Marilyn Monroe : biography
1953 year was really significant for Marilyn Monroe. She played in a comedy “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” of a director Billy Wilder and sang a song “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Beat Friend”. The song immediately became popular. The result of work with Wilder was a rise of the actress’ rates – she started to get 1200 dollars in a week. The second success of 1953 was a meeting of Joe DiMaggio. This baseball player had already left professional sport, but his former merits provided him with almost presidential fame. Joe was brought up in a big family, he was eleven years older than Marilyn and managed to become not only a lover for her, and then a husband, but also almost a father.
In that year Marilyn played in a film “How To Marry a Millionaire”. In this comedy she worked with cinema stars, for example, Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable – and she managed to play better without naked scenes. She didn’t need to be naked or even to say something to attract men’s attention, because she was so attractive.
Serious attitude to the career roused Marylin to education. She became a student of the Carolina University, but soon left it because she had little time – she worked very much, was photographed for advertising, studied singing and rhetoric. She learnt actors’ mastery with Mikhail Chekhov in the studio of famous Lee Strasberg, who also taught her history and psychology. It was more interesting for her to analyze mise-en-scenes in literature works with Chekhov (for example, in “The Cherry Orchard”), than to work on the shooting area. Marilyn wanted to become a great actress, but not a sex symbol. Probably, that’s why she was so annoyed that she was invited to play the main role in a film “Heller in Pink Tights”.
It turned out that sexually attractive appearance of Marilyn Monroe prevented her from being the real actress and closed the way to serious roles. But she was incredibly popular. During the shootings of “The Seven Year Itch” of Billy Wilder in 1954 a several thousand people’s crowd literally attacked the shooting area. In one of the episodes of this film Marilyn stood on a ventilation grating of the New York subway, and coming air rose her skirt. The crowd roared with delight… Joe DiMaggio was also in this crowd of people.
Joe seriously insisted on their wedding with Marilyn. She marked time for long, but finally agreed to marry. The marriage lasted for two hundred and sixty three days and didn’t bring happiness to either side. DIMaggio was annoyed with curiosity and persistence of audience. According to his words, three days of four they slept in different rooms with Marilyn. Natasha Leites added irritation to Joe – she was appointed for Marilyn by the studio. Once she came in Marilyn and Joe’s apartment at night for some rehearsal – and Joe DiMaggio turned her out. The enraged husband finally put a question point-blank – “cinema or me”. It was difficult to doubt in Marilyn’s answer, all the more newspapers wrote “The public is the first and last love of Marilyn Monroe”. And this love was undoubtedly mutual.
She wrote a lot of lies in the book, published under Marilyn Monroe’s name, and it was practically immediately disclosed, but it didn’t influence on public love. Marilyn more dreamt in her life, than lived in reality. In personal relationships men’s admiration was enough for her – sex, according to her words, was secondary and even unnecessary. Marilyn’s partners on shootings considered her smart, shy and talented, and she was ready to play serious roles. But mighty thighs, magnificent breast and charming gait made the actress a tasty morsel for directors and producers – but, unfortunately, for definite films. Her image in cinema, even as a joke, was exactly characterized by Billy Wilder – “Breast of stone, brain of wadding”.
All her life Marilyn wanted to have a smart man. She was literally conquered with intelligence and warmth of Arthur Miller’s works. After the divorce with DiMaggio she adopted Judaism and married Miller. The wedding took place in summer of 1956. But Marilyn was disappointed in marriage again. Miller was a rather indifferent man in life, and he was satisfied with a role of the husband of Marilyn Monroe, an American sex symbol. Miller wasn’t interested in his wife’s problems and thoughts, and the last thing he did for her was a script of a film “The Misfits”.
