Poor Marilyn Monroe looked so tired and worn out in this photo

She regarded her role in LET'S MAKE LOVE as her all-time worst. She was really falling to pieces at this point. Her costumes were dreadful, her hairstyle unflattering, she was overweight and her on-screen sparkle had dimmed. The whole thing turned out miserable for her because not only was she dumped by co-star Yves Montand after the pictured wrapped, it turned out to be a flop. There would be no more hits for Marilyn. THE MISFITS came next and she died during the disastrous filming of SOMETHINGS GOT TO GIVE. Maybe she knew she was on the edge of the abyss.

I still see a beautiful woman in that pic

She most likely realized that the image of the sexpot that had made her a star would never permit her career to expand into something else.

Take 2 other famous actresses of the time: Doris Day and Elizabeth Taylor.

While Day became a bigger star starting with Pillow Talk, followed by similar films like Lover Come Back, That Touch of Mink, etc., she also could play a mom in the funny "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and even do drama in "The Man Who Knew Too Much." Her likeability and more "normal" persona also allowed her to move into that TV series.

Elizabeth Taylor, while undoubtedly beautiful, was also perceived as more of an actress - partly because her career started earlier and moved easily into adult roles like Giant.

Monroe's career was extremely limited and her personal problems only made the likelihood of her continual stardom to be doubtful.

Too bad because she could be really good.

Marilyn was difficult to cast and in her later films she was in a strange position as an above-the-title star who was generally off-screen far longer than someone in a comparable position. No fucking way was a Davis or a Crawford going to be off-screen in her movies as much as Marilyn was. Case in point SOME LIKE IT HOT - although she is the top-billed star, her role is comparatively small compared to Jack Lemmon's and Tony Curtis'. I'm sure it's because she was such a psychological mess and so incredibly unprofessional Billy Wilder called her "the meanest woman in Hollywood" because she didn't give a damn about the misery she inflicted upon others.

I believe Marilyn had some very good plastic surgery, maybe in Brazil, before starting “Something’s Gotta Give”. She looked gorgeous at the end but her mind was failing.

She looked a lot older than mid 30s. Was it the pancake makeup?

Her career probably wouldn't have lasted much longer if she'd lived. Her unprofessionalism, the recent flops, aging out of sexy-girl roles would have been enough to end anyone's time at the top, and then tastes were about to change.

She wouldn't have got into the pop culture of the sixties, although if she'd lived she might have liked the hippies. And their new and interesting drugs.

[R7] Spot on. I've always wondered whether Marilyn, her Hollywood career in tatters and grappling with multiple addictions, would have taken to hanging out at Warhol's Factory and out-Edied Edie Sedgwick as their most spectacular train-wreck. Better off that she died when she did. A has-been Marilyn would have been just pathetic and she knew she didn't have the fortitude or discipline to battle her way back to the top.

Did she have work done after this as she looked incredible again in 1962 just before she passed.

What might have been

I read by her liar of a maid that she hated her sagging boob and aging skin. She didn't hate it enough to cut our the booze

It's called barbiturates, Rose.

Yes, not looking good there.

It is for the best she died when she did. Can you imagine if she'd lived? Turning up to play Joan Collins' mother on DYNASTY or some denizen of Cabot Cove on MURDER, SHE WROTE, if that.

R10 I hate those age progression "theory" pictures of her. When did she EVER wear that garish blue eye shadow or have yellow brassy hair? And as if she would ever let her gray roots go like that. It's just mean bullshit.

[quote]When did she EVER wear that garish blue eye shadow or have yellow brassy hair?

She didn't. But as time rolled on most Old Hollywood stars did become much more generous with the war paint and desperate to show they knew the latest trends.

[quote]And as if she would ever let her gray roots go like that.

True. Her vanity is well-established.

[quote]It's just mean bullshit.

Accurate probably.

Not surprisingly Marilyn was starting to look burned out towards the end. She was 36 when she died. If she had lived I'm guessing she would have started aging pretty fast - she was fair. I don't see her getting into a 12 step program and getting clean and sober. She would have probably started cosmetic work and gone that route.

I love Marilyn though and I like her movies ...

Almost ninety, Mamie Van Doren is still hangin' on.

Read a good Marilyn bio. It is well known that she had expert surgery in Brazil before beginning “Something “. it is too bad she couldn’t repair her damaged psyche at the same time.

She was dead man walking already. Poor girl. May she RIP.

R19 I never knew about the surgery in 62, what did she have done?

Too much makeup on that girl

According to the attached link she had cosmetic surgical tweaks on her nose and chin. She was pretty young - I'm guessing her face hadn't started to sag.

I think this photo reveals a certain depth and gravitas. I think she would have matured into a very fine actress. Marilyn may have been vain but everyone seems to agree that she was indifferent to wealth or material possessions. She wouldn't have fallen into the hagploitation films. With the right medication and therapy she could have had many years ahead of her as a successful actress.

[quote]I think she would have matured into a very fine actress.

Not by then... if you have matured after thirty-six years and a decade of stardom, when do you? If she'd died in 1972 would it still have been just around the corner?

[quote]Marilyn may have been vain but everyone seems to agree that she was indifferent to wealth or material possessions.

She was more stature focused, true.

[quote]She wouldn't have fallen into the hagploitation films. With the right medication and therapy she could have had many years ahead of her as a successful actress.

No, I don't think there's anywhere else she could've gone. By the time she would've turned forty I think it would've been game over for her. Even actors of much more mental fortitude than her had trouble sustaining careers.

MESS

Was she knocked up when she made the movie, or did she just have a beer gut?

[quote]Read a good Marilyn bio. It is well known that she had expert surgery in Brazil before beginning “Something “.

No good bio on Marilyn has this poppycock in it.

She was visibly pregnant in just a few photos, while married to Miller, before the miscarriage. The photo I've seen was heartbreaking.

I love Marilyn, but in Let's Make Love, it was all starting to show--the breakdowns, miscarriages, chronic insomnia, drugs, living on a diet of pills and champagne....watching her sing "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" in a big puffy sweater is just so, so sad....

