Remembering Marilyn Monroe on her 100th birthday – Latest News
Honoring Marilyn’s massive 100
Today would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday. Before The New York Post, I wrote such books because the as-told-to-me autobio of Lee Strasberg, who created the Actors Studio. His pupil and good friend: Marilyn. So I knew her. So did her good friend James Haspiel, who has written a number of books about her.
James Haspiel: “Here to movie ‘The Seven Year Itch,’ she was on the St. Regis. Hundreds waited to see her. Outside, in entrance of me, signing autographs, posing for photos, she bought herself towards a taxi cab. At 9, back on the resort. So was this younger fan — me — who, all through her success, grew to become her go-to, close, devoted good friend.
“She got to know me. One day, she opened the taxi door and said, ‘Jimmy, like to drive with me?’ That began our eight years. I discovered Marilyn Monroe didn’t exist. Like a costume on Halloween, it was turn it on, turn it off. Basically she was just Norma Jeane.”
‘Itch’ to go away
Cindy: Did she ever speak to you, which, I imply, for my part it’s not doable, however did she ever discuss wanting a totally different variety of life away from Hollywood?
“She was aware of how famous she was. She used that in fights with the studio. Determined to get what she wanted, she would not give in, and so she spent a year in New York.”
Cindy: What was her home like? I do know she lived on 57th Street.
“Everything was white. It was one of these residing rooms the place you stepped down three steps, and every part, the rug, the furnishings, every part was white. Small. Living room, tiny kitchenette, bed room, and a toilet, of course. In these years, if a repairman got here into your own home, they may take your quantity off the phone ’trigger it was proper on the floor of the cellphone. So she put a quantity on hers in order that in the event that they took it and known as it, it was town morgue. And an Abraham Lincoln portray was over her mattress.
“One night, flat shoes, a neighbor stopped, then somebody else stopped. Within minutes, there were four. Suddenly her upward smile became downward, eyes lidded, voice changed, and she transformed into Marilyn Monroe. She became that person for them.”
Political put-down
Cindy: What in regards to the Bobby Kennedy story?
“I do not believe she had an affair with Robert Kennedy. She told Ralph Roberts, her masseur, that not only was Robert Kennedy not her type, she called him puny. She actually said, ‘I would never be involved with him.’ ”
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Ready to take flight
Lee Strasberg mentioned: “She lacked stability. Success took a toll. ‘I’m nervous,’ she’d whisper constantly. Marilyn went for psychiatric treatments five days a week. The anxiety tormented her. A long struggle for too long. The maligning, denigrating left an instability to cope. Her films grossed $200 million yet she stayed scared. Petrified.”
Haspiel: “There was a tiny park. She stood there as two boys with long poles, netting on the end, were catching flying pigeons. Then put them in a cage. They explained a butcher paid 25 cents for each and those pigeons became food. So, she said, ‘Will you sell me the pigeons? I’ll pay for them and free them.’ She paid for them. Flooded with tears, she sat, sobbed and set them free.”
LISTEN, no one is Marilyn, OK? But all who obtain a small quantity of success get drained periodically a little bit, and we’d like, as soon as in a whereas, someday each six months, to not be bothered. She by no means had that.
Only in New York, children, solely in New York.
