If Marilyn Monroe hadn't died in 1962, where would she be today ?

She would have transitioned to Marty Monroe at 75 and would be running for Governor of California!

She'd look like her older half-sister who is actually still alive and around 102 years old.

She certainly would not be looking like the broken-down Joan Blondell shown in those awful Photoshop renderings.

[R2] Half sister through Charles Stanley Gifford?

She would’ve died like Jayne Mansfield. Fat on the side of the road somewhere.

Wasn't Jayne beheaded by a truck or something similar ?

[R6] It was the Taliban.

She would be desperately clawing at the inside of her coffin.

R6 Let me introduce you to the Mansfield bar....

[quote]Half sister through Charles Stanley Gifford?

Berniece Inez Gladys Baker was born in Venice, California in July 1919. Her parents, Gladys Pearl Baker and Jasper Newton "Jap" Baker (1886–1951), were married in 1917 and had their first child in 1918, older brother Robert Kermit "Jackie". Following Gladys' divorce, Jasper kidnapped the children and raised them in his native Kentucky.[1] Remarried, Gladys gave birth to her third and final child in 1926, Norma Jean Baker.[2]

[quote][R6] Let me introduce you to the Mansfield bar....

I'll see your Mansfield bar and raise you with the Monroe Doctrine.

She would look like this...

[R10] Gladys remarried, yes, to Martin Edward Mortensen, but the story goes that they were soon estranged, he left her and she then had an affair with Charles Stanley Gifford, who was her boss at RKO. Tragically, he had no interest in being Norma Jean's father. Several credible sources, including Marilyn's first husband, James Dougherty, have said on the record that Marilyn knew her father was Gifford.

I wonder if she would have been able to maintain a career into the 60s and 70s. I feel her image and persona would have been very outdated especially once the late 60s hit and people began reevaluating women's roles in society.

Apparently her sister Berniece Baker last I heard was still alive aged over 100! So perhaps Marilyn would still be with us if it wasnt for the events of 1962?

Still would look better than gay men a 3rd of her age .

Marilyn would be the same age as the Queen. They were born in the same year.

Queen Elizabeth, like fellow nonagenarian, Betty White, has shrunk in size and walks with a stoop. Can you picture Marilyn being the same way?

Her, Betty White, Angela Lansbury, and Pat Carroll in The Golden Girls 2021.

You left out another option, OP:

Not give a shit and keep a blog of her goings-ons and inner musings à la Mamie Van Doren

Gifford bore a more-than-passing resemblance to Clark Gable. When she was a child, Norma Jean would watch Gable's movies and fantasize about him being her real father. Ironically, Gable did have a love child he couldn't acknowledge: Judy Lewis, his daughter by Loretta Young.

Marilyn should count her blessings: Lewis looked just like Gable, down to the flyaway ears. She wasn't half as pretty as Marilyn.

Gifford.

I knew Monroe's foster sister Bebe Goddard who confirmed Norma Jeane was told by Bebe's step-mother Grace Goddard when NJ was a teenager. There is a letter NJ wrote mentioning his name that has come up for auction.

She'd be doing productions of [italic]Follies[/italic] everywhere.

She probably would have retired in the 60s after the culture changed, and I suspect would have had a comeback in the 1970s in some grittier indie films, unless she went full recluse.

R22 wow, she DOES look like this fella

I wrote a post about MM's attempted making of her last movie, "Something's Got to Give." After a bunch of research, my take is that Marilyn looked terrific but was still a mess. Even if Monroe had lived and came back to finish the fluff comedy, probably would have been more of the same... Go to my blog, for a look at how MM's unfinished, frothy sex romp, "Something's Got to Give," became so fraught with off-stage drama from the star, director, and studio.

She would have died in 1963.

She looks like Margaret Thatcher in the OP's pic

At 95 years old, Marilyn would be wheeled aboard the Disney Magic for the TCM Classic Cruise, where she will greet fans and sign autographs. At the "Evening with Marilyn" retrospective, she will surprise and dazzle us by throwing off her wrap, revealing the famous white halter dress she has once again packed herself into, stand, shimmy, and coo, "Oooh, do you feel the breeze from the subway? Isn't it delicious?" to roaring applause, cheers, and whistles. She will proceed to regale us with stories from the set and make catty remarks about Jane, Betty Bacall, Tony, and Mitzi, before cutting out early because it's past her bedtime.

She'd get one of those obsessive husbands who wanted to possess their teen jerkoff fantasy. Like Patty Duke, Shirley Jones, Kim Novak, etc. did.

Patty Duke was someone's teen jerkoff fantasy?

If she hadn;t died in 1962 she would have died in 1963, either by overdose or by suicide. She was a very unhappy and unwell woman.

She would be the same age as Queen Elizabeth II.

I think she would have faded away by the late 60s then had a resurgence around the 80s, maybe with a role on Falcon Crest or something

I think she would have guested on a sitcom as a lesbian with a crush on Betty White.

OMG. I can't even imagine her alive today but she'd have a similar life to Elizabeth Taylor probably. Maybe she'd be like Cher - a living legend with tons of gay guys hanging around her.

She'd be giving interviews about how Hollywood used and abused her, then how she triumphed later on as a female director, like Lee Grant.

Norma Jean's half-sister, Berniece, is still alive at 102, so Marilyn could have inherited some of those longevity-genes as well.

Still dead!

She'd be doing convention panels about "The Big Cube."

In 1963 she would have been in rehab and had a cameo in Mad Mad World.

And then be reunited with Jack Lemmon in Irma la Douce.

In 1964, The Carpetbaggers

1965 with Jack Lemmon again in How to Murder Your Wife

1966 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1967 The Graduate

Then in 1968 she'd be assassinated together with Robert F. Kennedy.

[quote]She'd be doing convention panels about "The Big Cube."

That was Lana Turner.

Marilyn and Queen Elizabeth were born the same year so there's something to be said for dying young. Marilyn's image is forever frozen in time.

Honor Blackman was also around the same age as Betty Deuce.

Bitch would have stole my career.

I could see her doing a fantasy 1970s musical sequence featuring baked beans.

She would've become a friend of the gays, been a guest judge on RuPaul Drag Race more than once, and cameoed in the Wong Foo movie (with it being named after her, and not Julie Newmar).

She would have been murdered in an elevator by Michael Caine.

She would have been touring doing one of those career lectures where she talks about her life and shows clips from her movies. Then she would have the audience ask questions and there would always be that guy who says I always wanted to be kissed by Marylyn Monroe and she'd let him on stage and she'd kiss him on the cheek. The audience would go crazy.

And yes she would have been doing those Turner Classic cruises being interviewed by Robert Osborne and showing Some Like it Hot but slipping out during the opening credit because she didn't want to see that fucking movie one more time. She'd trash Wilder and Curtis but would say Lemmon was a sweatheart.

Or she'd be Deanna Durbin.

She might've become a beloved old kook, like Liza Minnelli or Cher.

I hope she would have had a career like Ellen Burstyn. Can you imagine her as the mom in "The Exorcist" or "Alice...."? She would have only been mid-40s, perfectly plausible.

Pegging out when and how she did though sad cemented Marilyn Monroe as an icon.

All those old slags forever ragging on MM as a lumber camp toy (Jane Wyman comes to mind) are turning over in their graves as MM's estate continues to rake in vast sums.

More the pity is that the Strasberg family fucked over MM in death just as so many did in life. That poor woman never could catch a break.

Like to think if MM hadn't died she and Joe DiMaggio might have gotten back together. MM was woman who needed protecting, and Joe DiMaggio really did love her, it was the career and a few other bits that caused the stress in their marriage.

Absent a "Joe DiMaggio" doubt MM would have lived to see the 1970's. The woman had too many demons and couldn't shake those twin monkeys off her back (booze and pills).

MM also needed love and support, which she got from her fans and audiences. If fallout from her final film was permanent and lead to her being blacklisted or something, what next?

Though in end finished product was often wonderful (see MM in The Prince and The Showgirl...), MM was very difficult to work with, and doubt new crop of directors and producers doing films in 1970's would put up with her nonsense.

She didn’t deserve to go out like she did. A talented mess, she created a Persona the world bought into but which she could t be in real life.

She would be an aging drug addicted whore with mental problems.

I think she would have sought out therapy and gain better self worth .

R6

It was the blonde hair piece (wig?) that JM was wearing which flew off her head from impact of crash. That is where story began she was decapitated.

You can see in photos taken of the accident scene JM's head was still attached to her body at time of death.

She was naturally beautiful in real Life . Great features . She’s smart too

She'd be giving Betty White a run for her money competing for roles.

R59

MM was in therapy already......

More:

It's difficult to imagine Marilyn Monroe living to be middle aged or elderly. I don't think she wanted to live that long. She was terrified of growing old. It was her destiny to die young. She wasn't meant to live a long life.

Marilyn and Mamie Van Doren would've been double-billed at Gus Stevens' Buccaneer Supper Club and starring in European "art" films playing Sapphic sisters.

If she had lived, Jack Kennedy would’ve been impeached in 1964.

MM had she lived could have joined her BF and former co-star Jane Russell in flogging Playtex bras and girdles for "full figured gals".

I don’t think it would have been pretty. She would have either eventually died in poverty or overdosed later on. I could see her being someone who was given many second chances but I don’t know if she would have been able to turn her life around. She was a great actress but a really troubled person and it seemed like the older she got the more difficulty she had controlling her demons.

There's no evidence those "secret tapes" ever existed. You just have to take the word of John Miner, some old codger who said he listened to tapes made by her psychiatrist and took "extensive notes." Well, this is what Anthony Summers had to say about Miner. His letter is addressed to The Independent.ie:

" I was surprised to see the lengthy story on John Miner's claims about Marilyn Monroe - including what he says is in a "transcript" of tapes the actress made before her death in 1962. I am the author of a biography of Monroe, and former deputy district attorney Miner approached me with this yarn back in 1995. He made it clear he wanted money for publication of the "70 to 80" pages of handwritten notes he had made in "a sort of shorthand" back in 1962. Various publications, he said, had made him six-figure offers to reveal what he knew about the Monroe case.

Vanity Fair magazine, to which I contribute on occasion, arranged to bring Miner and his material to me on the US east coast. He arrived with just 35 pages - not in shorthand but cursive narrative - on a yellow legal pad. Original notes containing "exact quotes", Miner said, were in storage. He would look for them. He never produced the notes, conceded that he had put the 35 pages together only recently, and accounted for their astonishing detail by saying he was gifted with a remarkable memory - and had virtually total recall of audiotapes he had heard more than 30 years earlier! Neither I nor the editors at Vanity Fair thought such vaporous stuff merited publication. Miner's tale vanished, only to surface again in 2003 and - now - in your pages.

In 2003, when I was consulted by a television company that was preparing a report on Miner's renewed claims, a background check revealed that "John W Miner" - with addresses the same as his - had been the subject of a bankruptcy case in 1996, just months after he had come to me with the purported Monroe material. The following year, John W Miner was suspended from the practice of law for a period by California's state bar, and placed on probation for two years. Miner, meanwhile, told me that he thought his phone was being bugged and his letters opened, and that someone had been following him. None of this, and nothing in Miner's material, encourages me to believe he has a contribution to make to serious history."

R68, fame can do that to anyone and it has

Her career was pretty much over when she died. There was lots of talk about future projects but I don't think they would have come to fruition. She couldn't WORK. She couldn't remember lines, showed up on the set hours late if at all. How was she going to have a career when her behavior was THAT bad?

R68

Poverty? I don't think so... See R54 ...

At time of death MM had a net worth of about $800k which wasn't too shabby for early 1960's. She received residual payments from a few of her films, and perhaps investments and other assets.

If carefully managed MM likely wouldn't have been able to live well enough. Had she not died there still was possibility of more acting work, and or sponsorships, advertising and other such work to bring in money.

