For an idea of the kinds of duties expected of a 1950s housewife, one does not have to look further than newspapers of the time. In one article by an unnamed “doctor,” a list of responsibilities included: bringing the husband his pipe, slippers, and newspaper; answering the front door; turning on the radio; making dinner; and of course, looking after the children. The “doctor” then gave a few tips for husbands to make their wife’s life easier. These included not allowing her to do housework in the evening, not keeping her waiting when food was on the table, occasionally making breakfast on the weekend, and always dealing with argumentative neighbors or tradesmen. This was necessary, according to the author, because men were better equipped for such matters. Women, it seemed, were just too sensitive to handle it.
In a 1955 issue of the Australian Women’s Weekly, there was a competition to win a new car. However, instead of the kind of trivia questions one would expect to answer today, the competition centered on “the qualities of an ideal wife and mother.” Each week, the magazine gave a list of elements that contributed toward “making a woman ideal for marriage.” These included cleanliness in the home, patience, sewing skills, personal attractiveness, and housework competence. The women contestants then had to choose twelve points they deemed most appropriate to their life in the home, and the winner would be decided by a panel of men.
This extraordinary article was by no means rare; in fact, it was the rule more than the exception to show women safely at home, cooking and cleaning. Advertisements during the 1950s confirm this ideal, often depicting women holding feather dusters and dressed in an apron while their husbands are chasing promotion in smart offices. Even presents were directed toward the household. What woman wouldn’t want a vacuum cleaner from her husband? “Christmas morning she’ll be happier with a Hoover,” claimed one seasonal ad.
Educational films aimed at newly married couples had an emphasis on what a wife’s role should entail. One such production, released by Coronet Instructional Films in 1951, presented a young couple going through various stresses over the course of one year of marriage. The wife was shown as having given up her job after the wedding to maintain a happy house for her husband. She spends her days cooking, cleaning, organizing bridge parties, and seething that her husband visits his mother too often. Ironically, the overriding theme was to demonstrate that a marriage is a partnership, but the subtext relied heavily on the idea that it could only ever be that way if a woman was willing to compromise herself.
It was not often that these ideals were questioned. This was confirmed in November 1954 when United Press sent out a questionnaire to the editors of 143 newspapers and magazines. They wanted to know what kinds of subjects their female readers were interested in reading about and then the answers were compiled into a survey. The results showed that while some women were keen to know about Marilyn’s views on marriage, others were apparently tired of hearing about her. The average woman was happy to learn about politics and education, but what she really wanted to know was how to be better at housekeeping, dressing well, and being attractive.
Occasionally a woman would buck the trend and decide that her life goal was not to wait for a man to come home from work. Although she later claimed to have offered to give up her career to save her marriage, in October 1954 Marilyn Monroe was the person wishing to get more out of her life. Joe DiMaggio could not give the support she needed, inflicted tight rules on how she should dress and behave, and wanted no part in her film career. In fairness, he was a fairly typical 1950s spouse; Marilyn Monroe, however, was not.
There were many issues that forced her hand in the breakup with DiMaggio, and during the divorce hearing on October 27, Marilyn mentioned some of them. There were weeks when her husband refused to speak, she said, and he would accuse her of nagging when she asked what was wrong. He had also caused her grievous mental suffering and anguish, and had refused to allow friends into their home. Her lawyer called it a “conflict of careers,” and neither party spoke about the rumors of domestic assault. DiMaggio was not in court and did not contest the separation, so the judge granted Marilyn a temporary divorce to be made final around a year later.
As she walked out of the courtroom and into her new life, another marriage was about to end in a far more tragic way. Santa Monica court reporter Mack Silbert was covering the Monroe/DiMaggio divorce, and his twenty-eight-year-old wife, Selma, asked if she could go along with him. The man agreed, and as Mack worked in the thick of the action, his wife sat at the back of the courtroom and observed Marilyn giving her testimony. No one will ever know what went through her mind as she watched the proceedings unfold, but at the end of the case, Selma Silbert calmly picked up her purse and walked to the nearby Bay Cities building. There, she was to meet her husband for lunch.
