The Strasbergs continued to believe in Marilyn’s talents as a theater actress and even went so far as to ask another student if he would like to act in Macbeth with her. During the summer of 1955, Actors Studio director Cheryl Crawford told Marilyn that she had every intention of producing a play for her. This did not come to fruition, however, and Marilyn’s agent Jay Kanter believes that during this time she was far more concerned with doing good work on the screen and gaining director approval for her films.
In addition, Marilyn still suffered from an intense lack of confidence, along with nervousness in front of an audience, something she would have had to overcome if a theater career was in her future. Paula Strasberg later spoke to reporter Louella Parsons about Marilyn’s nerves: “I think my husband has the solution: he says that nervousness indicates sensitivity and that’s what Marilyn has, great sensitivity. And then, Marilyn is still frightened, although she is overcoming it. Lee says ‘show me an actress who isn’t frightened and nervous and I will say she won’t go far.’”
CHAPTER FIVE
The Unlikely Feminist
AWAY FROM OFFICIAL LESSONS at the Actors Studio, Marilyn loved studying with Lee Strasberg, and the family apartment was always open to her. The couple had a magnificent library of books, and Marilyn would spend hours looking through the shelves. Almost every time she visited, she would go home with another biography to read or a play to study. The Strasbergs’ home was often filled with students and creative beings, and offered a steady supply of bagels, hot chocolate, and artistic discussion.
Actress Jane Fonda later told television host David Letterman that she had been at the Strasbergs’ apartment one afternoon when Marilyn walked in. The men in the room were excited to see her, but the actress immediately zoned in on Jane and spent the party with her. Jane surmised that it was because she felt safe with her; they were both young women together.
Marilyn could be shy at the Strasberg get-togethers, but she also had the ability to charm even the most ungracious of guests. Paula Strasberg saw this side of her many times, and described her as being “informed, acute, and enchanting. She has a genuine wit and is always feminine, which is becoming a lost art.” Writer Radie Harris recalled a time at the apartment when Marilyn walked in wearing a particularly glamorous gown, covered with sequins. According to Harris, various other students paid Marilyn a lot of attention that evening, and one told her she would make a wonderful Rosalind, the woman who dresses herself as a shepherd in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. “Yes, wouldn’t she?” exclaimed Harris rather sarcastically. “Can’t you just see Marilyn disguised as a boy?”
While Marilyn seemed happy to hang around actors at the Strasberg apartment, she was sometimes less confident at parties given by the Greenes. During one Sunday afternoon get-together, actress Tippi Hedren encountered a house full of people, all wondering when Marilyn would appear. After what seemed like hours, the actress eventually came out of her room on the second floor, looked as though she were coming down to the party, but then sat down in a corner. Nobody talked to her, and she made no attempt to mingle. After a while she disappeared, presumably back into her bedroom.
Another party given by attorney-producer Jay Julien had a similar scene. Wearing casual clothes and minimal makeup, Marilyn wandered around the room almost totally unrecognized. She did not socialize with the guests and instead ended up at a bookcase, carefully taking off volumes and leafing through each one. When a partygoer asked what she was looking for, Marilyn replied that she was anxious to find a book about the artist Francisco José de Goya. Amy Greene confirmed this kind of behavior in an article for Photoplay, admitting that although she would occasionally sing if someone was playing piano, Marilyn would be more likely found emptying ashtrays and picking up glasses.
From an outsider’s point of view, Marilyn’s attitude may seem rather aloof. However, considering the reception she had experienced at parties in Hollywood, her reluctance to freely engage is not entirely surprising. From the beginning of her career, Marilyn was invited to events merely to brighten up a table, something for the men to gaze at as they ordered dessert. “All the studios brought their top glamour girls,” explained an early press agent. “I brought Marilyn and paraded her around like a horse in front of a grandstand. Jane Russell was ignored. Marilyn was the hit of the evening.”
