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- [00:01]
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Lucy Bolton
good, so good, so good.
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Charlotte Vosper
When we think of Marilyn Monroe, many of us will conjure up an image of beauty, fame and tragedy. But on the centenary of her birth, we're reevaluating that image. Speaking to Charlotte Vosper for this episode of the History Extra podcast, Lucy Bolton reveals that Monroe's ascent to Hollywood icon actually took an extraordinary amount of work and effort. Together, they reconsider Monroe's personal and professional life, unveiling the career driven, hardworking side to Marilyn Monroe.
- [02:56]
Podcast Host
Today, 1st June, 2026 is the Centenary of Marilyn Monroe's birth and we're going to be talking all about her career, relationships and ambitions. But before we dive into her story, Lucy, could you sum up who Marilyn Monroe was in a nutshell?
- [03:11]
Lucy Bolton
I mean, in a nutshell, the greatest movie star of all time epitomizes Hollywood stardom and glamour, beauty, femininity, sexuality, just the most powerful star image that Hollywood ever produced.
- [03:25]
Podcast Host
Okay, so let's start our story at the beginning. Marilyn was born in 1926 and she had quite a difficult, unstable upbringing, didn't she?
- [03:35]
Lucy Bolton
Oh, yes, she really did. I mean, her mother, mother was basically very unwell. So although initially her childhood started off quite happily, her mother suffered from severe mental illness which led to her being taken into institutions. And Marilyn as the little girl, or Norma Jean Mortenson, as she was then, being passed from foster home to care home to foster home, I mean, several times. So she had a very difficult childhood. Having said that, she did get quite a lot from her mother. She got the love of the movies from her mother. Her mum worked as a negative cutter in the studios and she took Norma Jean to the movies and Norma Jean fell in love with Jean Harlow, the first blonde bombshell. And she wanted to be Jean Harlow when she grew up. She wanted to be a movie star, so she got that from her mum. And also her mother tried to do her best for her by asking friends and neighbors and to take care of her. But yes, she had a tough, tough childhood. At the age of sort of 15, it looked like Norma Jean was going to have to go back into foster care or a care home because her aunt, the woman that she was living with, had to move for her husband's job. And he made it quite clear that he didn't want Norma Jean to go with them. So essentially, in order to avoid going back into care, Norma Jean married a local boy, the boy next door, Jim Doherty, who was a bit older than her. I think he was early 20s, so five, six years older than her. And he was quite aware of the age difference. It wasn't something that he particularly wanted, which sounds quite amazing that someone might not want to marry Marilyn Monroe. But she was only 15 and they got married just after she was 16. But this early marriage saved her from going back into care, as I say, and also gave her a degree of stability. Her husband, husband joined the Marines and she moved with him to a house on the base and she sort of played a bit at being a stay at home wife for a while. She even thought actually about having a baby. But the war came along and Jim Torresey said, well, we've got time to do that, we can do that later. So he joined the Marines, as I say, and he went off to serve, leaving Norma Jean behind.
- [06:07]
Podcast Host
And what did she do when she was left behind? Did she try and aim for this life of stardom and fame that she was so taken with, or what was she doing at that stage?