I think she'd be living a Brian Wilson-type existence with a full-time shrink and security to keep Maria hit men away. She was that fragile. I don't think she'd ever be seen publicly. Di Maggio would have set up a trust and taken the Strasbergs to court. I assume she would have become an animal person and give up on men but that may be my wishful thinking.

MM would have joined no small number of Hollywood actors and actresses scrambling to make a living after studio system died, and or their schtick wasn't what audiences wanted any longer.

MM's dumb blonde stacked bombshell bit was getting old even by early 1960's. It certainly wasn't where Hollywood was heading into later 1960's and into 1970's.

Jane Russell at least had the acting chops and discipline to to theatre (Ms. Russell took over from Elaine Stritch as Joanne in Company for several months). Talented as MM might have been, and certainly a large enough name for box office draw, no one on Broadway was going to put up with her nonsense.

There's no doubt in my mind had MM not died when she did, Joe Di Maggio would have asked her to marry him again, and MM likely would have agreed.

From there MM would finally have a man who was truly devoted to her and looked out for her best interests. Joe Di Maggio detested many of the Hollywood people and hangers on that surrounded MM (including some of those who called themselves friends), so my guess is he would have taken her away from all that.

She'd have been Ava Gardner.

Brian Wilson has had royalties (and touring money) to keep him in shrinks. Marilyn would not have remained wealthy. She would have had to live more modestly.

She probably would have died of an overdose. Apparently she had ODed the week before up at Cal-Neva in her cabin and was revived. I think it would have ended tragically at some point.

Did she have histrionic personality disorder? She seemed obsessed with attention and being protected to a self-destructive point. I don't she could have taken aging well.

She was already concerned about her looks and aging when she died.

Hopefully she'd have hunted OP down and hacked off her head w a million machetes.

She would have ended up playing Blanche Devereaux on the Golden Girls.

Honey, she would have designed moon rockets, à la Hedy Lamarr, secret inventor of frequency hopping spread spectrum radio during WW2 (currently used in your cell phone).

Cat lady living in Bakersfield

[quote]If Marilyn Monroe hadn't died in 1962, where would she be today ?

Poughkeepsie.

Does anyone know if her half-sister is still alive?

R86, see R2.

Marilyn was my truly loved punching bag.

She'd be posting on the datalounge, sharing anecdotes with her gay bffs

I think she would’ve become a hippie in the late 60s and have a fling with Timothy Leary and some rock stars.

Donald Spoto, in his worshipful biography of MM, said that she was definitely going to marry DiMaggio again. I find that hard to believe. Their marriage didn't work before, so how could it work a second time around? But he was indeed the man who loved her the most. Her death devastated him, and he was the one who made all the funeral arrangements and paid for the whole thing. He sent roses to her crypt three times a week for 20 years.

[quote]I am the author of a biography of Monroe.

Oh honey, a bunch of people are. Which one you be?

[quote]He sent roses to her crypt three times a week for 20 years.

But did she ever send a thank-you note?

R91

Both MM and Joe diM were totally different people when they married first time around.

Joe DiMaggio in particular was an old school Italian with anger management issues the way such men did (or still do have) back then. He just couldn't handle other men ogling his wife. Film "Seven Year Itch" with that scene of MM's skirts being blown up in the air was first salvo over the bow. Anyone standing around while filming got themselves a good long look at MM's legs right up to her bird. That was just *NOT* something an old school Italian man was going to tolerate.

For what is worth Joe Di Maggio began a campaign to sort himself out moment MM left him (filed for divorce). There are reasons why MM and Joe Di M remained in close contact after their divorce. Joe's son actually was one of the last people MM spoke with (via telephone) before she died.

I have to give her credit though. She had left-wing political views and was friends with many Black entertainers like Sammy Davis Jr, Dorothy Dandridge and Ella Fitzgerald and tried her best to help their careers. She also did her best to educate herself and surround herself with intellectuals. A flawed and damaged person but she seemed very kind and intellectually curious despite her vapid image.

Her whole image was based on youth and beauty. She was attention hungry and there was no way she was going to become a character actress. Approaching 40 was already turning into agony for her. She wasn't getting any joy out of life in her mid 30s and things do not get better as you get older. Your problems get worse. DiMaggio would have been just as difficult and prone to god knows what kind of furious insane Italian outbursts if they got married again. Like Garland her life sadly was hopeless. She started life too fucked up for there to be any possibility of finding peace and happiness.

All this talk about aging. I don't think the woman knew how to live. She had no anchor. She was thing. A thing to be used by men, mostly.

She defined herself by her looks, which were fading at the time of her death. She would rather have been dead than to not be the sex goddess that all men desired. There's been endless speculation about how she died, but I think she was destined to be a suicide. She would not have wanted to live without the adoration and attention from men she was used to getting.

R98, wasn't she in therapy? I'm not saying she didn't kill herself, but It seems like she was trying to find her worth in other areas of her life/other aspects of herself other than being sexy and attracting men.

Three words: The Love Boat.

Oooh, the 1960s would have hit her HARD! She'd have turned forty and watched her career dwindle as she aged and producers got sick of her unprofessionalism, and she'd have had it with Hollywood before long. I think she'd have gotten involved with the hippies and their talk of love, freedom from materialism, non-violence, looking natural, indulging yourself, and taking drugs. I think her young pals would have provided her with drugs much more interesting than anything her quack psychiatrist ever did, and they'd have helped her run through all her Hollywood money.

I'd give good odds of her dying of an overdose before 1970 if she hadn't overdosed in 1962, but if she hadn't... she'd have had to go crawling back to Hollywood looking for work. She might have put in some interesting performances as a character actress in gritty seventies movies, and glammed up to make an appearance on "Dynasty" in the 80s, before doing a Kim Novak and leaving Hollywood like Kim Novak.

r95 too bad none of those people were able to keep her from killing herself

She definitely would've had it rough career-wise. None of her female contemporaries were still starring in films after the mid-late 60s. The 70s would've been pretty bleak.

Marilyn would've outshone Miss Faye Dunaway in "The Towering Inferno," playing Lisolette.

I tend to agree that she'd have seen the end of her career fast approaching and remarried DiMaggio. He adored her but hated her acting career. A Marilyn without the Hollywood crap is just what he wanted. With the pressures of Hollywood off her shoulders, her mental health might have improved considerably. She couldn't carry a pregnancy but they could easily have adopted a couple of kids. A retired Marilyn might have ended up a very happy person.

If she came back to acting much later in life, she wouldn't have been playing sexpots and an older, mellower Joe might have been okay with her taking some gigs.

R102 Dorothy Dandridge killed herself too. She and Marilyn were both very similar and used and abused by the men in their lives. Dorothy had the extra baggage of being a Black woman in Hollywood which limited her to stereotypical, one-dimensional roles like exotic femme fatales or tragic mulattas. Dorothy as a young girl was molested by her mother's live-in girlfriend. Dorothy did have a daughter but she ended up being born with an intellectual disability and Dorothy was forced to give her up to a group home. I think she and Marilyn got along so well because they understood each other.

MM messed up her last big chance in screwing up "Something's Got To Give".

That said to be fair somethings just were out of MM's control, this included fact Cleopatra with Liz Taylor was way over budget and behind schedule. Studio had intended to get "SGTG" out by the holiday season to bring in some much needed cash. Instead it too was behind schedule and costing money studio by then didn't have.

Ironically MM left set of SGTG wearing a dress borrowed from studio wardrobe to attend a benefit gala with Joe DiMaggio and Dean Martin's son. She was fired shortly thereafter...

Yes R99, she was in therapy. She'd been in therapy a long time. But it did her no good. She was, as Arthur Miller said, "beyond help."

Her last psychiatrist, Ralph Greenson, did her more harm than good. He was possessive of her and wanted her to be dependent on him. She was seeing him all the time, sometimes seven days a week. He totally crossed patient/doctor boundaries by having her come over to his house for a session then afterward having dinner with him and his family. She become friendly with his children, even attending his daughter's birthday party. This was all totally unethical but he explained it away by saying he was trying to relieve her "terrible loneliness" by making her feel like she was part of a family.

According to Donald Spoto, Greenson enlisted Eunice Murray, a high school drop out who worked as a housekeeper, as a "spy" who would keep an eye on Marilyn and tell him what she'd been up to and who she'd been seeing. Spoto claims these two were responsible for Marilyn's fatal overdose. Marilyn was very agitated during the last week of her life; in order to help her with her anxiety Greenson prescribed a chloral hydrate enema, which was administered to Marilyn by Eunice Murray. Unbeknownst to him Marilyn had taken pills earlier; the combination of the pills and chloral hydrate enema caused her to overdose and die. According to Spoto, there was no conspiracy, Bobby Kennedy was in no way involved. Marilyn died from a killer enema that had been prescribed for her by her inept, unethical psychiatrist.

r108 I also believe that's how she died. The barbituate enema combined with the barbituate pills she took earlier was what did it. It wasn't suicide or murder but a terrible, tragic accident.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

A KILLER ENEMA! There's a screenplay right there.

Interesting recent event shows no good deed goes unpunished.

If they got married again when Marlilyn wasn't trying to hide herself from one of Joe's jealous outbursts she would have been bored stiff by him.

On the playing field he was a star but he was getting old too and had nothing but Mr. Coffee in his future. She would have spent her time crying in front of mirrors while he would have been smashing furniture in caffeine induced psychotic rages.

Dr. Marianne Kris (MM's New York psychiatrist, and one who had her committed to Payne Whitney mental hospital), received 25% of MM's estate. Lee Strasberg got the rest (75%), but that wasn't good enough for his widow Anna who inherited that lot after her husband's demise. So she sued to get the rest, but lost in court.

Had MM lived there was a good chance she would have changed her will leaving less or nothing to Dr. Kris who was working in cahoots with Anna Freud to get well off patients to make donations or bequests in aid of funding that Anna Freud center....

Correction, Anna Strasberg was the daughter, not wife of Lee Strasberg..

Ugg still got it wrong, Anna was second wife of Lee.

I'm through......

MM was fucked over in life by those she trusted, and then again in death.

Strasberg family completely disregarding MM's final wishes and made bank selling off Ms. Monroe's personal belongings and other things.

She's be singing 'Happy Birthday, Mr President' at the Obamas' Super-spreader party.

The columnist Earl Wilson did a chapter about Marilyn in his book "The Show Business Nobody Knows." The chapter was called "Marilyn: Mad and Marvelous." In it he said that she contacted her lawyer near the end of her life in order to change her will but he kept putting her off because he believed she was "not of sound mind." I'm thinking she probably wanted to cut Lee Strasberg out of her will. I think it had dawned on her by that time that he and his wife Paula had been using her for years to promote themselves and get huge fees from her. Too bad she died before she could do that. The Strasbergs were scum.

Marlon Brando on the Strasbergs:

[quote]"Lee was criticized--and correctly, I think--by his role, and that of his wife, Paula, in the grooming, I suppose we can call it, of Marilyn Monroe. I called it remedial tutoring, and any actor who requires round-the-clock ministrations in the reading of a line or a call sheet is not a serious actor. Marilyn was a lovely and sad woman, but she needed help that extended far beyond the exercises given to her by Lee and Paula. Lee and Paula wanted the reflected fame that came by being in Marilyn's orbit."

And again:

[quote]"After I had some success, Lee Strasberg tried to take credit for teaching me how to act. He never taught me anything. He would have claimed credit for the sun and the moon if he believed he could get away with it. He tried to project himself as an acting oracle and guru. Some people worshiped him, but I never knew why. I sometimes went to the Actors Studio on Saturday mornings because Elia Kazan was teaching, and there were usually a lot of good-looking girls, but Strasberg never taught me acting. Stella did -- and later Kazan."

Strasberg ruined this--

Entire quote from MB on Lee Strasberg.

Susan Strasberg looks like Parker Posey but with a Mid-Atlantic accent.