Instead of going to the restaurant, the woman walked up to the tenth-floor restroom. Once there, she opened the window as far as it would go, balanced herself on the windowsill, and threw herself out. She landed on top of an adjoining building, where she died instantly. When Mack Silbert arrived on the scene, he was so overcome with grief that he collapsed. Selma was his first wife and the mother of his two young children.
In newspapers the next day, it was stated that the woman had “been upset” and had tried to take her life on several occasions in the past. In reality, however, Selma was suffering from postpartum depression after giving birth to her last child just the year before. Her death was so traumatic to the family that it was rarely spoken about, and the fact that she had been watching Marilyn just moments before was never mentioned.
The diagnosis and treatment for postpartum depression during the 1950s was almost nonexistent. For women showing signs of it, the term “neurotic” was often bandied around, and in some cases, electric shock treatment was recommended. Tragically, because of the severe lack of understanding of women’s mental health, there was no hope for the young mother. While Marilyn obtained her freedom through divorce, Selma Lenore Silbert found hers in quite another way. There was just a two-month age difference between the women.
This was not the only time Marilyn’s name was used in the context of a tragic or depressing story. Another came almost three years later, when a young wife appeared in court to divorce her emotionally abusive husband. According to Mary Parks, her spouse continually humiliated her in private and in the company of friends because she did not look like Marilyn Monroe. With dark hair and a slim build, Mary was actually the complete opposite in appearance, and her husband allegedly reminded her of this on a constant basis. The stress and anxiety took its toll, and the woman lost even more weight before finally filing for divorce.
ON NOVEMBER 2, 1954, Marilyn was back on the set of The Seven Year Itch. There, she filmed a scene where the plumber (played by Victor Moore) is called to rescue The Girl from a dilemma: that of having her toe stuck up the bath faucet. The scene was a fantasy, imagined by Richard Sherman when he worries that The Girl will tell everyone about his unsuccessful attempt to seduce her on a piano bench. On hearing her story, the plumber was to drop his wrench into the tub and then go rifling around for it under the water. The scene was a funny one, but by the time the censors got hold of it, it was cut so that at no time was Victor Moore seen to drop the wrench, never mind grope around for it.
Just two days later, the film was finished, much to the relief of everyone involved. As director Billy Wilder recovered from the ups and downs of the shoot, he had the following to say to reporter Steve Cronin: “Working with Marilyn is not the easiest thing in the world, but it was one of the great experiences of my life. I have a feeling that this picture helped her in formulating an idea of what she herself is all about.”
He was correct. During the filming, twenty-eight-year-old Marilyn had been thinking earnestly about her future, the kind of roles she wanted to play, and how she was going to achieve her ambition. Shortly before the movie wrapped, she was asked by a reporter what she hoped 1955 would bring. “I wish to grow as an actress and a pe
rson,” she said. “That means this must be a year of hard work and study for me.”
Around the same time as the film wrapped, British photographer Baron arrived in Hollywood to take photos of fifteen different actresses. Marilyn was one of his choices, though when he took the first photograph, he wasn’t sure how it would turn out. He explained what happened to reporter Elizabeth Toomey: “Marilyn has a brassy smile she turns on for the cameras. But if you tell her to stop that you will find a truly amazing girl with great expression; great warmth.” He also described her and actress Pier Angeli as being the most exciting subjects he had ever photographed.
On November 6, 1954, Charles Feldman hosted a party in Marilyn’s honor at Romanoff’s restaurant, which had been a favorite hangout since her starlet days. When Feldman told her about the event, the actress’s first reaction was to worry about who to invite. Tom Ewell later recalled her saying that perhaps she could invite her costars from How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). She then borrowed a gown from the studio and drove herself to the party. According to the actor, the car broke down and she was late. Nevertheless, when she did eventually arrive, Marilyn made a huge impression on everyone she met. “Although she is personally shy and reserved,” explained Ewell, “she can turn on her personality so that you forget anyone else is present.”