- [06:15]
Lucy Bolton
Not quite yet. She got a job, but it was in a munitions factory. So not quite as glamorous as her future would be, but she was earning money. I mean, not great money, but she was earning money and she was going to work. And then one day a photographer came to the factory who was essentially there. He'd been briefed to compile a morale boosting calendar with photos of, I guess, like the attractive workers there. And Marilyn posed for these photographs and she loved it and the camera loved her. And she got a bit of modeling work as well as working in the factory and this kind of developed a bit. And she signed for a modeling agency, the Blue Book Modeling Agency. But her husband and her mother in law were not keen on this, so they actively didn't want her to pursue this career, even though actually she earned a lot more money modelling than she did in the munitions factory. And despite her husband's and her mother in law's quite strong objections, Marilyn didn't take any notice of that and she decided to divorce Jim Doherty and to pursue her career. I think it's really clear from this early stage, particularly now, at the first sign of opposition to her desire to work and build a career, she ditched the private life. You know, she was committed, she had her determination right there and then, you can see it for the first time. And as a result of this modeling work, it led to her getting a screen test. And the screen test didn't go brilliantly, but she was offered a contract by 20th Century Fox essentially to stop her being signed up by anybody else. I think it was Columbia. And when she got this contract, she really made the most of it. So her first contract was only six months. And during those six months she was like a sponge on the film sets. She spoke to all the crew, she spoke to the lighting crew, she spoke to the costume people, the makeup people. She was really committed to learning all she could about how to look best on film. Different from modelling, she was seen as a bit of a kind of cheesecake pinup model, but she really wanted to act.
- [08:42]
Podcast Host
So by 1946 she had signed with 20th Century Fox, like you say, initially on a six month contract. this stage, had Norma remodeled herself as Marilyn.
- [08:54]
Lucy Bolton
When Norma Jean was modeling and as part of her drive towards becoming more of an individual, she had dyed her hair platinum blonde, Jean Harlow style, probably not quite as white as Jean Harlow's was. And when she got her first short term contract, it was basically on the condition that she change her name. Norma Jean Mortensen was deemed to be too difficult to say. So she spoke with Ben Lyon, who was a talent scout at the studio, and they came up with the name together. Essentially she wanted to use her mother's maiden name, which was Monroe. And Ben Lyon said, well, you remind me of this actress, another blonde actress, Marilyn Miller, who I think he'd actually been involved with romantically. But anyway, she reminded him of her. And so he said together they went, that's it, Marilyn Monroe. And so her look started to be formed and her Persona, really Marilyn Monroe started to develop. It was a very professional Persona for her. It's well known that she used to say things like, oh, watch me become her or do you want me to be her? She saw Marilyn Monroe as her creation, her professional, dramatic creation, her star image. And she devoted herself to honing that and working at it.
- [10:18]
Podcast Host
Absolutely. It sounds like at this stage in 1946 then, Marilyn is putting a lot of effort into developing her acting career and she's really laying the foundations for that. Did these efforts pay off? Did she end up with lots of jobs from her contract with 20th Century
- [10:33]
Lucy Bolton
Fox, it's perhaps surprising that she didn't just set the world on fire and get taken onto screens straight away. It was never that easy. Remember, Hollywood was the place where everyone wanted to be and it was full of the rather patronizingly named starlets. And I guess that at this stage, with a contract, but not yet a sort of leading player by any means, she definitely wouldn't be considered a star. And so they had their pick of many, many beautiful young women and men to offer long term contracts to, and for various reasons, some of which are more understandable than others. So some of the drama coaches at the studio felt that she was very nervous and quite insecure. Probably true. Others described her as not being very photogenic, which is extraordinary because that is a word that is almost kind of ubiquitously applied to her face and body, how photogenic she was. Anyway, they dropped her after six months. So over the next couple of years she had periods of going back to modeling and then getting another short term contract and then being dropped from that and then going back to modeling. So it wasn't straightforward, but she kept working. And during this time she had drama lessons, she took voice lessons, dancing lessons, she read all the time. She was a vociferous reader. It's interesting also to think how because of the kind of constant drive to describe her as a dumb blonde, people actually question how much, how true it is that she was a reader, a vociferous reader. But you can tell from so many of her interviews that she quotes people and she uses aphorisms and ideas that she's read. And she's a very hungry A to Z reader