Marilyn Monroe
Midst all the glamour and glitterati that the world of
motion pictures provides, the name of Marilyn Monroe stands supreme as the
first most famous international sex symbol of the world. Oozing charm and
charisma, this nymph of the 50’s had the whole world crooning at her feet. It
money, beauty, fame be the measure of success, then Marilyn Monroe had it all.
Two generations later she still wears the crown of the sexiest woman of the 20th
century. The choice is unanimous.
Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1,
1926. Her mother was a pretty redhaired Hollywood film cutter whose husband had
left her. She then met Marilyn’s father, a baker and Marilyn was born out of
this casual union. Her father’s itinerant behavior and his subsequent
abandoning of the mother when she broke the news of her pregnancy left painful
scars of rejection that Marilyn could never come to terms with. As though
illegitimacy was not a big enough cross to bear, Marilyn’s mother soon began to
show signs of mental disturbance. She was committed to an institution. Thus,
began the life of this rootless little orphan with all its share of insecurity,
hurt, desolation and humiliation.
For the first few years Marilyn was transported to foster homes
by the Country Welfare Agency. The foster parents were paid $ 20 a month for
the upkeep of this lost girl. At orphanages she earned a living by cleaning
toilets. When she was seven or eight, she was seduced by a boarder in her
foster home. He gave her a nickel “not to tell.” On reporting the matter to her
foster mother, all she got was disbelief, suspicion and an admonishing for
tarnishing the name of that “fine gentlemen.” The seeds of insecurity were well
sown. The security of a warm hearth was something Marilyn never knew.
Guilt-ridden and torn by confused feelings of inadequacy, Marilyn grew up with
a low self-esteem. These early insecurities became an integral part of her
unconscious and though dormant, were potent enough to shape her life. Marilyn
recollecting her childhood said, “I always felt insecure . . . . But most of
all I felt scared.”
On approaching womanhood, Marilyn discovered her one asset
that would give her an edge over everyone else. It was her vital exuberant
sexuality. “My arrival in school started everybody buzzing . . . . The boys
began screaming and groaning.” At last, she had found a constant in her life
that she could rely on. Her dazzling looks gave her confidence that she need
not fear rejection any longer. For acceptance, her beauty was baton and she
used it unsparingly. So hungry was she for acceptance and affection that she
exploited her looks to an extent of what seemed a little short of promiscuity.
When barely 16, she entered an ill-matched marriage. Her husband and she separated
after about two years apparently without tears.
In 1944, while working on a difference plant. Marilyn’s
natal stars began to shine. A United States Army photographer noticing her
magnetic sex appeal induced her to pose for posters for the troops. An instant
success as a model, she was signed by a number of magazines as their as their ‘Cover
Girl’ She was signed by 20th Century-Fox for a small part. She
worked briefly with Columbia Pictures in low budget musical films like ‘Ladies
of the Chorus’ (1949) and ‘Love Happy’ (1949). At this time, a failed love
affair with a musical director raked her past insecurities and put her on the
road to self annihilation. She attempted suicide. It was only the beginning of
a spate of suicidal attempts the last of which was to take her life.
This golden tressed, curvaceous blonde love goddess with a
Madonna’s face was the instant choice of Arthur Hornblow, Jr., and John Huston
when they were looking for a face to fill a minor part in their film, ‘The
Asphalt Jungle.’ “As soon as we saw her we knew she was the one,” recalls
Hornblow. The virile voluptuousness of Venus combined with the quality of
innocent depravity were what sent the audience pulsating to see more of her.
She was recognized as that ‘Calendar Girl’ but instead of disowning her, the
public vied to never let her go. Her films like ‘All About Eve’ (1950), ‘Love
Nest’ (1951), ‘Clash By Night’ (1952), all hailed Marilyn Monroe as the love
icon of the century. In 1953, she received international fame for her roles in
films like ‘Niagara’, ‘How To Marry A Millionaire’ and ‘gentlemen Prefer
Blondes’. 1954 saw her as the leading lady of Fox Productions.
Marilyn married the famous baseball player, Joe Di Maggio in
1954. They divorced a year later. Rebelling against her long succession of
stereotype roles, she sought more challenging roles which a Fox Contract offered
her. In 1956 she married the playwright, Arthur Miller. During the years of
their marriage Marilyn said, “Now for the really first time, I feel I am not alone
anymore. I have a feeling of being sheltered. It’s as if I have come in out of
the cold.” Their marriage lasted four years.
Marilyn’s years in stardom were beset with emotional highs
and lows. Unending visits to the psychiatrist and compulsive suicidal
tendencies beset her life with depression. Beneath the veneer of bubbling
casualness was a confused chaotic mind struggling to keep afloat. The fleeting
years made her aware of her one enemy-Time. The ethereal beauty that so
captivated the world had begun to wane and with that her only anchor of
stability was fast disappearing. She was 36 and the mirror on the wall would
not be able to hide the truth any longer. A lethal overdose of barbiturates in
1962 put an end to this saga of romance that had set the passions of millions
on fire.
Marilyn’s third husband, Arthur Miller, dramatized the
tragedy of Marilyn Monroe in his play, ‘After the Fail’. Her acute sense of
victimization was the direct residue of her precarious past. Her sense of
vulnerability never allowed her to trust and to believe, leading to failed
relationships. She required “Limitless” love and no man, according to Miller,
is capable of it. A normal woman on maturing needs the reassurance of the
mirror only marginally as the years go by. She relies more heavily on inner
self confidence. This, Marilyn lacked.
Perhaps deep down Marilyn was still the little lonely Alice,
lost in the woods. So frightened was she of the gnomes and fairies of this
world that she lived through life without making any lasting contact with
reality. She drifted in a make-believe world of hers riddled with prejudice,
some justified and the rest of it unnecessary. This beautiful creature, who was
the envy of women and the fantasy of men all over, died pathetically, a lonely
figure unaware that the world of love could have been hers if only she had not
allowed the demons of distrust to take over and destroy her completely.
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