AWAY FROM OFFICIAL LESSONS at the Actors Studio, Marilyn loved studying with Lee Strasberg, and the family apartment was always open to her. The couple had a magnificent library of books, and Marilyn would spend hours looking through the shelves. Almost every time she visited, she would go home with another biography to read or a play to study. The Strasbergs’ home was often filled with students and creative beings, and offered a steady supply of bagels, hot chocolate, and artistic discussion.
Actress Jane Fonda later told television host David Letterman that she had been at the Strasbergs’ apartment one afternoon when Marilyn walked in. The men in the room were excited to see her, but the actress immediately zoned in on Jane and spent the party with her. Jane surmised that it was because she felt safe with her; they were both young women together.
Marilyn could be shy at the Strasberg get-togethers, but she also had the ability to charm even the most ungracious of guests. Paula Strasberg saw this side of her many times, and described her as being “informed, acute, and enchanting. She has a genuine wit and is always feminine, which is becoming a lost art.” Writer Radie Harris recalled a time at the apartment when Marilyn walked in wearing a particularly glamorous gown, covered with sequins. According to Harris, various other students paid Marilyn a lot of attention that evening, and one told her she would make a wonderful Rosalind, the woman who dresses herself as a shepherd in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. “Yes, wouldn’t she?” exclaimed Harris rather sarcastically. “Can’t you just see Marilyn disguised as a boy?”
While Marilyn seemed happy to hang around actors at the Strasberg apartment, she was sometimes less confident at parties given by the Greenes. During one Sunday afternoon get-together, actress Tippi Hedren encountered a house full of people, all wondering when Marilyn would appear. After what seemed like hours, the actress eventually came out of her room on the second floor, looked as though she were coming down to the party, but then sat down in a corner. Nobody talked to her, and she made no attempt to mingle. After a while she disappeared, presumably back into her bedroom.
Another party given by attorney-producer Jay Julien had a similar scene. Wearing casual clothes and minimal makeup, Marilyn wandered around the room almost totally unrecognized. She did not socialize with the guests and instead ended up at a bookcase, carefully taking off volumes and leafing through each one. When a partygoer asked what she was looking for, Marilyn replied that she was anxious to find a book about the artist Francisco José de Goya. Amy Greene confirmed this kind of behavior in an article for Photoplay, admitting that although she would occasionally sing if someone was playing piano, Marilyn would be more likely found emptying ashtrays and picking up glasses.
From an outsider’s point of view, Marilyn’s attitude may seem rather aloof. However, considering the reception she had experienced at parties in Hollywood, her reluctance to freely engage is not entirely surprising. From the beginning of her career, Marilyn was invited to events merely to brighten up a table, something for the men to gaze at as they ordered dessert. “All the studios brought their top glamour girls,” explained an early press agent. “I brought Marilyn and paraded her around like a horse in front of a grandstand. Jane Russell was ignored. Marilyn was the hit of the evening.”
Being “paraded like a horse” is a sexist notion in today’s terms, but in the 1940s and 1950s, it was to be expected for Hollywood’s starlets. Songwriter Floyd Huddleston was often asked by the studios to accompany young actresses to parties to keep them safe. One evening he was asked to escort Marilyn. “He had no clue who she was,” recalls his son, Huston. “She was polite and very quiet and they went to a party, but she wanted to stay outside, so they talked about Hollywood and their lives growing up. Dad thought she was very sad and though he tried to crack that surface, he couldn’t.”
The reaction Marilyn got from many male party guests was of a lecherous nature, but from female guests it was something else entirely. Frightened that she would somehow steal their partners, the women would keep one eye on Marilyn and the other on the men, while often discussing her motives and criticizing her attire. While the problems were confined mainly to Hollywood, they sometimes happened in New York too. This was confirmed by an unnamed friend who spoke to reporter Milton Schulman in 1956. “Marilyn’s effect on high-brows is devastating. Whenever she comes to a party the men start behaving like college students. The women don’t like the impression she makes on the men. They don’t say much to her, but they keep watching her all the time.”