Marilyn was a creation for the movie cameras. When the lights were off and the cameras weren't rolling, Marilyn didn't exist. What did exist was an insecure mess of a woman named Norma Jean, who was finding it harder and harder to switch Marilyn on. But she realized that that was all the public wanted--Marilyn. But when you're pushing 40 and losing box office appeal, what is left for Marilyn to do? The roles will dry up, the cameras will stop rolling, and there is no more point for Marilyn to exist.

Witness what happened to Marilyn's sexpot sisters in crime, Jayne and Mamie. By the mid-sixties, they were passé and reduced to doing telethons and dinner theater.

Well - Marilyn was unique and was the top of the pile. If by some amazing feat she was able to get her drugs/drinking under control I think she would have sustained a strong career at least through her 40s The public loved her - there was tremendous goodwill for her. She would be playing different kids of roles, but she would be making movies and still get top billing.

Maybe age would have settled her down. No longer having to be the sexiest woman in the world would have taken away a lot of stress and pressure.

No, she really didn't have a promising future as an actress, largely because of her personal problems and habit of causing massive production delays because she felt too insecure to perform.

That aside, she was getting too old to play sexy-girl roles, and she was about to face the problem that most actresses face - there's just less work available for women over forty. She could have played funny, sexy wives and mums in the sort of early-sixties comedies that starred Dean Martin or Tony Curtis, but the fact was that Doris Day was the queen of that particular niche, and it's not clear that the public would have accepted the much-divorced sex goddess as a screen mum. And that particular genre ended around 1967 anyway, and never would have offered her much except the opportunity to keep working. No, I don't see her career going anywhere in the sixties except slowly downhill, and IMHO there was an excellent chance she'd have wanted to chuck it all to join the Counterculture anyway.

And I just don't see her as the kind of Serious Dramatic Actress her cultists think she could have been. Unprofessionalism aside, she had no gravitas and little depth of understanding, all she brought to dramatic roles was intense FEELING. Dramatic acting requires a bit more than that, particularly when playing characters of an age to moderate their feelings.

Always one of my favorite photos, she looks pretty.

Okay, here's a question for you, Marilyn Fans:

Name an important or well-known dramatic film of the 1960s where she could have played a major role. Name a role that was right for her age, her looks, and her talents!

And don't say "The Brothers Karamazov". I know she wanted the role of Gruschenka, but that gal should be younger, and anyway she spends a lot of time with a "fuck you" attitude simmering under the surface. Marilyn never displayed such an attitude in her whole career.

Maybe Mrs. Robinson?

What a load of crap !! you silly queens are so damn eager to believe nonsense. Monroe DID NOT HAVE plastic surgery before Somethings Got To Give.. " it is well known"..?..No..thats only in your head. Every moment of MMs last year is throughly documented. No record of Monroe travaling to Brazil. So stop the bullshit. Do you people just sit around making things up ? "Watching her sing My Heart Belongs to Daddy is SAD ? To who..you ? Anyone who sees Monroe as a serious dramatic actress is a " cultist "...oh pleasssseeer. Watch Dont Bother to Knock and STFU.

Interesting post r34 - you have good insights. I agree - even if Marilyn were able to be more professional on set there wouldn't have been a lot of roles for her. She was good at comedy and maybe a great script would have come her way - maybe several. It never occurred to me she might go counterculture but it's fun to speculate.

Regardless - I wish she had lived and I like to think she would have been a happier person.

I can see Marilyn doing an Auntie Mame type character ...

Nasty attitude r38 - lots on anger in your post. Why?

Marilyn would have been brilliant in Carnal Knowledge. Ann-Margret was only 30 when she made that film, and she was supposed to be a sexpot on the verge of being over the hill. At 30! Ridiculous. Marilyn at 45 would have been incredibly poignant in the role.

Charlton Heston was offered the male lead opposite Monroe in "Let's Make Love", but he turned it down after talking to Lawrence Olivier who said that she was a nightmare to work with in "The Prince And The Showgirl". Heston and Monroe would have been very unusual pairing - it's hard to say if the film would have worked or not.

Marilyn could have played Mrs. Robinson, Martha in Virginia Woolf, the Bancroft role in The Pumpkin Eater or a number of Shelly Winter's parts. There weren't many good roles for former glamor stars in their 40s in during the late 1960s. Carnal Knowledge too, interesting idea R42. Of course we are dreaming of a Marilyn who not only survived but became healthier and less concerned with being beautiful. She certainly had the resources of talent to play many more things both comic and tragic, had she lived.

Heston wasn't funny; he came off as too full of himself, which worked as Moses and Judah Ben Hur.

There was a documentary in which they edited together (or found the edit) of about the 30 mins surviving of "Something's Got To Give", starting with the credits. Marilyn was wonderful; she had nice scenes with the children playing her kids, and later skinny dipped in the pool. She might have been able to do more comedy in the Doris Day vein or perhaps like some sex comedies like Deborah Kerr was trying to do as a somewhat older actress later in the 60s. But it depended on her emotional ability to get it together. She probably would have had more plastic surgery since she had done it before in her career. Perhaps she might have turned to writing, directing or photography like Gina Lollobrigida (or some light airy films like Lollo was doing in the same period).

R43 Trivia Time: Charlton Heston hated working with Sophia Loren in "El Cid". She was hours late for the set because of work on her hair and makeup. He expected her to be prompt and professional and she wasn't. He was told not to say anything to her to upset the production. He said that he never wanted to work with her again, even though it came close, and he didn't.

R45 He did something right! He won the coveted Oscar for Ben Hur.

She would have gotten a TV show in the late '60s, then done some Broadway. If Marilyn Monroe had been alive, there's no way Lauren Bacall would have been cast in Applause or Woman of the Year.

"Carnal Knowledge" is an interesting idea, but the fact is that some straight men DO consider sexy women over the hill at thirty! And that was the era of "Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty" anyway, thirty was actually considered a problematic age in those days and forty-five was considered dead.

And I totally disagree with "WAoFW", "Applause", and every role ever played by Shelley Winters, Monroe just didn't have the forthright cuntitude those roles required. Not just because she seemed to have an intrinsic sweetness, but because she went through her life and her career being hurt and vulnerable, and never cutting anyone else down to size. She couldn't have told a worthless sack of shit that he's a worthless sack of shit and made him believe it, even if she'd lived to be 100.

