That’s from Brando’s autobio ‘Songs My Mother Taught Me’

So according to him yes, but just a small one. But neither were really the others type. Marilyn clearly liked goofy looking guys, Marlon was into exotic creatures. But can you imagine if they had kids???

Apr 21 + 35 notes

Hello! In my opinion, nah, just look at photos of her shoes, they are alL perfectly normal.
According to Allan “Whitey” Snyder, Marilyn first developed her walk accidentally, one day when her high heels met uneven cobblestones. But the first thing that Emmeline Snively (the owner of Blue Book Modeling Agency) said the first thing they wanted to get rid of was her walk because it wasn’t good for fashion models. And her masseur, Ralph Roberts said that Marilyn worked out the walk after reading The Thinking Body by Mabel Ellsworth Todd (there is a photo of her on the set of Clash By Night where the book is peeking out of her purse or maybe it was on the floor I can’t remember). The book contained an exercise which involved shifting the weight from one buttock to the other while sitting.

Also Mae West claimed that Marilyn’s walk was just a poor copy of her own, which had apparently evolved because she teetered onto theater stages on six-inch heels.
(This is from Adam Victor’s Marilyn Encyclopedia)

Apr 19 + 5 notes

Hi! Yea I am very wary about such things but apparently it’s real.

From the Willis Henry Auction:

Marilyn Monroe, kleenex with lipstick print, “Marilyn Monroe lip print May, 1962”, taken by Robert Champion backstage at the “New York’s Birthday Salute to President Kennedy”. On page 132, Chapter 37, titled “Marilyn Monroe”, of the unpublished manuscript memoir “He Made Stars Shine”, Robert Freeman Champion writes: “As we stood for a long time back stage at Madison Square Garden, she was very nervous about her appearance. She wore a beautiful gown that was made from a nude like material…designed by Jean-Louis and cost $5,000 dollars…I refreshed her lipcolor, powdered her nose, checked her blusher, and then she was announced again ‘Miss Marilyn Monroe, better late than never.’ In her very tight gown, she had difficulty ascending the make-shift stairs and I assisted her to the top where the spotlight hit her. The next is history of Miss Monroe seductively walking out to the microphone and singing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’. Later, as I mentioned I introduced her to Maria Callas. Later, Miss Monroe went to the same party as Miss Callas and they met there again.” Also includes a program “Happy Birthday Mr. President” for the Birthday salute to President Kennedy, and a 3” x 4 1/4” news photograph of Maria Callas, Marilyn Monroe and Robert Champion (behind Maria). A copy of Chapter 37 titled “Marilyn Monroe” will accompany the lot. [x]

Apr 17 + 4 notes

I haven’t read the book but curiosity got the better of me so I ordered it a couple days ago, it should arrive in a few days.  From what I read about it though, the first part (prince and the showgirl) is believable because it was just a diary he wrote at the time of the film’s production. He was just a gopher to Laurence, and just noted down his opinions. The second part however was written years later and the general opinion is that it’s pure fiction and he just wanted to cash in on her fame.

Mar 31 + 3 notes

[x]

Mar 26 + 3 notes

Shit! I totally read this like hours ago then went to shower and forgot. Sorry!!!
Um well it’s not a documentary per se I guess but I like Marilyn on Marilyn. It’s her interviews put together, so you get to listen to her speak about her life.

Mar 22 + 14 notes

[x]

Mar 21 + 5 notes

Right? Like how can someone look so absolutely perfect. I took a walk from the bus stop to my house after school today and came home looking like a creature from the black lagoon, [or if you’re eastern european: that weird moss creature that wonders around the forest scaring and possibly eating children]. Anyways it’s pretty basic: cold ass weather and a tiny not so warm dress.

Oh and she first got a stomach bug visiting soldiers in Japan but decided to continue with the Korean tour. One Army Corps of Engineers officer said, “Of all the performers who came to us in Korea-and there were a half dozen or so- she was the best…It was bitter cold, but she was in no hurry to leave. Marilyn was a great entertainer. She made thousands of GIs feel she really cared.”