During her entire career, the way some women treated Marilyn—at parties and otherwise—was frankly borderline bullying. One vocal tormentor was Joan Crawford, who made headlines in 1953 when she openly criticized Marilyn’s attire at an awards ceremony. “I have never been so embarrassed in my life,” she said. “The makeup of the true star is founded on talent. Miss Monroe is giving a grotesque interpretation of the artistry and sincerity that is, and has always been, behind the making of movies.” Crawford said that since it was mothers who chose what their children and husbands watched at the cinema, they would never knowingly pick anything with Marilyn in it, as it “won’t be suitable.” When she began getting irate letters from Monroe fans, the acidic actress changed tack and said that she had been tricked into saying those words by a reporter who’d asked her “off the record.”
Marilyn replied to the criticism via columnist Louella Parsons. “With all the publicity I’ve had and everything, I suppose it will be hard for many people to believe that I never deliberately throw my sex around, thinking ‘If I do this, it’s sexy—or if I look a certain way, it’s sexy.’” Interestingly, Marilyn actually greatly disliked being described that way. When Earl Wilson asked if she would ever quit being sexy, she replied, “I’ll never quit that! But put it ‘exotic’ will you, instead of sexy?”
In July 1954, Screenland magazine published an article on whether women as a whole liked Marilyn. The principal of a girls’ school had a lot to say on the subject: “I think we’ve been held back by all the publicity,” she said. “It was a shame that Marilyn Monroe was hailed a siren. I don’t believe that women really feared her effect on men—but when the only pictures they ever saw were of Marilyn bursting out of skin-tight, low-cut dresses, it’s not surprising they considered her cheap. In our school, for instance, we wouldn’t let girls see her pictures. We had nothing against Marilyn Monroe, but you can’t allow young and impressionable girls to think scanty clothing is the way to be popular.”
By the time Marilyn moved to New York, various women’s organizations had long since protested loudly over what they considered the provocative way her career was publicized. The Women’s Club of Hollywood even went one step further and demanded to know what studio bosses intended to do to “curb” her. A female columnist took a swipe at Marilyn after she was photographed wearing a low-cut gown when she served as grand marshal of the Miss America contest. Later, when the actress and columnist came face-to-face at a party, Marilyn was charming and friendly to her. “Gosh,” exclaimed a friend, “I thought you’d skin her alive.” Marilyn smiled sweetly and replied, “It was more cruel to leave her skin as it is.”
Still, Marilyn did have her fair share of powerful female admirers who were always willing to come out in support of her. One of these women was actress Faith Domergue. She took her complaints about “clubwomen or jealous movie queens” straight to columnist Erskine Johnson, who published her views. “Nobody can hurt [Marilyn],” she said. “If she stays as she is, holding her ground, being herself, she will be one of the great stars of all time. Women may not approve of an actress, but as long as they’re curious, they’ll come to see her films and bring their men along, too.”
Lana Turner was another actress who saw nothing wrong with building up a fellow woman. When columnist Bob Thomas asked whom she would most like to encounter in Hollywood, Turner saw an opportunity to throw light Marilyn’s way. “I’ll tell you a girl I’d like to meet and that’s Marilyn Monroe. She must be a fascinating personality, considering all she has gone through. She’s taking a lot of knocks because she’s on top now. I wish there were some way I could tell her not to let it get her down.”
One actress shared a name with her, though not by choice. Marilyn Maxwell had become famous in the 1940s, and when she met the second Marilyn in 1948, she was stunned to hear of her desire to become a successful actress. Maxwell suggested that she should change her name to something else so that the two did not get mistaken for each other. However, Monroe had no intention of doing so, and for many years Maxwell was bombarded with fans who thought they were one and the same. In the end, Maxwell gave a standard reply: “No, I’m the Marilyn with clothes on,” though no offense was meant and she actually did greatly admire Monroe. “I think she has done a great deal of good for the movie industry,” she said. “She is just what the business needed—someone to put some glamour and magic back into Hollywood.”
Another staunch supporter was Dame Edith Sitwell, someone who, on first glance, would not have been considered a standard Monroe fan. Sitwell was a British poet, a very posh, outspoken woman who could bring discomfort to even the most experienced of interviewers. However, underneath the fierce demeanor, Sitwell was a wounded woman who’d had a terrible upbringing at the hands of uncaring parents. Their hurtful comments had led to her running away at the age of five (she was found and returned by a neighborhood policeman), and by the time she was a teenager, Sitwell’s father had all but turned his back on her. These childhood experiences alone were enough for her to identify with Marilyn, and during a trip to Los Angeles in 1953, the two were introduced. During a 1959 interview for the BBC’s Face to Face television program, Sitwell explained that the only people she wanted to meet in Hollywood were those who were intelligent and had impeccable behavior. She saw these qualities immediately in Marilyn and warmed to her on sight. When they met, Marilyn was wearing a green dress and talking animatedly about philosopher Rudolf Steiner; the dame decided that Marilyn was an enchanting human being who had been treated extremely poorly within the industry.