who just wants to soak up all the information about the world that she possibly can. So although those first couple of years were a bit of a struggle, it did pay off. And in fact, I mean, there were other reasons as well for it paying off. Some of the modelling she did, including the nude photo shoot, Golden Dreams by photographer Tom Kelly, which has become one of the most iconic Marilyn Monroe photographs she did at the time in a very kind of low key way, literally just for the money to pay her rent. And then also she started a relationship with Johnny Hyde, who was vice president, I think of the William Morris talent agency. And he really fell in love with Marilyn. He wanted to marry her, but she wouldn't marry him because she said if I do, no one will ever take me seriously as an independent working actress. She knew what that would look like and she didn't want to be married to him. It has to be said, however, that he negotiated two extremely important roles for her in films that really launched her as an actress. Not just a walk on part as a waitress or a pin up girl or a secretary. She played a lot of secretaries in films like Monkey Business. But these first two films in 1950, All About Eve and the Asphalt Jungle, gave her good screen time in quality productions with top notch players. Bette Davis, who was really impressed by Marilyn and the Asphalt Jungle with Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhoun, and she is magnetic in these films. They stand up. She's very different in both of them. In All about eve, she plays Ms. Carswell who's a wannabe star, a wannabe actress, and she has this look of hunger in her eyes when she realizes that there's an opportunity for her to maybe make a contact or do a bit of networking. And in the Asphalt Jungle she's a rather disquieting, very young gangster's moll. But she shows again vulnerability, but also a kind of quite conniving strength as well. So both these films, which are very popular in classic films, confirmed her potential, I think it's fair to say. And Fox signed her again in 1951 and this time it was a decent contract, a seven year contract. And following that, the roles started to come. Some of them were still sort of glamour puss roles, you know, glamour girl roles, but two stand out that are really important and often overlooked when you think about Marilyn's filmography. Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock, both quite dark films. And in Clash by Night, Marilyn plays a factory worker in a canning factory. She's quite assertive, it's a very natural performance. And then in Don't Bother to Knock, she plays a mentally unwell, murderous babysitter with some great scenes, some great action. And neither of these films fit with the image of Marilyn that's about to develop in 1953. But in 1952, these two black and white films, Clash By Night and Don't Bother to Knock show her stretching her acting muscles. It was then in 1953 that her stardom took off, particularly in Niagara. Monroe's body and face and look is aligned with Niagara Falls as being the two great attractions of the film. I mean, the poster said something like two forces of nature that cannot be controlled or something like that, you know. And so she looks amazing. Her long term makeup artist and friend, actually Whitey Snyder and she had collaborated on her look for years and by Niagara they got it cracked. So the famous Monroe makeup of the kind of wide set eyes and eyebrows, the little bit of white eyeliner on the outside of the eyes, the little bit of fake lash shadow to make it look like her lashes were even longer. And of course the lips, you know, reputedly they used five shades of red lipstick to get that depth and gloss and all the kind of of multi dimensional shine and richness that they wanted to get. This era, like early 50s women were expected, you know, they'd had their freedom and their jobs in the war. Now the men come back, they were expected to be homey again, go back into the home and happily be wives and mothers. And she knew that the kind of alternative to that type of femininity was this sort of ultra sexy, voluptuous sort of nakedly sexual Persona. So for Niagara, she and Whitey had got that sorted. And it also introduces the world to the Monroe wiggle. The film got in trouble with the sensors because of her walk. There's a sequence in the film where she sets off with a kind of jaunt in her step to meet who she thinks is the successful killer, her lover. And she walks away from the camera along side Niagara Falls towards the bell tower. And the camera stays on her as she retreats. So despite the amazing backdrop of Niagara Falls, it is Monroe's wiggle that dominates the screen. That's the intention and that is the effect. I mean, she's quite clearly, by the end of that film, an absolute undisputed star.
- [18:25]
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- [18:49]
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- [19:14]
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Podcast Host
think it's really important to pull out that Marilyn's career picked up after she changed her image in 1946, and that her success comes from that combination of her incredibly glamorous look, but also her concrete acting skills. So by 1953, after she's done her hard work to hone that skill set, Marilyn had become a cultural icon, hadn't she? Could you give us some examples of her status as a cultural icon?