She would have been great in Carnal Knowledge- he age would have not been a factor.

She has my expression when I'm glancing at the new threads on DL at the end of the day.

Marilyn had terrible stage fright and could barely even come to the soundstage to shoot her scenes. How much worse would she have been doing live theater? She would never have made it to Broadway.

Also, by the end of the '60s, the studio system had collapsed and all the players were released from their contracts and forced to hire agents to land them roles. Aging Marilyn would've been a tough sell what with all her problems and onset shenanigans. She probably would've ended up on a short-lived series or making appearances on What's My Line? or Match Game.

I agree with the many posters who feel there would have been lots of good roles for Marilyn had she survived and cleaned her act up. If she were sober and acting professionally people would have been falling over themselves to give her work. So this is a feel good idea !!

However the reality as I see it is Marilyn's personal history makes me think she would never get clean - and if she had lived her life would have been bumpy and sad. She had moments of clarity, but they were sandwiched in between lots of toxic behavior. She loved being a star but she couldn't rise above her demons. She was completely self absorbed and so misguided.

Good post, R34. I agree, including this:

[quote]And I just don't see her as the kind of Serious Dramatic Actress her cultists think she could have been. Unprofessionalism aside, she had no gravitas and little depth of understanding, all she brought to dramatic roles was intense FEELING. Dramatic acting requires a bit more than that, particularly when playing characters of an age to moderate their feelings.

It seems we're a minority, unless all the succeeding posts are one person, but this rings true to me.

I don't think she was a good actress. Her fans and I seem to have seen totally different films. I just don't see it.

She's probably lucky actually that she had such an early death. It's helped her reputation exponentially and spared her from the sad career decline of her contemporaries.

There's no who really thinks had she lived she could've played Martha in WAOVW... but, yes, there is. The whole 'she could've done Sophie Zawistowska and better twice as good as Streep!' view seems about as based in reality as the 'Gary talked Lucy out of SHOWGIRLS / KLUTE / OUT OF AFRICA, etc.'

I am thinking this thread might be frau-heavy. This usually scares them off:

[quote]"The Frau is immunized against all dangers: one may call her an airhead, frump, tasteless, twee, it all runs off her like water off a raincoat. But call her a Frau and you will be astonished at how she recoils, how injured she is, how she suddenly shrinks back: 'I've been found out.'"

r55 weird and small minded ...

As reported in another thread, MM didn't die. She was sick of Hollywood and had the connections to have a Jane Doe identified as her, then get plastic surgery and skedaddle. She is currently living happily as a potter in Saskatchewan, is a vegan and has a long-term partner (female).

Nah, she loved the limelight. She'd never have walked away from it.

R58?

Monroe would have surely gone to Europe to do some comedy or even comedy horror films later in the 1960s. Could also see her taking the Mrs Alfred Steele route and marrying a businessman... for a while.

I read the Allure article linked earlier and there's no way she would have been called a chinless wonder in the 1940s.

Here she is before the plastic surgery and she's got plenty of chin. It's her nose and eyes that changed.

And a few years later:

It's possible that nature gave Marilyn a slightly receding jaw, the kind that would photograph well from the front, but look poor in profile. Photographing well from all angles would have given her a boost in her career, so if she needed a tiny chin implant to photograph well and had someone to pay for it, why not?

But even then, full profile was never her best angle.

I could have seen her as Mrs. Robinson, and then Ellen Burstyn’s role in The Last Picture Show.

Had she made it into the 1970s, she would have appeared in a John waters movie.

OMG. Marilyn Monroe as Beth Jarrett. She would have beaten that upstart Sissy Spacek.

I could see her "They Shoot Horse, Don't They."

I wish Marilyn had been alive, and the right age, to play Roxie Hart in Chicago. She would have knocked it out of the park.

The only time she played a mother was in the unfinished film. That was a remake of "My Favorite Wife," with Grant, Dunne, and Scott, who shows off his physique at a swimming pool, as Cary looks on. I think the Wally Cox role is played by that nebbish little guy who specialized in those parts, including as the bookkeeper in "Mildred Pierce"

Middle-aged Marilyn would've made a great Helen Lawson, battling it out with Patty Duke in the restroom: "Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope!" In the book, Helen is supposed to be in her early to mid 40s, so MM would've been the right age.

Her Instagram sucks, man

All the footage is online R69. It's not just the wardrobe test and the pool scene. Everything they shot is part of some documentary. Marilyn did look amazing, older. Different. A more mature look but very beautiful, like all bloat had left her face and body. She didn't complete many scenes but she did do many takes. She's not bitchy or difficult or absent from the other performers. She doesn't look stoned or zoned or too deeply depressed. But she is frustrating even to watch and of course she didn't show up enough days for damn work.

It is fun to think of her in parts that she would have loved and that would bring her success. Because it's not true that she wasn't great. Watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or even The Misfits. She was on some other plane. She didn't even need a good director, just one that was not out to sacrifice her.

Yes R68, she would have been a great Roxie Hart too. Imagine if she had to dance and sing live, on time, every night? She would have either done herself in or gotten better and more confident each day...

I think she had a real flair for comedy like in Some Like It Hot ---so maybe she would have been in some sitcom, playing some ditzy aunt or something.

I read that her ex, Joe DiMaggio, ordered red roses to be delivered to her crypt 3 times a week for 20 years after her death. Clearly, he had adored her despite their turbulent marriage; she was clearly lovable but could not love herself. If she had lived, maybe they would have sorted their differences eventually and re-married, as she would have then gotten away from the Rat Pack assholes and JFK/RFK, etc.---people who just used her for fucks and laughs. Just as an aside, DiMaggio believed she was killed by the Kennedys as she was going to blow the whistle on the sexcapades plus loads of Mafia shit.

Wistful was her strong point. Maybe Alma in "Summer and Smoke" or the Page role in "Trip to Bountiful." I've heard recorded interviews of her from the last few years and her voice was bell-like and lovely. And was she smart.

Monroe had only a chin implant and a bump removed from the tip of her nose. The rest was very well placed make-up.

How well she controlled and deflected things when she wanted to - vulnerable and sincere. She wasn't built to be a huge star, she was too fragile for the scrutiny that came with it and too willing to tempt it.

[quote]No, I'm the same person but it's a different suit.

