lean too close to me in
elevator—and my panic
and then all my thought
despising him—does that mean
I’m attached
to him
He even looks
like he has
a venereal
disease.
Please don’t talk about me when I’m gone
You’re an old smoothie
Body and soul?
Who’s sorry now
Easy living
When I’m not near the boy I Love 259
While we’re young 262
I know where I’m going and who’s going with me?
I cried for you
You do something
The gentleman is a dope
I’ll never be the same
He’s funny that way
too marvelous for words
Don’t worry about me
What is there to say
But not for me
Easy to love
Have you ever been lonely
I’ve got you under my skin
Note: This is a set of song titles. Numbers 259 and 262 are the corresponding numbers to a fake book, or an anthology of lyrics and chord progressions from which musicians could improvise. It is not known why Marilyn made this list; possibly they were songs she wished to perform.
Dear Claude Claude,
That’s right—I know exactly what I’m doing and I know mean
I’ve just written Dear Claude, Claude—it’s because meanwhile besides
“The way of a country man is hard, his training strict, his progress slow, his disappointments many.” If in fact he is to survive succeed he must should “give it up.” Are you prepared? I am interested only per one “borderline” to the other. in knowing from one of course it’s easier simpler to be a member of the Mr. Johnson club because for when one could probably get kicked out of the club for stress, or strain or exertion as probably forbidden—
but then how is one to know since there are no rules I ask this question as a member of good standing of Borderline Anonymous also as a newly chartered member of the Mr. Johnson club. It’s easier even to be a member of the M.J. Club where for any kind of exertion, stress or strain you’re kicked out.
Is it/this true that I am under the right impression My love to Hedda and Patty and Candy and Bammoo. Come back if you haven’t come back from Port Jefferson yet (hope you’ve)—why don’t you.
You’re needed here.
looking forward to seeing you all
Love
Marilyn
P.S. In a few short days I’m sending you a reminder—to remind you of something of me mostly
This might very well serve as (the)/(a) possible watchword for some other weekend don’t you think or do you think I’ve gone too far
Re—reminder [drawing of envelope]
84 Remsen St.
Brooklyn
Heights
Notes:
Marilyn nicknamed her friend Norman Rosten “Claude” because he looked so much like the actor Claude Rains. He and his wife, Hedda, had a daughter called Patricia (Patty). At this time they lived in Brooklyn, at 84 Remsen Street.
Bam-Moo and Candy were the names of the Rostens’ dog and cat.
The Mr. Johnson club was invented by Norman Rosten and Marilyn; the name refers to Rosten’s play Mister Johnson, based on Joyce Cary’s novel, which embodied for Marilyn the spirit of innocence destroyed by cynicism and greed.
On the balcony of the Ambassador Hotel, New York, 1955 Marilyn Monroe with Truman Capote, New York, 1955
ITALIAN AGENDA
1955 or 1956
In an Italian diary engraved in green, Marilyn Monroe wrote down thoughts in free association in continuation of a kind of self-analysis she had begun to practice in the “record” notebook (she noticed with amusement her own Freudian slip when she wrote the first three letters of the name “Buddy” as “Bad”). It isn’t really known who the woman with big breasts was: perhaps her analyst, Dr. Hohenberg (mentioned on another page)? A salaried member of her circle? In any case, Marilyn remembered two traumatic moments: as a lonely child, when, despite the lies she told, a teacher was one of the only people who seemed to understand her; and an incident of sexual abuse for which Ida Martin, her foster mother, seemed to have taken her to task rather than consoling or helping her. It is likely that these pages correspond to work on repressed memory undertaken as part of her analysis with Dr. Hohenberg, which she started in February 1955. Her relationship with her third husband, Arthur Miller, seemed to be idyllic still, propelled as it was by strong desire and absolute confidence: there is no trace of either doubt or crisis.
She also evoked her relationship to fear, which she seemed to need to draw on for her acting but which terrorized her as well. The Peter whom she mentions twice as a source of fear and threat could well be Peter Lawford, whom she knew in the early 1950s, although it is not known with what degree of intimacy. Lawford later became John Kennedy’s brother-in law upon his marriage to Patricia Kennedy. Some years later Marilyn often saw the Lawford couple and visited their Santa Monica beach house several times.
Note: Ida Bolender and her husband, Albert Wayne, cared for Norma Jeane at their home in Hawthorne from June 1926, shortly after her birth, and she stayed with them until she was seven. The child called Ida Wayne’s husband “Daddy” despite the fact that Ida Bolender would have preferred her to call him “Uncle Wayne.” The Bolenders adopted two children: Nancy, who was five years younger, and Lester, who was the same age as Marilyn.
