Marilyn Monroe: Out of a Dream

photo by Jack Cardiff

One chilly winter morning in 1953, a 15-year-old boy took a bus from his home in New Jersey to New York City in search of adventure. His conception of the city then was of Times Square and he roamed the neighborhood until daylight began to fade. As he made his way to the Port Authority Terminal and his bus trip home, he noticed a long black limousine driving slowly toward him. The limo came to a stop and its driver jumped out and opened the back door at the curb. As he did, he motioned the boy to stay where he was so his passenger would have a clear path across the sidewalk. Nearly 60 years later, the man who had been that boy remembered,"...a white-gloved hand reached out for help and it was given. Then came a face of dizzying beauty..." She was blonde and she wore a long gown that appeared to be made of "tiny white pearls seemingly flung at her in wild abandon and clinging to every pore. Around her neck, over her wrists and on her ears were brightly sparkling diamonds." The boy's heart was already pounding when, as she turned, the woman noticed him, smiled and whispered, "Hi."

photo by Richard Avedon

The bedazzled boy, Frank Langella, who grew up to be an Oscar-nominated, three-time Tony-winning actor, was stunned. He had serendipitously encountered Marilyn Monroe, "the girl" who enraptured the world that year in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire and would soon create pandemonium with The Seven Year Itch. Years later Richard Avedon, one of many famed photographers for whom the actress posed, would comment, "There was no such person as Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe was an invention of hers. A genius invention that she created like an author creates a character."

The vision that materialized before wide-eyed young Frank Langella on a New York street was the painstaking creation of the former Norma Jeane Baker, but the realization of this fantasy creature had required inspiration and encouragement from others. Not too unlike an orphan on a quest in a folk tale, she rose from humble origins, faced great obstacles and setbacks and, with the aid of others along with her own hard work and desire, transformed her life.

Norma Jeane Baker, age nine

In 1935, Grace McKee, a friend and co-worker of Gladys Baker at a Hollywood editing lab, became her unstable friend's court-appointed guardian and the legal guardian of the woman's nine-year-old daughter, Norma Jeane. A childless peroxide blonde with "stage mother" instincts, McKee filled the little girl's imagination with lavish fancies of one day becoming a bombshell movie star like the one with whom she herself was obsessed - Jean Harlow. When Grace married "Doc" Goddard, Norma Jeane was, for a time, sent to live in the red-brick mansion that served as the Los Angeles Orphans Home. Grace would take the girl out to lunch and a movie most Saturdays and regularly had the child's hair styled at a beauty parlor. Norma Jeane would be returned to the orphanage with her hair freshly curled and be-ribboned and, on occasion, wearing makeup Grace had applied to her very young face. The guardian coached the girl on her smile and paraded her in front of friends crowing "isn't she pretty?" and bragged that the child was going to grow up to be beautiful and famous. It would be little more than a decade after becoming Norma Jeane Baker's guardian that Grace Goddard would, because her charge was not yet 21, sign the girl's first contract with 20th Century Fox.

When Johnny Hyde, a powerful William Morris agent on the West Coast, met 22-year-old Marilyn Monroe on New Year's Eve 1949, she was a starlet adrift in the wilderness of the "party circuit" looking for a break. At one time known as producer "Joe Schenk's girl," she had been under contract to Fox for a year, from 1946 to 1947, and with Columbia Pictures for just six months in 1948. It was during her stint at Fox that she had adopted her screen name with the help of Ben Lyon, the studio's casting director. "Monroe" was her mother's family name; Lyon suggested "Marilyn." He had known and loved Broadway star Marilyn Miller before his marriage to Bebe Daniels, and Norma Jeane Baker reminded him of the talented and lovely blonde, blue-eyed actress who had died young.

Marilyn Monroe in 1950

For Johnny Hyde, meeting Marilyn Monroe led to an enchantment that brought an end to his marriage and the beginning of his tireless promotion of her career. He saw a singular quality in the sensuous blonde and worked to make things happen quickly for her. By the time of his sudden death in 1950, Hyde had negotiated parts for her in John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Joseph Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950). Her success in these roles led to a new, more generous contract with Fox, an agreement that was secured by Hyde.

Howard Hawks had been unimpressed with the starlet when he first met her in 1948. But after seeing her in The Asphalt Jungle, he realized she had something. And when she was cast in a supporting role in one of his films, Monkey Business (1952), he took a closer look at her potential. Hawks became convinced that Fox chief Darryl Zanuck was misreading Marilyn's appeal, too often casting her in the wrong sort of films. He told Zanuck, "You're making realism with a very unreal girl. She's a completely storybook character..." and urged him to produce Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a studio property, and cast her in it; furthermore, he agreed to direct.