- [20:15]
Lucy Bolton
My Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and then how to Marry a Millionaire, which she makes after that with Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable, two established stars. Marilyn had top billing above them. She's a star by the end of 1953 and she's very popular. She's receiving immense amounts of fan mail, far more than the other two stars who, although she's in the same film with them, they're being paid more than her for the time being because she's still under that restrictive contract with Fox. But she's definitely becoming the most popular film star of her day. And also she becomes notorious for a few reasons. So she appears on the COVID of the first ever Playboy magazine, which she never got paid for, and which was a photograph that had been taken previously. But she was seen to kind of epitomize the Playboy ideal. As Hugh Hefner and Norman Mailer, all these guys have said, she epitomised kind of sex without danger, just fun consequence free sex. And that's what the Playboy model was supposed to epitomize. Then also, those nude photos that she'd taken before she was established, golden dreams, they came back to haunt her because they were reproduced on calendars and so they were all over the country. And it became quite clear that it was likely to be her. Rather than sort of run away from that or pretend it wasn't her, she completely accepted it and said, yep, that was me, I needed the money, I was desperate. And she sort of cracked a joke about it, saying, oh, yeah, I don't think he got my best side. Which is pretty funny because she's completely naked in these photographs. But this genius move to just accept them was consistent with this image developing of her as totally guilt free about sex and her body. When we think about moving into the realm of cultural icon, there are another couple of things. One would be that she married another cultural icon, Joe DiMaggio, who was a greatly beloved baseball player, a sports star, and that consolidated her as half of a leading power couple, really, in a way. And then also there was the Seven Year Itch and the famous white pleated dress blowing up above her hips, around her hips, standing over the grating on Lexington Avenue in New York. And when that film was released, which was a year or so later, but even at the time, actually, photographs from that shoot became hugely popular. They were used as pre publicity. They were in magazines. I've got vintage magazines with whole spreads of those photographs in them. And quite sort of ironically, I think you would say, they established her as this really iconic figure. But they also drove Joe DiMaggio completely wild with jealousy and fury and in some ways actually marked the end of their marriage. He'd been very jealous of her. He'd wanted her to effectively give up her career and stay at home, give up Hollywood. He couldn't bear all these people ogling his wife's body. She went on a tour of the troops in Korea to entertain them by singing and doing her numbers in front of hundreds and hundreds of soldiers. And she loved it. She said it was the best thing that ever happened to her. But he found it really difficult. And then the Seven Year Itch footage. He was there on set watching all this press and all these crowds leer and shout about seeing his wife in her knickers, basically, and he couldn't take it. Which is another instance of her husband wanting her to not be a star, not to work, and her saying, well, the work will win out.
- [24:14]
Podcast Host
So the ending of Marilyn's relationship with Joe DiMaggio, that speaks to her continued desire to better her skills as an actress and grow her career after their divorce. What major career move did she make next?