Yawn. There were plenty of Alfred Steeles for her to marry and leave Hollywood for. She didn't. She loved fame.

R77.

she's pretty

Well duh? She was a fuckin' druggie. Do you know many junkies, alchies and druggies that look well?

I am so sick of everyone trying to pass Marilyn off as some victim, when it is very well documented how she habitually abused drugs.

A Shelly Winters role I would have loved to see her in is Lolita. Winters played Lolita’s mother—a heartbreaking and tragic role. She would have been amazing.

Wasn't that made when she was still alive?

She couldn't act.

She was a retard for christ's sake!

Everything Lee Remick played. (And I love Lee Remick.)

That sounds harsh.

But I never went along with her fan's other statements that she was in fact a comedic genius.

THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH, HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE, ALL ABOUT EVE -- no, not seeing it.

I prefer Jayne Mansfield in WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? She's better there than Monroe ever was.

Also, Monroe practically had to wear drag to look like "Monroe, the movie star." Doris Day and Elizabeth Taylor didn't. Her look was frozen, and would have looked like self-parody in a few years. Pics of her pre-stardom show curly hair, a beautiful smile, beautiful eyes and body - plenty of the photogenic attributes and "flesh impact" she had has a star, but it was a fresh sexy girl next door look, like a (very) young Lana Turner, not sex bomb. The famous Monroe lips were all make-up. Without it she had a full lower lip with a completely different shape, and her upper lip was smaller than her lower lip. Perfectly fine. They over-drew her lips, drew the edges of the top lip out past the lower and contoured them, and all this time-consuming stuff. It's not just acting that would have made it difficult for her to transition, it was also the "look".

Speaking of Lana Turner, it is kind of weird that she had a career in middle-age, but I guess she never was full drag queen in her prime, so she was able to still look "realistic" for the movies even when she was older.

She would have replaced Strichie in Company.

Maybe she abused drugs because she had been VICTIMIZED, Shithead R80.

Marilyn was at her comedic finest in Gentlemen Prefer Blonde. She's okay in How to Marry a Millionaire and Some Like it Hot, but she's completely overshadowed by her stronger co-stars.

In the test shoots for Something's Got to Give you can see she's transitioned from the overripe '50s glamour girl image to a more subdued, softer early '60s look. Still glamorous, but slimmer and more natural makeup. Had she lived longer, I could totally see her doing the light sex farce / battle of the sexes comedies that Doris Day and Jack Lemmon were doing in the '60s.

Her career was essentially over by the time she died.

I thought Marilyn was painful in the Something's Got to Give outtakes. Extremely self-conscious and rote. I don't think she was "good with the kids." She was uber focused on delivering what she'd practiced, the way she'd practiced it. Her voice was also weird. She was not a good actress; she had no technique, her personality wasn't really there. Every movie of hers I've seen, she comes across like an amateur. There is no relaxation the way there is when she's in front of the still camera.

HOWEVER, she did have musicality. When I watch her go through the musical numbers in Gentleman Prefer Blondes, it lacks the "rote" feel of her dialogue, movement, business, etc. She even walks to the beat. It's not set up to protect her - she's actually comfortable gesturing, walking and being (relatively) spontaneous in that it appears that she's just doing it, not working at it.

She looks stoned to the gills in those Something's Gotta Give outtakes. Her eye are completely glazed over.

True. Marilyn looked lost in those SGTG outtakes, as if there were no rehearsals, no blocking, she was just thrown onto the set to recite her lines. But then again, those outtakes are just that, outtakes. They weren't meant to see the light of day in that manner. MM could have still delivered an adequate performance through the magic of skillful editing. More annoying to me is Miss Cyd Charisse, who is playing the farce aspect so literally. Her broad acting is so exaggerated that she comes across as hammy and artificial. Wally Cox is playing his usual weird Wally Cox self.

If she'd lived through 1962, I doubt she'd have maintained a career through the 1960s, or even lived through the decade. If she'd become politically active it wouldn't have helped her career in Doris Day-style comedies, I can easily see her doing or saying something that would get her films boycotted in the Jim Crow South, something good and decent, but she wouldn't have gotten much in the way of offers if she'd followed her inclinations and spoken out against racism.

But that was before Flower Power and the HIppies arrived, and when they did, she would have been in trouble. She'd spent her twenties and thirties desperately trying to soothe her inner turmoil with champagne and pills, whaddya think she'd have done when people started claiming that LDS and other hallucinogens allowed you to expand your consciousness, heal your soul, and escape reality? Well, she wouldn't have been one to let mainstream notions of what was right and proper slow her down, would she. Really, if she hadn't had an Alfred Steele to shelter her through the sixties and seventies, there's a chance she could have taken as many drugs as John Lennon. Could a woman in her forties have survived taking as many drugs as John Lennon?

All of you criticizing MM's looks and saying she needed heavy makeup to camouflage her flaws and look like a star: Have you checked out her spontaneous press conference at the airport returning to Hollywood in 1956 to shoot Bus Stop at r76?

With harsh lighting, primitive b & w film and little makeup and unstyled hair, she has MORE CHARISMA and NATURAL BEAUTY than anyone in the history of Hollywood.

[quote]True. Marilyn looked lost in those SGTG outtakes.

For many of them she was fighting a sinus infection with an above normal temperature. Monroe's acting was just fine. The movie she signed to do, wasn't the film made and had she lived and reshot it, with a new script and director, it would've been a hit.

And lost or not, she was much better than Doris Day in "Move Over Darling" which is what SGTG became. Day going through a car wash in a sweater dress pales in comparison to Monroe's nude swim.

[quote]She wouldn't have fallen into the hagsploitation films

Whatever do you mean?

What fool said that Marilyn's appeal was a trick of makeup and movie lighting? She was incredibly lovely, a dream.

Marilyn wouldn't have made Hagsploitation movies. If she'd been stable enough to work during the mid-sixties when those things were made, she wouldn't have been cast even if she needed work badly enough to consider it - she was just too pretty and sweet for the genre.

She'd have been a good-looking woman of MILF age during that era, and she really did lack the aggressive ferocity that makes for a good Lead Hag. Or a Supporting Hag, for that matter.