From Michelle Morgan’s Private and Confidential:
“By the time Marilyn began the first show in Korea, it was snowing, but even so she appeared in a purple evening gown and alter claimed that she didn’t even notice the snow falling around her. ‘In fact,’ she said ’ it melted away almost before it touched my skin. That was the happiest time- when the thousands of soldiers all yelled my name over and over.’
Marilyn performed several songs, including ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ and ‘Kiss Me Again,’ and joked and talked with the GIs in the crowd. One of them, Don Loraine, remembered:  ‘I was a young Marine in Korea. Marilyn came out dressed in a heavy parka.  She started to sing; suddenly stopped and said, ‘This is not what you came to see,’ and took off the parka. She was dressed in a low-cut purple cocktail dress. She was so beautiful, we all went wild, and I might add it was colder than hell that day.  She brought a lot of joy to a group of combat-weary Marines and I for one will never forget her.’
…
On her return to Japan, Marilyn excitedly told DiMaggio, ‘Joe, you never heard such cheering,’ to which he replied, ‘Yes I have.’ This cutting put-down was made worse by the fact that the freezing conditions had given her not just a bronchial condition but pneumonia too. By the time they arrived in the United States, Marilyn wearily told reporters, ‘I’m ill and just want to go to bed.’ The tour had ended; she was back to reality.

Mar 20 + 9 notes

Depends on what you want [did that sound dirty? I bet it sounds dirty now]. I can only offer info on what I have. Some other Marilyn blogs on here have way more books, but darn Narnia doesn’t want to sell the good books here only the rumor filled ones.

If you want biographies then Michelle Morgan’s books are great. The first is more of a standard bio, the second has more stories. 

If you want easy access to info then Adam Victor’s book is great but it was written in the late 90s I believe, so some info isn’t as up to date. 

If you want picture books than Marilyn Metamorphosis is stunning. 

If you want books on her clothing than (or then? I think than right?) Marilyn in Fashion is amazing for all the different designers. If you want a book on  William Travilla than Dressing Marilyn, although it does have some spelling mistakes which tick me off ironically [I bet I used ironically wrong too].

If you want something from Marilyn directly then Fragments (although it does feel a bit wrong reading private writings of someone who hasn’t given permission to publish it).
A ghostwritten interesting book is George Barris’ Marilyn in Her Own Words.

I only have two books written by people that knew her, and so far I’ve only read one of them cause I got a lot of school work to read through first but they are: My Sister Marilyn (the one I read, it’s good) and To Norma Jeane with Love Jimmie.

It has been noted that it’s than not then. A recent post on here messed up my head [deep down I always knew it was then].

Mar 19 + 11 notes

So the story goes that Evangelist Billy Graham went to Marilyn’s house with the message that God sent him to preach her (or some bull like that), and after listening to this she said “I don’t need you Jesus.”  And then a week or two after Marilyn died.
But this story is fake like a majority of Marilyn stories, and reps for Billy have said that the two never had any interactions. There is a story that Billy had a dream about Marilyn being in peril and wanted to contact her but her reps said she didn’t have time to speak to him. And in Debbie Reynolds autobiography (I haven’t read it, so this may be like broken telephone) she says that Billy talked to her about it, but since Debbie didn’t really know Marilyn she talked to her hairdresser Sidney Guilaroff to talk to Marilyn but it was too late.

Mar 19 + 6 notes

The popular notion of Marilyn is that she staggered through life in a drug-addled haze, a miasma of neurosis and helplessness, and that the end she was the mentally unstable, blond cog in Byzantine murder plots involving (pick one) the Kennedys, the CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, her therapist, her housekeeper.
     What escapes conspiracy theorists and those who prefer Marilyn as a mess in a beaded dress is that all her life she was a working woman- from the enforced drudgery of orphanages and foster care to marriage at barely 16, to factory work, and then to modeling. From age 22 to 36, she was an actress. Her childhood had saddled her with conflicting traits. She was torn by crushingly low self-esteem, a resistance to certain kinds of discipline, and an unstoppable desire to be more than her origins predestined.
     When she began modeling at 18, Blue Books Modeling records described her as unusually photogenic- “Eyes: Blue… Bust: Excellent… Teeth: Perfect.” But even more impressive was her desire to improve herself. Reflecting years later, the head of the agency stated, “A lot of them ask, ‘How can I be like Marilyn Monroe?’ But there’ll never be another like her. No one ever worked harder or had more belief in herself.”