In 1949 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes had made Carol Channing a Broadway sensation; in 1953, the screen adaptation had an even more powerful impact on the career of Marilyn Monroe. With the film's tremendous success, Marilyn left behind forever her years as a struggling cheesecake model/rising newcomer and emerged a bona fide superstar. She proved to have a talent for comedy and a fine sense of timing and, with Howard Hawks creating the ideal vehicle for her and overseeing an elegant Technicolor upgrade of her look and style, she embodied to scintillating perfection a funny, sexy, sweet and unique confection that produced fireworks on the screen.

In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn Monroe and top-billed co-star Jane Russell are well-matched as a pair of gorgeous gal-pal showgirls on the loose on the high seas and in Paris. Delectably dizzy/witty blonde Lorelei and droll, down-to-earth brunette Dorothy cut loose in clever comic scenes and dynamic musical routines. Both perform renditions of the centerpiece number, "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend." Marilyn's version became legendary. 

Fox strikes again! This video clip has been blocked.

Fox's next assignment for its new star was not as solid a film as her last, but it was even more popular. How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) teamed Marilyn with not just one but two other glittery leading ladies - Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall. Another glamor-fest, the story follows three models who rent a ritzy penthouse in Manhattan for a year in hopes of luring and marrying wealthy suitors before their lease expires. Bacall's is the central storyline and hers is the commonsense character; Grable and Marilyn are both ditzy-but-dear dumb blonde types. Marilyn, of course, is the knockout in the trio and, next to her, Betty Grable seems a decade out-of-date. How to Marry a Millionaire was the #5 box office hit of 1953, with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes close behind at #6. As for Marilyn Monroe, she was on top.

Marilyn in a classic Travilla gown

By the time Darryl Zanuck conspired with Billy Wilder to adapt the Broadway adultery romp, The Seven Year Itch, to the screen for Marilyn in 1955, there was no longer any need to pair her with another actress or even an established leading man to bolster the film's box office appeal. Though it is minor Wilder, The Seven Year Itch is the film that certified Marilyn as a phenomenon. On Broadway, George Axelrod's play centered on the brief affair of a married man with his gorgeous neighbor while his family is away on vacation. Even though Hollywood's Production Code demanded that there be no adultery in the adultery comedy, the onscreen presence of Marilyn Monroe was enough to tantalize and satisfy a worldwide audience. The studio's enticing publicity campaign - it was all about Marilyn in a billowy white dress - created a furor.

For a while the sensitive but wily star was able to navigate Hollywood's treacherous rapids. She managed to use the scandal of nude calendar photos to her advantage; she explained away the revelation that she was not, technically, an orphan; and she weathered the outcry stirred by the public remarks of Joan Crawford who implied she was lewd and vulgar. But Marilyn could never cope with her performance anxiety. 

Billy Wilder, ever outspoken and eminently quotable, quipped about his tribulations in working with Marilyn, "I had no problems with Monroe. It was Monroe who had problems with Monroe."

Marilyn sans makeup

Fritz Lang, who had directed her in Clash by Night (1952), remembered that she was "...scared as hell to come to the studio, always late, couldn't remember her lines..." And Howard Hawks noted, "The more important she became, the more frightened she became." Whitey Snyder, Marilyn's makeup artist from her Fox screen test to her funeral, thought her anxiety was connected to her appearance. He said that though she knew every makeup trick there was and used them to marvelous effect, "...it was all an illusion: in person, out of makeup, she was very pretty but in a plain way, and she knew it." It was more than that, though. Marilyn Monroe wasn't simply at the mercy of a fantastical physical image that required scrupulous upkeep. Her ever-shifting entourage included more than hair, makeup and massage professionals, she was also closely attended by personal confidants, studio advisors, talent agents, attorneys, psychotherapists, trophy husbands - and drama coaches.

Determined to be more than a pretty onscreen face with a voluptuous body, she took acting seriously. Teacher Natasha Lytess, employed by Fox at Marilyn's insistence, coached her even as the actress performed in front of the camera. Howard Hawks balked at this and successfully barred Lytess from the set of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Billy Wilder referred to her as "that creature Lytess" but put up with her on The Seven Year Itch.

By the mid-'50s, Marilyn was studying with "method" guru Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York. Julie Newmar, a member of the Studio at the time, remembered her performance of a scene from Anna Christie with Maureen Stapleton. She recalled that Marilyn's hand actually shook as she lifted a drink from the bar. In her view, Marilyn reflected precisely the essence of Strasberg's teachings - she had become Anna Christie. Of Lee Strasberg, Newmar mused that he favored three kinds of artists, "the highly gifted; the injured, tortured souls; and the beauty queens. He adored Marilyn." Soon Lytess was replaced as Marilyn's personal acting coach by Paula Strasberg, Lee's wife.