Being “paraded like a horse” is a sexist notion in today’s terms, but in the 1940s and 1950s, it was to be expected for Hollywood’s starlets. Songwriter Floyd Huddleston was often asked by the studios to accompany young actresses to parties to keep them safe. One evening he was asked to escort Marilyn. “He had no clue who she was,” recalls his son, Huston. “She was polite and very quiet and they went to a party, but she wanted to stay outside, so they talked about Hollywood and their lives growing up. Dad thought she was very sad and though he tried to crack that surface, he couldn’t.”
The reaction Marilyn got from many male party guests was of a lecherous nature, but from female guests it was something else entirely. Frightened that she would somehow steal their partners, the women would keep one eye on Marilyn and the other on the men, while often discussing her motives and criticizing her attire. While the problems were confined mainly to Hollywood, they sometimes happened in New York too. This was confirmed by an unnamed friend who spoke to reporter Milton Schulman in 1956. “Marilyn’s effect on high-brows is devastating. Whenever she comes to a party the men start behaving like college students. The women don’t like the impression she makes on the men. They don’t say much to her, but they keep watching her all the time.”
During her entire career, the way some women treated Marilyn—at parties and otherwise—was frankly borderline bullying. One vocal tormentor was Joan Crawford, who made headlines in 1953 when she openly criticized Marilyn’s attire at an awards ceremony. “I have never been so embarrassed in my life,” she said. “The makeup of the true star is founded on talent. Miss Monroe is giving a grotesque interpretation of the artistry and sincerity that is, and has always been, behind the making of movies.” Crawford said that since it was mothers who chose what their children and husbands watched at the cinema, they would never knowingly pick anything with Marilyn in it, as it “won’t be suitable.” When she began getting irate letters from Monroe fans, the acidic actress changed tack and said that she had been tricked into saying those words by a reporter who’d asked her “off the record.”
Marilyn replied to the criticism via columnist Louella Parsons. “With all the publicity I’ve had and everything, I suppose it will be hard for many people to believe that I never deliberately throw my sex around, thinking ‘If I do this, it’s sexy—or if I look a certain way, it’s sexy.’” Interestingly, Marilyn actually greatly disliked being described that way. When Earl Wilson asked if she would ever quit being sexy, she replied, “I’ll never quit that! But put it ‘exotic’ will you, instead of sexy?”
In July 1954, Screenland magazine published an article on whether women as a whole liked Marilyn. The principal of a girls’ school had a lot to say on the subject: “I think we’ve been held back by all the publicity,” she said. “It was a shame that Marilyn Monroe was hailed a siren. I don’t believe that women really feared her effect on men—but when the only pictures they ever saw were of Marilyn bursting out of skin-tight, low-cut dresses, it’s not surprising they considered her cheap. In our school, for instance, we wouldn’t let girls see her pictures. We had nothing against Marilyn Monroe, but you can’t allow young and impressionable girls to think scanty clothing is the way to be popular.”
By the time Marilyn moved to New York, various women’s organizations had long since protested loudly over what they considered the provocative way her career was publicized. The Women’s Club of Hollywood even went one step further and demanded to know what studio bosses intended to do to “curb” her. A female columnist took a swipe at Marilyn after she was photographed wearing a low-cut gown when she served as grand marshal of the Miss America contes
t. Later, when the actress and columnist came face-to-face at a party, Marilyn was charming and friendly to her. “Gosh,” exclaimed a friend, “I thought you’d skin her alive.” Marilyn smiled sweetly and replied, “It was more cruel to leave her skin as it is.”
Still, Marilyn did have her fair share of powerful female admirers who were always willing to come out in support of her. One of these women was actress Faith Domergue. She took her complaints about “clubwomen or jealous movie queens” straight to columnist Erskine Johnson, who published her views. “Nobody can hurt [Marilyn],” she said. “If she stays as she is, holding her ground, being herself, she will be one of the great stars of all time. Women may not approve of an actress, but as long as they’re curious, they’ll come to see her films and bring their men along, too.”
