George Cukor (whom Nunnally Johnson claimed “loathed Marilyn and was given to blackguarding her in terms that would have brought a blush to Sophie Tucker’s cheeks”) later said of Marilyn, “There may be an exact psychiatric term for what was wrong with her, I don’t know—but truth to tell, I think she was quite mad. The mother was mad, and poor Marilyn was mad....”
A celebration of Marilyn’s thirty-sixth birthday on the set, a week before her firing. The cake referred to her nude swim: “Happy Birthday (suit).”
Her last public appearance, on her birthday, June 1, 1962, at a Los Angeles Angels game. After Marilyn’s firing and replacement by Lee Remick, Dean Martin quit, saying he had signed to play opposite Marilyn and no one else. Fox held its ground, filing a breach of contract lawsuit against Marilyn, and a studio executive predicted it would mean the end of her career. “Marilyn claims she couldn’t work because she was sick. I actually believe Marilyn thinks she’s sick,” he said. “It’s all in her mind, of course, and maybe her mental condition makes her physically ill. I don’t think she can control herself.”
Marilyn spoke in her own defense during her Life magazine interview by Richard Meryman. She explained her fear of performing: “A struggle with shyness is in every actor more than anyone can imagine.... I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle—An actor is not a machine, no matter how much they want to say you are.”
About the Twentieth Century-Fox executive’s comments, Monroe said, “The executives can get colds and stay home forever and phone it in; but how dare you, the actor, get a cold or virus.... I wish they had to act a comedy with a temperature and a virus infection. I’m not an actress who appears at the studio just for the purpose of discipline. This doesn’t have anything to do with art... this is supposed to be an art form, not just a manufacturing establishment.”
With the Life interview and the world-wide media frenzy over photographs of her nude swim by Lawrence Schiller, Fox executives realized they had made a mistake and began negotiations to rehire Marilyn--and give her a lucrative new contract.
A portrait from Marilyn’s last photo session, by Allan Grant. The pictures were taken to accompany the Life interview, and despite claims to the contrary by some photographers, are indeed the last ever taken of Monroe.
At a party in August, Marilyn signed the guest register. Under “residence” she wrote: “Nowhere.” Three days later, she was dead. The coroner’s verdict was that her death was a “probable suicide” from an overdose of barbiturates. Unanswered questions about her death created a cottage industry of speculation over the ensuing fifty years.
Lee Strasberg delivered the eulogy at her funeral, from which Joe DiMaggio barred her Hollywood “friends”:
“We knew her as a warm human being, impulsive and shy, sensitive and in fear of rejection, yet ever avid for life and reaching out for fulfillment.... In her own lifetime she created a myth of what a poor girl from a deprived background could obtain. For the entire world she became a symbol of the eternal feminine. For us, Marilyn was a devoted and loyal friend, a colleague constantly reaching for perfection... it is difficult to accept the fact that her zest for life has been ended by this dreadful accident. I am truly sorry that the public who loved her did not have the opportunity to see her as we did, in many of the roles that foreshadowed what she would have become. Without doubt, she would have been one of the really great actresses of the stage.
“Now it is all at an end. I hope that her death will stir sympathy and understanding for a sensitive artist and woman who brought joy and pleasure to the world.”
Photo Credits
Associated Press
Millers at London’s Comedy Theatre
Cecil Beaton
Color Plate 14
Black Star
Culver Pictures
University of California library
Andre de Dienes
Color Plate 1
Freelance Photographer’s Guild
Interview at the Sherry Netherland Hotel
Joe DiMaggio pays Marilyn a visit
Globe Photos
At a Hollywood party, late 1953
Marilyn on elephant at a Madison Square Garden
The quintessential Marilyn with her favorite perfume
Allan Grant
Marilyn’s last photo session, by Allan Grant
International News Service
Marilyn poses with Isadore and Augusta Miller
Marilyn sips milk with 3½-year-old William
Keystone Press (London)
Empire Theatre, London
King Features Syndicate
Marilyn released from the hospital on August 1957
London Daily Express
The Millers out for a bike ride
New York Daily News
Marilyn suffers the first of three tragic miscarriages
Pictorial Parade
Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio on the “Monkey Business” set
Edward R. Murrow’s “Person to Person” visits Marilyn
Marilyn with husband Arthur Miller
Marilyn meets the Montands
Paul Popper Ltd. (London)
Marilyn is presented to Queen Elizabeth
Transworld Features Syndicate
United Press International
Gladys Baker Ely, photographed in 1963
Chicago White Sox photo
100,000 servicemen in Korea cheer
Marilyn is cornered outside her apartment by newsmen
Millers attend a performance of “Macbeth” in Boston
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev Dinner
Marilyn attends “Macbeth” performance in New York
Last public appearance, on her birthday, June 1, 1962
Wide World
The Marriage of the Decade