-“The Marilyn You Don’t Know” by Liz Smith, Parade Magazine [Sunday, July 27, 2008]

Mar 09 + 539 notes

Marilyn at a fund-raising dinner  as a leader for the Junior Division  of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York, 1955. 

      Norma Jeane was baptized at the Foursquare Gospel Church, the center of an evangelical movement founded by Sister Aimee Semple McPherson. Foster parent “Aunt” Ana Lower, however, schooled Marilyn in Christian Science from the period 1938 to 1946, and as she took her first steps into the movie business, Marilyn was sometimes seen with Christian Science religious books.
     When she was with Fred Karger, she was taken to Victor’s Catholic Church, where according to some biographers she first met Joan Crawford.
     During filming of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Jane Russell invited Marilyn to her home to attend sessions of the Hollywood Christian Group. Most biographers record that Marilyn only went once.
    Marilyn converted to the Jewish faith just before marrying third husband Arthur  Miller. Miller writes that it was Marilyn’s desire to go through with a religious wedding ceremony and conversion to Judaism: “I’m not religious, but she wanted to be one of us… I don’t think you could say she became a Jewess, but still she took it all very seriously. I would say she wanted to join me and become part of my life.”
     Marilyn converted to Judaism on July 1, 1956 (the 22nd of Tammuz, 5716, in the Jewish calendar). Her certificate of conversion was signed by Milton H. Greene, Arthur Miller, and Rabbi E. Goldberg, who also presided over the Jewish weeding ceremony uniting Arthur and Marilyn.

-From Adam Victor’s The Marilyn Encyclopedia

Feb 19 + 101 notes

         She had fallen behind [in 1949] with not only her rent but also payments on her car. But the chance to up her income came via photographer Tom Kelley who’d been asking her to pose nude for several months. Threatened with repossession of her car, she called his number and on 27 May arrived at Kelley’s studio at 736 North Seward Avenue, to pose nude for a calendar distributed by John Baumgarth. To add a touch of respectability to the proceedings, Marilyn requested that Kelley’s partner Natalie Grasko be in attendance. She explained that she had agreed to pose nude because she was flat broke and felt a debt of gratitude to him for his kindness to her, a complete stranger, on the day her car broke down.
       ’Begin the Beguine’ played on the turntable as Marilyn reclined on a red-velvet blanket; she was paid $50 for her efforts. Years later she described the experience as, ‘Very simple… And drafty!’, and although the photos are tame compared to modern standards, she was so anxious not to be recognized that she signed the release ‘Mona Monroe’.
———-
     Within days of meeting DiMaggio [Joe, in March 1952], rumours that Marilyn had once posed naked were impossible to deny when a calendar featuring the nude photos started to appear throughout the country. Marilyn had been forewarned of this by a man in the street who approached her clutching one: ‘This ought to be worth quite a bit of money to you. Suppose I showed it around town?’ Marilyn refused to be drawn: ‘Mister. I’d just adore for you to show it around Hollywood- would you like me to also autograph it for you?‘ 
    Her studio went in a frenzy, with executives demanding first she lie, then say nothing. Ultimately, a prepared statement allowed Marilyn to explain her version of events- she’d been broke and needed money for her rent. She played the sympathy card and was not only forgiven but also loved for her honesty and candour. Once it was clear that the photos would not negatively affect her career, she became quite proud of them. Mayor Johnny Grant, who delivered her a calendar, confirms this: ‘She… was happy to receive it. She had just gotten out of the shower and the only thing she was wearing was a towel- on her head! When she opened the door, she half way hid behind it, exposing almost the same scene I had just seen on the calendar.’
    Tom Kelley later said that Marilyn had some role in the photos’ notoriety, since she had given numerous autographed calendars as gifts. Nonetheless, in December 1952, she tried to stop them being used on ashtrays, glasses and cocktail trays: ‘I don’t know exactly what rights I have, but it seems to me I should have some say in the way my own picture is used.’

-FromMarilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed by Michelle Morgan

Feb 18 + 1,142 notes

Hello deario! Sorry it took so long to answer (just a shitload of things going on) and thank you for being patient. Sadly I can’t think of a good response (I can think of reasons I respect her but that’s not exactly a national turning point). Others have said it’s because she is a sex symbol, and women didn’t use their sexuality before and blah blah blah but that’s utter bullshit. While the term may have been used for the first time in the 50s, there were plenty of sex symbols before, including Marilyn’s inspiration, Jean Harlow (Jean was more “frisky” though). Marilyn was a new brand of sex though (well I’m sure there were others who did this too but she is clearly the best at it), innocence and vixen combined. You see Marilyn was successful exactly at that time because she came after the war. The audience didn’t want to see aggressiveness, they’ve seen enough of it just a few years before (plus the Korean war going on), thus the more conservative nature. And in part I guess that’s why her body (and others like her; Sophia, Gina, Jayne, Jane, etc.) was so popular, you know the subconscious “she’d make a good mother because she is curvy” idea. Consumerism was highly on the rise, suburbs were created, more cars bought (so they can travel from work to the suburbs), more things bought, and of course television on the rise in the 50s (I can’t remember exactly where I read [probably cause I read it like 4 years ago in a film class] it but basically it was Marilyn and Marlon Brando who kept the audiences going to the movie theater). But clearly she had something to last this long, while many of the other sex symbols are no longer known.
There is a quote from Marlon Brando that goes, “Do you remember when Marilyn Monroe died? Everybody stopped work, and you could see all that day the same expressions on their faces, the same thought: ‘How can a girl with success, fame, youth, money, beauty… how could she kill herself?’ Nobody could understand it because those are the things that everybody wants, and they can’t believe that life wasn’t important to Marilyn Monroe, or that her life was elsewhere.”
So clearly to everyone thought she had everything you need for the perfect life, but that wasn’t the case. The image of her life and death have created a mythical creature out of her (and a commodity by the people owning her image).
Of course she did help with re-opening society to sex, but she wasn’t the only one (remember Elvis Pelvis; plus in comparison to her “wannabes” she was pure vanilla).


I’d suggest looking at J. Robert Oppenheimer, his actions have created a giant turning point which is easier to document.

Feb 06 + 9 notes

This is going to be long, so prepare yourself, get some tea and cookies, sit in a comfy chair/bed, whatever needs to be done.


From Adam Victor’s ‘The Marilyn Encyclopedia’:
“Rumors of a romance between the two date back to late 1954, immediately after Marilyn decided to divorce DiMaggio. This was when Sinatra helped DiMaggio try to catch Marilyn with another man in the infamous ‘Wrong Door Raid’ fiasco; not only did they fail to ambush Marilyn, but both men wound up in court being sued for damages. (DiMaggio and  Sinatra had a falling out soon afterwards.) More rumors circulated in 1955, a year when both Marilyn and Sinatra were between long-term relationships.
….
In 1961, when Marilyn moved back to Los Angeles from New York, she stayed briefly at Sinatra’s home while he was away on tour in Europe. Once more, the word got out that they were more than just friends. Sinatra gave her a couple of gifts that year: a pair of emerald earrings which she wore to the Golden Globe Awards, and then passed on to New York maid Lena Pepitone, and, by, most accounts, Marilyn’s last pet, a poodle she named Maf.
…
Many biographers, particularly those with a special interest in the circumstances of Marilyn’s death, have much to say about Sinatra’s mafia connections and how, during the last years of Marilyn’s life, he provided a conduit for gangsters keen on settling scores with the Kennedys. On one of her last weekends alive, it has been widely written that Marilyn was with Sinatra at the Cal-Nevada Lodge, a gambling establishment half in California, half in Nevada, in which Sinatra reputedly had a stake. In the more scurrilous accounts, Sinatra kept her supplied with pills, prevented a suicide attempt, or shared her with his mob pals.
Sinatra biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli *  repeats claims that Sinatra was considering marrying Monroe shortly before her death so that people would  “back off and give her some space” to pull herself back together.
One friend of Sinatra’s producer Milton Ebbins, believed that he was far more serious about Marilyn then she was about him. However, at this time Sinatra was seeing actress Juliet Prowse, to whom he later became engaged.