She's one of the most photographed and most photogenic women ever. The camera loved her. Even in the Last Sitting photos where she's clearly drunk, she looks good.

In the documentary of his life that aired on HBO a couple of months ago Arthur Miller had only kind words for her.

This is what I think too:

[quote] I thought Marilyn was painful in the Something's Got to Give outtakes. Extremely self-conscious and rote. I don't think she was "good with the kids." She was uber focused on delivering what she'd practiced, the way she'd practiced it. Her voice was also weird. She was not a good actress; she had no technique, her personality wasn't really there. Every movie of hers I've seen, she comes across like an amateur. There is no relaxation the way there is when she's in front of the still camera.

[quote]True. Marilyn looked lost in those SGTG outtakes, as if there were no rehearsals, no blocking, she was just thrown onto the set to recite her lines.

I assume there were rehearsals. She just didn't turn up for them.

[quote]But then again, those outtakes are just that, outtakes. They weren't meant to see the light of day in that manner.

I don't know. Were they going to do extensive reshoots willingly?

[quote]MM could have still delivered an adequate performance through the magic of skillful editing.

Eek. We don't like to usually have to think of good actors as being dependent on skillful editing.

[quote]More annoying to me is Miss Cyd Charisse, who is playing the farce aspect so literally. Her broad acting is so exaggerated that she comes across as hammy and artificial.

I wonder if she felt the need to compete with Monroe that way? I don't think it lends itselt to good acting when one becomes the kind of star Monroe was. It distorts her films, and thus the other actors in the films too.

[quote]I can easily see her doing or saying something that would get her films boycotted in the Jim Crow South, something good and decent, but she wouldn't have gotten much in the way of offers if she'd followed her inclinations and spoken out against racism.

*eye roll*

[quote]her spontaneous press conference at the airport returning to Hollywood

"Spontaneous". Funny.

[quote]And lost or not, she was much better than Doris Day in "Move Over Darling" which is what SGTG became. Day going through a car wash in a sweater dress pales in comparison to Monroe's nude swim.

I'm doubtful that the nude swim would have actually made it into the final film. I guess Day wasn't so desperate.

[quote]She's one of the most photographed and most photogenic women ever.

I think Cyd Charisse was better looking. Maybe it's because I'm gay, but I really don't get 'it'. Or her.

Gay or blind?

R36.. Valley Of The Dolls..

I think Charise is lovely and is very funny in the opening scene.

Monroe is beautiful and charming. A bit wan and out of it but she was always like that. Not always in the moment.

[quote] Valley Of The Dolls..

Which role? Helen Lawson?

[quote] Gay or blind?

Gay. She was pretty. But no more so Day or Taylor, I thought. And less so than Charisse.

DiMaggio was a creep who beat her. I can't see them getting back together.

R110... That could have worked..

No one compares to Monroe.

*stilted baby voice to dykey Patty Duke*

'They drummed you out of Hollywood so you you come crawling back to Broadway. Well, Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope.'

*faint sound of muffled laughter*

"Marilyn looked lost in those SGTG outtakes, as if there were no rehearsals, no blocking, she was just thrown onto the set to recite her lines."

Everyone knows it took hours of steeling herself and pills for her to come out of the trailer and face the camera, did she even show up for rehearsals and blocking? Or were those also too too much for poor fragile Marilyn to put up with, even with champagne and seconal holding her hand?

She was no Susan Hayward.

She had a light inside her.

When she was feeling anxious she supposedly could be very mean and nasty. If you got stuck calling her to the set she'd scream at you to go fuck yourself. Curtis said that was the reason he said kissing her was like kissing Hitler.

Maybe las Vegas?

Arthur Miller got kinder about Marilyn but if you read his play "After the Fall" that is how he thinks of Marilyn. He was DONE. It was like caring for an invalid to him. She was also incredibly sloppy.

Frank Sinatra's valet said that Sinatra didn't care that Monroe was a drunk but he did care that she was a slob.

Anyone know what her finances were like at the time of her death? Did she have a will and how was her estate distributed?

r121: Supposedly Marilyn also had very bad b.o. She didn't bathe much when not making a movie.

When you're severely depressed you can't even take a shower.

[quote] Arthur Miller got kinder about Marilyn but if you read his play "After the Fall" that is how he thinks of Marilyn. He was DONE. It was like caring for an invalid to him. She was also incredibly sloppy.

He wrote the play three years after his divorce from MM. There was bound to be some bitterness involved in what he had to say about her. In the documentary, he's decades away from those events and, perhaps, more objective.

Quit making excuses for Arthur Miller. He was mean as a snake the day I saw her/him. She seemed to be actually afraid of him. She recoiled at seeing him approach, he snapped at her like she was a dog, and then he snarled at me. A 12 year old girl.

He used her to get out of the Communist charge in front of McCarthy, then grew jealous of her. And sure she was neurotic. But he just made it worse.

He is/was not a kind or compassionate man.

Yet he wrote compassionate things. Interesting how humans work.

I enjoyed watching, "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe". For a celeb biopic it was pretty good. They portrayed Miller as becoming more and more cruel to her, as she seemed to be descending into mental illness.

I remember you Misfit Girl. I am not defending Miller. I'm actually defending MM by saying that even Miller acknowledged her vulnerability and humanity, even if it took him decades to do so.

R109, MM was absolutely in the moment. That was one reason for her screen impact.

R129 Okay, that's good.

All I see in her last screen test at R89 is a stunningly gorgeous woman

R131 MG, I've enjoyed your comments, over the months. Did you ever think of writing a book or long article about your experience? In case you got to visit other sets, you could include those.

R93, Cyd dancing is sublime. Other than that, however...The actress in that part in the Grant, Dunne version was Gail Patrick, great at doing snooty parts. She later was a producer of "Perry Mason."

Yeah, they already made a movie about "My Week with Marilyn", they could make a sequel!

"My Day With Marilyn", starring Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe, David Strathairn as Arthur Miller, Millie Bobbie Brown as Misfit Girl, Rebecca Hall as her mother, and a CGI Clark Gable.

Aging is not for pussies.

R136

She could have gone to France and made nudies!

You say she was a hack, washed up, no sense of humor, no gravitas, no grace, yet here we are. I can't imagine a world without her, or a DL without Misfit Girl.

