[On the early
morning of August
5th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her LA home, in a
moment that quickly became as mythic as
everything else about young Norma Jean Mortenson. So this week I’ll remember
the iconic and singular Marilyn through posts on her life, career, and legacy
as well as her tragic death.]
On three stages
of Monroe’s relatively brief but strikingly multi-part filmography.
1)
The First Few Years: Monroe was discovered as a
model while working at the Radioplane factory, when photographer
David Conover shot a number of workers in late 1944 for an army gig. She
modeled for a few years and then broke into film with bit parts in 1947 and 48, but it was with two important
1950 films that she began to gain serious notice. Her parts in All About Eve and The Asphalt Jungle
were still relatively small ones, but the first film would go on to win Best Picture
and the second was from acclaimed director John Huston, and their very
different genres (a serious drama and a crime thriller) also showcased Monroe’s
diverse talents. By the time she was 24, she was thus already making a significant
name for herself as a film actress.
2)
The “Dumb Blonde” Phase: As that film career
blossomed, it unfortunately seemed to do so in one particular direction, with a
number of similar roles that Monroe would come to call “dumb blonde” parts and
(at a 1955 press
conference launching her own production company) “the same old sex roles.”
Not coincidentally, these were and remain some of her most famous and popular
films, from 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
and How to Marry a Millionaire
through 1955’s The Seven Year Itch
(source of that famous billowing dress photo) and 1957’s The Prince and the
Showgirl (co-starring Laurence Olivier!). All of those films are
distinct and deserve further analysis, and they aren’t the only ones Monroe
made during this busy period, but I think it’s telling that the billowing dress
image from Itch remains the single
most iconic photo of Monroe, and one often divorced entirely from that film and
character.
3)
The Evolving Final Years: Monroe tragically didn’t
live long enough to move too far past that frustratingly limited stage, but in
her final few years she did make a trio of films that reflect at least the
beginnings of such an evolution. That trend began with 1959’s Some Like It Hot,
one of the greatest comedies of all time and a film that (while Monroe was famously
difficult on set) allowed her to both riff on and challenge her “dumb
blonde” image. It continued with 1960’s Let’s Make Love, a
more conventional romantic comedy but one for which Monroe asked her husband Arthur Miller to rewrite
the script. And it culminated with 1961’s The Misfits, written
from the start by Miller, featuring both Monroe and Clark Cable
in their final film roles, and offering a compelling Western revision to her
filmography and iconography. While it’s deeply frustrating to think where
Monroe’s film career might have gone from there, these final late films certainly
remind us of the breadth of her talent.
Next Marilyn
memories tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think?
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