...with Brando promoting a 1955 Actors Studio benefit

Billy Wilder happily agreed to tackle another project with Marilyn in 1959; her natural luminosity was "something extra, something special" that he believed no one else could bring to the film. He would struggle mightily with her on the comedy masterpiece Some Like it Hot and was critical of the effect method acting seemed to have had on her. Before she took up Strasberg's approach, he said, Marilyn came before the camera as if she were about to walk a tightrope over a pit. After adopting "the method" it seemed to him that she focused her full concentration on only the pit...

Over the years, perhaps in an attempt to deal with her terror of "the pit" and other personal woes, Marilyn became dependent on drugs - pills that lifted her up or calmed her down or put her to sleep - and alcohol. Her reputation for being unreliable and difficult grew to epic proportions. Those who worked on her later films reported that she sometimes appeared on the set as if in a daze and, during the filming of Some Like it Hot, screenwriter Izzy Diamond recalled that she sipped liquor from a thermos that ostensibly contained coffee.

photo by George Barris

When Marilyn returned to Hollywood in 1960 after years of making her home in New York, she sought the care of Freudian analyst Ralph Greenson. The doctor, who treated her until her death, diagnosed her as "a borderline paranoid addictive personality." Norma Jeane Baker had endured a confusing and chaotic childhood, passed from home to home among friends and family - to an orphanage and back - until she was handed off in marriage at just 16.  Young Marilyn Monroe was also passed around - among the powerful men of Hollywood - during her years as an aspiring starlet. From a psychological standpoint, then, it's no surprise that her relationships were intense and volatile, her identity unstable, her emotions erratic and her actions impulsive. Greenson, who viewed her as a perennial orphan, discarded traditional therapeutic methods and took up a highly unorthodox approach in treating her. In a misguided attempt to "save" her, he welcomed Marilyn into his home and family and took on the role of "father" as well as therapist. He had set for himself an impossible task.

Something's Got to Give (1962)

Even at the peak of her popularity, Marilyn was considered risqué, a sex symbol, and was not taken seriously. Her film roles changed little over time and became, for her, a deadly repetition – the artless, often giddy showgirl, or ex-showgirl. Cherie in Bus Stop (1956), Elsie in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), Sugar in Some Like it Hot, Amanda in Let’s Make Love (1960) and even Roslyn in The Misfits (1961) are variations on a type the actress wanted to break. With her final, unfinished film, George Cukor’s Something’s Got to Give, she was cast in a role that might have helped her broaden the "Marilyn Monroe" persona; Ellen Wagstaff Arden was beautiful but she was also married and the mother of two small children. Had she been able to finish the film, Marilyn might have gone on to romantic comedy roles a la Doris Day or Shirley MacLaine. It’s also possible she could have moved into mature dramatic roles as Ava Gardner, Lee Remick and others did. But this was not to be. Life as a cultural metaphor and brand-name commodity may simply have been too much for a woman already consumed by an array of insecurities.

50 years ago Marilyn Monroe stepped out of the dream and into eternity. Her extravagant fulfillment of a childhood guardian’s fuzzy fantasies had taken her on a journey both harrowing and exhilarating, but her life would come to no fairytale ending. Only with death would come transcendence, and the mythical being she so carefully fashioned and brought to vibrant life lives on, unforgettable and bewitching.

photo by Bert Stern

This post is my contribution to the Summer Under the Stars blogathon hosted by Jill of Sittin' on a Backyard Fence and Michael of ScribeHard on Film. Click here to learn more...

 

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Notes:
Marilyn Monroe: The Biography by Donald Spoto, Harper Collins (1993)
Marilyn Monroe by Barbara Leaming, Crown (1998)
On Sunset Blvd.: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder by Ed Sikov, Hyperion (1998)
Marilyn Monroe: Metamorphosis by David Wills and Stephen Schmidt, It Books (2011)
Dropped Names by Frank Langella, Harper (2012)

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Backstage Moments...

Allan 'Whitey' Snyder and Marilyn Monroe on The Seven Year Itch

I routinely scour the Internet for pictures to go along with my my blog posts here and, in the process, I've come upon many interesting photos that I haven't used. I thought it might be fun to post a few of those taken on movie sets along with a little bit of movie lore (and other "extras").

Wilder, Marilyn & a $4.6 mil. dress

Above, Marilyn Monroe's makeup artist, Allan 'Whitey' Snyder, prepares her for a famous scene in The Seven Year Itch (1955). Marilyn was basking in the early glow of international fame when she began work on the Billy Wilder comedy in 1954. Her popularity had been firmly established with her co-starring turns in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1954) and, at the time she started on her first film with Wilder, she was newly married to baseball superstar Joe DiMaggio. Legend has it that Joe stood on the sidelines watching as Wilder shot - and re-shot - takes of Marilyn's famous subway grate scene. Filming took place on the streets of New York and a crowd had gathered to watch. The slugger reportedly stormed off the set, incensed by the cheers and whistles of onlookers that erupted each time Marilyn's skirt blew skyward.