R14 what would be wrong with that? Everyone gets old. There is only one go around. She would still have been alive, had her great success to look back on and still be doing something in her senior years.

R134 R136 What a fun idea. I had blonde hair, blue/green eyes. Small for my age (12). I was shy but could be assertive. She was very easy to talk to. She really listened. I did tell her the man with a megaphone (John Houston) was really mad at her. And that maybe she'd better come cause everybody was mad. She had not showed up for the first two days I was there. She did show up that afternoon and she filmed the saloon scenes and a big street scene. It's fun to think I might have helped to get her there. She did wave at me and called me by name. That's when my brother and cousin started believing me that I had been with her that morning.

Honestly. I was only 12 but everything about her made me want to help her and protect her. I think she brought that out of lots of people.

She looks a bit bloated there, probably booze.

Psychological therapy was not very good then compared to recent times. It was the addiction to barbiturates that caused her demise. Her psychiatrist and internal medicine physicians were prescribing her Nembutal and Chloral Hydrate. Her psychiatrist was supposedly trying to wing her off Nembutal at the time of her death. Plus, there was heavy alcohol use plus other medications.

She needed to have been in a rehabilitation center long before her death. There were too many enablers profiting off her. Her physicians certainly knew better, but failed her. Also, Marylin never seriously tried to change her substance abuse habits. Of course self-delusion played a big part.

Misfit girl, so glad you're still with us. What are your thoughts on how Marilyn might have gone had she lived?

I think she looked very beautiful in 1962 although she lost too much weight. In an age before airbrushing and digital retouching she looked incredible.

Let's face it, she had a lot on her mind, was constantly sick and didn't really want to make the movie - she had to fulfil her contract.

It could have been good but it was sabotaged by the studio.

I'm not sure what would have happened with her. She made really bad decisions about the men in her life. She told me to not be like her. To remember when I was older to not be like her. (After I noticed she had nothing on under that dress. She said that was something she had to do.)

So, that business about two different Marilyn's really resonated with me later when I learned more about her.

I think she was deep down wired from childhood to believe that abusive, powerful, men were familiar and she was drawn to them. Somehow if she could attract them, it gave her some self-value. She actually met some caring men in her life who were good to her and they could have made a positive difference in her life - but she picked the rat bastards. I don't know how somebody's brain is wired having survived the abuse she did as a child and teen - but I think this was the core of what was wrong with her. The drugs, etc., were a result not the cause of her dysfunction.

I don't know if she ever really had a chance. It's nice to think she did. She certainly deserved more time to find out.

that looks like either bus stop or lets make love phase............2 years later making something s got to give......take a look at some of the outtakes............she is stunning. She lost around 35 lbs in the last 2 years. Look at some of the photos of her appearance at madison square garden singing for the president, especially backstage, 3 months before her death ............she was the most beautiful woman in the world that night..............she could look great in some photos and not so great in others.

She went out at the top of her game. However she was more than just her fantastic looks. There was a reason she was the biggest star in the world for over 10 years and every little scrap of a nothing posession she owned sells for thousands if not millions to this day. She made it to the top of the heap, She had IT...the magic, etc like nobody every before.

It could have been a combination of dehydration, powder makeup, and sleeping on the left side of her face.

How do you think she died Misfit Girl?

She had a lovely bone structure. What happened to that dreadful creep who bought the crypt above hers and wanted to be burring face down so he could spend eternity on top of MM? Gross pig. Hope his family cremated him and sold the crypt.

wasnt the creep hugh hefner?

No He got the one next to her. This guy bought his up cheaply and died in 1986. He was turned over in his coffin so he could spend the afterlife on top of MM. Something about that disgusts me since it was clearly a joke. At MM's expense. She couldn't even be in peace in death without some dick trying to cheapen her.

What a bunch of losers harassing some poor woman in death.

R149, that "creep," Richard Poncher, was indeed interred above MM's, face down, in 1986. His widow, Elsie, almost sold the crypt in 2009 to pay off her mortgage, for a cool $4.6 million, but the deal fell through. Elsie died a few years later and is interred in the crypt beside Richard's.

Eventually, Poncher's remains will deteriorate to a pile of bones that become disjointed and fragments in dust. It will take a few centuries, but the intended results do expire.

It is disgraceful to treat a dead woman like that. Fine if it's a private joke but his widow actually carried it out. They thought it was cool to let someone who (allegedly) killed herself, was abused and very troubled, to be made a sex joke in her grave. His wife sounds a cunt too.

R155, According to Elsie, her husband threatened to haunt her for the rest of her life if she didn't carry out his instructions. So, he was the jerk. She feared supernatural retribution.

R156 I was the one who posted the article. She tried to hock his grave to pay her mortgage in 2009. He died in 1986. How big was their loan?!

" It is well known that she had expert surgery in Brazil before beginning."

As far as I know (and I know a lot about MM) Marilyn Monroe never in her life set foot in Brazil. And sure didn't look like she had any "expert" plastic surgery. She had noticeable crow's feet.

In "Let's Make Love" she was definitely below par; heavy, addicted to pills, her marriage to Arthur Miller failing, her affair with Yve Montand ending badly (she wanted him to divorce his wife and marry her; he intended to do no such thing). Her physical and mental condition was even worse in "The Misfits." By the time she was filming "Something's Got To Give", she looked a little better (she'd lost a lot of weight) but still looked dissipated. She was incapable of working; outtakes from SGTG show her as unfocused and unable to remember her lines. She was constantly failing to show up at the studio due to "illness" but was well enough to fly to Kennedy's birthday party so she could sing him a drunken "Happy Birthday To You." She was fired, reinstated, but I doubt that doomed movie would ever have been finished. It seems to me that it was inevitable that she died when she did; her career was evaporating, she was getting too long in the tooth to play the breathy sexpots she'd always played and she could't really do anything else. I don't think she was murdered and I don't think anyone else was involved in her death. She took a lot of pills and died. I think that was simply her destiny.

You would look tired and worn out too if the Kennedy family was pulling a train on you.

Supposedly, Marilyn was going to go into "The Stripper" co-starring Pat Boone which was based on William Inge's "A Loss of Roses". The film was eventually made with Joanne Woodward and Richard Beymer since Monroe died and Boone backed out due to religious reasons. I think Marilyn could have played Lila very well.