She's almost certainly be dead by other means by now. She'd be 95; she was 5 years older than Liz Taylor who died a decade ago. But it fun to image what her later career would have been like, and how she would have reacted to various newcomers in each generation and from who borrowed from her, like Madonna, Pamela Anderson, Sharon Stone, etc. Also wonder how she would fave felt about second wave feminism, gay liberation and Stonewall, and the post Civil Rights era.

The biggest question would be if she would ever spill the beans on the Kennedys, or write a tell all book.

Maybe she would have gone the animal route, like Bardot. I doubt she could have lived down her platinum blonde image, unlike, say, Sheree North.

[quote]R74 MM would have joined no small number of Hollywood actors and actresses scrambling to make a living after the studio system died

She’d had her own successful production company before. And there would have been an endless supply of men lining up to help her do all that again.

Not working for Doubleday!

It’s interesting that the r122 trailer pronounces the name as STRASSberg.

Isn’t it STROSSberg?

Why would you pronounce it with an O?

R129 Learn to read, dear.

Morilyn?

Maybe I’m spelling the phonetic pronounciation wrong. I usually hear it softer… certainly not STRASSberg, with a hard ASS.

As in Straz?

On DL confirming how big a bitch Lauren Bacall was.

Don't smeaaahhh!

She would be doing Medicare ads like Walker and Namath.

[quote]R134 As in Straz?

Yes. Or Strahz.

It’s that hard, sharp A in StrASSberg that’s throwing me off.

At the 01:54 mark here, Al Pacino sounds like he’s saying Strahsberg (kind of in between- like in Ross) but others do hit the hard A (as in ass.)

Maybe it’s a regional accent thing.

Now I can’t even hear the difference anymore, but at least here’s MM pronouncing it:

She looks like the love child between Lucy AND Ethel in OP's photo!

I think R3 is closest; it's a broken-down Joan Blondell.

Despite all the books and conspiracy theorists, Marilyn Monroe really didn't have much to do with the Kennedys. I think her association with them lasted all of six months out of her entire life. There's no hard evidence, none, to indicate she ever had any kind of real relationship with either JFK or RFK. It's probable she had a one (or maybe two) night stand with JFK (he fucked everybody) but that's about it.

Linky stinky r142

She would be dead after a second chapter victory on the little screen after she was cast to be Blanche Devereaux in Golden Girls,

Might she have been Wife in MacMillan & Wife?

She never would've looked like that photo at OP. She would've had surgery and all the latest procedures in nipping and tucking. Early Botox adopter for sure.

She also wouldn't have applied her make-up like a Warhol silkscreen, nor kept the same hairstyle for 60 years.

It would be interesting to see Marilyn in the 70s and 80s.

R144 Hmm. Joan Blondell, take two...

I agree her half sister is the best gauge of how MM would probably have aged. Though MM was naturally prettier and would have gone in for plastic surgery… so Bernice is just a jumping off point.

(Bernice is such a drab name to my ears, BTW.) (Not that Norma is any better.)

Most of you queens would know Blondell as the soda shop waitress in Grease.

Don't believe it necessarily goes that MM would have gone in for much or any plastic surgery had she lived and aged. Her good friend and co-star Jane Russell didn't or may have only had very discrete work done.

If MM had married again (Joe DiMaggio) or otherwise found stability after her major acting days were done, she may have just said "fuck it", and let things happen.

Liz Taylor didn't to full on with plastic surgery, nor did a few other great beauties (or at least sex pots) of same era.

Are we pretending this is a face that hasn't been lifted?

"Liz Taylor didn't to full on with plastic surgery"

Yes she did, but she waited until fairly late in life to do it. And she got the best, and used heavy-duty corsetry on the bits that couldn't be smoothed out by a surgeon.

Liz got a lot of work done after she lost all the fat. She looked spectacular in the 80s.

Another one of Liz in the 80s, gettin' those tittays out.

La Liz mocked a drunken Marilyn backstage at a Frank Sinatra concert. Not nice.

[quote]R151 Don't believe it necessarily goes that MM would have gone in for much or any plastic surgery had she lived and aged.

MM took hours and hours to get ready for any appearance, due to her deep insecurity. That’s exactly the type of person who embraces cosmetic surgery as they age.

^^ and I mean hours and hours beyond what your standard movie star takes for hair and makeup.

If Marilyn had completely retired from public life, she might have done a Bardot, let her looks go to hell and put all her energy into pottery or stray animals or something.

But I don't think she could afford to do that, she was worth about 800K in 1962 and I assume her best earning years were already behind her. As long as she stayed in Hollywood she'd have to keep up the struggles with her appearance, and while I think she'd have been a lot happier in an artist's shack in Bolinas, I don't think she'd have voluntarily chucked everything to go there. No, Hollywood and New York were the world she knew, and staying in the world she knew required money.

Studio hired back MM for "SGTG" with a substantial raise. She also agreed to do one more picture as part of that agreement. Sure MM's looks were starting to go by early 1960's but IMHO she could have pulled off things maybe until 1965 if given right material.

Of course the larger issue was getting in control of her demons. Producers and directors of 1960's onward films just were not having any of MM's famous bullshit. Nor from any other actor either; studios just couldn't afford (or soon wouldn't) shooting schedules that went on weeks longer than they should due to a star's tantrums.

Playing devils advocate here is a list of Hollywood films released in 1965. What roles does anyone realistically believe MM would have not only stood a shot in landing, put could have pulled off successfully.

MM did have great comedic genius, but her bread and butter roles (dumb but stacked blonde), were becoming dated and out of fashion by early 1960's. Film Niagara proved MM could handle dramatic roles, but time was working against her as MM was quickly aging out of many roles.

As for money MM was still highly popular and the most photographed woman in world at time of her death. If acting gigs dried up she could have done commercials, endorsements, television appearances.

However as stated numerous times in this thread, MM likely would have gotten back together with Joe DiMaggio. While the man wasn't a tech billionaire, he had enough money to keep a wife like MM in decent enough style.

If MM had her head on straight, and worked with right persons she likely could have made bank from licensing deals. Thus it would have been her instead of the Strasbergs who got rich off Marilyn Monroe's image, name, etc..

Perfume, cosmetics, the lot all could have been in play. Even if MM only lived another say ten or twenty years she'd likely have earned a good amount from such deals. Of course a good amount of the MM allure since her death that makes her estate consistently one of the highest earning each year was her tragic death. But there still was enough of MM mystery or whatever in early 1960's that licensing deals would work out well IMHO.

Losing her looks? She was beautiful in the wardrobe test footage from "Something's Got To Give."

Just to add, Marilyn still looked amazing when done up and looked very current with her looser hairdo. Her bosses came crawling back with much more money for SGTG. Her career was actually boosted by the publicity of that summer. Unfortunately I haven't heard of any indications she was going to ditch all the users in her life.

I always admired Dean Martin for sticking up for her and refusing to finish the movie with anyone but Marilyn, in spite of what had to be a frustrating shoot.

If she'd married DiMaggio, she could have taken a couple of decades off to raise a family and then made a real comeback in the 80s on primetime soaps or big splashy cheesefests like Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Lots of work for Golden Age stars in those places.

I definitely think that she would've been doing a lot of television in the 80s.

What movies could she have done in the early-mid sixties? Probably playing a hot wife in the kind of lame sex farces that nobody likes nowadays, because she was over 35 and Hollywood wouldn't be offering her "the girl" roles. So she might have made some bucks playing the hot wife of Dean Martin, Tony Curtis, or Bob Hope, but those movies were generally awful and went out of fashion by the late sixties, if she'd been stuck in that genre she'd have been considered a pathetic has-been by the time she turned forty.

Of course was capable of more as an actress, on the days when she could be bothered to show up and do her job, but who knows if Hollywood would have given her the opportunity to stretch her range. That's the price of unprofessionalism and cost overruns, you lose offers and lose trust, so your pet projects don't get made. And Hollywood would have totally lost interest her when she turned forty, if she'd wanted to keep working as long as Joan Blondell, she'd have had to get into the habit of showing up on time and doing her job on cue. Nobody hires a character actor who won't come out of her trailer for hours or days, pull that shit for a supporting role, and by the time she came out of the trailer, some other actress would be wearing the costume and getting on with shooting.

If Elizabeth Taylor could have avoided sex comedies, Marilyn probably could as well.

"I always admired Dean Martin for sticking up for her and refusing to finish the movie with anyone but Marilyn, in spite of what had to be a frustrating shoot."

Dean Martin's loyalty to Marilyn Monroe was really a hoax. This is from J. Randy Taraborrelli's bio of Marilyn:

The studio decided to replace Marilyn in "Something's Got To Give" with actress Lee Remick. "That was the end of it as far as Dean was concerned", said Mort Viner. "He called me and said "Get me the hell out of this movie. Jesus Christ, this is the biggest three ring circus in show business and I'm the clown in the middle of it all." So we referenced a clause in his deal that said he would only work with Marilyn. And he quit the film, saying "No Marilyn, no Dean." It was bullshit, really. The real reason is that he didn't want to start over with another actress and and do all that work, again, on a movie that was not that great to begin with. He felt bad for the crew. A lot of people worked hard on that goddamn movie. It was a shame. But it was jinxed from the start. On the very first day she (Marilyn) didn't show up for work, the very first day, Dean said "That's it. This picture will not get made."

Clearly, DLers could have helped Marilyn successfully navigate the next decades of her career. But the crippling anxiety and other mental health issues were becoming an increasing problem. Wasn't she already in therapy?

All of Marilyn's female contemporaries were either done with films or appearing in awful schlock by the late 60s. I don't think she would've fared any better.

Sheree North began a second act in the 1970s. She was able to shed the 1950s platinum blonde.

"But the crippling anxiety and other mental health issues were becoming an increasing problem. Wasn't she already in therapy?"

With a really horrible therapist who did nothing but prescribe pills, and there were no signs that she was onto him or planning to go to someone better. And Marilyn was making no progress in dealing with her crippling anxiety with Dr. Feelgood, and it's not clear that any of the fashionable doctors of her day would have done a lot better, as the main method of the time was to give out pills and encourage people to talk about their childhood, not to help people work on getting through a day's work without freaking out.

It's also not clear that Marilyn had any talent for picking out people who'd actually help her, she went for the enablers every time. What she needed was someone who could help her find enough coping mechanisms other than pills and alcohol and to shove her out the trailer door to do her job, what she chose was Dr. Feelgood, Paula Straussberg, and Natasha Lytess, who encouraged her to stay in her trailer and take all the time, pills, and drinks she needed.

[quote]This is from J. Randy Taraborrelli's bio of Marilyn: The real reason is that he didn't want to start over with another actress and and do all that work, again, on a movie that was not that great to begin with.

Considering he hadn't filmed that many scenes with Marilyn, this is utter bullshit. Find the assembled footage of Dean and Marilyn together and see. Taraborelli lifted complete paragraphs of information from other authors to "write" his book.

Having read the Nunnally Johnson scripts at UCLA's Special Collections before Fox pulled all their holdings, it was much darker than the light froth that Walter Bernstein rewrote. Part of Monroe's coming back was Cukor was out as director, How to Marry a Millionaire's Jean Negulesco was his replacement and they were going back to Johnson's script.

Also, the one box of Greenson files indicated in the DailyFail link isn't one, but four or five boxes which several MM researchists knew of circa 2000, so their reporter is a little late and a few dollars short.

[quote]Paula Straussberg, and Natasha Lytess,

Oh dear on the spelling and Lytess was with Monroe from 1948 until 1954 when she wasn't taking a shitload of pills.

Marilyn was held back by those Strasberg leeches. She would have been the prime choice for The Graduate and might even have got an Oscar

I think she should have done:

Guys and Dolls instead of There's No Business

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Breakfast At Tiffany's instead of Let's Make Love

R173 thank you for your informed post. I agree Dean and Marilyn didn't film much together that a few days with another actress wouldn't make up for.