Sitwell had been aware of the nude calendar pictures that were taken before Marilyn became famous, and during the discussion determined that it was as a result of those photos that Marilyn was being persecuted. As for those who had treated Marilyn terribly, Sitwell noted that they had obviously never known hunger and what it was like to need money desperately. “Well, there have been nude models before now,” she said. “It means nothing against a person’s moral character at all.”
A downside to Marilyn’s life, Sitwell decided, was that through no fault of her own, unpleasant men seemed to be attracted to her. She witnessed this for herself, but noted that Marilyn never gave these men any attention at all. In fact, she would avoid them completely and at all times behave “like a lady.” After spending some time with Marilyn, Sitwell discovered just how much the woman enjoyed books and highbrow material. She told reporter William Barbour, “Of course I’d be delighted to play literary mother to her. Marilyn is a very seriously-minded girl.”
After various unprovoked attacks in the media, some women began to see past the sex-symbol image and realize that Marilyn was actually a human being, flawed and easily hurt. The way she conducted herself appealed to them, and slowly their feelings began to thaw. Some women, however, had always recognized Marilyn for the intelligent, warm woman that she really was. How to Marry a Millionaire costar Betty Grable sent some advice through Louella Parsons: “I’ve taken plenty of criticism and so have other actresses. Just keep plugging. The important things are your career—and trying to improve yourself.”
Jane Russell, costar in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, classed Marilyn as a friend and refused all requests by the media to belittle or intimidate her. When interviewed by reporter Jon Bruce in 1953, the brunette star had this to say about her so-called rival:
Here was a girl who had the same kind of build-up that I had had, except that she was blonde while I was brunette. I wondered how that build-up had affected her, what it had done to her life, both professional and private. After I met her, I couldn’t see that her publicity had gone to her head in any way. I thought she was far more beautiful, too, than I expected to find her. Her sincerity is impressive and her willingness to listen to and take advice is one of her outstanding qualities. Marilyn is wonderfully sincere in her work. She is always trying to improve and wants to do her best in every scene, yet she makes no effort to steal a scene or upstage anyone ever.
Since she was such a complex character, Marilyn found herself stuck in the middle of two different types of women: those who were disgusted or intimidated by her glamour and wanted her to tone everything down, and those who loved her look just as it was and wanted her to stop trying to be taken seriously. Marilyn shared her views on the subject in 1959: “I’d like to be known as a real actress and human being,” she said, “but listen, there’s nothing wrong with glamour either. I think everything adds up. I’ll never knock glamour. But I want to be in the kind of pictures where I can develop, not just wear tights.”
It could easily be argued that Marilyn suffered frequent frustration because people wanted to pigeonhole her into being just one kind of personality. This undoubtedly came as a result of her unique and modern outlook on life—one more fitting to the twenty-first century rather than the 1950s. She was actually a modern-day feminist, though the very idea struck the nerves of many at the time.
Feminism in the mid-twentieth century was a confusing subject, and some—women as well as men—feared that their homes and workplaces were being threatened by the bewildering attitudes of certain women. “An ardent feminist is a woman who has ambitions beyond her gender if not her talents,” wrote a reporter for the Scotsman. As a result, many who dared claim the mantle of feminist were looked at with great suspicion and derision. Even strong women in high positions were anxious not to identify themselves in such a way.
As Marilyn had told Edward R. Murrow, she was fascinated by Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. His sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, was the Indian high commissioner and therefore a powerful woman. However, even she was loath to describe herself as a feminist. During a press conference in July 1955, a journalist asked if it was true that she did not wish to be referred to that way. “I am not a feminist!” she snapped. “I do not believe the world can be run in compartments, but by the joint endeavors of men and women as equals.”
“That is exactly what a feminist is,” cried the journalist. “I knew she was a feminist!” The writer was thrilled, but Pandit seethed.