Lana Turner was another actress who saw nothing wrong with building up a fellow woman. When columnist Bob Thomas asked whom she would most like to encounter in Hollywood, Turner saw an opportunity to throw light Marilyn’s way. “I’ll tell you a girl I’d like to meet and that’s Marilyn Monroe. She must be a fascinating personality, considering all she has gone through. She’s taking a lot of knocks because she’s on top now. I wish there were some way I could tell her not to let it get her down.”
One actress shared a name with her, though not by choice. Marilyn Maxwell had become famous in the 1940s, and when she met the second Marilyn in 1948, she was stunned to hear of her desire to become a successful actress. Maxwell suggested that she should change her name to something else so that the two did not get mistaken for each other. However, Monroe had no intention of doing so, and for many years Maxwell was bombarded with fans who thought they were one and the same. In the end, Maxwell gave a standard reply: “No, I’m the Marilyn with clothes on,” though no offense was meant and she actually did greatly admire Monroe. “I think she has done a great deal of good for the movie industry,” she said. “She is just what the business needed—someone to put some glamour and magic back into Hollywood.”
Another staunch supporter was Dame Edith Sitwell, someone who, on first glance, would not have been considered a standard Monroe fan. Sitwell was a British poet, a very posh, outspoken woman who could bring discomfort to even the most experienced of interviewers. However, underneath the fierce demeanor, Sitwell was a wounded woman who’d had a terrible upbringing at the hands of uncaring parents. Their hurtful comments had led to her running away at the age of five (she was found and returned by a neighborhood policeman), and by the time she was a teenager, Sitwell’s father had all but turned his back on her. These childhood experiences alone were enough for her to identify with Marilyn, and during a trip to Los Angeles in 1953, the two were introduced. During a 1959 interview for the BBC’s Face to Face television program, Sitwell explained that the only people she wanted to meet in Hollywood were those who were intelligent and had impeccable behavior. She saw these qualities immediately in Marilyn and warmed to her on sight. When they met, Marilyn was wearing a green dress and talking animatedly about philosopher Rudolf Steiner; the dame decided that Marilyn was an enchanting human being who had been treated extremely poorly within the industry.
Sitwell had been aware of the nude calendar pictures that were taken before Marilyn became famous, and during the discussion determined that it was as a result of those photos that Marilyn was being persecuted. As for those who had treated Marilyn terribly, Sitwell noted that they had obviously never known hunger and what it was like to need money desperately. “Well, there have been nude models before now,” she said. “It means nothing against a person’s moral character at all.”
A downside to Marilyn’s life, Sitwell decided, was that through no fault of her own, unpleasant men seemed to be attracted to her. She witnessed this for herself, but noted that Marilyn never gave these men any attention at all. In fact, she would avoid them completely and at all times behave “like a lady.” After spending some time with Marilyn, Sitwell discovered just how much the woman enjoyed books and highbrow material. She told reporter William Barbour, “Of course I’d be delighted to play literary mother to her. Marilyn is a very seriously-minded girl.”
After various unprovoked attacks in the media, some women began to see past the sex-symbol image and realize that Marilyn was actually a human being, flawed and easily hurt. The way she conducted herself appealed to them, and slowly their feelings began to thaw. Some women, however, had always recognized Marilyn for the intelligent, warm woman that she really was. How to Marry a Millionaire costar Betty Grable sent some advice through Louella Parsons: “I’ve taken plenty of criticism and so have other actresses. Just keep plugging. The important things are your career—and trying to improve yourself.”
Jane Russell, costar in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, classed Marilyn as a friend and refused all requests by the media to belittle or intimidate her. When interviewed by reporter Jon Bruce in 1953, the brunette star had this to say about her so-called rival:
Here was a girl who had the same kind of build-up that I had had, except that she was blonde while I was brunette. I wondered how that build-up had affected her, what it had done to her life, both professional and private. After I met her, I couldn’t see that her publicity had gone to her head in any way. I thought she was far more beautiful, too, than I expected to find her. Her sincerity is impressive and her willingness to listen to and take advice is one of her outstanding qualities. Marilyn is wonderfully sincere in her work. She is always trying to improve and wants to do her best in every scene, yet she makes no effort to steal a scene or upstage anyone ever.