Notes:
The Peter who is mentioned is possibly the British-born actor Peter Lawford, a friend of Marilyn’s and brother-in-law to the Kennedys through his marriage to Pat, the president’s sister.
If indeed it is the name Jack that is written (the writing is difficult to decipher), it could refer to Jack Cole, a dancer friend of Marilyn’s who coached her on the films Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and There’s No Business Like Show Business.
Notes:
Marilyn was a guest on Edward R. Murrow’s very popular TV show Person to Person on April 8, 1955.
A.I. was probably Aunt Ida, that is, Ida Martin, the other Aunt Ida (the first being Ida Bolender), a great-aunt with whom Marilyn lived from November 1937 to August 1938 in Compton, California.
In the spring of 1938, Marilyn may have suffered a sexual assault by one of her fellow boarders, who could be be the Buddy mentioned here.
“The D.” may be short for either “doctor” or “demon.”
In a bookstore in Los Angeles, February 1953 On the set of The Seven Year Itch, 1954
PARKSIDE HOUSE STATIONERY
1956
Soon after their wedding on June 29, 1956, Marilyn and Arthur Miller went to London, where the film The Prince and the Showgirl, produced by Marilyn Monroe Productions, was to be shot. Laurence Olivier directed the film and played the male lead. The relationship between the two actors was difficult: Olivier was disdainful and haughty toward Marilyn. The couple arrived in London on July 14 and stayed at Parkside House, a luxurious manor house in Egham, Surrey, near London. Everything should have been idyllic. However, one day Marilyn found her husband’s open diary and discovered that the playwright was disappointed in her, that he was sometimes ashamed of her in front of his intellectual peers, and that he had doubts about their marriage. Marilyn was extremely upset and felt betrayed.
Did she write these few poems and odd texts on Parkside House stationery before or after her discovery? In either case, their tone is mournful. They are pessimistic about love and love’s possibilities as well as the inevitable passage of time. The filming was difficult. Marilyn’s acting coach Paula Strasberg was called in to help, as was Dr. Margaret Hohenberg, her New York analyst. On October 29, Marilyn Monroe was introduced to Queen Elizabeth II during a ceremony, and she went back to the United States on November 20. The portrait shown here is possibly of Laurence Olivier.
my love sleeps besides me—
in the faint light—I see his manly jaw
give away—and the mouth of his
boyhood returns
with a softness softer
its sensitiveness that trembling
in stillness
his eyes must have look out
wonderously from the cave of the little
boy—when the things he did not understand—
he forgot but will he look like this when he is dead
oh unbearable fact inevitable
yet sooner would I rather his love die
than/or him?
the pain of his longing when he looks
at another—
like an unfulfillment since the day
he was born.
And I in merciless pain
and with his pain of longing—
when he looks at and loves another
like an unfulfillment of since the day
he was born—
we must endure
I more sadly because I can feel no joy
oh silence why don’t/aren’t you still soothe me
you sounds drums stillness hurt my ears head—and
pierce ears
jars my head with the stillness of
sounds unbearable/durable—
on the screen of pitch blackness
comes/reappears the shapes of monsters who are
my most steadfast companions—
my blood is throbbing with unrest
turns it route in the opposite another direction
and the whole world is sleeping
ah peace I need you—even a
peaceful monster.
Note: Wissett is a village in Suffolk. It is not known what the number refers to; possibly it is a phone number.
I guess I have always been
deeply terrified at to really be someone’s
wife
since I know from life
one cannot love another,
ever, really.
it is not to be for granted
in life less that the old woman hides—
from her mirror glass—the one she polishes so it won’t be dusty—
daring sometimes that to
to see her toothless gasp and if she perhaps very gently smiles
years only she remembers—
her life or imagined youth pain
her pale chiffon dress
that she wore on a windy
afternoon when she walked
where no one had ever been
her blue eyed clear eyed baby who
lived to die—the woman’s youth years have
not left. The woman stares & stares in space
where his eyes rest with pleasure—
I want to still be—but time has changed
the hold of that glance.
Alas how will I cope when I am
I seek joy but you are it is clothed
with pain—
have courage - to be brave take heart as in my youth
sleep and rest my heavy head
on your his breast—because for still my love
sleeps beside me.
Marilyn reading Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, 1951
Marilyn reading Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, 1952
ROXBURY NOTES
1958
In the summer of 1957, Marilyn and Arthur Miller bought a house in Roxbury, Connecticut, where Arthur had already lived with his first wife. They initially considered having the house demolished in order to have a new one built by Frank Lloyd Wright, with a swimming pool, a home cinema, a theater, and a big office for Arthur, but the project turned out to be too expensive and they contented themselves with renovating the property.
