5th August 1962

I suppose we should mention that Marilyn Monroe departed on this date 55 years ago, in 1962. I remember it well, being 16 at the time, and we had seen her BUS STOP that Saturday night, 4th August, at our small town cinema in Ireland - while events must have been unfolding in Los Angeles.

Sunday the 5th I was sitting in a deck chair in the garden with the radio on, when a newsflash came on air ... it was hard to believe at the time, and course there were no rolling news channels or internet then, so we had to wait for the papers next day.

The first of the Marilyn features began unrolling that year - I loved (and still have) this late 1962 magazine, the swish upmarket London magazine TOWN, the first to feature those beach pictures by George Barris and a nice appreciation by David Robinson. This issue fetches quite a price now, as per my previous posts on it - MM labels.  

As with James Dean, one wonders what might have been - both Doris Day and Jeanne Moreau turned down Mrs Robinson in THE GRADUATE - could Marilyn have done it? or those 70s Ellen Burstyn roles in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW or ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE ... she might have been ideal if she could face getting older and being in her forties. THE MISFITS shows she was moving into black and white dramas, away from the fluff Fox was still casting her in ...

Next: Marlon in ONE-EYED JACKS - brilliant or bizarre?

Gina - 90 !

We quite like Gina Lollobrigida here and she turned 90 yesterday! (Sophia is a mere 82, Jeanne Moreau almost 90 as well ...). We grew up on Gina movies like HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (she was a dazzling Esmerelda for us young kids), SOLOMON AND SHEBA, COME SEPTEMBER, WOMAN OF STRAW, NEVER SO FEW, TRAPEZE, etc. and she did some interesting choices in the 60s and 70s too (like Skolimowski's KING QUEEN KNAVE in '72), as she got more interested in sculpting and photography. 
We like this photo with her and Marilyn Monroe - presumably taken on the set of THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH in 1955. Gina goes on and on, as per other posts on her. 

Marilyn's birthday

She would have been 91 today.   This little magazine from 1958 (I would have been 12) was really my first exposure to the Monroe myth - how vividly I remember that red swimsuit cover, and couldn't wait to get to see HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE and all the other MMs then .... 

Lots more MM at labels ...

Back to 1957 with ....

When I was 11 in 1957, a favourite movie magazine - one of the American fan ones - was maybe called "Screen Stories", featuring stories and photos from the current movies. This particular issue featured RAINTREE COUNTY, THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR, LOVING YOU, FUNNY FACE and others -- I can still visualise it. This week two of these re-surfaced, the Marilyn and the Elizabeth saga. Of the two I think Marilyn came out the winner.

Both had been working hard throughout the early Fifties, Liz having four movies out in 1954, but once GIANT catapulted her into the  major league, she slowed down to one prestige film a year .... as did Marilyn, who had formed her own production company with Milton H Greene, after moving to New York and was seeking more important projects, than the fluff 20th Century Fox saw her in. Terence Rattigan's play, THE SLEEPING PRINCE, seemed the ideal choice, with Laurence Olivier directing and co-starring, and a good British cast, filmed in England in 1956. We have covered that in detail before here, particularly when the film MY WEEK WITH MARILYN came out. Looking at it again now it is utter delight.

It is a totally different Marilyn from her Fox movies, ace cameraman Jack Cardiff photographs her lovingly, she had never looked better and proves herself a delightful comedienne, holding her own with Olivier, whose sly portrayal is a joy too. Marilyn in that skintight white dress, with the white choker necklace, and the nice period detail. 
Good to see Richard Wattis in a good role for once, and Marilyn with Jean Kent, Maxine Audley, Gladys Henson, Vera Day and with that forgotten actor Jeremy Spenser as the young prince,  (All covered at labels). Of course the production was notoriously difficult with Marilyn's delays and insecurities, but none of it shows on the screen. Its a pleasure to sink into any time. 