- [24:27]
Lucy Bolton
This was a really seismic time in Marilyn's life with the marriage to DiMaggio only lasted nine months. And she essentially escaped DiMaggio and the marriage, but also Hollywood and moved to New York. Now, the reason why she wanted to get away from Hollywood was because she was sick of the dumb blonde or ditzy blonde roles that she was being given. Even the Seven Year Itch, which has a lot of great things about it, mainly Marilyn's incredible performance. She doesn't even have a name in Seven Year It. She's just the girl. And she'd had to do river of no Return, which she hadn't enjoyed. That had been an awful experience. And then she was offered the Girl in Pink Ties, which was actually made eventually with Sophia Loren as the hella in pink tights. But the role came to her and she didn't like it. And yet again, her co star, who was supposed to be Frank Sinatra, I think, was gonna be paid like three or four times more than she was, and she just had enough. So she left and she went to New York and Fox basically sacked her, suspended her. She didn't care. She had demands about what she wanted. She wanted to have more say in the roles that she played, more say in the choice of director, the choice of cinematographer. There's a famous clip, actually, of her in Interview, where she's asked by the interviewer why she doesn't want to do any more musical comedies. And she says, that's not true. I like doing musical comedies. I just don't want to do just musical comedies. I want to do other things as well. So her time in New York was really like a sort of reinvention period. She was able to go casually around New York with her sunglasses and makeup free and casual clothes. And she attended the Actor Studio, the sort of Holy Grail of method acting run by the Strasbourgs, by Lee Strasberg in New York. And Marilyn saw that as a chance to work on her craft, work on her acting to position herself for more serious roles. And she did well there. Strasberg was impressed. She also mixed with a different sort of person. She mixed with directors like Ilia Kazan and writers. She mixed with Truman Capote and Marlon Brando. And she met Arthur Miller. It was at this time that she also set up her own production company with her friend and photographer, Milton Green. You could tell they had a really easy, trusting friendship. And the production company that they set up, Marilyn Monroe Productions, incorporated one of the first film stars to set up their own production company, one of the first women. And it was just a staggeringly bold thing to do. She had left the studio because she wasn't having the work that she wanted there. She'd gone to New York to reinvent herself, to change to an extent how she looked as well, let alone how she acted, and to take charge of her career. This was really very striking way to behave.
- [27:35]
Podcast Host
Absolutely. You mentioned there about Marilyn fighting the studios by the end of 1953. For our listeners, if you're interested in finding out more about women who fought back against Hollywood, then you should definitely check out our History Extra podcast episode with Helen O' Hara where she talks about her book, Women vs Hollywood. It's a great listen and you can find it anywhere you get your podcast, but I'll also pop a link to it in the description below. But back to Marilyn. What was her relationship with Arthur Miller like at the beginning? You mentioned that she met him studying under Lee Strasberg.
- [28:10]
Lucy Bolton
Marilyn and Arthur Miller had met, actually when they were both married to other people in 1954, but they reconnected in, I think, 1955, and then they both got divorced, and then they married each other in 1956. So it was seen as a very sort of unlikely pairing, actually. But by all intents and purposes, they had a very strong connection, albeit that there were problems in the marriage from early days, really. I think it's a rather sad story of the reality of being married to the world's most glamorous woman, not being as much fun as the idea of being married to the world's most glamorous woman, I think, yet again. I mean, I think Miller wanted her to be different, wanted her to stay at home. And she did try, actually. She didn't work for a while, learned how to cook his favorite food, converted to Judaism. She really did devote herself, but she loved working and she wanted to work. And also they needed money. He did eventually encourage her to go back to work, to make Some Like It Hot because he needed her to Earn the money for them. There was also famously, the very sad story of her when they were in the UK filming the Prince and the Showgirl, which was the first project under the auspices of Marilyn Monroe Productions. And in fact they were essentially on honeymoon when this was being filmed. They were renting a house and she found a notepad or diary that Miller had written where he expressed his disappointment in Marilyn. I mean, really crushing stuff to read, that he thought she was stupid, he was embarrassed of her in front of his friends, things like this, terrible things to read, plus the suspicion that she was had that he actually left it there for her to find. And that was very early on in the marriage. So there were problems of incompatibilities. He was very aware of her drive for better roles, better dramatic parts. After that, she made let's Make Love, which was a very troubled production and unsuccessful movie. In fact, Arthur Miller was brought on board to help rewrite it because the script was so awful. And that was co starring with Yves Montand, who was married to Simone Signore at the time, the power couple of French cinema. And during the production they were staying in bungalows at the Beverly Hills Hotel. And there was an amazing set of photographs of them having dinner together, sitting around the table with Miller and Montande. It's incredibly atmospheric. But the fact is that Monroe and Montande had an affair and she felt quite hard for him. You know, the marriage with Miller was really on the rocks, but the affair was a disaster. It was short lived. Very traumatic for Marilyn, very traumatic for Simone Signore, who never recovered either, frankly. And then after this, she made the Misfits, which is an incredibly influential and impressive piece of filmmaking, directed by John Huston, written by Arthur Miller, and he wrote the part of Rosalyn for Marilyn.