I'm the one who thought Dean was a stand up guy

DiMaggio had money? From where? Investments? Then what was he doing selling Mr. Coffee?

By time of his death Joe DiMaggio left an estate reportedly worth about $45 million. During his lifetime however there were financial ups and downs.

Bulk of his money later in life apparently came from what was suggested above for MM, licensing and other deals that produced income from endorsements, the "DiMaggio" name, etc....

More:

[quote]I'm the one who thought Dean was a stand up guy.

You are welcome. He was. And, he's buried maybe 50 yards from Monroe in Westwood.

[quote]Marilyn was held back by those Strasberg leeches.

Actually, Monroe's performance in Bus Stop which surprised most of Hollywood and critics was thanks to Strasberg. Even The Prince and the Showgirl with Olivier and The Misfits were decent films and none of them were for Fox. Some Like It Hot wasn't either, but Monroe only did it for the money.

Monroe only had to complete four films for her 1954 contract of which Seven Year Itch and Lets Make Love were two. She was supposed to do Goodbye Charlie as the third, but negotiations and script issues prevented that and she was also up for Celebration opposite Pat Boone. Due to a deadline being missed, Charlie was counted as her third Fox film though Debbie Reynolds made it several years later and Joanne Woodward starred in the the latter retitled The Stipper. Travilla sent Monroe a letter asking to design her costumes for Give, but Jean Louis was given the opportunity since he'd done The Misfits. Travilla did however, do Woodward's and it was the last of his four Oscar nominations.

SGTG would've been her last film under her Fox contract and she then would've been able to command a much higher salary than she was paid up until then. She took deferred payments on Hot and Misfits which was too save taxes and give her a decent yearly income.

If MM had remarried Joe DiMaggio she would have been set for life.

Think of the possibilities between those two famous names linked together again in marriage.

She would have been an old joke from another era by the end of the 1960s with her boo boo pee doo voice and vulgar yet virginal sexuality compared to the younger actresses like Fonda and Welch who were projecting a different sexual vibe than the 50s had. No Grushenka just What's My Line and the Love Boat. Can you imagine MM at Woodstock?

"SGTG would've been her last film under her Fox contract and she then would've been able to command a much higher salary than she was paid up until then. "

I actually wonder how many studios would have paid her a significantly higher salary, considering her age and unprofessional behavior on set. She wasn't Liz Taylor, who was young and hot and on a roll and able to command million-dollar salaries, Marilyn was no longer Hollywood's new toy.

Maybe she'd have gotten big bucks for a few sex comedies, but that was a doomed career strategy.

Taylor wasn't that young and she was often blowsy and fat in the 1960s.

But throughout the 60s Liz was still a big earner.

Despite Paula being an exploiter and enabler of Marilyn she guided her through some of her most indelible performances and let's face it Marilyn is delightful in The Prince and the Show Girl and Olivier has all the charm of concrete. While waiting for Monroe he should have been working on his own performance. Paula seems to have been right most of the time despite directors hating her. And Monroe seems to have been right to have allowed Paula to direct her behind the directors' backs.

She would've been a good Mrs Robinson

Dean Martin and Marilyn didn't "film much together" for two reasons. First, she was hardly ever there. Second, when they did try to do scenes she kept flubbing her lines and rarely was there a usable take. But he still had to show up on the set everyday, to film scenes without her and wait interminably for her to show up. He was sick of that movie. He didn't want to continue to do it with ANYBODY. Here's what he had to say about the experience of trying to make a film with Marilyn Monroe:

"I met Marilyn in 1053, before she met Frank (Sinatra), before she met Peter (Lawford), before she knew any of us. I met her before she was all screwed up, so I knew what she was like then and what she had become, and I felt badly for the kid. At the same time, I was a little tired of all the bullshit. There was only so much you could take. In fact, no one had an easy life. We were all screwed up in our own ways. We all had problems. We were all doing drugs, let's face it. I was no saint, either. But I showed up for work. You had to show up for work. That was the priority. You had to be glad you had a job and you had to show up for work. I'm not saying she wasn't sick all of those days. Who knows? I wasn't following her around like the FBI, I was just sitting on my ass waiting for her to show up at the studio. So when I had my chance to get out, I did. However, the few scenes we did, I enjoyed, but getting to them...oh my God, I mean, the takes, one after the other, it would drive any man crazy. But look, I liked her. She was a good kid. But when you looked into her eyes, there was nothing there. No warmth. No life. It was all illusion. She looked great on film, yeah. But in person...she was a ghost."

Where Elizabeth Taylor had it over Marilyn Monroe in spades is that the former really could act. Yes, La Taylor had her issues and so forth, but bottom line is she came up via studio system of old and knew what was expected of an actress. LT showed up on time (largely) knew her lines, hit her marks and gave what was required with little (well almost) drama.

Even by middle to late 1960's as an older woman and often bloated, Liz Taylor still had it over MM in many areas. She was only 32 when did "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" , but LT used her age, blowsy appearance and weight gain to advantage as Martha.

Like many great beauties who've hit middle age and are a bit too fond of booze, you can see how Martha was once a very attractive woman, and still is in some ways.

Liz Taylor didn't need a day or so locked away in her trailer to give these sort of performances. Ms. Taylor worked throughout the 1960's and beyond (even if the productions weren't always top drawer), while it is highly unlikely MM would have lasted that long.

Again maybe MM could find depths of hidden dramatic acting talent previously unknown, but no one was going to wait five, six, fourteen hours for her to come out of a trailer to do so.

I wish Bette Davis and Henry Fonda had played Martha and George, that would've been something to see.

Marilyn had a better voice than Elizabeth.

In BUtterfield 8 (1960) La Taylor proved she was more than just a stacked actress with a nice rack, but could actually deliver the goods.

"Again maybe MM could find depths of hidden dramatic acting talent previously unknown, but no one was going to wait five, six, fourteen hours for her to come out of a trailer to do so."

Some fans really don't get how much Marilyn's habit of refusing to do her job impacted her career, and would have affected what future offers she would have received if she'd survived 1962. They think of her as the one and only immortal Marilyn, while the Hollywood casting agents of her day thought of her as just another aging blonde, who was an expensive pain in the ass to hire even if she could be good. Believe me, Doris Day didn't get first pick of the roles available to a a thirtyish woman because she was a better actress than Monroe, she got first pick because she behaved herself on the set and her movies made big bucks.

And Marilyn wasn't in direct competition with Liz Taylor, by the Hollywood standards of a day she was a generation older. Liz was at her peak then, Marilyn was universally considered to be past her peak in 1962.

Marilyn proves her mettle in All About Eve. She's in one or two scenes. She was a scene stealer. That's not to be underestimated.

Liz had been in movies since she was a child. She didn't need Lee Strasberg to tell her what to do.

Neither did Marilyn. She had a dependency. Elizabeth had plenty of those herself.

Taylor proved she could deliver the goods before she was stacked in National Velvet.

R157/R158: A major reason Marilyn took hours and hours to get ready was because she was a perfectionist. Typical of perfectionists, she was rarely satisfied and rarely felt good enough. Combined with her fear of failure, she delayed leaving her dressing room until she was coerced to perform. She spent hours at the makeup table because she wanted to look her absolute best (perfectionism) for premieres and industry events, even after her makeup artist reassured her that she looked fine. She wanted to give her fans the glamorous bombshell persona she believed they expected of her.

However, off duty, she often went out with no makeup and messy hair. Sometimes she wasn't recognized by the public, which didn't seem to bother her. She was bare-faced and casual when she attended classes at the Actors Studio. No doubt her many insecurities could paralyze her at times, but she wasn't as obsessive about her public appearance to the degree Mae West was. Mae could never be seen dressed down. This only worsened as she aged. Mae became a recluse and the rare occasions she went out she HAD to put on everything: heavy warpaint, wigs, corsets, fancy clothes — and her usual sexual innuendo. Marilyn had moments when she either didn't care or was secure enough to be seen outside looking ordinary or unkempt. She didn't always have to be "on". We'll never know if she might have turned into the Mae West of her generation.

I agree that more plastic surgery was likely in Marilyn's future, especially if she still wanted to compete for the fewer roles available to older actresses. She could have succumbed to her insecurities and to Hollywood's pressure to erase any signs of ageing.

People act like that "perfectionism" comes from the performers themselves. Stars have people swarming around them, making comments about their appearance, competence etc. some of which is no doubt on target, but it isn't necessarily helpful for a healthy psyche, self esteem etc.

I don't blame Dean for wanting out of the shitshow. Marilyn must have been a nightmare to deal with. You just want to do the scenes and finish the damn movie, and bitch won't come out of her trailer.

That said, if she could have been stable and professional, she might have had a really interesting take on Mrs. Robinson. She'd have also been closer to the right age for the character. Bancroft was only 5 years older than Hoffman and 9 years older than Katharine Ross.

They wanted Doris Day for Mrs. Robinson, and she would have been a much better age than Bancroft or Monroe: Eighteen years older than Katharine Ross, which would have supported the idea of the character as a woman who got married way too young and is bitter about all she missed. But Day found the role distasteful. Too bad--it would have given her a much-needed career boost at a time when she was seen as over-the-hill and from another era.

[quote]Here's what he had to say about the experience of trying to make a film with Marilyn Monroe:

Source of this? Please don't say Taraborrelli's bullshit.

[quote]Yes, La Taylor had her issues and so forth, but bottom line is she came up via studio system of old and knew what was expected of an actress. LT showed up on time (largely) knew her lines, hit her marks and gave what was required with little (well almost) drama.

And yet, Taylor's antics and illnesses and personal issues were partial reasons Cleopatra was costing Fox so much money. Far more than Monroe's actual illness of sinusitus that kept her from filming SGTG. Aside from the scripts at UCLA, they also had her call sheets and times she was on the lot (most days at 6am) and when she left and why (legitimate medical issues.)

[quote]Some fans really don't get how much Marilyn's habit of refusing to do her job impacted her career, and would have affected what future offers she would have received if she'd survived 1962.

Fortunately, I'm not one of them.

[quote]And Marilyn wasn't in direct competition with Liz Taylor, by the Hollywood standards of a day she was a generation older.

Um, no.

In the end, we'll never know what could've happened and can pontificate until the cows come home. And sixty years from her death, Taylor will be remembered for.....um....for......I know.

"GLADIATOR!"

No question--she would have died in 1973 of kidney cancer.

Monroe is iconic, but it's silly to say Taylor ISN'T iconic and won't be remembered 60 years from now.

"Source of this? Please don't say Taraborrelli's bullshit."

Taraborrelli didn't say it was a nightmare working with Monroe; Dean Martin did. He talked about it in an interview. I guess you just don't want to believe it. I guess you think he LIKED working with her, this person who would rarely even show up and when she did didn't even know her fucking lines. No wonder Dean Martin wanted out of the whole fucking mess.

Marilyn would've done independent "art" films like Venus in Furs, Justine, Devil in the Flesh, Desperate Living, and Andy Warhol's Bad.

Yes, she may well have followed Carroll Baker's trajectory.

All this speculating about what Marilyn Monroe would have done if she had lived is really silly. She was destined to die young. She was doomed, poor thing.

Others have come back from the brink. Rita Moreno tried to commit suicide in front of Marlon Brando's house.

[quote]She would've been a good Mrs Robinson

I'm coming around to this idea. Bancroft played Mrs. Robinson like a predator, and not sympathetic even in her most vulnerable moments. Monroe would have broken your heart for Mrs. Robinson. She might have even stolen the film.

"A major reason Marilyn took hours and hours to get ready was because she was a perfectionist. Typical of perfectionists, she was rarely satisfied and rarely felt good enough. Combined with her fear of failure, she delayed leaving her dressing room until she was coerced to perform. "

A lot of actors are perfectionists, for instance Cary Grant would drive the costume people nuts arguing over the tiniest details of his menswear because he knew he was expected to look perfect on screen and goddamit he was going to look *perfect*! But he showed up on time, hit his marks, did his job well, as does any perfectionist who expects to be paid for what they do.