From Michelle Morgan’s Marilyn Monroe: Private and Confidential:
“Almost immediately on her return to New York, rumors began to circulate that Frank Sinatra had been in Florida at the same time as Marilyn, and that she was in love with him. This is intriguing since on 2 March 1961, whilst staying at Columbia- Presbyterian Hospital, she wrote a letter to Dr Greenson, admitting to a “fling on a wing” affair with an unnamed man, possibly Sinatra. Marilyn described the lover as being very unselfish in bed, but also admitted that she knew Greenson would not approve of him.
Marilyn had encountered Sinatra several times over the years, and actress Annabelle Standford remembers her as being a little less than enamoured with him during a trip to Palm Springs in the late 1940s. “A group of us were doing a photo shoot with Bernard of Hollywood (Bruno Bernard), and afterwards we were all having dinner. Frank Sinatra was there and having something of an argument with a male friend. I remember Marilyn looking over,shaking her head and throwing her arms in the air. She was not happy and when the argument continued she left.”
…
Marilyn became something of a mascot for the ‘Rat Pack’, as Sinatra’s posse were labelled. She spent time with Dean Martin and his wife in Newport Harbor; discussed making a film with Sinatra and surprised herself by quite happily settling into life in Los Angeles. ‘I’ve never had such a good time ever- in Hollywood,’ she confided to Louella Parsons. “For the first time in many years I am completely free to do exactly as I please. And this new freedom has made me happier. I want to look for a home to buy here; I think I’ll settle in Beverly Hills.”
…
Another difficult friendship was the one she had with Frank Sinatra, which went off the boil one day when Marilyn started telling him about her childhood. ‘Oh not that again,’ he exclaimed. Marilyn was not pleased by his rebuttal of her woes, and shortly afterwards she surprised friends by refusing to give him copies of photos from a recent boat trip. “I’ve already given him enough,” she told them.`

From Donald Spoto’s Marilyn Monroe the Biography:
The reason for her presence (at Dean Martin’s 44 bday party) was simple. It is unclear exactly when Marilyn began a brief, intermittent romance with Frank Sinatra (perhaps as early as two or three rendezvous in 1955 in New York), but the liaison was resumed that June and lasted until late that year. Frank, apparently the more smitten, met Marilyn at his home in Los Angeles, and occasionally in Las Vegas or Lake Tahoe.
“There’s no doubt that Frank was in love with Marilyn,” said the producer Milton Ebbins, who knew them both well that year. Ebbins, a friend of Sinatra and vice-president of Peter Lawford’s production company, recalled an incident that revealed Sinatra’s infatuation for Monroe. After accepting an invitation to a luncheon for President Kennedy at the oceanfront home of Lawford (who was then married to the president’s sister Patricia), Sinatra failed to arrive.
“He has a terrible cold,” said his secretary Gloria Lovell, telephoning the singer’s last-minute excuse. (By coincidence, Lovell lived in the same apartment complex as Marilyn.)
“Oh Gloria, come on, this is hard to believe,” replied Ebbins, who took the call. “Tell him he’s got to come over. He can’t do this to the president!” But the secretary was adamant: Sinatra would not appear. Later, Ebbins learned from Lovell and from Sinatra himself the real reason for the astonishing absence: “He couldn’t find Marilyn!” Ebbins recalled. “She had been staying at his house for a weekend, and she had gone out for something- shopping or a facial or whatever- and he couldn’t find her! It wasn’t worry for her safety, he was just that jealous of her whereabouts! To hell with the president’s lunch!”
Marilyn resented this proprietary attitude. She liked and admired Frank and felt safe in his company. She would not, however, be possessed by him, for by 1961 Joe really had no competition; Marilyn also knew that despite their involvement Frank followed his own romantic inclinations elsewhere. “I think he might have married Marilyn if he had the chance,” according to Ebbins,” After all, for Frank to break an engagement with the president of the United States- and I can assure you how badly he wanted to go there- that was a major thing for him! He could have come to the lunch, departed and found her later. I tell you, he was hung up on this girl!” Rupert Allan, Ralph Roberts and Joseph Naar (a close friend and agent-manager for Lawford) also knew of Sinatra’s deep feelings for Marilyn.
But for all that the rumor mills and columnists have over the years made of this relationship, it was, after 1961, essentially a friendship: Marilyn’s man was Joe, and it was well known that Frank was involved with, among others, the actress Juliet Prowse.


* I haven’t read any of his books, but I did read an excerpt from his Marilyn book, and well if you’re into salacious gossip, it’s perfect for you. According to him, one morning Marilyn seduced Frank into having sex against a refrigerator…. I wonder how Randy knows that…. (his excerpts where enough for me to avoid his book at all costs)

Short answer: Who knows?

Feb 01 + 10 notes