- [31:34]
Podcast Host
You mentioned the Misfits, which was actually Marilyn's last completed film. It was written by Arthur, as you said. How did working together impact their relationship?
- [31:44]
Lucy Bolton
Misfits had a very destructive effect on their relationship. It wasn't so much just working together, it was the fact that Miller had written this role for Marilyn as a strong dramatic part that ostensibly gave her the kind of role that she wanted. But what in fact the role did was sort of mercilessly expose her own personal demons and vulnerabilities, even her backstory of having a difficult childhood in foster homes and in care. And vulnerabilities, disappointment in love, all those kind of things, mental illness. So it really played on her weaknesses. And also the schedule was tough. The director, John Huston, was tough. And Marilyn really suffered on that film. Her marriage was endless ending, really. Miller was beginning a relationship with a woman who was working on the film, which is inconceivably awful. And it really also came at a time, clearly not coincidentally, when Marilyn's problems with drugs and alcohol were dominating her life. She did have physical health problems as well. But her medication, both prescription medication prescribed by various doctors and drug dealers, we might call them around the studios and around the set, but she abused those medications and she was addicted to many types of painkillers, sedatives and. Well, John Houston said that there were days when she was effectively catatonic. Didn't even seem to be there. They ended up with a period of time in hospital. There are differing accounts as to how she ended up in hospital. Some say that she was basically sent there. Others say that Houston needed a break for various reasons, mainly financial. And Monroe took the opportunity to check herself in for a break. But that in any event, she did spend time in hospital on the shoot. And indeed, by the time production was finished, she was very unwell and spent time in the psychiatric institute and then also had surgery as well for various medical conditions. So it was certainly a low point. And the project of the Misfits had led to a serious decline in her health and the end of their marriage.
- [34:13]
Podcast Host
When Marilyn did split from Arthur Miller. How did the divorce impact her personally and professionally?
- [34:20]
Lucy Bolton
Well, it's interesting because she was in a bad way physically and mentally around that time. But also some really positive things happened. So yet again, Marilyn survived hospitalizations and her surgeries and she bought a house. She called it a la hacienda, her fortress, a little Mexican style cottage in Brentwood in la. And this was the first home she'd ever owned. And she bought it on her own and she loved it. She took real pleasure in popping over the border to Mexico to look for tiles and carpets and furniture to decorate it in its style. And she took a long time to unpack. In fact, I'm not sure she ever did fully unpack. She wanted to read and sleep and listen to Frank Sinatra records and speak to her friends on the phone. And she said that she was turning her mind back to work, having had this kind of physical and mental overhaul after the Misfits and after the divorce. And she also started being in discussion with Fox about various projects. Now, Fox was in trouble at this time, not least because of the massively over budget and ridiculously careering out of control Cleopatra starring Lisbeth Taylor that had be to taking them to the cleaners. Then also, really, the studio system was kind of winding down. In some ways, Marilyn had contributed to that with her own Marilyn Monroe Productions. But she was discussing various projects with them, expressing strong opinions about what she would and wouldn't do. And then she signed up to do Something's Got to Give, directed by George Cukor, who she was very happy with. And she'd agreed to this. It was going to be the final film of the four films that she was contracted to with 20th Century Fox. And she lost a lot of weight. And in the screen tests for Something's Got to Give, she looks very thin. I mean, she lost a lot of weight for this. But clearly she was really working hard on her body and her mind and her acting to get her a game ready for Something's Got to Give. But once the shoot started, a lot of the old problems came back. Her health suffered genuine health problems with severe tonsillitis that doctors signed her off work for. But every day she was off, Fox was losing money and her absenteeism had gained her quite a bad reputation over the years. She barely turned up. And then something happened that really kind of pushed her over the limit. She very much wanted to go to Madison Square Gardens to sing Happy birthday to JFK. Happy birthday, Mr. President. And despite Fox saying, you can't do it because you're always ill, you can't get here, you're never on set, she went anyway. And it was obviously one of the most iconic moments in her life. And incredibly high profile. She's even really poignantly, in retrospect, introduced by Peter Lawford as the late Marilyn Monroe. Because she's late, then she's late for everything. In a way, it was fantastic publicity for the film, but it pushed Fox over the edge. Also. Around that time, she'd shot a scene of nighttime skinny dipping in the pool. On the set Something's Got to Give, which she had said she wanted to do because she was so fed up with Elizabeth Taylor getting all this publicity around Cleopatra. And she said, I want to knock Elizabeth Taylor off all the front pages. So she did this shoot and again, that's very famous now. So she was still really committed to her star Persona, her value as a really leading player in Hollywood. She knew she wanted to compete and could possibly beat Elizabeth Taylor to the front pages and also make the most of this opportunity to sing Happy Birthday to the President. There were rumors about her and him and her and Bobby Kennedy and whether or not they were having affairs. So she knew she was capitalizing on that high profile gossip really? But Fox wouldn't have it, so they sacked her. And even so, she didn't give up. That's often where the story kind of stops. People say, oh, she was at her lowest, and then she died at her own hands. But in fact, things began to turn around. She didn't stop work again, she kept going. She did various photo shoots and interviews of various magazines. And her last interview, which was for Life magazine, you know, massive scoop in which she talked about where she was in her life now and her plans for work and how she wanted to keep working, and also reflected upon her status as a sex symbol. And I think it's there she says that great line of something like, I don't really want to be a symbol of anything, but if you've got to be a symbol of something, I'd rather it was sex than anything else. And then she's rehired by Fuchs for Something's Got to Give. And she had other projects lined up, including a biopic of her heroine, Jean Harlow. So, in fact, when it came round to the time when she actually died In August of 1962, it was far from the case that she was at her lowest ebb. She'd survived much worse. And in fact, things were, if not looking up, she certainly had things on the cards to look forward to and to work at.
- [40:19]
Podcast Host
Yeah. So by July 1962, Marilyn had been rehired for Something's Got To Give and she was planning to return to work. But on the 5th of August, 1962, before filming could resume, Marilyn passed away at the age of 36. Her death was ruled as a probable suicide. How do people react to the news of her death?
- [40:41]
Lucy Bolton
I mean, the country was devastated. It was so shocking. There were people, notably Joe DiMaggio, actually her second husband, who was absolutely devastated, and he kind of took charge. They'd rekindled their relationship. By the time of her death, they were friends, they were seeing each other, and he was absolutely devastated. I think that it was seen as unbelievable because she seemed so perfect in so many ways and had a lifestyle in the press that so many people wanted. You know, the glamour, the lovers, the boyfriends, the parties, that life. She also was so beautiful, and that's clearly always offered up as something that everyone should strive for. So I think people found it really hard to believe. And as a result of that, all these conspiracy stories and wild allegations developed. I think also because it wasn't clear cut, as you say, the verdict was probable suicide. There were questions about her death, about the toxicology Report her state of mind, all kinds of things. The people who had seen her that weekend, the delay between the finding of her body and the reporting of the death to the police, all kinds of questions. So there were reasons for people to speculate and propose their own theories. And of course it still happens today. There are, I have to say, innumerable podcasts and books about who was responsible for the death of Marilyn Monroe. And we all know the names, from Frank Sinatra to CIA, FBI, the Kennedys, the mafia, her doctors. It's just wildly speculated upon.
- [42:39]
Podcast Host
You touched on it a little bit there. But beyond these early responses to her death, how has Marilyn been remembered? And perhaps more importantly, how should she be remembered, do you think?
