedda Hopper, who quipped that they would surely need Zanuck’s permission before purchasing anything for Marilyn herself. In any case, Milton asked if the actress would like to go with them, but instead she decided to stay in New York to study and spend time with Arthur Miller.
While the Greenes might have been anxious to find work for the actress, she was being inundated with scripts and potential offers. The Jean Harlow biopic surfaced again, and there were The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, Bus Stop, and The Blue Angel. Marilyn was also rumored to be interested in purchasing the rights to a civil war story called The Smiling Rebel. But work was not on the immediate agenda, and at the end of July, Marilyn spent the weekend in Connecticut, relaxing with Cheryl Crawford.
In early August, she attended the centennial celebrations in Bem
ent, Illinois. Promoted as a day dedicated to President Lincoln and the arts, Marilyn was thrilled to take part, especially since she had long been an admirer of the former president. Photographer Eve Arnold captured the Bement trip with her camera, and the photos reveal a tired but determined woman, anxious to do her best and make people happy. Marilyn worked hard that day, and the residents greatly appreciated her taking the time to speak to them. A highlight came when she was asked to judge a competition to see who had the best beard in town. This had little to do with culture, but Marilyn went along with it in good humor, telling reporters that some of the beards were longer than her hair.
An obvious hit in Bement, days later Marilyn was invited to a Soviet embassy reception in Washington, DC. The aim was to meet Soviet agriculturists who were touring the United States, but the actress turned the organizers down, blaming a prior commitment. Shortly before the invitation, the delegates had viewed There’s No Business Like Show Business and gave their approval. “It seems to me she’s not there for the sake of the motion picture,” said one delegate, “but instead the motion picture exists for her.”
The summer continued on a calm and happy path. She spent a weekend with the Rostens and also took up residence with the Strasbergs in their summer house on Fire Island. While there, residents got used to seeing Marilyn on the beach, wearing jeans and no makeup, her hair uncombed and her feet bare. Beside her always would be a stack of books, several of them volumes of poetry. Most people stared quietly from afar, but there were those admirers who got a little too close. One day on Fire Island she was mobbed to such a degree that the police had to be called. A few weeks later, during a trip to Port Jefferson, Marilyn and Norman Rosten were forced into the sea by a crowd of fans and literally had to swim for their lives.
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