In comparison, some women were happy to own the label. British Viscountess Astor had strong opinions: “I cannot understand how any woman with any imagination or understanding could fail to be a hot feminist. I was born a feminist. The more I saw of my father, the more I thought of my mother.” She hated the way women of the 1950s were living their lives, especially given the fights her suffragette sisters had endured in the past. “I believe that the women of this generation are simply ‘going to town’ and having a good time and that they have forgotten the things that really matter,” she said.
Singer Eartha Kitt was joyous to be called a feminist in 1956. “Feminism is something that cannot be put into words,” she told a London luncheon. “It is something that can only be felt. You know if you are a feminist.”
Although vulnerable and complex, Marilyn was a strong woman who consistently fought for what she believed in. However, because of the confusion and stigma related to the word, it is highly unlikely that she would ever have considered herself a feminist in 1955. Friend Norman Rosten further doubted that she would have joined the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s and argued that in terms of economic equality, she had already proven herself.
For all of her fight, Marilyn was most definitely a woman who enjoyed flirting with men, both in manner and the way she dressed. She once told Pete Martin that while some men may prefer a woman to be subtle, she did not believe in false modesty. “A woman only hurts herself that way,” she said. “If she’s coy, she’s denying herself an important part of life.” She added to Bill Foster that she had no problems living in a man’s world, just so long as she could still be a woman.
She was never offended by the attention given to her by men, but at the same time demanded respect when it came to her work. David Wayne, Marilyn’s leading man in How to Marry a Millionaire, remembered an incident that proved just how forthright she could be in the company of powerful men. “Marilyn’s one of the most phenomenal personalities of our time,” he said. “One time one of the studio heads called her in. She’d turned down a picture. He roared at her, ‘I’ve been in this business a long time and I know what’s good for you.’ She said, ‘I’ve been in this business a very short time, but know better what’s good for me than you do!’”
This would not have been received well by Mr. E. Rushworth, treasurer of the National Association of Schoolmasters, who gave a talk about women in 1954. He was disgusted when feminists started crying out for equal rights and pay with their male counterparts. Rushworth described the call as coming from “selfish career women, taking advantage of a delicate political balance.” He surmised that feminists were looking for “an increased economic superiority over their married sisters” and warned that they were about to overturn family life as they knew it. High on his list of concerns was the bizarre concept that if women were equal to men, it would mean that the latter would have to accept lower salaries. It did not seem to occur to him that women were expecting to have theirs increased.
The look of feminism has changed dramatically over the years, especially with the coming of women such as Madonna in the 1980s and even the Spice Girls in the 1990s. They showed young women and teenagers that it was okay to be strong and outspoken while still being sexy, and “girl power” became a mantra. Today, feminism is a very individual and personal aspect of a woman’s character. She can demand respect and equal rights, but at the same time be perfectly comfortable with her femininity. The popular turnout at women’s marches in recent years shows that the torch has passed down through the generations and “feminist” is now a celebrated title, which has also been embraced by modern men such as Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and actor Patrick Stewart. The latter became a staunch supporter of women’s rights after seeing his mother abused by his father when he was a boy. His dialogue about violence during a speech for Amnesty International has become a beacon for women.
It is clear that by today’s definition of what a feminist is, Marilyn could undoubtedly be counted as one. Filmmaker Gabriella Apicella argues this point and agrees that, today, Marilyn is most certainly an icon for female empowerment:
Throughout her short life, she experienced many of the fundamental oppressions that feminism strives to free all women from, and did so within the public eye. Her life has therefore taken on a symbolic significance in terms of how important it is to ensure women are not subjugated on the basis of their gender.
Being a survivor of child sexual abuse, receiving sexist treatment in the workplace, being challenged to sacrifice her career for marriage (causing the breakup of her first two marriages, and being an area of contention in her third), battling her employers for artistic freedom, fair pay, and respectful working conditions are all issues that many women have experienced, and continue to experience even in the twenty-first century.
In this one woman, so many areas essential to the continual fight for female emancipation are conflated. That she overcame struggles outside of any formal feminist movement, while maintaining her characteristically gentle and feminine demeanor powerfully demonstrates one of the facets of feminism that the popular media attempts to hide: that the fight for female empowerment is in some way ‘unfeminine.’
