Marilyn Monroe: The film “Blonde” Remember what Marilyn Monroe was like? The ups and downs of Hollywood Cinderella
Marilyn Monroe: Blonde, starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe, was released on Netflix on September 28. On this occasion, we recall what the legendary Hollywood actress was like and whether Hollywood considered her an actress.
We are talking about the 1950s, but we mean Marilyn Monroe. We are talking about Marilyn Monroe, but we mean the 1950s. The heyday of the career of the most famous Hollywood Cinderella coincided with the era of the Caribbean crisis and acted on the same chain principle. After Monroe, not only the film industry, but also mass culture in general, became different, because the platinum blonde proved that to become a great actress, it is not necessary to play great roles.
Hey Norma Jean, you’re a draw!
So much has been written about Marilyn Monroe that it seems that even the laziest one is somehow familiar with her biography, which, in general, boils down to the phrase “was a nobody, but became everything.”
At first, there was even a different name – Norma Jean, and a childhood that you don’t want to remember: a chaotic mother with paranoid schizophrenia who ended her days in a psychiatric hospital. An endless series of guardians, life in an orphanage, harassment. All this was more like a premature hell than life on earth. But Norma Jean knew no other life.
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As soon as she got used to the new family at least a little, she had to leave: either there was no money, then someone was sick, then a friend of her mother decided to take her to her upbringing, then again a shelter.
The first husband, James Dougherty, put an end to children’s moving from family to family.
The actress herself subsequently always considered this marriage as a salvation, although she admitted that the spouses had little in common: there were no common interests or common friends. A year after the wedding, Doherty got a job working for the merchant fleet, and the young wife, due to lack of education (she never finished school), had to go to varnish the fuselages of aircraft at an aircraft factory.
It was in the workshop of Radioplane Co. and the very event that changes fates happened: a group of photojournalists came to take campaign pictures for a magazine with a military theme. Photos with Norma Jean turned out to be successful. She was offered to shoot again and again, and in 1945, the 19-year-old girl was already accepted into the Blue Book modeling agency in Los Angeles. Well, then it’s clear: glory,
The era of Norma Jean’s foundling is over forever. However, like marriage with James Dougherty.
All you need is to be not yourself
Marilyn Monroe is a myth that the actress carefully created herself, trying to get rid of her past life forever. What is true in it, and what is part of the image, is now difficult to understand. In an interview, the actress said that she always loved cinema and wanted to be involved in it. (Marilyn Monroe)
There was also a popular story that Monroe’s mother saw in her daughter only an actress, almost a copy of Jean Harlow, a movie star and sex symbol of the 1930s. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the actress took the image of Harlow as the basis for the image: she bleached her brown hair to a platinum shade, trained a languid voice with aspiration and armed herself with scarlet lipstick. Monroe was one of the most ambitious and hardworking models, and success was not long in coming – by the beginning of 1946, her photos filled the covers of magazines.
Of course, the producers quickly noticed such a beauty. At the time, the only way to succeed as an actor was to sign with one of the Big Five factories (MGM, Paramount, Warner Brothers, RKO or, in Monroe’s case, Twentieth Century Fox) and put up with years of glamorous work. After the conclusion of the contract, first for episodic roles, and then for larger roles, the famous screen pseudonym appears. (Marilyn Monroe)
Critics quickly notice Monroe and her image of a sensual femme fatale, capable of driving men crazy and plunging rivals into a rage. And no matter how the actress subsequently struggled with this cliche of a silly, but lovely blonde, she will not be able to move away from the image. Neither acting school, nor vocal and dance classes, nor even studying with Mikhail Chekhov and Lotti Goslar were taken seriously. It so happened that in the guise of Marilyn Monroe they saw not an actress, but only a beautiful addition to the movie screen. Attempts to prove professionalism among their own caused only a smile.
The peak of his career is the mid-1950s. Monroe is an absolute sex symbol, which everyone considers a fool. She was the most popular actress in the world, but, in fact, wholly owned by Twentieth Century Fox, which forced her to play in endless comedies, broadcasting the sexy image of Marilyn: “How to marry a millionaire”, “Let’s do it legally”, ” The itch of the seventh year”, “Martyshkin labor”.
Monroe deserved more, and she knew it. She wanted to challenge herself to do more serious work that required more than just wiggling her hips or wearing skimpy dresses. But alas. All that was needed was to arouse lust.
She decided to fight and did the unthinkable: she broke the iron contract through a tedious lawsuit. And then she founded her own company, Marilyn Monroe Productions. In a matter of hours, the stupid blonde turned Hollywood around and began to dictate the terms of cooperation herself. Litigation from a former employer ended in complete success for Marilyn. (Marilyn Monroe)
It seems that now she has proved to everyone that she can not only smile seductively, but also be a businesswoman and lead a team of professionals. Marriage to the intellectual Arthur Miller and the successful premiere of Bus Stop (not only a box office success, but also positive reviews from critics) should have dispelled the cliché that Monroe is just a pretty wrapper.
But that doesn’t happen. “Only Girls in Jazz” is a film that will become the pinnacle of director Billy Wilder’s work and an important milestone in all American comedy cinema. The hateful image of a stupid blonde earned Marilyn Monroe the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Comedy or Musical. (Marilyn Monroe)
“A sex symbol is just a thing, and I hate being a thing”
You can make a long series about the unsuccessful search for love of the actress: she was credited with novels with Yves Montand and Tony Curtis, Paul Newman and journalist Robert Slatzer, Frank Sinatra, millionaire Henry Rosenfeld and the Kennedy brothers. But not a single romance and not a single marriage ended happily. Marilyn Monroe, the favorite of millions, still remained alone, whom she had been so afraid of since childhood.
Luxurious villas, expensive cars, box office success – fame that brings nothing but disappointment. Marilyn’s character deteriorated. Her career also deteriorated. For a long time she had to convince that she was worth something and be reliable in order to get contracts from people with big money, and now she simply has to become capricious for those whose support she no longer needs.
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And then – as if on ice: severe depression, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, taking barbiturates. The addiction to the pills was so severe that sometimes I had to put on make-up before my eyes could open. She is so broken that she cannot remember the lyrics and stops coming to the set.
No joke, but in the last weeks of her life, Marilyn considered filming a biopic about Jean Harlow. The one from which she borrowed the image and in some ways life. The circle is closed. (Marilyn Monroe)
In July 1962, Marilyn Monroe had a series of candid conversations with journalist Richard Mariman, which turned out to be her last interview. In it she says: “Fame is not good for your daily diet, it cannot feed you. It will only warm you a little, and even then for a while. It’s like black caviar. You know, caviar is nice to eat, but not when you have to eat it every day and instead of all other dishes.
Three days later, the housekeeper Marilyn will find the owner dead. The circumstances of death, and the circumstances of the life of the world’s main sex symbol for several decades will provide food for the most unimaginable conspiracy theories of what really happened. (Marilyn Monroe)
The Marilyn Monroe phenomenon is a beautiful myth of loneliness, luck and human fragility. She was ahead of her time by several years, but did not live to see the changes that she considered possible: a free woman who is not ashamed of her sensuality and beauty. Her charm went far beyond the Hollywood factory, she is still imitated. And so far, in general, unsuccessfully, although the industry of creating idols does not tolerate empty portrait frames.
Marilyn is still the only one. Even 60 years later.
