"In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You're judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty," Marilyn Monroe once said, I'm sure in that breathless rasp of a voice, but I can't confirm it. When she died in 1962 at the age of 36, my generation was resigned to know only of her legend, not her.
Had she been alive, she would have turned 80 this year. In the age of instant celebrity where neither looks nor talent in its remotest origins are any longer a prerequisite to fame, an interview with Monroe would have been a major "get".
For not only was she the biggest movie star in the world (kindly note that I don't say actress), she was a true blue enigma, and even in death remained as much for decades onwards. Impossibly beautiful and not without talent, her life was so deliciously intriguing. She created reams of tabloid fodder before the tabloid was even invented. The lovers, the husbands, the movies, the glamour, the diamonds, the President, the songs, the mafia, the drama on screen and off - she had it all, and there were convoluted links that snaked their way up to her deathbed.
For those all too familiar with the origins of this flickering candle in the wind (a nod to Sir Elton John for coming up with a near-perfect homage to her in song), kindly skip the following paragraph.
Born Norma Jean Mortenson on June 1st, 1926, in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her youth in foster homes as her father abandoned her family while Gladys, her mentally unstable mother, was in and out of asylums. The only thing Norma Jean inherited were good looks from her mother, who worked as a film cutter. Not many remnants of Norma Jean's pre-blonde, impoverished years remain, but disturbing tales of abuse and near rape litter biographies of the soon-to-be-legend. At the age of 16, she married James Dogherty, a young aircraft plant worker. That lasted for about four years and was one of many to come (figures of her romances and marriages bordered on Elizabethan, I mean Taylor not the times). She did say, somewhat glibly, "A smart girl leaves before she is left."
By 1946, Monroe was modelling swimsuits in her newly-acquired single status and bleach blonde incarnation. When her pictures landed on the table of Howard Hughes (the madcap multimillionaire director and aviator), he ensured that she got a US$125 per week contract with 20th Century Fox. Some forgettable films followed but cameos, like the one in All About Eve (1950), did get her noticed.
In 1951, Monroe, still a newcomer to the silver screen caught photographer Sam Shaw's attention. Reportedly fascinated by her near-perfect vision that his lenses captured, a life-long friendship and bond was born. He shot some of the rarest and most iconic photos, including some very controversial nudes that found their way to the cover of Playboy - a first for an actress whose career catapulted her into the irreversible orbit of global fame.
But did that happen because of her topless shots or in spite of them? Hard to say, even in hindsight. She simply said, "I love to do the things the censors won't pass," and even the moral police of the time couldn't stop Monroe from doing whatever she wanted to do.
More movies, a growing fan base, a warm reception by the then oh-so-tame media and critics led to Monroe landing a lead in Gentlemen prefer Blondes (1953), the same year she started dating baseball great Joe DiMaggio. The following year she married and divorced him. The union lasted eight months, but Dimaggio famously placed half a dozen roses at Monroe's crypt in Corridor of Memories, for 20 years after her death, three times a week. When asked about his relationship with his former wife, he famously muttered, "I've never thought that was anybody's business but my own."DiMaggio, like most men who encountered the elusive beauty, was left in the wake of her unprecedented fame and mystical charms. Even the actresses of her time were intrigued by her palpable charisma, "When you look at Marilyn on the screen, you don't want anything bad to happen to her. You really care that she should be all right... happy," said Natalie Wood.
"She had flesh which photographed like flesh," said director Billy Wilder. "You feel you can reach out and touch it. Unique is an overworked word, but in her case it applies. There will never be another one like her, and Lord knows there have been plenty of imitations."
Even that bastion of movie machismo, Clark Gable, was positively gushing like a teen with a crush when he said, "Marilyn is a kind of ultimate. She is uniquely feminine. Everything she does is different, strange and exciting, from the way she talks to the way she uses that magnificent torso. She makes a man proud to be a man."
Despite the long train of admirers pelting her with bouquets of compliments, the golden bird was trapped in a gilded cage. And she knew it. "I was never used to being happy, so that wasn't something I ever took for granted," she said. "I did sort of think, you know, marriage did that. You see, I was brought up differently from the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy - that's it, successful, happy, and on time."
Well, none of her marriages lasted, she was often late or absent from her film sets (which got her thrown out of many films) and by many accounts (her ex-husbands, friends and directors), Monroe found happiness only fleetingly. Her third marriage to writer Arthur Miller lasted less than five years and rumours of her dalliance with President John F. Kennedy was manna created for the paparazzi.
Marilyn's off-screen antics engulfed her, and her work in the 32 or so odd films seem secondary, but she desperately craved recognition solely for her work. While talking to a reporter, she once said, "Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe... I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity."
But Marilyn was so much more. Reflecting on her life, career, performances and even her final few photographs, the word tragedy floats about like mists of Chanel No 5 (the only thing she wore to bed)in the wind.
As it is said, tragedy isn't just what happened, but it's what could have been.
The Marylin Monroe Exhibition
Art Beatus Gallery
Shop 301-302, One Exchange Square Podium
Central, Hong Kong
No comments:
Post a Comment