Marilyn may not be the first woman who comes to mind when thinking of feminist icons; however, as an example of a woman who was attempting to live freely, against all the odds that a repressive and abusive male-dominated society threw at her, who achieved immortality in the film industry, Marilyn Monroe deserves to be as well known for her brain and character, as she is for her face and figure.”
DESPITE THEIR IMPENDING FINAL divorce, Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio continued to remain friends. Agent Jay Kanter remembers a happy occasion when he, his wife Judy, Milton, Amy, Marilyn, and Joe were all invited by Sammy Davis Jr. to attend a charity performance he was giving at the Apollo in Harlem. The singer wanted to present his famous guests onstage, so the Greenes and Kanters all walked out first. A ripple of approval echoed around the theater, and then Marilyn appeared and the audience burst into rapturous applause. Everyone was thrilled to see the actress, but when Joe DiMaggio appeared onstage just moments later, there was a near riot of excitement. “The applause was twice as loud for him,” said Kanter. “He was a real hero in that neighborhood.”
The Seven Year Itch premiered on June 1—Marilyn’s twenty-ninth birthday—and her date once again was Joe DiMaggio. This seemed ironic, since it was this very film that had been rumored to have helped tear them apart. After the premiere, DiMaggio had organized a birthday party for Marilyn at his hangout, Toots Shor’s, and the two attended together. Inside, they were seen laughing and joking with other guests, but then the evening soured and they both left abruptly and separately. Later Marilyn told author Maurice Zolotow that a rekindling of the romance was completely out of the question. When pushed further, the actress revealed that she would like to remain friends with the baseball player, but she would absolutely never marry him again.
PREDICTABLY, THE CRITICAL RECEPTION for The Seven Year Itch was much warmer than it had been for There’s No Business Like Show Business. Film Bulletin described it as “a brilliantly produced version of the hit play, chockful of laughs and with the Monroe name insuring rousing returns in all situations…. Marilyn is a delight [and] everything about the film glitters.” Motion Picture Daily was just as complimentary: “The big achievements in humor come from the tour de force acting job turned in by Ewell and the infectious, polished performance of Miss Monroe. In this picture she has grown up a good deal as an actress and her natural beauty is enhanced as a result.”
Another positive review came from the Harrison’s Reports journal. It described The Seven Year Itch as “a top-notch sophisticated comedy, based on the highly successful stage play of the same name…. Marilyn Monroe, aside from her obvious physical attributes, is exceptionally good as the curvaceous blonde, a naïve yet knowing character who is sociable without being designing, but whose natural sexiness plays havoc with Ewell’s vow to remain a faithful husband during his wife’s absence. It is the best role Miss Monroe has had to date, and her deft handling of the characterization proves her ability as a comedienne.”
To celebrate the release, Twentieth Century Fox installed a fifty-two-foot-high cutout of Marilyn in the skirt-blowing scene in Times Square. There to unveil it was none other than TV star Roxanne, the same actress who had spectacularly criticized Marilyn to Earl Wilson in 1954. Passersby were asked what they thought of the photo, and while some expressed a desire to look just like Marilyn, others thought the whole thing was vulgar and in bad taste. The actress herself tended to agree with the latter, not because Marilyn was in the least bit ashamed, but because it was exactly the image she was trying to walk away from.
Knowing that was the case, it is not out of the question to think that possibly the executives at Fox were deliberately trying to provoke her, by displaying the giant cutout in the city Marilyn had “escaped” to. She must surely have been buoyed a few days later, though, when a poll was released that named her the tenth most admirable woman in the world. Whatever Fox thought of her, the men and women of the United States classed her inspirational enough to be on a list that included Queen Elizabeth II, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mamie Eisenhower.
Several days after the installation of the huge cutout, builders were seen taking it down again, and people wondered if the mixed reaction was the cause. Not so, the workmen told reporters; it was merely being replaced by a photo that was more flattering. That may have been the case, but staff at Loews Theatre admitted to reporters that various complaints had been received from people who thought the picture to be in questionable taste. Whether any of these individuals was Marilyn was never revealed.