No, Marilyn was 100 kinds of mess, with what we call "crippling anxiety" at the very least, in addition to horrible self-esteem issues and a possible personality disorder. It's really amazing that she was able to stay on top as long as she did, considering that doing her job became agony for her. She really would have been happier chucking it all for that hypothetical artists's shack in Bolinas, but I don't think she'd ever had done it.

She would have been content for a little while but she would have tired of the solitude and would have been itching to get back to the limelight and attention. She was between a rock and a hard place and was really screwed. She just was not destined to find any happiness in life.

[quote]R160 Sure, MM's looks were starting to go by the early 1960's…

She looked gorgeous in her final film. Plus she had a winning (onscreen) personality that would in all likelihood have remained magnetic.

[quote]R169 But the crippling anxiety and other mental health issues were becoming an increasing problem. Wasn't she already in therapy?

Well, she wouldn’t have stood a chance in hell at sustaining anything unless she got sober. But I don’t think that was on the rise for stars till the late 60s, starting with Mercedes McCambridge (?)

R210: How did you get the idea in your head that I didn't think Marilyn was a mess?

I wrote about her "fear of failure," which was one of her crippling anxieties. I also wrote: "No doubt her many insecurities could paralyze her at times. . ." She also had stage fright and was known to break out in hives when she had to appear on set.

Actors and directors who worked with her mentioned her perfectionism. She would exasperate them by insisting on take after take after the director was already satisfied with the scene. She was a perfectionist and she was a mess. She can be both.

She lasted as long as she did because she was able to push through her fears and perform. It took a lot out of her, so it's doubtful she could thrive in Hollywood for another decade. The studios tolerated her difficulties as long as she made money for them and she was very profitable for 20th Century-Fox during the 1950s. But yes, her career was on the downswing at the beginning of the 60s. Studio executives were weary of her by then, of course, but the moviegoing public was not. She still had their goodwill, which is why she was able to get re-hired on Something's Got To Give with a better salary and contract, just before she died. That same popularity helped to get the HUAC off Arthur Miller's back when she publicly supported him, risking her own career (the possibility of being blacklisted).

I don't believe this narrative that some put out: that she was a perpetual victim and [italic]always[/italic] at the point of falling apart. If that were true, she would never have gotten as far as she did in Hollywood.

[quote]R175 She would have been the prime choice for The Graduate and might even have got an Oscar

I don’t think she’s right for that part. Too yielding and obviously sympathetic. The first choice was Patricia Neal, who - like Bancroft - had a steely quality.

If MM were to play “the older woman” it would be more in the vein of “ Cold Wind in August.” But at the same time, I can’t imagine her doing B level stuff.

“[bold]A [/bold]Cold Wind in August”

(sorry)

[quote]Taraborrelli didn't say it was a nightmare working with Monroe; Dean Martin did.

I was referring to the source of "Dean's quotes" being from Taraborrelli's book. If that IS your source, then it is bullshit. He can claim to have interviewed Dean, or Dean's manager or Dean's gardener, but knowing three of the authors Randy lifted pages from for his book, I don't believe a word of it. Just as some of those interviewed for the first and second SGTG specials are full of it.

[quote]this person who would rarely even show up and when she did didn't even know her fucking lines.

Considering I saw the actual call sheets with Monroe's arrivals and departures I probably know a little better than you when she showed and didn't show up. As for knowing her lines, have you looked at the restored footage? It was one scene, after her swim where Monroe flubbed her lines though it wasn't obvious being pieced together. In her scenes with the children, Cox and Martin and Cox, she seemed to manage quite well. In the six plus hours of outtakes I've seen, yes, she did mess up. So did Martin and Charisse. And Phil Silvers. And especially the damn dog and children.

I know what I know and the rantings of some anonymous queen on a thread about MM isn't going to alter the reality of the situation. BTW, you still haven't given the source of Martin's recollections, so I'm guessing it WAS RT's book.

Here's another showing how much he hated making the film.

And one more just for good measure.

"I know what I know and the rantings of some anonymous queen on a thread about MM isn't going to alter the reality of the situation. "

You're nothing but a big old Marilyn Monroe worshipping queen. She got FIRED from SGTG because of her behavior, her inexcusable behavior, dummy! Just because you love and worship Marilyn Monroe doesn't "alter the reality of the situation", and the reality is that Marilyn Monroe was a horror to work with and that is a fact that has been confirmed by many. The people who worked with her have been vocal about what she was like. Tony Curtis went through hell working with her on "Some Like It Hot." He said said kissing her was "like kissing Hitler." Ha ha, good one, Tony! Billy Wilder directed her in two movies and said "It behooves the Screen Directors Guild to award me a Purple Heart."

Wilder also said this about your beloved Marilyn, talking about his experience with her on SLIH::

"She was never on time once. It is a terrible thing for an acting company, the director, the cameraman. You sit there and wait. You can't start without her. Thousands of dollars are going into the hole. You can always figure a Monroe picture runs an extra few hundred thousand because she's coming later. It demoralized the whole company. It's like trench warfare. You sit and sit, waiting for something to happen. When are the shells going off?"

[quote]You're nothing but a big old Marilyn Monroe worshipping queen.

Boy, I must've struck a nerve. Honey, you're working yourself up a bit over a dead actress.

[quote]the reality is that Marilyn Monroe was a horror to work with and that is a fact that has been confirmed by many.

And yet, you give us no names except for Tony Curtis who later retracted his comment and Billy Wilder who also said this regarding Marilyn: My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?

I can give quite a few like Shelley Winters, Jane Russell, Mitzi Gaynor, Jack Lemmon among others and I'll leave you with a clip from Bus Stop director Josh Logan.

^Those listed above had frank yet positive things to say about MM.

She'd be married to Richard Simmons.

If Marilyn and DiMaggio had remarried they would have inevitably divorced again. DiMaggio was able to deify her after she passed because there was now a distance between them. If he married her again the reality of being around a mentally ill, selfish and promiscuous woman would have worn thin quick. The marriage failed the first time for a reason. Monroe had a serious personality disorder, she was not a helpless victim of the wicked Strasbergs or anyone else.

I haven’t read any responses here but I am amazed the misogyny of the OP. The poll answers come across as really hateful to me.

[quote]The marriage failed the first time for a reason.

Yes, the fact that Marilyn did not want to give up her career and Joe hated most of the people in Hollywood.

Certainly not depicted by a sad, cracked statue in the middle of Palm Springs.

[quote]Monroe had a serious personality disorder, she was not a helpless victim of the wicked Strasbergs or anyone else.

The funny thing about armchair psychiatry is that it's pure speculation made by a rando who's never even met the patient. From 1955 until her death, Marilyn saw 4 psychiatrists for psychoanalysis. Not one of them diagnosed her with a personality disorder. Yet, her childhood trauma ensured that she would have mental issues in adulthood: neurosis, anxiety, low self-esteem, etc.

It's possible she had some form of anxiety disorder, substance use disorder, or mood disorder (bipolar), [bold]but there's no conclusive proof she suffered from a serious Cluster A or B personality disorder like PPD, NPD, or BPD.[/bold]

[quote]MM took hours and hours to get ready for any appearance

You say that as if it were a bad thing.

Ultimately, no matter what people were reported to have said about her, we only really have what we see on the screen, and I'm thankful for that, so it's difficult to say what could have been if she had lived. Personally, I would have liked to have seen her do the Sheree North part in [italic]No Down Payment[/italic], another Fox movie that came out during her time. I think that moving into ensemble character roles like that would have given her more of a sense of accomplishment from an artistic standpoint, and it might have saved her. Of course, she was too big a star for something like that at the time, and the studio probably would never have even considered her for it, but it is interesting to think of what she could have done with parts like that.

"Boy, I must've struck a nerve. Honey, you're working yourself up a bit over a dead actress."

Sweetie pie, it is you whose nerves have been "struck." You're terribly worked up, terribly so. And dear, many, many years before YouTube there was such a thing as a written interview. You could find them in newspapers and magazines; they were also done over the radio. You have heard of things like that, haven't you? At any rate, many people over the years have made comments on Marilyn Monroe in print or in some other form of interview. No doubt Taraborrelli got the Dean Martin quote (and the one from Mort Viner, Martin's agent) from some interview that he gave. But I guess you don't believe that. I guess you think he made it all up. But that's only because you love Marilyn and don't want to hear any criticism of her by anyone.

I notice you only posed interviews where the subject was kind to Marilyn. There are those who pitied her and didn't want to speak ill of her. But others who were subject to her horrid behavior were more honest. Nunnally Johnson called her "an arrogant little tail twitcher who learned to throw sex in your face." Billy Wilder of course told the truth about her. And as for Tony Curtis...well, after getting backlash for the kissing comment (her fans were enraged; how dare he say that about dear Marilyn!) he denied he said it. But he was heard saying it so he had to backtrack and say he only meant it sarcastically. But he REALLY did mean it. Of course he did.

[quote]Hagdom and disappearance / freakish plastic surgery à la Novak

Doesn't that best describe Hedy Lamar?

[italic](exiting the Photoplay Awards)[/italic]

Look, there’s nothing wrong with my tits, but I don’t go around throwing them in people’s faces! It was like a burlesque show, and those of us in the industry just shuddered. . .Of course Miss Monroe’s picture isn’t doing business, and I’ll tell you why. Sex plays a tremendously important part in every person’s life. People are interested in it, intrigued with it. But they don’t like to see it flaunted in their faces. And who picks the films the family will watch? The women. The publicity has gone too far! Miss Monroe is making the mistake of believing her publicity. Someone should make her see the light. She should be told that the public likes provocative feminine personalities; but it also likes to know that underneath it all, the actresses are ladies.

[quote]Sweetie pie, it is you whose nerves have been "struck." You're terribly worked up, terribly so. And dear, many, many years before YouTube there was such a thing as a written interview. You could find them in newspapers and magazines; they were also done over the radio. You have heard of things like that, haven't you?

Someone's projecting. I'm remained calm and haven't resorted to the name calling you did in earlier posts. So, yeah, you're a little more worked up than I am. Perhaps the facts and opinions (with verification) that I've presented are just rubbing you the wrong way because you still haven't answered my questions nor backed up your "facts" with any substance but your own flapping gums.

As for newspaper and magazine interviews, hard to trust the printed word when many journalists and authors have resorted to either stealing or fabricating their content. You can't really go wrong with a video of the interviewee saying what they said.. I've linked below to interviews with her Millionaire director and, GASP, George Cukor interviewed in August of 1962. I could also post the hours of Marilyn speaking herself, but really it would be a wasted effort.

Like I said previously, I know what I know. I know the MM family members, friends and coworkers that I've conversed at length with as well as contributing to several best selling Monroe biographies, three documentaries and a couple of smaller projects So yeah, you can say what you want, but you are nothing more than some bitchy fag trying to make themselves feel important by slagging off others. I know my worth in the Monroe community, and I am far from someone who places her on a pedestal. I know too much of the truth to do so.

You are merely a diversion and (barely) entertainment inbetween Drag Race Allstars and working on my second and third book projects.

Kisses, doll.

And, here's some of the raw SGTG footage which shows her screwing up no more than other actresses have on other films.

"Like I said previously, I know what I know."

I don't think you know shit. And "I know my worth in the Monroe community?!" HAHAHAHA! You seem a lot more like a deranged fan than some kind of MM scholar. By the way, your "My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?" quote attributed to Billy Wilder is total bullshit made up by you. What he REALLY said was "On the other hand, I have an Aunt Ida in Vienna who is always on time, but I wouldn't put her in a movie."