Marilyn probably wrote these few pages in the spring of 1958, and their tone is particularly disenchanted. The couple stayed a long time in the country, but, loveless now, their home seemed empty. Arthur worked with little success on the screen adaptation of his own short story The Misfits, and Marilyn quickly got bored with her role of housewife. Even the arrival of spring and leaves on the trees were no longer any solace, since they reminded her of failed attempts at motherhood, the lack of a child she had hoped for. At this time she would look closely at her own face in a magnifying glass and observe the effects of passing time.
Since the “other” (the beloved) was unattainable, she resigned herself “to love bravely” and accept what she could not alter. Here we can sense a tortured soul who still wanted to believe in the possibility of profound connection, even as the relationship grew more strained and distant.
starting tomorrow I will take care of myself for that’s all I really have and as I see it now have ever had. Roxbury—I’ve tried to imagine spring all winter—it’s here and I still feel hopeless. I think I hate it here because there is no love here anymore. I regret the effort I desperately made here. I tried to fight what with my being I knew was true—that due to pressure (it’s going to sound like a telegram) that have come in my work (it’s funny I’ve always accepted even the worst—tried to oppose it if it meant jeopardizing my work) he could not endure (he is from another land) though I felt (innocently, which I am not) that what I could endure helped both of us and in a material way also which means so much more to him than me even. I have seen what he intends me to see and I am strangely calm while I catch my breath. It’s a good saying the not so funny—what it stands for though—pain “If I had my life to live over I’d live over a saloon”
Those tender green leaves on these one hundred & seventy five year old maples that I see (I wondered several what my senses felt what was I looking at). It’s like having a child when one is ninety. I don’t want any children because I only could trust every delicate and indelicate feeling of my child with myself in case of accident (sounds like an identification card) there is no one I trust. I mean if anything would happen Blessed thought at this moment. In every spring the green is too sharp—though the delicacy in their form is
Note: The quote is from W. C. Fields.
sweet and uncertain though—it puts up a good struggle in the wind though trembling all the while. Those leaves will relax, expand in the sun and each raindrop they will resist even when they’re battered and ripped. I think I am very lonely—my mind jumps. I see myself in the mirror now, brow furrowed—if I lean close I’ll see—what I don’t want to know—tension, sadness, disappointment, my blue eyes dulled, cheeks flushed with capillaries that look like rivers on maps—hair lying like snakes. The mouth makes me the saddest, next to my dead eyes. There is a dark line between the lips in the outline of several [illegible] waves in a turbulent storm—it says don’t kiss me, don’t fool me I’m a dancer who cannot dance.
When one wants to stay alone as my love (Arthur) indicates the other must stay apart.
Marilyn reading a script, Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles, 1952
Marilyn on her bed, Hollywood, 1962
RED LIVEWIRE NOTEBOOK
1958
In the spring of 1958, Marilyn had had enough of her dull country life. She wanted to start working again and was studying proposals from her agent and Fox, among which was an adaptation of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, when, out of the blue, Billy Wilder sent her a two-page summary of an old German farce he was working on, Some Like It Hot. On July 8 she arrived in Los Angeles for the shooting.
Marilyn used only five pages of this big red spiral notebook. It can be dated from the summer of 1958, as it includes two lines of dialogue from Some Like It Hot. Why these two lines? (One might be self-referential; Marilyn was born in June just like the character of Sugar Kane.) What do they reveal about Marilyn’s musings?
Another possibility presents itself: that the pencil notes were written before the ones in blue ballpoint pen. In that case, “after one year of analysis” would refer to 1956 (she started her analysis with Dr. Hohenberg in 1955), with a hint of irony as to
the result, as revealed in a short four-line poem expressing despair in the form of a cry for help: the desire to die rather than live.
I left my home of green rough wood—
a blue velvet couch I dream till now
a shiny dark bush just left of the door.
[Illegible] down the walk clickity clack as my doll
in her carriage went over the cracks—“We’ll go far away”
The meadows are huge the earth (will be) hard
on my back. The grass surged touched
the blue and still white clouds changing from an
old man shapes to a smiling dog with ears flying
Look—
The meadows are reaching—they’re touching the sky
We’ll leave We left our outlines against/on the crushed grass.
It will die sooner because we were there—will something
else have grown?
Don’t cry my doll don’t cry
I hold you and rock you to sleep.