Theaters around the world thought up fun and innovative ways of publicizing The Seven Year Itch. In Miami, one cinema manager staged a contest to find the best Marilyn look-alike, one wearing the customary white dress blown around by a wind machine. The winner received an all-expenses paid holiday “at a swank hotel.” F. J. Bickler, manager of the Fox Wisconsin Theater in Milwaukee, decided to give his customers what he called a “lie detector test.” In the foyer, staff asked customers if they intended to see The Seven Year Itch. If they said no, they were then handed a small folder complete with photos of the skirt-blowing scene on the cover. The notion was that if you smiled at the photo, you’d enjoy the movie too. It was a somewhat half-baked idea, but it created just the right publicity to get an audience into the auditorium.
Many theaters used large cardboard cutouts of Marilyn to advertise the film, including the Criterion in Oklahoma City, which installed a huge, forty-foot example. But the manager of Loew’s Poli Theatre in Worcester, Massachusetts, went one better. Taking an actual white skirt, he glued it onto the lower half of the cutout and used a fan to blow it skyward. The cutouts worked well until one cinema in Englewood, New Jersey, reported that theirs had been kidnapped from the foyer. It was never found, and skeptical movie magazines claimed the story was a publicity stunt.
Another theater in Portland, Oregon, allowed Marilyn fans to place their footprints in cement, just as she herself had done several years before. For fans who wished to be just like their idol, a photo of Marilyn’s footprints was there for comparison, while a radio commentator lay on the ground to record it all for posterity. In yet another cinema’s competition to find a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, the winner was given the job of riding up and down the sidewalk in a boardwalk stroller, handing out back scratchers to the public—presumably to cure their own “seven-year itch.”
Another—almost unbelievable—story came from Yankton, South Dakota, where theater manager Clyde Crump made the decision to send his customers sugar pills in little envelopes. Once opened, a note revealed the words: “Little Pills for All Your Ills! Your pill should dissolve in water for two and a half hours, during which time visit the Yankton Theater. When you return throw the pill away, because you won’t need it after seeing Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch!”
The vast and varied ways of publicizing the film were exciting for the studio and press alike. “Every day, in every way, exploitation gets better and better,” wrote a reporter for the Motion Picture Herald, “when good men use their heads, hearts and hands, to obtain results.”
It wasn’t just exhibitors who saw an opportunity, however. One enterprising tradesman decided to cash in on the scene between Marilyn and the plumber, where she gets her big toe stuck in the bathtub faucet. Teaming up with the manager of a Lexington, Kentucky, theater, George Pridemore set up a makeshift bathroom in the lobby, complete with a real-life model with her toe jammed up the faucet. Audio pumped into the venue declared, “If this ever happens to you, like it happens to Marilyn Monroe (of all people!) in The Seven Year Itch, starting tomorrow at Schine’s Kentucky, call George Pridemore Plumbing!”
Newspapers also serialized the story of the film, long after its initial release, and Sam Shaw’s photographic book, Marilyn Monroe as The Girl, helped draw in even more fans. While Marilyn would not live long enough to know it, The Seven Year Itch—along with the white, halter-neck dress she wore during the subway-grate scene—would go on to become the most iconic of all her films. Pictures of the actress standing on the grating are still used on everything from clothing, mugs, clocks, and key rings to compact mirrors and storage boxes.
Back in 1955, the publicity campaign paid off considerably. “Weekend business of Twentieth Century Fox’s The Seven Year Itch at Loew’s State was reported to have topped the house record,” reported Motion Picture Daily. “The picture pulled $50,000 for the three days, it was said, with early morning lines forming at the theater’s box office.”
The excitement surrounding the film helped the studio, theater managers, and plumbers alike, but the person most thrilled was Marilyn. While she was still anxious to never play a fluffy role again, the success of the movie gave her power and confidence like she had never had before. She was determined, therefore, to use her leverage to its full advantage.
FOR MARILYN, 1955 WAS a year for making or renewing friendships with great people. Gone were the Hollywood hangers-on, and in came a variety of writers, theater actors, poets, and even fans. Authors Truman Capote and Carson McCullers were gossip buddies, while lenswoman Eve Arnold discussed great literature while snapping her photograph.