RAINTREE COUNTY on the other hand is now a colossal bore and did Taylor no favours. Her damaged southern belle is no Scarlett O'Hara, and the film is a plod through the usual Civil War dramatics. 
Eva Marie Saint is wasted, but we get lots of the young Lee Marvin, Rod Taylor, Nigel Patrick. Montgomery Clift seems to stumble through it, We wonder which scenes were before and after his car accident. He and Taylor though did look great in Bob Willoughby's photos from the set, and seemed to be enjoying themselves, The film was never given the full dvd release initially, as though MGM did not want to bother with it. At least Liz had those Tennessee Williams roles lined up next: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, while Marilyn went back to Billy Wilder and the immortal SOME LIKE IT HOT. Liz may have been the dramatic actress, but Marilyn could sing, do comedy and musicals, as well as dramatics, and seems to have endured better.

Monroe and Taylor would be in contention again five years later in 1962 when CLEOPATRA and MM's SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE where making the headlines .... 

Still of the day: The Misfits

Sky Movies are running lots of Marilyn movies just now, but never THE MISFITS. I used to be obsessed about this 1961 John Huston film when I was younger, and saw it lots of times in that pre-video world - I had to go to any screening of it. Its one I need to see again now, before too long. Lots on it at MM labels. 

And here's Thelma .....

Latest MM memorabilia

We have found a treasure trove of Monroe memorabilia including some "Vanity Fair" magazines I had not seen, and photographer Lawrence Schiller's memoir MARILYN & ME (see post below) covering that shoot on SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE in 1962 when he took those pool photographs which made the cover of LIFE magazine and are still fascinating now. 

This year too VANITY FAIR ICONS appeared, a choice glossy magazine for MM fanatics, with great text and photographs, including appraisals of the Strasbergs, De Maggio, Miller; excerpts from Tony Curtis's memoir, and Lawrence Schller's. and reports on those MM documents and possessions which were stored away after her death, and inherited by Lee Strasberg's third wife, who did not even know MM. 

The first serious writing on Monroe was probably that nice feature by David Robinson in that October 1962 issue of TOWN magazine, which I had when I was 16 - it was great to find it again recently on a vintage magazine site, it costs quite a lot now!  There was also that early fan mag, covering the MM years.

Back in the early sixties, we liked those early MM books, before the avalanche of them followed: that early one by George Carpozi; MARILYN, THE TRAGIC VENUS by Edwin P. Hoyt (first published in 1967),  and NORMA JEANE by Laurence Guiles with that silvery Beaton cover shot. THE FILMS OF MARILYN MONROE of course, Then the 1973 Norman Mailer tome certainly brought Marilyn into the mainstream, collecting as it did those major photographs by Milton Greene (which a lot of us had not seen before), and the pool pictures by Schiller, and some Eve Arnold shots, and that Mailer text cementing Monroe as the American Icon. Schiller, now 79, and a writer/producer, shot those pool pictures when he was 25. 

Eve Arnold's book on MM contains a wealth too, as does the Barris, Stern, Schiller books on those late photoshoots. The best of the later books is the enormous MARILYN IN THE FLASH, reviewed last year, covering her many public appearances. A lot of the other MM books are not worthwhile and just rehash the usual stuff or try to seek a new angle on her death. 
The books by her maid Lena Pepitone and by Susan Strasberg are worth reading though for different facets on the Monroe persona and life, James Spada's 1982 MARILYN:  A LIFE IN PICTURES is another nice one, and Donald Spoto's huge biography seems to get everything right

(No, Marilyn was not killed by the Kennedys. Her 'suicide' may have been accidental, after being fed all those barbiturates by different people over the years; and her psychiatrist Ralph Greenson and her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, may have had a hand in it.).

So, the Monroe industry goes on and on ..... 

Marilyn by the pool

Its been fascinating reading once again about those final months of Marilyn Monroe's life in 1962, which contained some of her best photo sessions and images. MARILYN & ME by Lawrence Schiller, a nice pocked size memoir, is a particular treat though it includes none of his colour shots of MM and that blue pool and  blue bathrobe. "Vanity Fair" though has printed a lot of them, and they are included in several of the MM books, particularly the Norman Mailer 1973 opus. The black and white shots are terrific though. 

