An amazing cache of letters (and one photograph) from Marilyn Monroe – being sold. These letters (many of them) have never before been seen by the public. Her scrawling note to Marlon Brando is very moving to me. They were good friends. I always believed that Marilyn was on the verge of getting her act together at the very end … she was making plans, she was cutting ties with those who were dragging her down, etc. Her letter to Lee Strasberg (click at the top of that article to see the documents.) is extraordinary. I have mixed feelings about it – because of how she let Lee Strasberg feel that he owned her talent, her art. No, Marilyn – YOU own it. However … listen to her tone in that letter, its certainty, and its energy. What an incredible thing that might have been – a production company owned by Brando, Monroe, and Strasberg? It might have been a debacle – but it sure would have been interesting!!
Also – check out the documents where she makes notes on a publicity script presented to her, for a small documentary about her visiting the troops in Korea. Look at her scrawled-in corrections to the text they gave her. And pardon me for saying this: but every single one of her corrections make the script better. Her instincts are right on the money. She’s correcting the facts as well … but I love to see how she pared down the language to be much clearer, more direct.
Speaking of Marilyn – I love this. (By the way – happy birthday to that wonderful blog – now one of my favorite blogs on this here web.)
The first comment over there says something like “looks like she’s finished the book and is now looking at the inside of the back cover”. (Also – VERY funny anecdote in the third comment down over there about Loni Anderson reading Ulysses)
But here’s my guess on that photo of Monroe reading Ulysses. I bet someone had told her to look at Molly Bloom’s “monologue” which makes up the last 40 pages of that book. Maybe to work on as an acting exercise (I’ve seen people do it, I’ve done it myself – it’s a great challenge for an actor). And I could see that a person who had read the book would have thought: Hmmm, Marilyn as Molly?
Monroe would have made a helluva Molly Bloom, with her sleepy-eyed sensual and yet ultimately loyal heart. That’s my guess. She’s posing, of course, but I bet she’s also been told to look at Molly Bloom.
so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
II can kind of hear Marilyn saying those words already.
Anyway, it’s fun to speculate.
yay! i’m so glad you posted about that picture; it really did make me think of you.
The edits on that script improve it 1000 %. Dumb blonde? Yeah, sure.
A while back there was a big brouhaha (at least in the “Marilyn web community”) over some tapes that Marilyn supposedly made for her psychiatrist, Dr. Greenson. They were revealed not too long ago by John Miner, a name you certainly have read about in relation with Marilyn’s death. I never knew what to make of those tapes, whether they are real or fake, and I will probably never know, but anyway: there is a part in Marilyn’s recordings where she speaks about James Joyce, Ulysses and, particularly, Molly Bloom.
There are transcripts of those tapes going around, would you like me to send you one, Sheila? Since you have read Ulysses, I bet you are in a better position to judge what Marilyn is saying (and maybe say whether that sounds anything like Marilyn or not!).
Anyway, I always appreciate your Marilyn posts, as you can imagine… One happy reader here, hahaha!!!
Ceci – oh, man, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble – I would love to read those transcripts!
I had heard of those tapes. Doesn’t she reveal on them that she had never had an orgasm? Her frigidity? She felt like men expected bells and whistles to go off when they slept with her – and so she just performed for them – and never ever got any pleasure herself. At least that’s what I heard was on those tapes.
Any truth to this??
Yes, Sheila, she speaks about that, and about her ex husbands, and about JFK. She also speaks of Joyce, but I took a brief look at the transcript and realized that Marilyn doesn’t speak as much about Molly as I remembered. Anyway, I’ll send the transcript to your email address in a moment.