Marilyn herself was somewhat astounded that highbrow and creative people were anxious to get to know her. When Earl Wilson told her that Lawrence Langner, founder and director of the Theatre Guild, had begged him to get her autograph, Marilyn was shocked. Not only was Langner involved with the guild, but he was also an established playwright and producer in his own right. The literary great was not too embarrassed to tell Wilson that the last time he’d asked an actress for her autograph was in 1908. He then wrote a beautiful note. “Dear Marilyn: We need you for our Shakespeare Theatre. Yours admiringly, Lawrence Langner.” He then suggested that perhaps Marilyn would act in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “What a dream!” he wrote. Langner wasn’t the only unlikely fan. Poet Robert Frost and author Aldous Huxley were desperate to meet Marilyn, and John Steinbeck, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Grapes of Wrath, wrote to her in April 1955. His mission was to request an autograph for his nephew, Jon, but it was clear that after meeting her in person, he was just as impressed by Marilyn as the young fan was.
One group of admirers consisted of six youngsters who followed Marilyn wherever she went: in and out of taxis, going to the theater, walking home, going shopping—if Marilyn was doing it, they were recording it. These fans became known as the Monroe Six and christened the actress Mazzie as a term of endearment. The photographs taken by the group are remarkable. Because they were amateur snappers, there is no trace of the polished pictures so often posed for by the star. Instead, they reveal a real human being—a messy-haired, dressed-down actress, going about her life. Whereas Los Angeles provided no real opportunity for the fans to have daily access to Marilyn, Manhattan provided the polar opposite, and as time went on, she came to love the Monroe Six as her walking companions. Marilyn told columnist Hedda Hopper that the group even sent her flowers when she was ill and cut out articles for her scrapbooks.
Her fans provided a particular kind of friendship—a safety net of sorts while making her way around the city—but Marilyn also craved companionship of people with a shared interest. This was given to her by way of a rainy Manhattan day when she was out for a walk with photographer Sam Shaw. Shaw had known and photographed Marilyn many times, and she was comfortable in his company. When he suggested sheltering at the home of friends, she trusted his judgment and happily went along. When the door was opened into the apartment of Norman and Hedda Rosten, a cold and wet Marilyn was quickly introduced as Marion and shown to the living room to dry off. Over the course of the afternoon, the Rostens and their visitor spoke about poetry, the couple’s daughter, their lives, and finally careers. Marilyn explained that she was an actress, but even at that point in time, neither Hedda nor Norman recognized her. It was not until “Marion” told them her stage name was Marilyn Monroe that they finally realized it.
The friendship between Marilyn and the Rostens grew quickly, and they would often spend the weekend on Long Island together, talking about books, playing badminton, drinking champagne, and enjoying each other’s company. Marilyn also attended various events with Norman and Hedda, either alone or together, such as a performance by pianist Emil Giles at Carnegie Hall. On that particular occasion, Norman and Marilyn went alone and at the intermission they spoke to Giles himself. He seemed enamored of her and insisted that one day she must visit Russia. Marilyn assured him she would and then they spoke about Dostoyevsky.
When Rosten adapted Joyce Cary’s book Mister Johnston into a play, Marilyn volunteered straightaway to become an investor. It wasn’t a huge success, but it gave actor Earle Hyman the vital stage experience he needed to become a member of the Actors Studio. There, he encountered Marilyn and she took him under her wing, welcoming him warmly and even raising her hand to defend his talents when another actor criticized him. “I thought she was extremely brave to stand up and say that and I never forgot it,” he said.
The friendship of Norman Rosten and his family was quite significant to Marilyn. The Rostens provided security, welcomed her into their home, and genuinely cared about her. The actress adored the happiness her New York friends brought into her life: “For the first time I felt accepted, not as a freak, but as myself,” she said. The fact that Norman was a poet was an added bonus. For many years, Marilyn had enjoyed writing poetry, and although it was a deeply personal subject to her, she had spoken briefly about it in 1951: “You get such wonderful thoughts and ideas at night when you are alone. I like to let my moods come and go then—and that’s when I like to write poetry.” In another interview from the same period she admitted, “My poems are kind of sad, but then so is life.”
During small gatherings at the Rosten house, there would sometimes be impromptu poetry readings. Rosten remembered that Marilyn once read a W. B. Yeats poem titled “Never Give All the Heart.” The words seemed to mesmerize her:
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost
For he gave all his heart and lost.
She read it slowly and with great thought to every word. When she had finished, the whole room was quiet, and the actress looked to be in a world of her own.
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.