Audrey Hepburn, Blake Edwards's back and George Peppard

Monroe's marriage to DiMaggio failed in nine months, but her star continued to rise with films like Josh Logan's critically acclaimed Bus Stop (1956) and Billy Wilder's über-classic Some Like it Hot (1959). In 1961, Blake Edwards took on the film adaptation of Truman Capote's novella, Breakfast at Tiffany's. The novelist wanted Marilyn Monroe to be cast as Holly Golightly, the heroine of his tale. But Monroe balked, she worried that the role of a freewheeling party girl might have a negative impact on her career.

Audrey taking guitar lessons on the set

Enter Audrey Hepburn, Oscar-winning star of Roman Holiday (1950) who took the part of Holly Golightly and went on to make it one of her signature roles. The film provided what has become the iconic vision of Audrey Hepburn - upswept 'do, Givenchy gowns, waif-in-Manhattan persona - with or without sunglasses. The film co-starred newcomer George Peppard as Holly's love interest - but many were considered for the part. It has been said that Steve McQueen was up for the role...to quote Holly, "the mind reels."

Breakfast at Tiffany's won Oscars for its score and theme song, "Moon River," a Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer tune.

Tony Curtis, Mia Farrow, Roman Polanski

Polish auteur Roman Polanski was known mostly to fans of foreign film and art house patrons before he began making films in the U.S. in 1968. His first full-length feature, Knife in the Water (1962) was Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film and by year's end Polanski was on the cover of Time magazine. His next masterwork, Repulsion (1965), starred 21-year-old Catherine Deneuve. It was illustrious and infamous producer Robert Evans, head of Paramount at the time, who lured Polanski to Hollywood. Their first effort was the trend-setting horror sensation, Rosemary's Baby (1968).  But the film featured no big names in its cast. Mia Farrow (Rosemary) was known only for her role on the prime-time TV soap Peyton Place and as Frank Sinatra's much younger wife. Her co-star, John Cassavetes (Guy, Rosemary's husband) had starred on a TV detective series (Johnny Staccato), been a featured player in several films and was early in his own career as an auteur director. But neither was a star. The many old-timers in supporting roles (Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Elisha Cook Jr.) were far past their prime. The biggest Hollywood name attached to the picture did not appear onscreen or receive a credit...he was a top star from the 1950s through the mid-'60s: Tony Curtis. In Rosemary's Baby he provided the voice of an off-camera character named Donald Baumgart, an actor whose sudden blindness is key in advancing Guy's career. Curtis's voice is heard in the scene in which Rosemary calls to ask about the circumstances surrounding his loss of sight. Farrow apparently didn't know it was Curtis, but his voice sounded familiar and this disconcerted her as she played the scene. It seems that was the effect Polanski was hoping for.

Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in Africa

John Huston's The African Queen (1951) is legendary for many reasons. It was the film for which Humphrey Bogart won his only Best Actor Oscar. It is the one and only teaming of Bogart with co-star Katharine Hepburn, a memorable pairing. The film was shot on location in Africa at a time when such location shoots were relatively rare. The production itself became famous and notorious for what went on off-camera. Clint Eastwood's 1990 White Hunter, Black Heart was a veiled account by writer Peter Viertel (Deborah Kerr's husband) of his experience with Huston and company on that set decades earlier. Even Katharine Hepburn chimed in with her own account - in book form: The Making of the African Queen: Or, How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind.

William Wyler and Bette Davis in deep discussion on The Letter

Bette Davis proclaimed loud and 'til the end of her days that William Wyler was her favorite among the directors she'd worked with and the one she respected most...and...the man that got away. The two made three films together, beginning with Jezebel (1938). They'd had a less than meet-cute introduction years earlier when neither was well-known. But by 1938 each was on their way up and with Jezebel they meshed perfectly. Onscreen and off; it was during the making of Jezebel that the two were romantically involved. Their second collaboration was The Letter (1940), an adaptation of Somerset Maugham's play. I think it's the best of their three together (the third was The Little Foxes in 1941) and one of Davis's very best films.

Kim Novak takes direction from Hitchcock on Vertigo

In 1958, Alfred Hitchcock created what has been called his most personal film, Vertigo. It is certainly my favorite among his long list of brilliant, hypnotic films. Though not a critical or popular success in its day, Vertigo persevered and is now viewed by most as the director's masterpiece of masterpieces.

At the time, Hitchcock was grooming Vera Miles as a possible replacement for his muse, Grace Kelly, who had decamped to become Princess Grace of Monaco. But Miles was pregnant by the time Vertigo was ready go into production...and Hitchcock moved on to Kim Novak. Vertigo is the film for which Novak is best known and remembered. Her only regret? That she didn't ask for (as was often customary) the stunning Edith Head-designed white coat she wore in several key scenes...

For more on the set moments click here...

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