The weird thing is that Marilyn already was being portrayed as a dramatic character during her lifetime. Paddy Chayefsky's "The Goddess" from 1958 is a thinly disguised portrait of Marilyn Monroe.

Frankly, by the time Marilyn married Arthur Miller she was a psychological basket case and hopeless addict. Most of the old studio actresses went into television and that was some money could be made. Doris Day made her money that her ex-husband squandered back in television. Interestingly enough, Sheree North (one of the Marilyn copycats like Mansfield and Mamie van Doren) managed to update her look and her style in the sixties and seventies and worked sporadically in supporting roles. North was never the star that Monroe was.

Yeah, Monroe's career would have evaporated during the sixties. If she'd been professional to show up for her fucking job she could have played sexy wives in Dean Martin comedies and done "The Stripper", but that would have been about it. Tastes changed in the late sixties, fluffy comedies went out and gritty realism came in, and Monroe would have found herself on the wrong side of the Generation Gap.

Her death was actually perfectly timed in terms of her legacy, if she'd lived a few years longer she'd have died a has-been instead of a star, like Jayne Mansfield.

My grandfather spent time with her and Arthur Miller when they were married. He only ever talked about her during that period once, in his study, when it was relevant to something else we were talking about. She was very sad because she couldn't have children. I don't know exactly why but if you piece together bits and pieces, she grew up during a time when pretty girls were often used by powerful, wealthy men and the consequences of these interactions were "taken care of". She may have had a lot of situations taken care of during her youth and it impacted her ability to carry a baby to term.

During that period, she was very quiet and introspective. She would often wear jeans and a jean shirt when they all got together. Casual and quiet. Very sad.

I've been reading "My Week With Marilyn" a memoir by Colin Clark, a young film assistant on the movie "The Prince and the Showgirl", in which Marilyn starred with Laurence Olivier. Here's an excerpt from it:

I went into SLO's (Sir Laurence Olivier) dressing room with fresh cigarettes and whisky.

"I've had it," said SLO. "I think I'll go off to China for a month."

"I'll come with you," said Milton (Milton Green, photographer and partner in her newly formed production company Marilyn Monroe Productions), laughing.

"So will I", said AM (Arthur Miller) grimly.

"Come now, dear boy", said SLO. "Your new bride."

"She's devouring me", I heard AM say as I left.

Personally this is one of my favorite Marilyn movies. She was super sexy in it, as was Yves, and they had wonderful chemistry together though he did his lines phoenically, not really knowing English that well.

I think that somewhere upthread a poster revealed that Marilyn faked her death-- long story-- and is still alive, partnered and doing pottery. I was very happy to learn that. You go, girl!

Hard to imagine what she'd have done had she lived. TV shows are cranked out, Broadway is punishingly hard....there's no way in the world she could have performed in either. Hollywood Squares? Drifting off to the fringes of The Factory? Too sad to think about.

As to her career had she lived..........shirley maclaine got the parts that were slated for Marilyn, specifically what a way to go...........and irma la douce, and the yellow rolls royce anong others, after Marilyn died. RIght when she died she had offers in writing for $50 grand a week in vegas and a $13 million offer for movies in Europe and this is 1962 money talking. I think she would have had the pick of the litter for about 4 or 5 more years had she lived. Then her looks would have changed things. She had a massive ego and one of the reason she kept everybody waiting so long towards the end is the one thing she NEVER wanted to hear is...............she s losing her looks........ She would have pulled a garbo at about 40 when she had enuf coin in the bank and pulled the plug on her massive stardom/

ALready in 1962 for the last 3 or 4 years she had been taking her salary and film profits from some like it hot in yearly installments both to save on taxes and to plan financially for the future. l.

FInally there seems to be an awful lot of people that knock her for being late and unprofessional. She herself said..... is she making a movie or punching a time clock? Think about it. She kept people waiting and ran up the meter especially for Fox studios to pay them back for years of crappy salary and miserable treatment. What she did was very purposeful.. Additionally fox was so put out by her unprofessionalism on somethings got to give...........they started shooting with no completed script and not all the parts were even cast? Who was unprofessional? Also Monroe was pissed because Cukor kept changing the script. She signed for one story and he changed it. He had her spending all the movie chasing after Dean Martin, her husband. She thought she would have looked foolish. SHe would have. THat is the script they shot for Doris day in making it as move over darling. I was like 7 years old when it came out and remember stting thru it feeling extremely uncomfortable watching Day try to convince James Gardner to become her husband again the entire length of the movie. The story didnt work and move over darling bombed at the box office.

Fianlly as to Monroe s drug problem Everything she took was by prescriot from a doctor. Mainly she tood sleeping pills for chronic awful insomnia. Imagine what it might be like to not be able to sleep and you know you have to get up at 5 00 am and look beautiful in front of the cameras. She had just had 2 flops in a row and somethings got to give was vitally important. You cant sleep.....She could and had withdrawn from all the meds andwould not go thru withdrawal symptoms in the past. She had a light to medium dependance on drug according to her doctors. Additionally she was a light drinker and didnt smoke. She lost 35 lbs the last 2 years of her life and she was actually in pretty good shape at 36. Other than career problems life was pretty good in 1962. Yes her one night stand with Kennedy didnt turn into anything more and she was bumbed but it was mostly an ego thing and.... am I losing my looks and my touch thing. SHe had Dimaggio back on a string and all she had to do is say the word and they would have been married. Unfortunately she had an unstable careless psychiatrist and a crazed nut job of a housekeeper he planted in her house and those 2 were her undoing on the night of AUgust 4 1962.

R167, "Something's Got To Give" and "Move Over, Darling" were remakes of "My Favorite Wife," with Irene Dunne trying to win back Cary Grant from Gail Patrick. Same premise. Surely, Marilyn new the gist of the plot. And "Move Over, Darling" did not bomb at the box office. It was one of the biggest hits of 1963 and kept 20th Century Fox afloat after the cost overruns of "Cleopatra."

And the affair between MM and JFK was not just a one night stand.

"Other than career problems life was pretty good in 1962."

Not really. By all accounts Marilyn Monroe was addicted to pillsl, addicted to her possessive psychiatrist and very sick mentally in the last year of her life.