Meanwhile, Marilyn’s favorite childhood actor, Clark Gable, made her day when he asked her to dance, though she would later regret not being brave enough to tell him how much she adored him. It didn’t take the newspapers long to declare (falsely) that the two were in love, a rumor that grew legs thanks in part to the release of a photograph of them dancing together. Just for good measure, it was also said that the actor had been sending Marilyn three dozen red roses every day. The fact that Gable was actually in a relationship with future wife Kay Spreckels (and that she was at the Romanoff’s party with him) was totally ignored by the press.
Everyone appeared to have a great evening, and even Darryl F. Zanuck managed to say a civil word and raise a smile or two. Meanwhile, actor Clifton Webb watched Marilyn intently as she moved from one table to another. “She was an absolutely perfect hostess,” he recalled. “Here was a girl who behaved so much more like a lady than many ladies.” Groucho Marx—who had given her a break in Love Happy (1949)—was one of the guests, and told reporter Hedda Hopper that Marilyn looked like the front page of a good magazine. “I looked like the back,” he quipped.
Marilyn swept around the room like a member of royalty, greeting everyone she met and accepting dances from several of her male friends. If there was ever a moment when she felt like the Queen of Hollywood, this must surely have been it. However, underneath the red velvet gown and platinum hairstyle, everything was not as it seemed. Marilyn had reached her peak on the West Coast and felt that it had no more to offer. While everyone admired the star as she danced, no one had any idea that she was about to give it all up. Marilyn, the Queen of Hollywood, was an illusion, and a new woman was about to be born.
CHAPTER TWO
No Dumb Blonde
IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE come as a shock that inside the ditzy blonde characters she played on-screen, Marilyn Monroe was a determined woman with intellectual ambitions. No one in the industry ever wondered if Bette Davis was really Margo Channing, or James Stewart was really George Bailey; it was merely accepted that they were actors playing a part. Yet when it came to Marilyn, the sight of her as Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Pola in How to Marry a Millionaire, seemed to greatly confuse not just cinemagoers but industry workers too.
While Marilyn’s characters were often larger than life—almost dreamlike in a way—there was no reason to assume that they were a reflection of who the woman really was, and yet that is exactly what happened. Unbelievably, this is still the case today, some fifty-five years after her death. Marilyn spoke about the problem herself in 1957: “People identify me personally with the parts I play. It isn’t so much that I mind, but it just isn’t so. But I’ve played so many different parts by now they must be confused.”
Nominated for three Academy Awards during the 1940s, including for Laura (1944) and The Razor’s Edge (1946), heavyweight actor Clifton Webb had no problem seeing through the persona. He shared his memories with reporter Ernie Player in 1955: “Marilyn is very sweet, very serious. She likes to talk about the theater and the kind of thing that makes people tick. She is intense and completely straightforward. She reads all the time. She is in complete earnest towards her career. Ambitious and anxious to know her job. This girl, when she was making very little money, spent practically every cent she made on various coaches. Now she will work all day, go to her little flat for a bit of dinner on a tray, and then work with her coach on the next day’s scenes. And often they will work until early morning.”
Webb was not the first person to see how earnest Marilyn was about her craft. Early boyfriend Bill Pursel remembers: “Back when we were close in 1946–1950, we wrote lots of notes to one another on napkins in restaurants; often scribbling a little poetry…. We both liked to dabble with simple poetry and I still do. Norma Jeane liked to read and seemed to always have a book with her. She mentioned that Carl Sandburg was her favorite, and I know she met him when she was in New York. I remember reading about it in the papers.”