And if you're so busy on "book projects" then what are you doing frittering away your time on Datalounge? Seems to anyone with professional obligations like that would be too busy to be wasting time on a gossip board, defending poor dead Marilyn. I don't think you have any "book projects" in the works. I think you just have a vivid imagination and a fixation on Marilyn Monroe. Sad case you are. Ta ta, honeybuns!

Marilyn Monroe had a horrible problem with anxiety that just compounded itself the older she got. And the inability to fall asleep. That kind of insomnia is disabling. And it was ruining her career. I would think in today's world of better medicine and understanding of anxiety, she could have been helped greatly.

She was a warm, caring human being to a young girl - me. And no one can tell me different.

If the twat at R234 is so big on truth and accuracy then he (or she) should identify himself (or herself). If Datalounge has a great author (snort) in its midst, I think everyone would LOVE to know who it is, especially someone who knows EVERYTHING (snort) about Marilyn Monroe. So come on honey, let's have your name! Let us know who this great chronicler of Marilyn Monroe's life (snort) is!

Girls! Girls!

YOU'RE BOTH SAD, FAT, INSUFFERABLE CUNTS!

[quote]I don't think you know shit.

Well, you're wrong.

[quote]quote attributed to Billy Wilder is total bullshit made up by you.

Funny how if you Google "Aunt Minnie" and "Billy Wilder" that version comes up far too many times for me to have "made it up." Which somewhat proves my point of having someone quoted in an interview or magazine. Can't trust what you find in "print." However, were we to have an audio or video of Wilder making the quote, we'd know for sure which was the correct version.

My name doesn't matter. And I'd certainly not give it to some foul-mouthed faggot on an anonymous forum. However, were your English not so good, I'd peg you for a certain German Hollywood collector who would attack anyone who disagreed with his opinions. corboth have the same level of maturity. He became a laughing stock in California before having to return to the Motherland.

[quote]And if you're so busy on "book projects" then what are you doing frittering away your time on Datalounge?

Slumming.

[quote]Sad case you are. Ta ta, honeybuns!

And yet, you come back two posts later to continue your tyrade?

Misfit Girl, I remember your stories and they were truly lovely and honest. Careful you don't get called out as being a liar unless you have photos and I guess a newspaper article confirming your experiences.

And fuck off Mrs. Garrett. Go read another thread if this one is bothering you.

And before I call it quits for the evening, I'd be interested in what expertise my adversary has to make such concrete claims.

[quote]r2 And fuck off Mrs. Garrett. Go read another thread if this one is bothering you.

1.) this is a SHOCKING way to speak of/to a DL icon.

2.) let’s discuss MM as a possible Mrs. Garrett.

[quote] And fuck off Mrs. Garrett. Go read another thread if this one is bothering you.

Fuck yourself with a rusty, tetanus covered iron spiked dildo, cunt.

Hell hath no fury like a Liz Taylor fan scorned.

"My name doesn't matter. And I'd certainly not give it to some foul-mouthed faggot on an anonymous forum. "

"Foul mouthed faggot? You sound like a homophobic douchebag cunt who decided to come to Datalounge and pretend you're an authority on Marilyn Monroe. You're quite the pathetic loser. I pity you.

If you sieve through any of the youtube videos on MM all the comments underneath go something like this: "poor Marilyn, she was a sweet, innocent angel who just wanted to be loved" to "poor, Marilyn she was an innocent lost soul. Evil Hollywood took advantage of.... " and blah blah blah lol, its like a never-ending stream of aggrandizing sycophantic fans who really believe her to be the ultimate, perpetual victim when in fact she never really was, she could be just as predatory and self absorbed as anyone in Hollywood. MM stans seem to be living in delusion.

[quote]"Foul mouthed faggot? You sound like a homophobic douchebag cunt who decided to come to Datalounge and pretend you're an authority on Marilyn Monroe. You're quite the pathetic loser. I pity you.

Actually I'm a 60 year old faggot with AIDS that has beaten three different kinds of cancer who happens to be an authority on Marilyn Monroe. After trying to take the high road, I lowered myself to another's level. So take your pity someplace else.

Cunt.

Of course a second Monroe-DiMaggio marriage would have failed! Not immediately, but he was an old-fashioned man who expected his current Mrs. DiMaggio to stay home and look after him, and she was so needy that the love of the whole world wasn't enough for her. Could one man ever make her happy, when the love of lots of other men, the love of fans, the love of friends and co-workers, hadn't made her feel loved and secure?

Still, they'd probably have given it a go lasting several years, and if she had quit Hollywood (and Dr. Feelgood) in 1963 or so to spend some time trying to be Mrs. DiMaggio, it probably would have been good for her overall. She was approaching forty and popular tastes were about to change dramatically, spending a few years out of the spotlight would have relieved her stress and anxiety for a while, and simplified the inevitable transition from young hottie to mature character actor. Now I don't know if she could have had a stellar career as a supporting actors, as nobody hires anyone who stays in their trailer all day for a smaller role, but maybe with the pressures of stardom removed, she might have been able to show up on time and do her job.

She would’ve left Hollywood, semi-retired, only to guest-star in European arthouse movies every once in a while. I can imagine her starring in one of Fassbinder’s movies.

She would’ve played Blanche’s big sister Charmaine on The Golden Girls.

She would have died in 1963.

Those outtakes from SGTG make moviemaking look more boring than accounting.

She’d look like Rudy Giuliani. Sad.

Monroe fans gush about how how fantastic she was in those outtakes from SGTG, but they only do that because they're blinded by love for her. It's obvious there was something wrong with her; she was unfocused and fuzzy. She and Dean Martin have zero chemistry. And she was very unconvincing as the mother of two children. George Cukor, who was directing this movie, said this after dealing with her lateness and no shows and seeing what footage there was of her attempting a performance: "I think it's the end of her career."

"Something's Got To Give" was eventually made, in a revamped version called "Move Over, Darling" that starred Doris Day and James Garner. With two pros like that in the leads and a great supporting cast (Thelma Ritter, Fred Clark, Don Knotts, Chuck Connors, Edgar Buchanan, Pat Harrington Jr., John Astin) the production went off without a hitch and was one of the biggest film hits of that year. I'm sure 2th Century Fox breathed a sigh of relief at that.

[quote]r254 Something's Got To Give" was eventually made, in a revamped version called "Move Over, Darling" that starred Doris Day and James Garner

You don’t say!

I saw some of those SGTG outtakes courtesy of that obsessive fan account "Marilyn Monroe Video Archives", they really try to make George Cukor seem like a tyrant lol, and with video titles like: "George Cukor harassing Marilyn... George Cukor distracting Marylin.... George Cukor says something to Marilyn..." And of course, Marilyn, once again just has to be the "poor innocent victim" in all of this, it can't possibly be that she IS the problem and everyone else is just doing their job. Why do her fans insist on making her out to be more pathetic than she actually was?

Marilyn left “Something’s Got to Give” because of the entire cast and crew’s unprofessional behavior.

She was a busy lady!

She would have been full of botox because her body was a career. Then when she retired, she would have written her memoirs or a novel or poems because she was extremely gifted in poetry. She would have a foundation for young actresses exploited by Hollywood and she would have married a rich European businessman and besides she would have lived in Paris like Olivia Havilland.

George Cukor was considered a "woman's director." That is, he worked especially well with actresses, and even he could do nothing to help MM act better, be more professional, etc. She was hopeless.

Marilyn looked stunning but I agree with Dean Martin that there's nothing behind her eyes. You can see it even in the costume fitting footage. Don't be distracted by the big blonde hair and heavy makeup: Her eyes are glazed as hell.

R260 In 1962, the year of her death, she was extremely miserable. I mean more miserable than ever.

I find that there is a light shining in those eyes on camera. Maybe seeing them in person was a different thing. She positively glows in that screen test.

There's lighting in a screen test. That's why she "glows." She's also heavily made up. She didn't look like that in real life. It's amazing what makeup and proper lighting can do to alter a person's appearance.

Here's what she looked like a few days before she died, in the cold light of day, not heavily made up. You can also see how much weight she dropped.

Not glamoros but still a beauty.

In those pictures her eyes don't look dead to me. As I said maybe it was somethng just the camera picked up.

Her eyebrows look very dark and thicker in those pics, are they her natural brows? Because in the 50s they looked like they had been lightened to compliment her platinum blonde hair, and her make-up was looking much better then too; here there's a weird powderiness that makes her look ghostly or ill.

In those beach pictures she's oddly wearing heavy eye makeup. And false eyelashes!

Towards the end of her life MM adopted a rather harsh look; platinum white hair, white eyeshadow, heavy black eyeliner. Bert Stern took photos of her near the end of her life that were more unsettling than sexy; the white hair, the white skin, the stark makeup. She looked dead somehow, like a ghost of herself.

R267 I think the stills from the make up tests don't do her justice. If you watch the recovered footage from Somethings Got To Give she actually looks terrific. Her look was definitely maturing and she looked quite hip for the early 60s with a changed hairdo and makeup.

The studio said she was lying but Marilyn and the studio Doctors attest she was seriously ill with a burning temperature for weeks throughout that summer and even when she was filming she wasn't fully recovered.

Plus her incompetent Doctors gave her an endless supply of pills, mainly for her insomnia.

Marilyn in Mexico in March 1962, just five months before her death, looked slim and stunning.

Wasn't dress shown in R270 one MM was buried in?

R271, Yes. The green Pucci dress.

MM had a ton of Pucci dresses, IIRC she bought many and often more than one of same. Don't know where many ended up (the Strasberg family probably sold them off for big money), but they are worth a pretty penny today.

IIRC three women charged with picking out dress for MM to be laid out in (that housekeeper, MM's half sister, and someone else whose name escapes me atm) had a heated debate when going through late MM's closet to choose a dress.

I hate that dress. The color didn't suit her, neither did the cut, and the fabric looks like cheap stifling polyester.

Of course stifling polyester was probably new and exciting hot shit in 1962, but I sure hate it now!

I think she bought the green Pucci and this printed one at the same time. They have the same silhouette.

In her will Marilyn's wish was to have her belongings distributed among her friends. But Strasberg kept it all. After his death her belongings (and I think the rights to her image) went to Strasberg's second wife, a woman Marilyn never met. She eventually auctioned them off. I remember one of the items was the eternity band Joe DiMaggio had given her; it was missing one of its diamonds. It was kind of sad, really; although she was this big Hollywood star she had little in the way of material possessions that was worth much, just some furs mostly and almost no jewelry. Marilyn was not a material girl.

Jeez, that cut did nothing for her figure. Made her chest look like nothing, made her waist look thick when she was at her leanest, and the only body part it emphasized was her soft tummy.

[quote]R274 The color didn't suit her, neither did the cut, and the fabric looks like cheap stifling polyester.

You can calm down and rest assured. It was silk jersey.

There are a few theories about that eternity band Joe DiMaggio gave MM.

IIRC MM left all her personal effects to Lee Strasberg.

MM made a critical but crucial mistake in her will when naming Lee Strasberg to get lion share of her estate. By failing to make provisions about what would happen when Lee Strasberg divorced and remarried, it left field clear for Anna Strasberg to inherit when her husband died.

Anna Strasberg and her family benefitted by tens of millions from the MM estate. This while MM did leave surviving family (her half sisters, etc...).

Anna Mizrahi is still with us and has a net worth estimated at 70 or so million USD.

Marilyn should have been buried in a white dress. That was her signature color. I have no idea why that snot green Pucci dress was chosen as her final outfit. Green was not her color.

Marilyn was surrounded by and allowed herself to be exploited and used by a bunch of greedy takers who cared much less about her than their own interests.

If the Strasberg's had any decency they would have shared at least part of all that money with causes Marilyn cared about. She did leave a legacy to pay for her mum's care though.

Maybe the white dress clashed with her hair? IIRC they needed a dress that covered her up to conceal all the damage the autopsy had done to her chest and breasts.