When MM died she was getting offers and there were projects in the works but none of it would have come to fruition. Here's why; SHE COULDN'T WORK. She never showed up on time, couldn't remember lines. It's unlikely she would have gone on to do more movies, or God knows she would never have been able to manage anything as demanding as Vegas shows or Broadway.

Marilyn Monroe's last interview is on YouTube. It was done in the sad little hacienda she took at her home during the last months of her life. In the interview she's somewhat combative and tends to focus on what she saw as injustices done towards her. There's definitely a touch of paranoia. And that laugh of hers is disturbing. She told the interviewer as he was leaving "Please don't make me a joke" and then bizarrely goes into a high pitched, squeaky spate of laughter. Listening to the interview there is a feeling that something is very wrong with her.

" She kept people waiting and ran up the meter especially for Fox studios to pay them back for years of crappy salary and miserable treatment. What she did was very purposeful.."

If that's true then MM was truly an evil, vindictive bitch. Her lateness on movie sets made working with her a hell for everyone. And she did it on purpose? No wonder so many people hated her.

"" She kept people waiting and ran up the meter especially for Fox studios to pay them back for years of crappy salary and miserable treatment. What she did was very purposeful.."

If that's true, then she was a fucking idiot. What happens to movie stars who are unprofessional and who try to pay the studio back by being difficult? They're given their way and catered to as long as they make money, but as soon as they drawing power dips, they're out on their asses and are not given the kind of second chances that might lead to a comeback.

Not that it matters whether she was constantly late and horribly unprofessional deliberately, or because her anxiety levels were uncontrolled as all her biographers say. The end result would have been the same, out on her ass and not given a chance at a comeback, once she had a couple of turkeys.

Marilyn Monroe had severe anxiety. She also had very little self confidence.

She was drawn to men that were the worst personalities for her. They were not self assured men - they (Dimaggio and Arthur Miller) became jealous of her, resented her, and then proceeded to tear her down with criticism. The last thing she needed. There were some caring men in her life but she did not stay with them.

Tragic for her. The men moved on.

Of course the very worst man in her life was her incompetent psychiatrist, and she stayed with him longer than any of her husbands of lovers. He may actually have killed her, one of the theories regarding her death is that she was taking two medications that have a very bad interaction, take them together and lethal arrhythmias may result.

As with Montgomery Clift, I wonder if there's a reason she stayed with this worthless hack of a doctor who wasn't making her feel better. Clift's doctor was generous with the prescription pad and told Clift that drinking himself blind and behaving badly were a great idea, was Monroe's doctor just as bad? Did he give her all the pills she wanted, and tell her what she wanted to hear? Because she only got worse during his treatment, he had to have been giving her something she wanted, to keep her coming back.

I think Sheree North's character actress work was more than sporadic, r160.

[quote]And the affair between MM and JFK was not just a one night stand.

Proof?

R1, Marilyn Monroe was actually quite skinny (for her) in Something's Got to Give. It gave her a drawn look and she'd lost the whole "ripe" thing. The hair washed her out, and the make-up was no good. Her boobs were also shrunken with the weight loss.

This is not overweight.

From about the same time period. Not overweight (clearly).

But I think she looked drawn, and the white hair and heavy make-up ruined her girlish appeal and she came off sort of like the fortysomething divorcee' type.

I was only a kid during Monroe's career but I remember any news of her, personal or professional, was AN EVENT.

After her Fox contract was finished she only appeared in a film every other year or so. And she rarely if ever appeared in live interviews, on TV or elsewhere (other than the sporadic, brief and rather chaotic interviews caught at airports). So there was definitely a mystique about her that was unlike other big stars of the time like Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood, Shirley MacLaine and others. There was something very inaccessible about her that drove the public's interest until she died.

Those last pics are sad. It was back to tits. She was not glorifying in her body and there's desperation. I'm glad she was able to escape and I hope she's enjoying the pottery making.

^^glorying

R178, I found it kind of paradoxical that despite all the stories about her rough childhood-- and this was while she was still alive-- there was and is a kind of mystery around her. As you said, "inaccessible." In a strange way, similar to Garbo. It's probably just coincidence that MM also had some Scandinavian background.

Thanks for your reply, r181.

Yes, what I was trying to say is that for readers here who were not alive during MM's career, they might think she was quite the publicity whore who was always in the news and always making public appearances. Now while that might have been true when she was under contract to Fox in the early 1950s, by the time she married Miller and moved to NY, she became quite reclusive. So any siting of her was considered big news.

Very troubled woman who was lucky to stay alive as long as she did. I don't think her problems were going to be easily solved or make her any more able to work. But she sure was magic on camera- no doubt about. And she was a pretty talented musical star as well- I've always been fascinated by her.

r179; Indeed...t's all about her tits. The 'last sitting' photographs are creepy. Photographer Bert Stern kept her drunk on champagne so he could fuck her. He admitted this.

"...lucky to stay alive as long as she did."

R183, though I know that MM is still out there working on her pottery, I'll play along. I read years ago something along the lines of your comment. There were a lot of people who said that "Hollywood killed Marilyn ' and someone wrote that she was a fragile person and that Hollywood had nothing to do with her early death and demons.

OP: Do you have a list of women who are "tired and worn out"? I saw your Marie Antoinette post. Please just post your list and we can get on with our lives.

"There were a lot of people who said that "Hollywood killed Marilyn ' and someone wrote that she was a fragile person and that Hollywood had nothing to do with her early death and demons. "

She would have been an unstable and unhappy person if she'd never made it in Hollywood. She wanted to be famous and successful and desired by many as well as loved, and if she'd tried to live as Mrs. Joe Schmoe the need for fame would have wrecked her marriages and kept her from being happy with what she had. It'd be like... "I Love Lucy", but without the comedy!

But yeah, Hollywood made things worse for her. All the sexual harassment worsened her mental condition, as did the ready availability of pills. And the fact that so many of her dreams came true meant that she no longer had the sense of hope that dreams for the future bring.

OP, I love the way you "drop" a "tired and worn out" thread now and then, like Hansel and Gretel with the bread crumb path. I enjoy the suspense that is created by not knowing when the next chapter will appear. Keep up the good work!