I am new to a lot of this. I am new to TTWD, I am new to considering Hollywood greats. I am new to any kind of considering of Marilyn Monroe.
Of course, I have heard of Marilyn Monroe and seen her in couple of films. I knew she was pretty and blonde, much desired and loved not enough.
My strongest memory is of her being sad, being chased by photographers as she left hospital.
It was a tragic scene. She was wrapped up in a coat and had no bodygaurds, no one to protect her and she got cornered like a fox. Poor girl, I remember thinking, poor girl.
She needed someone, she needed a strong someone, she deserved that. I don’t want to print this picture here. It is too heart breaking.
But more than that, I think she was one of us. Look at her down here, look how she sits. She wants to adore him, this adored woman. She wants to love utterly and be subsumed by it.
On Dev’s site, Phil Kemp wrote,
John Huston’s The Misfits (1961) was, sadly, the last movie made by both MM and her co-star, Clark Gable. But there’s a lighter side to the film, not least in Marilyn’s apparent Electra-complex crush on Gable.
After the shoot was over she told her psychiatrist Dr Ralph Greenson, “I have a dream for you. I dreamt I was sitting on Clark Gable’s lap with his arms around me. He said, ‘They want me to do a Gone with the Wind sequel. Maybe I will if you’ll be my Scarlett.’”
“I woke up crying. He was so nice to me and I didn’t deserve it. When I came back from a day off set, he patted my ass and told me if I didn’t behave myself he’d give me a good spanking. I looked him in the eye and said, ‘Don’t tempt me.’ He burst out laughing so hard he was tearing.”
“I wanted him to be my father. I wouldn’t care if he spanked me as long as he made up for it by hugging me and telling me I was Daddy’s little girl and he loved me. Of course, that’s fantasy.”
Or was it? Alas, we’ll never know.”
Isn’t that perfect? Isn’t it breakingly honest? Maybe not for you but for me.
I think, as I am growing into this thing we do, I am starting to understand what makes a girl like me. Very often the girls like I am (and maybe you are) are not to be found in spanking pictures. They may be models who do or do not like to get spanked. But they are girls who are not shy, not small inside, not with this core of something soft and dark, a velvet core.
I am not saying I am like Marilyn Monroe, sheesh in my dreams. I am saying maybe that part of her skill was showing that part of herself that other women share.
She showed that part that most of us fight to keep secret. Something cute, girlish, quaint, beautiful, delicate, and more, more besides.
She seemed (and I know that I know nothing about the Hollyood manipulation of image) to be a girl that exemplifies what it is to be a girl just like me. Maybe, like some optical illusion (watch the eyes follow you around the room) she seems to be a girl just like all the other girls.
I can see why men love her. I think I could love her. I like the type of woman I imagine her to be.
Here is a cute picture of that very famous shot before her knickers were approved.
I have an extra Marilyn postett which I am desperate to put up – I will do it on Saturday thereby breaking my own two day rule. But I can’t not break rules. That would be breaking a brat rule.
Poppy, this was so sweetly written. My heart goes out to poor Marilyn in a whole new way now. I love the photo of Clark Gable kissing her. And I love what you said about girls with this “core of something dark and soft, a velvet core.” That feels just right.
Wow Poppy, this is such a beautiful post and is exactly what I needed to hear at this moment. How do you do that so often?
I think you are right about Marilyn and ‘the core of something soft and dark.’ I admire her, and you, and all of the girls I’ve read here, for being able to reveal that delicateness (and strength too), whether it be to just one person or all of the world. To relinquish the fear, even if it’s just for a bit. I’m not sure I’m even close to that.
The last picture made me laugh really loudly. Thank goodness they approved her knickers…I like the final version much better.
Hi, Scarlet, all her photos are so beautiful that is was hard deciding what ones to use. She is easy to write about, maybe that was why she had such a hard time. I am really glad you liked it.
Hi, Kate, I am so glad I wrote what you needed to hear. Maybe there is something in the air we both breathe that makes our needs dovetail. I think you reveal yourself too. I have read your blog and you put yourself out there. I think you are stronger and braver than you imagine yourself to be.
I quite like the directoire knickers in that last picture, so wrong that the surprise is enticing.
Poppy, a beautiful and sensitive post.
I believe it takes a girl to get beneath the skin of this iconic girl.
I read a very good biography a few years after her death, her life wasn’t easy.
Hollywood’s Razzmatazz hid the inner child from most of us.
Your posts are often thought provoking, I appreciate that.
Love and warm hugs,
Paul.
I like it when people talk nicely about other people. That´s very rare nowadays. It´s in fashion to talk in an evil way about celebrities or just others in general. I think that trend is a bit frightening.
I think Marilyn was a sweet girl. I think all the stories that try to prove something else are just envious propaganda. That´s how I want to believe it
Hugs!
-Maria
ps. Great pics
You’re right, Maria. Too many people want to hear the worst about others. This post and the comments from Poppy’s readers prove that there still are positive voices in the world.
Maria and Dev, I love what you said about believing the best versus the worst about others. So true, and I’m going to carry that thought with me all day today!
Sheesh, what a day.
Here I am, at last.
Paul, you do say the most wonderful things. She does seem to be a girl that went through a bad time, doesn’t she?
Maria, I agree, agree, agree. The world would be much nicer if we just treat people a bit more kindly. Dev and Scarlet and I all agree with you. You must be right with us all agreeing with you.
*blush*
A beautiful tribute to a beautiful woman. Once every man’s dream, still mine…
Thank you.
You are most welcome, Pat. I am glad you enjoyed the post.
Poppy
I have not had much time to comment lately because work has been horrid, but I keep coming back to read this post and look at the pictures you chose. I love this post, and absolutely agree that there was something about Marilyn that makes me identify with her and think “yes, she was in so many ways one of us.” And, while it is easy to be envious of her incredible beauty, sometimes I feel a little sad when I look at pictures of her because I think there is a significant way in which she differed from many of us — she never found the one who loved her “velvet core,” her inner child. She was never fortunate enough to find the one who made it his life’s goal to protect that “velvet core” and inner child. It is finding “the one” or him finding you, that allows a girl to safely and confidently be “one of us.” In many of the pictures of Marilyn, I see something in her eyes that reminds me of how I felt before my Himself found me — insecure and lonely on the inside, but such a master at pretending that all those around me saw a confident, pulled together woman; that woman is always expecting to be pronounced a fraud. It can be exhausting. I wish she had found the one who loved her not only for being Marilyn, but knew and loved and wanted to protect Norma Jean.
In case it hasn’t been publicized on your side of the pond yet, a new book will be released next week that show Marilyn was like many of us in another way: she worked through many of her thoughts and fears by writing too. The book, Fragments, http://www.amazon.com/Fragments-Poems-Intimate-Notes-Letters/dp/0374158355/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286458377&sr=1-1 is supposed to publish many of her writings and notes that have not been published before.
Thanks Poppy for a perfect post.
http://ariannaacquiesces.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/15_marilyn_monroe.jpg?w=400
Thank you so much, Ari.
I think you are right about Marilyn not finding the one who would love her like she needed to be loved but it makes no sense to me. She was not short of admirers, not short of husbands even. Maybe the new book will tell us how it could be that she did not find the one.
Thank you again. And thank goodness it is Friday. I am dead on my feet too.
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