So, in March 62 Marilyn had that trip to Mexico (meeting the likes of director Luis Bunuel - there is a photo of them in the MARILYN IN THE FLASH tome (along with pictures of her with Garland, Callas, and more). 

In May she was filming SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, and looked great in the surviving footage, as per previous reports. This was when Schiller shot the pool images and other shots of her at that time, and later he took that photo of Joe De Maggio at her funeral.  His text is interesting too on meetings with her showing her determination to oust Elizabeth Taylor from the world's press. This was also when she sang Happy Birthday to the President at Madison Square Gardens, before the film was cancelled. 

In June she did the Bert Stern THE LAST SITTING images, containing some great shots.

In July she did the George Barris beach photos at Malibu, generally regarded as the last pictures of her - lots more on these too at MM label. And she also gave that final interview to LIFE magazine - here is a link to that text of her interview with Richard Meryman. 

http://www.marilynmonroe.ca/camera/mags/life62.htm

As Schiller (who first worked with her on LETS MAKE LOVE in 1960, when he was 23) says in his book, each photographer captures a different Marilyn - from the early shots by Andre De Dienes, though the great pictures by Milton Greene, Cecil Beaton, Jack Cardiff, Eve Arnold, Bob Willoughby, Stern, Barris, Avedon, Sam Shaw, and himself - each captures a different facet and look of hers. 

Then the events of August 4/5 unfolded. There was one final picture, which journalist Anthony Summers thought fit to include in his GODDESS book "investigating" her death, rehashing all the supposed rumours - a hot topic then fascinating the conspiracy nuts - that morgue shot, which once seen, is hard to unsee.
This 1992 Bonhams auction catalogue is a rich trove of all the MM photos from those early and final shoots. 

RIP, continued ...

George Barris (1922-2016) at the grand age of 94. The uninitiated may wonder who, but Barris was maybe the last of those those great photo-journalists from the Golden Age - check Eve Arnold and Bob Willoughby, labels below, and like them he too took some amazing photographs of Marilyn Monroe. I have lived with Barris's pictures since the '60s, and had some good prints, and like Arnold he also did a book of them. He was also good friend with MM and captures her nicely in his writings on her, He later moved to Paris. 

He of course took those final pictures of her in July 1962 on the beach at Mailibu and also at a house, showing that new sleek radiant Marilyn - who only had a month more to live .... so here's one or two of them again .... 
(lots more at MM label).



Rod Temperton (1949-2016) aged 66. Surprisingly the British songwriter and musician from Cleethorpes wrote those massive hits for the Michael Jackson albums OFF THE WALL and THRILLER, due to his association with Quincy Jones, as Temperton was part the funk band Heatwave in the '70s. I particularly liked his "Love Is In Control" and others for Donna Summer in '82, and George Benson's "Give Me The Night", James Ingram's "Yah Mo B There" as well as hits for Patti Austin and Herbie Hancock, and Quincy's THE DUDE and BACK ON THE BLOCK albums. We need to replay them.

Orry, Ingrid, Tab documentaries .....

Documentaries on movies and movie-makers don't seem to turn up here in the UK. We first mentioned Australian director Gillian Armstrong's film on Australian gay costume designer Orry-Kelly, WOMEN HE'S UNDRESSED, here 6 months ago back in February, when that lush coffee table tome WOMEN I'VE UNDRESSED was published, based on his memoirs and costume designs for all those classic Hollywood movies of the Golden Age, from CASABLANCA to SOME LIKE IT HOT, with those dresses for Bette (as in JEZEBEL, see below), Marilyn, those LES GIRLS etc. See Books label for more on that.)

