Celebrities Project: Marilyn Monroe

I finished my Marilyn Monroe Month (as part of my Celebrities Project) several weeks ago, but I haven't had the motivation to write a recap of my experience here. The truth is, it was terribly depressing to learn about Monroe. What a sad life she led! She never really had a loving home when she was growing up: her mother was mentally unstable and Norma Jean Baker was passed around between foster homes until she was essentially placed in her first marriage by her foster parents. Really, it seems like Marilyn didn't really have close friends throughout her life. She was always surrounded by people, but many of those people didn't care about her as an individual.

I started off by reading My Story by Marilyn Monroe (with Ben Hecht). This autobiography was written only up to a point: the manuscript stops abruptly just after Marilyn goes on her honeymoon with her second husband, Joe DiMaggio. The abrupt ending was fitting in a way, since Marilyn's life also ended so abruptly.

In some ways, it was nice to pair this autobiography with Anthony Summer's book Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe. Although this book was interminably long and repetitive, I did like that Summers tried to help distinguish what was fiction and fact in Marilyn's My Story. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this dramatic actress had the propensity to embellish and exaggerate events of her life. The book's main argument is that Marilyn actually didn't commit suicide, but that she may have wrongfully died due to her compromising affairs with the Kennedy brothers (specifically Robert). There are a lot of suspicious things about the circumstances of her death, including the fact that she was discovered with a phone received clenched in her hand (which typically would not happen if someone had overdosed on sleeping pills, which prompts the hand muscles to relax and drop things before rigor mortis sets in). Regardless of what really happened, it is certain that she had a sad ending to her life: she was mentally and emotionally unstable during the last months of her life, and didn't get the help that she needed to overcome her addictions and problems.

I obviously picked the wrong movies to watch, too. I decided to skip watching the shows that I have already seen and enjoyed, so I didn't see shows like How To Marry a Millionaire (I really love her comedic timing in this show), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or The Seven Year Itch. Instead, I saw Monkey Business (1952) with Cary Grant, in which Monroe plays a secretary that gets involved with a scientist who has discovered a formula which makes people youthful. The film was okay, but it was a little too silly and long, and I didn't think Monroe's comedic timing was that great in this show.

I also saw The Misfits (1961), in which Monroe plays opposite Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift. This movie was really slow paced and not that interesting for the most part, except for one scene at the end of the movie (at 2:16 - 2:21 in this online video). Seeing Marilyn get so upset and scream so loud was so unexpected for me that it was really poignant. It was also interesting to just know that this movie was written by Arthur Miller (Marilyn's third husband, although their marriage was breaking down at the time this was filmed). Marilyn also had an obsession with Cary Grant (she imagined that her estranged father looked like Cary Grant), and so it was interesting to see them play together. Cary Grant died soon after this film was completed.

The movie that was most interesting to watch was the unfinished film of Something's Got to Give (1962) with Dean Martin. This was the last movie that Marilyn started to make before she died, and she was so unstable and unprofessional that she ended up getting fired from the set. She looks unhealthily skinny to me in this film, but perhaps I also had that reaction because I knew of all of the problems she was experiencing with insomnia and alcohol at the time. There are some funny moments in this unfinished film, though, and I did like to see Dean and Marilyn play opposite each other.

I'm realizing in this Celebrities Project that I don't personally connect with many of these celebrity figures, including Monroe. I guess I must have hoped to connect with these figures more, which is perhaps why I've been a little disappointed with the people that I have been studying lately. I do like that Marilyn Moroe loved learning (even though she didn't have the best formal education herself); I enjoyed discovering that she decided to take a university-level art appreciation class 1951, after she decided that she wanted to be more cultured. I also like that she collected art and loved to read. But beyond those points, it was hard to connect with someone who lived so out-of-touch with reality and who desperately craved attention. I'm just not that kind of person!

UPDATE 4/24/22: Someone on Twitter posted this picture of a rose that was painted by Marilyn Monroe in 1962. It is fun to know that she was interested in making art on her own: