|
Marilyn Monroe entertaining U.S. troops in Korea in 1954
|
Life of Marilyn Monroe / Summary
Read Details on Full Biography Page
Born Norma Jean Mortenson on 1 June 1926 in Los Angeles, Marilyn Monroe spent her childhood in a succession of foster homes and orphanages. She never knew her father, and her mother was committed to a mental institution when Norma Jean was 5. At 16 she left school to marry. It was while working in a defence plant in 1944 that she was discovered by an army photographer, and became a model and pin-up, Two years later she realised her childhood ambition by signing a movie contract, with Twentieth Century-Fox. She dyed her hair blonde, and changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.
Competition was fierce for even the smallest film roles, but Monroe exhibited great determination to succeed, turning up at the studio even when not assigned to a film, and paying for her own acting tuition. Over the next four years she did have numerous walk-on roles, as the 'blonde girl', but it was in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) that her progression from model to actress was revealed. She played the part of the bent lawyer's mistress, and in a few minutes of screen time delivered a detailed characterization of a naïve and trapped woman.
In 1953 three films were released that raised Monroe to Stardom, and which remain among her most popular, Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and How to Marry a Millionaire. Her physique, her wiggle, and her breathless, sensual voice established her as Hollywood's biggest blonde bombshell, although the latter two films allowed Monroe to demonstrate her comic talent, and reveal the complexity of her erotic image. The female sexuality that Monroe embodies and celebrates is raised to the level of cliché, and made the subject of humour. However, Monroe's own enjoyment of her body and its effects is essentially guileless and guiltless, and so her exaggerated sexuality appears disarmingly natural. Humour lies in this gap between the effect she has on men, and her own lack of awareness of this effect. Unlike her many later imitators she managed to appear totally erotic, and yet innocent at the same time. Monroe's appeal lies in the ability to unify these contradictions, and to naturalize and purify a constructed vision of female sexuality, until she became, as Lee Strasberg said at her funeral, 'for the entire world ... a symbol of the eternal female'.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (directed by Howard Hawks) contradicts the dominant Monroe image that was developing through her films and studio publicity. As Lorelei. Lee she is, for once, in control of her sexuality, using it to get what she wants; a millionaire for a husband. This makes her powerful, and therefore threatening. This aggressive sexuality, and the strength of the film's central female friendship, provide a contrast to Monroe's later roles, where her pure and passive femininity are inevitably linked to fragility and victimhood.
By the première of How to Marry a Millionaire in November 1953, critics and audiences were focusing on Monroe, rather than her co-stars, Bacall and Grable. She was Fox's biggest star, and continued to develop sexual-cumedy roles for the studio.The material was not always up to her talent, but like Garbo she had a presence on screen that made poor films worth watching. Monroe, however, was increasingly unhappy with the scripts she offered, and was keen to develop her acting in more demanding and varied roles. In 1954 she withdrew to New York to work at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg.Her 'pretensions' were derided by critics at the time; the same commentators who dismissed her famous witticisms as unconscious refused to see any evidence of talent in her screen performance. There is still controversy today about her abilities as an actress. The reason her talent is not recognized is, ironically, the same reason why she continues to fascinate audiences; her ability to appear totally natural on screen. As McCann ( 1988) said, 'she succeeded in stripping away the top layer of personality, encouraging us to believe that we were seeing through to some essential quality of love or loneliness, pleasure or pain'. The screen seems to give us direct access to her as Monroe, even as she gives life to her characters. It is debatable to what extent this could be learnt. Monroe's rigorous training in the Strasberg method, using her own experiences, particularly of her childhood, in her acting, probably adds to the exposed quality of the emotion that can be seen in her later films. Bus Stop ( 1956), her first film on her return to Hollywood, silenced many critics' doubts about her acting talents. In the role of Cherie, the down-at-heel night-club singer, she delivered a subtle performance that combined sexuality, comedy, and pathos, and which led the director, Joshua Logan, to proclaim her 'as near genius as any actor I ever knew'.However, from this point on Monroe's career began to be soured by a reputation as unreliable, and by illness and personal problems played out in the glare of media attention. She struggled through the production of Some Like it Hot ( 1959), and produced a touching comic performance as Sugar. A singer with an all-girl band, she falls in love with the penniless Tony Curtis, who is masquerading as a millionaire. The opposite of Lorelei Lee, Sugar is an emotionally vulnerable woman; her attempts to find a rich husband are appealing but unsuccessful, and she is herself the victim of scheming and trickery. Monroe's death of a drug overdose in August 1962, weeks after being fired from the set of Something's Got to Give, sealed her status as a screen legend. She would remain young and beautiful forever, and her star persona was fixed as the tragic victim who could not cope with her own stardom. More than thirty years after her death Marilyn Monroe's image is everywhere, and her legend is as powerful as ever. Even more than with other stars, there is an obsession to understand and possess the 'real Marilyn', but every true story of her life, or new revelation about her death, only add to the layers of her myth. Ultimate screen goddess and apotheosis of Hollywood stardom, it seems fitting that Monroe and the studio system expired together.
|