Bump

"Maybe the white dress clashed with her hair?Maybe the white dress clashed with her hair?"

Since her hair was white at the time of her death I don't think it would have clashed with a white dress. Marilyn associated white with beauty and glamor. I think she would have wanted to have been laid to rest in a white dress.

Here's some things I heard about her appearance at the time of her death:

A policeman on the scene after her body was discovered said her hair "was all burnt up from all those treatments." A photo of her body on the bed does show her as having tangled, damaged hair.

The autopsy made her chest flat, so stuffing was used to create the illusion of a bosom.

A scarf was around her neck to hide swelling there.

She was wearing a wig in her coffin. I think it was Ralph Greenson's daughter who said that when the lid of the casket was lifted for a final viewing "a shock of yellow hair popped out. I couldn't beat to look."

Marilyn's beloved makeup artist Whitey Snyder did her final makeup. She told him long before her death that she wanted him to do her makeup for her own funeral should anything ever happen to her. He told her "Sure, bring the body back while it is still warm and I'll do it." She later gifted him with a Tiffany gold money clip with the inscription “Whitey Dear, While I’m still warm, Marilyn.”

Thanks R285 I remember she was wearing the wig she wore in The Misfits

It was either undertaker's wife or maybe she was part owner of place, but in any event she looked at MM's corpse after men finished with her and said something wasn't right. The woman went for a box of cotton (for those in nursing or medicine likely know what one means), and proceeded to stuff the bra MM's body was wearing. When done she looked and said "now that looks like Marilyn Monroe".

Standard autopsy incisions create a "Y" on body which left MM's bosom deflated. This ordinarily isn't a really huge issue. Once examination is complete organs are literally just "thrown" (well not exactly) back into body, things sewn up, and then corpse prepared for burial. Only internal bits kept are things sent away for pathology or other examination. Unlike a normal corpse if one that has been autopsied is ever opened up again, nothing is where it ought to be...

More:

Just like nearly everyone else in her life MM was fucked by the mortician who handled her final journey.

Abbot "retrieved" a pair of falsies (MM wore them not to enhance her already great figure, but to give illusion of going without a bra), and some hair removed from MM's head from trash bin, He then put those items up for auction.....

Say what you like, but Joe DiMaggio and maybe just a handful of others truly loved and cared about MM. The rest were in or around her for what they could get; that ranged from sex to money and or anything in between.

Mattress MM died on was sold off as well. IIRC some ghoul in Japan bought it and probably whacked off upon it thousands of times.

Upon learning where MM was interred another shining example of humanity bought the space above and had is final remains interred upside down. Thus he is forever lying "on top of" MM....

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

MM's hair...

Double processing (two chemical processes done on hair such as perm and color, bleaching and toning, relaxing and permanent hair color, etc...) is brutal on human hair. Things have gotten slightly better thanks to better conditioners and more gentle chemicals, but still never the less....

Permanent hair color usually can only lift up to certain number of levels. Gong from light brown to darker or even medium shades of blonde is one thing, and may be accomplished with properly formulated permanent hair color. But going from darker brunette or black to blonde or sometimes even medium brown to lighter shades such as platinum/white blonde requires double processing.

First comes bleach (usually powder) that will lighten hair by removing nearly all natural pigment to an extent. Then comes a toner or other hair color which will correct any undesirable tones brought out by bleaching, and also provide final color.

As if chemical processing wasn't bad enough hours on end under hot lights while filming just piled on more misery to hair. What actresses (and some actors) were left with was often dry, wispy, crispy, very damaged hair.

Best anyone could come up with at time was Alberto V05, that greasy stuff which when used in small amounts helped smooth down and "condition (somewhat) dry and brittle hair.

MM and Pucci....

It should be noted by 1960's everywoman who was anyone and could was wearing Pucci. That or perhaps various knockoffs.

IIRC even DL's fav witch Mrs. Darrin Stephens wore Pucci outfits once or twice on Bewitched.

All but forgotten today, but was a favorite of MM, Jackie Kennedy and other famous women of 1960's was Jax.

Jax was famous for their slim slacks/trousers which were a hit.

By 1960's thanks to anti-discrimination laws taking shape and changes in society women were beginning to wear pants, slacks, or whatever you want to call them more and more in public. This may seem like a no brainer for for many women of our mothers, or grandmothers generation girls/women just didn't wear anything remotely resembling trousers in public absent some unique situations.

From the book “Marilyn: The Last Months” by Eunice Murray:

Eunice visited the house on Fifth Helena one more time before the funeral. On Tuesday, clothes had to be selected for the services on Wednesday. Although this was the task of Marilyn’s half-sister, Berniece Miracle, Eunice was called in by estate executrix Inez Melson to show the two women where things were. The mortician was in attendance also, a quilted satin folder across his arm on which to lay the garments. The house seemed strangely silent as the party of four filed solemnly into Marilyn’s bedroom. Eunice walked over to the wardrobe closet and pointed out the dresses. Mrs. Miracle began to sort through them, a look of confidence on her face. The others stood waiting for her choice.

“Where are the blue dresses?” Mrs. Miracle finally turned to ask. “There are no blue dresses,” Eunice said. “No blue dresses? But that was her favorite color. She always wore blue when I knew her.” “Not lately,” Eunice replied.

Mrs. Miracle seemed at a loss, not so sure at all anymore. “She always liked blue,” she repeated as she sorted through the rack helplessly. But it had been several years since Marilyn and her half-sister had been close, and that had been only for a brief while.

“Perhaps Mrs. Murray would show us her favorite dress,” Mrs. Nelson said. Eunice stepped forward and took the pale green Pucci from the rack. She could still see Marilyn radiant in the dress at the press conference in Mexico City. It was the dress about which Marilyn had quipped to reporters, “You should see it on a hanger.”

It was on a hanger now, and its lines were straight up and down, formless all by itself. Marilyn’s own shape would provide the curves of her last garment.

Eunice walked across the room and laid the dress on the queen-sized bed for the others to examine. Mrs. Miracle and Mrs. Nelson stood together at the foot of the bed, Eunice on one side and the mortician on the other. Mrs. Miracle approved the dress. She handed it to Mrs. Nelson. “This will do,” she said.

The green Pucci dress was said to be a "recent favorite" of Marilyn's. I don't know why. As stated before, green was not her color. But Eunice Murray and Bernice Miracle appeared to be totally clueless of the fact that Marilyn really liked the color white. She liked white carpets, white furniture, white linens, she had a white piano, she wore white dresses. At the end of her life her hair was white. She got so little sunlight that her skin was a stark white. She definitely had a thing for white, perhaps associating it with true movie star glamour and Jean Harlow, her premier blonde sex symbol predecessor. Anyway, she would have looked better in a white dress rather than that pukey green one.

There are photos taken of MM near the end of her life where she's wearing an ORANGE outfit, both top and pants an unflattering orange. Ugh, what made her want to wear that!

Just let it go already. Whether "her color" or not MM liked that green Pucci dress apparently. This from someone who was closest to MM before she died, that house keeper and other sources.

You say white, MM's half sister was going on at the time about blue being the deceased favorite color.

In reality it meant very little what MM was buried in, the lady herself was beyond caring....

"In reality it meant very little what MM was buried in, the lady herself was beyond caring...."

Well obviously it meant a lot to quite a few people because what she wore and how she looked after she died is still being talked about to this day.

MM's half sister didn't know MM very well. Maybe many, many years before Marilyn had liked the color blue. But that era was evidently long past. I don't think I've seen a picture of Marilyn Monroe wearing anything blue. Never. No biography has ever said that she was fond of the color blue. I don't think Bernice Miracle knew much about MM 's preferences at all.

"...our mothers, or grandmothers generation girls/women just didn't wear anything remotely resembling trousers in public absent some unique situations."

Fashionable women started wearing loose pants in the 1920s and they were common by the 1940s, hell, women cyclists had been wearing "Bloomer suits" as early as the 1880s.

But when I went to grade school in the 1960s, girls weren't allowed to wear pants to school, and my younger sisters whined and whined about that.

[quote]I don't think I've seen a picture of Marilyn Monroe wearing anything blue. Never.

Where have you been, R298? Marilyn has worn blue outfits in photo shoots and in 3 movies. Here's the blue suit she wore in Niagara:

Blue swimsuit:

Light blue dress with polka dots:

R289 thanks for mentioning that creep who wanted to "lie on top of Marilyn Monroe for eternity". I believe his widow had financial troubles so had to dis-inter him and sell off the resting place. I hope she had him cremated and flushed the ashes. Disgusting prick.

Apparently the crypt sold for $4.6 million!

"Among the many stars resting there is the iconic Marilyn Monroe, and the crypt directly above hers was recently auctioned on eBay. A Japanese man bid more than $4.6 million to spend eternity as Monroe's upstairs neighbor. But the Los Angeles Times reports that he reneged on the deal in an e-mail, saying, "I need to cancel this because of the paying problem."

The current occupant of the crypt is Richard Poncher, who died 23 years ago at the age of 81. In accordance with his wishes, he was entombed face down, above the movie star.

His widow, Elsie Poncher, wants to sell his crypt to pay off the mortgage on her house. She'll then move him into an adjacent crypt that she owns.

The tomb right next to Monroe's is owned by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner."

Follow-up....

Deal to sell crypt above MM fell through. Elsie Poncher, relict of Richard Poncher lies next to her husband who still remains interred face down above Marilyn Monroe.

There's a good chance she would have ended up doing gialli and lower-budget horror like Carroll Baker and Sandra Dee. Actors like Rock Hudson and Roddy McDowall made a pretty good living making movies like EMBRYO and LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE and I think Marilyn could have, too.

If she'd managed to snag and finish another critically-acclaimed movie like THE MISFITS then she might have been able to segue into infrequent but important character performances.

I saw a painting she did of a rose a few days ago and she honestly could have become a decent artist with some training. She might have taken the Tippi Hedren route and quit movies for a whole other career.

Of course this being DL there has to be a gay twist to this unusual saga over MM's final resting place, and there is....

Spot adjacent to MM was purchased by none other than late Broadway composer Jerry Herman in 1997. However when the musician died in 2019 his remains were interred in New Jersey next to his mother. So now the Herman family seeks to unload that space at Westwood cemetery asking roughly $2 million.

[quote]The green Pucci dress was said to be a "recent favorite" of Marilyn's. I don't know why. As stated before, green was not her color.

We had a whole thread on that a few months ago, I think I remember your posts. I get what you're saying but I really thought the sage green dress was flattering on her, so was the Pucci dress in that wild 60s pattern of green and orange. There's a few photos of her in Pucci tops which are even more flattering than the full dress was.

Not sure the link will work but this crazy blue Pucci dress was supposedly hers and I would have love to have seen her in it.

"Marilyn has worn blue outfits in photo shoots and in 3 movies."

I've God knows how many photos of MM but rarely have I seen her in blue. At any rate, I don't think blue was her favorite color. Some book about MM called "Marilyn: A to Z" catalogued all kinds of info about; if I recall correctly it said the colors she favored were white, black, red and...beige. Yes, beige. I think the color scheme at her wedding to Arthur Miller was beige. I seem to remember hearing that even the flowers at the wedding were supposed to have been beige, but none were available.

"There's a good chance she would have ended up doing gialli and lower-budget horror like Carroll Baker and Sandra Dee. Actors like Rock Hudson and Roddy McDowall made a pretty good living making movies like EMBRYO and LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE and I think Marilyn could have, too."

Maybe, if she'd ever learned to show up and do her job on time and on schedule. Low-budget movies generally have tight shooting schedule, and if a leading actor had decided to spend >50% of the allotted shooting time taking pills in their trailer that would have been financially ruinous.

I keep saying, she'd have had to completely change her unprofessional habits to transition to a less glamorous roles and keep working after forty, and some of you just don't get it. Supporting actors just don't get the kind of time and support she demanded before she'd come out of her trailer and do her job, and getting over her insecurities and getting the job done like any other actor would have required the kind of fundamental change than the psychiatrists of the early sixties about to produce.