I now find the documentary opens in Los Angeles today, but I have also found and ordered an Australian dvd (Region 4 - my first, which should play ok on the multi-region blu-ray/dvd player) which should arrive in a week or so. More on that then, meanwhile here's the trailer:

Also mentioned last year was that documentary based on Ingrid Bergman's home movies, with narration by Alicia Vikander using Ingrid's text. This is now finally being issued here in English in September, and we have pre-ordered it.

But where is that Tab Hunter documentary, TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL, which Tab - now 86 - introduced here last year ago at the LGBT Film Festival at the BFI.

Another Marilyn exhibition - I'm going to this one ...

Marilyn Monroe: The Legacy of a Legend is the latest MM exhibition of her dresses, letters, jewellery etc. and is currently on here in London at The Design Centre in Chelsea Harbour,, until June 20 and admission is free. I do not know The Design Centre, but I think I will be heading there before too long - we will file a report.  MM of course would be 90 today 1st June ! The legend goes on .....

As the flyer puts it:

"Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, in collaboration with Julien’s Auctions, presents a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most enduring screen icons. Epitomising the high glamour of 1950s Hollywood, take a journey through Marilyn Monroe’s life and work, transported into her world through the lens of style, fashion, photography and film. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see original designs from the David Gainsborough-Roberts collection, featuring costumes worn by Marilyn in seven notable films such as ‘Some Like It Hot’ and ‘No Business Like Show Business’, as well as never-seen-before personal treasures. In a stunning contrast between Marilyn’s private life and her dazzling public persona, personal papers including her journals, handwritten letters, drawings and poetry from the Lee Strasberg estate reveal her intellectual curiosity, vulnerability and humanity. Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour is a leading platform for a broad spectrum of creative disciplines. A world-leading destination for excellence in luxury interiors, it supports cuttingedge expression across the design agenda, making it a natural home for this event. This will be the first, and only time, that these remarkable pieces are available for public viewing in the UK. Following a worldwide tour, they will go on sale at Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles on 19 – 20 November."

More info at their site:  http://www.dcch.co.uk/Overview

Marilyn by Lee & and that 1962 film that wasn't ...

Marilyn Monroe would be 90 this year. Yes, I know, its impossible to imagine her - or James Dean - being "old" now - they are forever young, preserved in amber in that Golden Age: the 1950s and early '60 for Marilyn. Would she have aged like her once room-mate Shelley Winters? Would he have aged like Brando ? 

What is astonishing now is looking once again at those test shots for the uncompleted 1962 Fox film SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE where she looks simply radiant and totally gorgeous - a new sleek. slim, svelte slimmed-down Marilyn for the new decade, a few months before that still mysterious death - compare with how chubby (by today's standards) she looked in the second half of the 1950s: in that skintight white dress she spends most of THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in, those Orry-Kelly (see below) creations in SOME LIKE IT HOT, how her looks and weight varied in LET'S MAKE LOVE in 1960, or in THE MISFITS in '61 ... I like this pensive shot of her on set in that dress in 1962.

Here also is what remains of SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, mainly Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse, and that pool scene which Marilyn did, her intention was to get Liz Taylor (shooting the wildly expensive CLEOPATRA in Rome) off the covers of the world's magazines - 
she certainly succeeded there. We still find those pictures and footage fascinating. Liz of course was getting a million from Fox while Monroe was still on her contract salary and this would be her final Fox comedy - it looks as if it would have been more fun than her last one, the rather dull and tedious LET'S MAKE LOVE ...  I somehow never wanted to see MOVE OVER DARLING, Fox's reworking of the material for Doris Day in 1963 ...

Right: MM and Curtis on the set of SOME LIKE IT HOT ....

