PARIS —
Sixty years after her death, Marilyn Monroe is back in the limelight as the
subject of the buzzy
Netflix biopic “Blonde”, which premiers at the Venice Film
Festival on Thursday.
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Based on the
bestselling, semi-fictionalized book by
Joyce Carol Oates, it is a dark
retelling of the iconic actress’s life that lifts the lid on the trauma and
fierce intelligence behind the bubbly, sexualized image of the time.
It looks set to
propel Cuban actress Ana de Armas into the A-list and is directed by Australian
Andrew Dominik, who has made two other darkly poetic biopics — “Chopper” and
“The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford”.
These are five
lesser-known facts about Marilyn that have become far more important to her
story in recent years:
Troubled childhood
There was glamour galore in her adult life but Marilyn’s childhood,
when she was called Norma Jeane, was a very different story.
She grew up
partly with her mother but when Gladys Monroe was placed in a psychiatric
hospital, her young daughter was shuttled between orphanages and foster homes.
She developed a
stutter which a therapist helped her manage.
She never knew
her real father and for several years believed her mother’s account that he had
died.
His true
identity was only confirmed in 2022 in a French television documentary, which
revealed after DNA tests that her biological father was Charles Stanley
Gifford, a colleague of her mother’s at a film production company.
Bookish with big ambitions
In the years since Marilyn’s death a more complex picture has emerged
of the actress and singer, who was objectified as the definitive “blonde bombshell”
pin-up.
Marilyn was not
only an avid reader but also tried her hand at poetry and yearned for
challenging acting roles, including the complex female protagonist in
Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov”.
The shelves of
her library were filled with classics by writers including James Joyce, Samuel
Beckett, Marcel Proust, and Gustave Flaubert.
In the clearest
sign of her serious acting ambitions, she broke out of the Hollywood cocoon
just when her career was taking off to join the prestigious Actor’s Studio
school in New York.
Of all the
students that passed through its doors, director Lee Strasberg said two pupils
shone brighter than the rest — Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe.
Elevated Ella Fitzgerald
Among Marilyn’s role models was Abraham Lincoln. She would make her own
mark on the civil rights movement, helping to elevate jazz singer Ella
Fitzgerald at a time when racism was rife in the US.
As Fitzgerald
liked to recount, Marilyn used her star power to get her a gig at famous Los
Angeles night club, the Mocambo.
Marilyn told the
owner if Fitzgerald got a run on stage, she would sit up front each night,
assuring big business for the bar.
It was a deal
and a jazz star was born.
Rebel with a cause
Decades before MeToo, Marilyn was challenging the male-dominated studio
system.
As early as
1953, she published an article in the industry magazine Motion Pictures
Magazine calling out the “wolves I have known” prowling and exploiting young
women.
“Girls in every
walk of life have to take great care that they don’t find themselves just
another scalp on some man’s belt,” she wrote in a remarkably candid article.
A year later,
she founded her own production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, with the
photographer Milton Greene.
Mystery to the grave
Marilyn’s shock death at the age of 36 remains a mystery and source of
widespread speculation.
“Probable
suicide” was the coroner’s conclusion but many have debated whether the act was
accidental or intentional. Some speculate she may even have been murdered,
following rumors of romantic entanglements with
US President John F. Kennedy
and his brother Bobby.
She was
discovered in bed at home on August 5, 1962, with one hand holding the
telephone. No note was found.
Her third
husband, playwright Arthur Miller, did not attend her funeral, but her second
husband and lifelong friend, baseball star Joe DiMaggio did. The pair had
reportedly been planning to remarry on August 8, the day she was buried.
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