Marilyn would NEVER have done horror movies. She was trying to be a SERIOUS actress, by God! Horror movies would have been "beneath" her.

Marilyn would have nailed Marion Crane if "Psycho" had been made in the mid 1950s.

If she'd had better therapy and coaching it would have been intriguing to see her in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof", "Breakfast At Tiffany's" and "The Apartment".

She made only six movies in her last 7 years of being a huge star, shame there wasn't more quality movies in her legacy.

Anyone else read the story that Strasberg talked her out of "Tiffany's" as it would hurt her image to play "a hooker"?

"Marilyn would have nailed Marion Crane if "Psycho" had been made in the mid 1950s."

You're right! She would have nailed it... IF Hitchcock had been willing to work with her, and he wasn't hiring any actor who spent all day in their trailer. But say she was alive and behaving herself, well, she'd have been perfect. Her charisma would have sucked the audience into the story of a woman who had a middling life and who was getting older, and who'd do anything to get herself a husband while she still could.

But she was too old for "Breakfast at Tiffany's", which is about people who are too young to know better. Maybe she'd have been good in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", but I don't like that play enough to think about it.

Audrey Hepburn was only 3 years younger than Marilyn. You could argue that she was too old to play Holly Golightly, too, but she made it work.

Marilyn might have been an inspired choice for "The Three Faces Of Eve". She was excellent playing someone mentally ill in "Don't Bother To Knock"

R312, but she was a hooker and a sex symbol. How could it hurt her image?

"Anyone else read the story that Strasberg talked her out of "Tiffany's" as it would hurt her image to play "a hooker"?"

I don't know if that's true. I do know that Marilyn dearly wanted the part of THE hooker in "Irma La Douce." She thought she would be perfect for the part of Irma La Douce, the quintessential hooker with a heart of gold. Billy Wilder would have been the director. After the living hell he endured making "Some Like It Hot" with her he was actually considering working with her again. She and Wilder were enemies, then they made up after the success of SLIH and there was talk of her playing Irma. But Wilder said some things about her in an interview that insulted her and she went back to hating him. It was probably just as well. Shirley MacLaine ended up playing Irma and she was very good at it. It was one of her best performances.

"I have discussed this with my doctor and my psychiatrist and my accountant, and they tell me I am too old and too rich to go through this again."—Writer-director Billy Wilder, on working with the chronically late Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, "

Rest of what Wilder said about MM....

"Wilder recalled that Monroe showed up for early rehearsals and was great—when she remembered her lines. “She had kind of an elegant vulgarity about her. That, I think was very important. And she automatically knew where the joke was.” But with the good came the bad. During production, she would show up hours late for work, claiming to have lost her way to the studio. Wilder would have to run 80-plus takes to get one line, like “Where’s that bourbon?” or “It’s me, Sugar.” She continually deferred to her acting coach, Paula Strasberg, in the midst of arguments with Wilder. All of this put epic strains on Wilder and the cast, especially Curtis and Lemmon, who had to be perfect on every take because Wilder would use the one where Monroe was perfect, regardless of how well they performed.

The stress led Wilder to make some disparaging remarks to the press after shooting wrapped. “The question is whether Marilyn is a person at all or one of the greatest DuPont products ever invented,” the director once quipped. “She has breasts like granite; she defies gravity; and has a brain like Swiss cheese—full of holes.”

R318: Wilder has been complimentary as well. That same blog entry you linked also mentioned this:

[italic]After her death, Wilder had reason to think better of the actress that had so exasperated him. He started by admitting that, despite her weaknesses, the camera loved her. Later still, he noted: “She was an absolute genius as a comedic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comedic dialogue. It was a God-given gift. Believe me, in the last fifteen years there were ten projects that came to me, and I'd start working on them and I'd think, 'It's not going to work, it needs Marilyn Monroe.' Nobody else is in that orbit; everyone else is earthbound by comparison.”[/italic]

R320

Key words in post are "after her death"...

R321: So what? Wilder was commenting in hindsight, when his emotions were calmer after enough time had passed. You made it seem like he had only negative things to say about Marilyn. His films with her made plenty of money. Working with her must have been challenging, but he sure profited financially from it.

Rt. 9 in Massachusetts to Natick.

She lost a 5 month old fetus/baby during that movie. So she was pregnant and taping and then loses the baby. I'm not sure how she even showed up at all.

Yes, she was pregnant during the filming of SLIH. She was also taking pills and drinking during the pregnancy. She brought a thermos of vodka and orange juice to the set and would drink from it frequently. . She ended up having a miscarriage, but I don't think filming the movie caused it. She was really abusing her body with the drugs and alcohol. No wonder the fetus died.

R325 there's no evidence she was drinking on set. And she was about 3 months pregnant from what I've read.

That lying, mediocre Tony Curtis was peddling his memoirs a few years ago claiming he was the father of that baby. Nasty exploitative fucker.

Marilyn indeed did drink on the set of SLIH. Before Maury Povich, before he started doing freak show television ("You ARE the father!") had a talk show that was not bad. He had some interesting guests. One of them was Grace Lee Whitney, who is mostly known for playing Yeoman Janice Rand on "Star Trek." She was in two of Billy Wildner's movies, "Irma La Douce" and "Some Like It Hot." Of course Povich asked about what it was like to work with Marilyn Monroe. She said Monroe was like a "big marshmallow", all soft and white. She also said she drank during filming. Povich asked "How could she perform if she was drunk?" And Whitney said "it was the only way she COULD perform!" That is, Monroe was so insecure and unsure of herself she needed booze to help her cope with her feelings of inadequacy. I can totally believe that.

Marilyn was an addict. She couldn't stop the booze and the pills, and she'd also had several abortions when she was a young model which probably also affected her fertility. Given her mental health and addiction issues, it's just as well she couldn't have a baby. She'd have fucked that baby up worse than Judy Garland fucked up her kids, and Marilyn's baby wouldn't have had the talent of Liza or even Lorna. Genetics being what they are, the baby probably would have looked like Arthur or Joe, so--yeah.

on the dark side, she would be where madonna is today.

on the vright side, a yoga instructor

The baby might also have had FAS like Joey Luft, who has lived a life permanently affected by the fact that his mother couldn't stay off booze and pills when she was pregnant with him.

R329 she would be a 95 year old yoga instructor? Flexible!

from the article at R319

[quote]Seven Like It Hot

Oh, DEAR!

A good book about what it was like working with MM is "My Week With Marilyn" by Colin Clark. It contains the diary that he kept during the filming of "The Prince and the Showgirl" and another remembrance of her called "The Prince, the Showgirl and Me." It's obvious he has sympathy and compassion for her; she's so disturbed, her life is such a mess. But he doesn't mince words when it comes to describing how horrible it was to be making a movie with someone who always showed up late, didn't know her lines, and was morbidly dependent on her unbearable acting coach.

Towards the end of the book Clark encounters Billy Wilder. He mentions that he too had worked with Marilyn Monroe. Wilder growled 'Then you know the meaning of pure pain." Clark said yes, but of "pure magi, too. That really summed it up; MM worked magic on the screen but GETTING that magic was sheer torture.

Marilyn was lucky to die when she did. Her mental illness, increasing unprofessionalism and aging looks would have just led to more emotional pain in her life because she wouldn't be a star anymore. She loved attention too much, it was a drug. She probably would have committed suicide like her friend Dorothy Dandridge once all her roles dried up or just overdosed at a later age. I don't think MM would be completely forgotten, her performances are too memorable, her legacy would not have been as huge as it is today which was the result of heavy licensing of her image and mythology of her mysterious death. Her dying young did a lot for her because she'll be remembered as one of the sexiest women in Hollywood history who was wronged not a withered old actress who died or OD'ed.

On the bright side, she may have remarried Joe DiMaggio and retired, taking up a cause like Doris Day and Tippi Hedren did. On the dark side, her mental health was spiraling. George Cukor (rat bastard) said Marilyn had to fight the gods at every turn, and he was kind of right; she took on Fox, twice, and won both times. She took on Laurence Olivier and ultimately won. She took on Billy Wilder. She shamed Arthur Miller by having a very public affair with Yves Montand. She took on Cukor. Did she take on the Kennedys? After being discarded? Not sure. Point is she was a fighter by nature and that takes a toll on someone eventually.

By now she would have been re-dead.

If OP wasn't a smelly, repulsive brain-dead cunt, where'd she be? I hate you OP.

I can't imagine Marilyn Monroe living to a ripe old age. She was so mentally ill and destructive. She had a horror of growing old. I think she would rather have been dead than to grow old.

R335, I don't think the love of one man was enough for Monroe. She'd had a serious go at marriage with Miller, she de-prioritized work and fame and tried to change herself to make the relationship work, and well, none of it made her happy. What makes you think that DiMaggio's love would have made her happy? The love of every straight man in the world wasn't enough to make the woman happy!

Honestly, the only thing that could have saved her and restored her to some kind of equilibrium is if she'd gotten rid of her hack doctor and found someone who could actually help her with her problems instead of just prescribing pills. But she liked her pills as much as she liked her fame, and I don't think she had a lot of insight into her own issues. She just kept looking through the whole world looking for something that'd make the pain go away, not inside herself.

Why would she have remarried DiMaggio? Their marriage didn't work the first time around; why should a second marriage have worked? Donald Spoto said in the worshipful bio of Marilyn that she was going toe remarry DiMaggio but I don't believe that.

R339 she did try hard with Miller but he wasn't right for her and treated her badly. He ignored and ridiculed her and generally had no idea how to handle someone as damaged as she was.

Essentially she needed some great Psychiatric care from a professional who didn't use her or make her dependent on themselves or pills. It's outrageous what her mental health team did to her.

[quote] He ignored and ridiculed her and generally had no idea how to handle someone as damaged as she was.

No, that's not really accurate. He was besotted with her in the beginning. But he quickly came to realize she was a bottomless pit of neediness that was "devouring" him. But he TRIED. He really made an effort to salvage the marriage. But in the end he had to bail out, to save himself. Monroe's marriage to Miller was her longest lasting relationship with a man: five years.

He treated her badly on the honeymoon

[quote] where would she be today ?

Born in 1926, I am guessing today she would be dead. That is where she would be.

I see her getting into the Andy Warhol/Factory orbit and making movies with Paul Morrissey.....can you even imagine Marilyn on LSD and hanging out with Warhol superstars? Not a pretty picture, in every sense.....

Stalked by Madonna???

I could see her taking an against-type role as a foul-mouthed grandma/cougar in an indie comedy or pay-TV sitcom.

I wonder if she could have matured into a more versatile actress. She really wasn't as bad as people make her out to be. I think she had this quality to make her characters very sympathetic rather than just dull sex objects. Granted she needed to stay sober and focused for that to happen.

THere was a lot of talk about future projects in the works for Monroe near the end of her life, but I doubt any of them would have come to fruition. Judging by her behavior during the filming of "Something's Got To Give" she was no longer capable of acting. She would show up hours late (or not at all) and when she did show she was unfocused and couldn't remember her lines. Plus, she was getting long in the tooth for a sex symbol; she was over halfway to forty. I think it was inevitable that she died when she did. She was doomed.

She would have been good in the Cloris Leechman role in Last Picture Show

R349 she didn't show up or was unfocused as she was really sick! She'd cried wolf too often though and the Producers didn't believe her.

And she gave one of her very best performances just 2 years before in The Misfits, so she'd hardly lost her talent..

[quote] she didn't show up or was unfocused as she was really sick!

But not too sick to fly off to sing Happy Birthday to JFK wearing a see through dress.

And Monroe didn't get much praise for The Misfits. Actually Clark Gable did some of his best acting in that movie. And Montgomery Clift had his moments, too.