In the early days of her career, Marilyn had attended the Actor’s Lab in Los Angeles, where she took part in many scenes and encouraged Pursel to do the same. He resisted her pleas, however, as he was already studying at Woodbury College, and to enroll at the Actor’s Lab would have meant leaving in his final year.
Marilyn had gone to other classes too, such as private ones with teachers Helena Sorell and Lotte Goslar, as well as those offered to starlets at the Fox studio. There, she met Jean Peters, Arlen Stuart, and Vanessa Brown. Brown went on to play The Girl in the Broadway version of The Seven Year Itch. Peters, meanwhile, acted with Marilyn in 1953’s Niagara. The women took the young actress under their wing and were surprised at how sweet, innocent, and childlike she was. Marilyn would arrive in class wearing a gray skirt, pink angora sweater, and high heels, and was continuously sincere about her training.
No matter what her employment status was, Marilyn would always—without exception—study. Friends expressed that she had few clothes of her own, because she would spend her money on books and records instead. In fact, her first charge account was not at a famous or fancy store; instead, it was at Marian Hunter’s bookshop.
Another popular hangout was Martindale’s bookstore. Marilyn would spend hours browsing the shelves, and she would almost always leave with an armful of new additions to her library. In 1954, shop manager Rachel Brand spoke to columnist Earl Wilson about her famous customer: “Marilyn’s a great reader,” she said. “Marilyn has been a great reader since way back, long before she was Marilyn Monroe. She reads Kafka, Thomas Mann, and authors like that—no cheap stuff.”
Just to show how thoughtful Marilyn was about her education, she enrolled in an arts and literature class at UCLA, during the early days of her stardom. Recognition by fellow students forced the actress to retire from her studies there, but this did not stop her learning. At various times, Marilyn could be seen walking around a film set with works of great literature in her hands, and she would read ferociously about acting teachers such as Konstantin Stanislavski.
Cofounder of the Moscow Art Theatre, Stanislavski devised what he described as the System: a way of acting that encouraged actors to draw on emotional experiences to get the best out of their own performance. The goal was for the actor to feel “himself in the role, and the role in himself.” Marilyn admired Stanislavski greatly, though by the time she had discovered him, he was long passed. It is perhaps just as well she met him through his literature and not actual classes, because the man was known to be extremely brutal in his approach. Actor Mikhail Yanshin studied with Stanislavski and wrote about him in an article for Theatre World. According to Yanshin, he and his fellow students “feared the rehearsals
under [Stanislavski’s] direction as they would fear to touch a fire.” After watching a scene, the teacher would go over each aspect of the performance in minute detail and criticize anything he felt was wrong in the approach. However, despite the anxiety, Yanshin still felt that every student in the room had benefited from Stanislavski’s methods.
While Marilyn never met the teacher herself, she did have a chance to study with one of his students—Michael Chekhov. Chekhov had been friendly with Stanislavski for some years, but eventually questioned his system and branched off to create his own—less abrasive—version of it. Marilyn began classes with him in July 1952, and despite also studying with Natasha Lytess, continued until the end of 1954. “First of all, he’s a rare human being, and a great artist,” Marilyn explained. “I don’t know which to put first. He’s Anton Chekhov’s nephew, but on his own he is one of the greatest artists of our time…. There’s a very noble thing about him. Recently he wrote a book, and put in everything he’s learned about himself as an artist, a writer, a director.”
The relationship with Chekhov was intense. Marilyn held him in such high regard that she once gave him an engraving of Abraham Lincoln with a note that explained that until she met Chekhov, Lincoln had been the man she had admired most in her life. In his classes, she learned about history, psychology, art, and, of course, acting. Talking to author Ben Hecht in 1954, Marilyn described how Chekhov’s style of teaching had completely opened her eyes to the fact that acting was an art form, not just something one did on a movie set. Together they studied texts such as The Cherry Orchard, by Chekhov’s uncle Anton, and Shakespeare’s King Lear.
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