Since she was such a complex character, Marilyn found herself stuck in the middle of two different types of women: those who were disgusted or intimidated by her glamour and wanted her to tone everything down, and those who loved her look just as it was and wanted her to stop trying to be taken seriously. Marilyn shared her views on the subject in 1959: “I’d like to be known as a real actress and human being,” she said, “but listen, there’s nothing wrong with glamour either. I think everything adds up. I’ll never knock glamour. But I want to be in the kind of pictures where I can develop, not just wear tights.”
It could easily be argued that Marilyn suffered frequent frustration because people wanted to pigeonhole her into being just one kind of personality. This undoubtedly came as a result of her unique and modern outlook on life—one more fitting to the twenty-first century rather than the 1950s. She was actually a modern-day feminist, though the very idea struck the nerves of many at the time.
Feminism in the mid-twentieth century was a confusing subject, and some—women as well as men—feared that their homes and workplaces were being threatened by the bewildering attitudes of certain women. “An ardent feminist is a woman who has ambitions beyond her gender if not her talents,” wrote a reporter for the Scotsman. As a result, many who dared claim the mantle of feminist were looked at with great suspicion and derision. Even strong women in high positions were anxious not to identify themselves in such a way.
As Marilyn had told Edward R. Murrow, she was fascinated by Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. His sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, was the Indian high commissioner and therefore a powerful woman. However, even she was loath to describe herself as a feminist. During a press conference in July 1955, a journalist asked if it was true that she did not wish to be referred to that way. “I am not a feminist!” she snapped. “I do not believe the world can be run in compartments, but by the joint endeavors of men and women as equals.”
“That is exactly what a feminist is,” cried the journalist. “I knew she was a feminist!” The writer was thrilled, but Pandit seethed.
In comparison, some women were happy to own the label. British Viscountess Astor had strong opinions: “I cannot understand how any woman with any imagination or understanding could fail to be a hot feminist. I was born a feminist. The more I saw of my father, the more I thought of my mother.” She hated the way women of the 1950s were living their lives, especially given
the fights her suffragette sisters had endured in the past. “I believe that the women of this generation are simply ‘going to town’ and having a good time and that they have forgotten the things that really matter,” she said.
Singer Eartha Kitt was joyous to be called a feminist in 1956. “Feminism is something that cannot be put into words,” she told a London luncheon. “It is something that can only be felt. You know if you are a feminist.”
Although vulnerable and complex, Marilyn was a strong woman who consistently fought for what she believed in. However, because of the confusion and stigma related to the word, it is highly unlikely that she would ever have considered herself a feminist in 1955. Friend Norman Rosten further doubted that she would have joined the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s and argued that in terms of economic equality, she had already proven herself.
For all of her fight, Marilyn was most definitely a woman who enjoyed flirting with men, both in manner and the way she dressed. She once told Pete Martin that while some men may prefer a woman to be subtle, she did not believe in false modesty. “A woman only hurts herself that way,” she said. “If she’s coy, she’s denying herself an important part of life.” She added to Bill Foster that she had no problems living in a man’s world, just so long as she could still be a woman.
She was never offended by the attention given to her by men, but at the same time demanded respect when it came to her work. David Wayne, Marilyn’s leading man in How to Marry a Millionaire, remembered an incident that proved just how forthright she could be in the company of powerful men. “Marilyn’s one of the most phenomenal personalities of our time,” he said. “One time one of the studio heads called her in. She’d turned down a picture. He roared at her, ‘I’ve been in this business a long time and I know what’s good for you.’ She said, ‘I’ve been in this business a very short time, but know better what’s good for me than you do!’”
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