Here too is that 1987 documentary hosted by our Projector favourite Lee Remick  (four years before her own death in 1991....) - maybe the best of the Monroe documentaries - fascinating seeing one star commenting on another and of course Lee, back in 1962, had been named as replacing Marilyn in the Cukor film - which it seems was a bargaining ploy to get Marilyn back - it was the only film Fox had in production apart from the ruinously expensive CLEO .... I have the video-cassette of the Monroe/Remick documentary, shame its not on dvd. 
Left: that Nov1962 issue of British TOWN magazine with some of those last photos of Marilyn on the beach at Malibu, shot by George Barris - more on these at MM labels. We love those photos here ...I had this magazine when I was 16, it now fetches astronomical prices on the internet, I have seen it on eBay for £100, or £299 on a vintage magazine site - luckily I snapped up another copy of it last year for £40 ! 

ANOTHER Marilyn exhibition ....

A new Marilyn Monroe exhibition is opening in London at The Little Black Gallery (http://www.thelittleblackgallery.com)

and yes it is billing it as showing some rarely-seen images of MM - but of course they are not. These images (available as framed prints at rather stunning prices) have been available for a long time - and featured heavily in Norman Mailer's 1973 iconic book on Monroe. My teenage niece even has this MM image by Greene on her bedroom wall ...

The photos here are by two of the main photographers who knew and worked with her: namely Milton Greene who look some of the best portraits of her in the mid-1950s (he had become her friend and they set up her production company which made THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in 1956), and Douglas Kirkland who did those - yes, iconic - shots of her wrapped in that silk sheet, in 1961. (Other great MM photographers were - as mentoned before - Eve Arnold and Bob Willoughby, George Barris who did those great beach photos with her in 1962, and Bert Stern whose "Last Sitting" caught a darker Monroe ...

The Greene pictures though are marvellous and certainly worth looking at. 

ANOTHER Marilyn book ...

Its arrived - MARILYN IN THE FLASH - the ultimate Marilyn picture book, a nice hefty tome too, Lets read the blurb:

Marilyn Monroe had a unique relationship with the press—the photographers, journalists, and columnists who followed her every move, helped carefully craft her public image, and made her one of the greatest stars in Hollywood history.

Photographically, Marilyn was at her most electrifying at public events. She was as spectacular in the posed candids of press photographers as in studio portraits or on the movie screen. She made any news photo a work of art simply by being in it, and more than any other star lived up to the promise of her screen image.

One of the most publicized actresses of her time, Marilyn actively sought out the press—which included the famous journalists and columnists Walter Winchell, Edward R. Murrow, Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Earl Wilson, Pete Martin, Sidney Skolsky, Elsa Maxwell, and Dorothy Kilgallen. It was a mutually beneficial relationship that lasted her entire career.

In Marilyn: In The Flash, acclaimed photographic preservationist David Wills brings together an unprecedented trove highlighting the work of some of the great press photographers and photojournalists of the twentieth century. This stunning collection includes many unpublished images (most beautifully restored from original prints, negatives, or transparencies), vintage magazine articles, original press clippings and press photo captions, behind-the-scenes notes, and photographic ephemera chronicling the media's lifelong love affair with Marilyn.

Featuring a foreword by Marilyn's friend and costar Robert J. Wagner, original interviews and recollections, retrospective quotes from key journalists, columnists, press agents, photographers, and others, this portfolio of images offers a fresh, indelible portrait of one of the most enduring icons in history and illuminates the special alliance she shared with the press as never before.

Lots of familiar stuff here, but some fascinating photos I had not seen before as well: MM with Judy Garland, MM with Maria Callas, MM with Isak Dinesen, MM with Dame Edith Sitwell etc. and, surprisingly, with Spanish director Luis Bunuel - she visited the set of his EXTERMINATING ANGEL during her visit to Mexico City in March '62.- lots of these have not been seen for decades. Theres also those photos with Rock, Ella, Marlene (not the one with Gina) and the one time she and Liz Taylor were snapped together, at that 1961 Sinatra concert ... 

Not a great analysis of the Monroe myth or career - there's plenty other tomes on those, but oodles of fabulous photographs.There are other good Marilyn picture books too. I still go for the 1962 George Barris photographs though, and the Eve Arnold and Bob Willoughby ones, who knew her well. The myth goes on - a perfect birthday present to myself. 

Lots more MM at labels .....