- [42:50]
Lucy Bolton
For me, this is the most important thing, that on the occasion of her centenary, I mean, wouldn't she be amazed that there's so much work being done by people like us, but also, you know, by galleries, National Portrait Gallery, British Film Institute, there are exhibitions all over the world to mark her centenary and film seasons, the screening of her work. So how has she been remembered? I think in various ways over the years, as a tragic victim, the victim of men, the victim of her own illnesses and addictions. I think it was no coincidence that when, when Diana, Princess of Wales, died, Elton John reissued his song Candle in the Wind, devoted to Diana, which had been devoted and inspired by Marilyn, about the idea that you were essentially a vulnerable flame who was blown out in a whisper of cruelty by cruel press and men. But then also various things have happened that have changed this. So there's been work done on her archives and her diaries, when they were released, her notes and her jottings and her poems were released in the book Fragments. And that shed a different light on her. It showed that she was a very contemplative person, that she actually had a very rich, prolific and pretty tormented life of the mind. And she also, in that fabulous quote, said that she was trying to think in ink. She was trying to get her words out into her notebooks. These aren't sort of like well, being journaling entries. These are really quite searching, heartfelt, incredibly insightful analyses of her distress and her aims. They show a person compelled to self improvement who is constantly saying, I need to do this, need to work harder. Read more, think more. She was really driven as a soul searching person so that creativity comes through in her writing. And that was a real shift, I think, towards seeing her as a person, as an individual. I remember going to see an exhibition of her costumes and clothes in Florence at Salvatore Ferragamo Museum. And they had loads of costumes and shoes, all beautifully displayed, looking amazing. And then a sign that said private collection. And we went in this small room that essentially had a couple of evening coats, an array of about four or five black cocktail dresses and a couple of poochie shirts and pants. And that was kind of it. She was a nomad, she was a collector of books, but not possessions. And that has shifted the associations with her personality into a really fascinating realm. Realm of independence and intellectual life, of very emotionally intuitive striving at not just career success, but self improvement, trying to be happier, working on her happiness, working on her craft and her state of mind and her relationships. You know, reflections on the fact that marriage really isn't a natural state because they always want to change you and that love is very difficult because they always want to consume you. Things like this, I mean, really amazing ideas that she had. And then I think also there have been various attempts to claim her for various communities. Is she a feminist icon? She a queer icon? Is she a businesswoman? And yes, all of those things. Actually. There's so much about her in popular culture in so many forms. Her image is used to advertise everything from Coca Cola, which she loved, or shoes or bags or lipstick. Charlotte Tilbury uses her for Kate Moss, dressed up as her to advertise makeup. So many people have adopted her Persona in the pursuit of their own careers. Famously Madonna for Diamonds of Girls best friend during Living in a Material World. But so many. Ryan Gosling as Ken in Barbie, like, reenacted it at the Oscars a couple of years ago. Lady Gaga in the Olympics opening ceremony in Paris. So the power of her image is incredibly strong and only diversifies when thinking about how we should remember her now. I think it's as a really complex woman who had physical and mental health problems, who was devoted to her work and to her interior life and her exterior life. She worked out, she went jogging when these things were not usual behaviour for most women. She saw herself as an ongoing project, both Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jean. So I think complexity and a kind of getting real attitude to Marilyn Monroe, you know, as Shelley Winters said, she would have been much happier if she'd been more stupid. She was a bright woman who was very aware of the inequalities that she faced in work and in love and in relationships and in the media. And she devoted her life to exploring her possibilities.
- [48:30]
Podcast Host
Yeah, absolutely. I think understanding that complexity in our vision of her is incredibly important and it's a lovely thing to be able to reflect on that today on the centenary of her birth. Thank you so much for speaking to us about the life of Marilyn Monroe. It's been brilliant. Thank you.
- [48:45]
Lucy Bolton
Thank you.
- [48:49]
Charlotte Vosper
That was Lucy Bolton speaking to Charlotte Vosper. Lucy is professor of Film Philosophy at Queen Mary University of London and the author of books including Contemporary Cinema and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch.
- [49:10]
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