Marilyn Monroe

Jayne Atkinson resists the cliches of the film star's breathy voice in a tough, fictionalised tale of abuse and fame.

Oates reflects on Monroe’s fundamental understanding of her own exploitation and “her deep and profound masochism, as if she’s saying: ‘I won’t interfere with the world’s victimisation of me. The audiobook also features a postscript in which Oates is interviewed by the literary critic Michael Silverblatt. Joyce Carol Oates’s “radically distilled” take on Marilyn Monroe’s life – a film of which comes to Netflix this month – delves deep into the actor’s early years when she was still called Norma Jeane, depicting a wretched childhood marked by a narcissistic, alcoholic mother; spells in an orphanage and a foster home; and marriage at 16.

Her alleged affair with Charlie Chaplin, Jr. Blonde ...

Unlike many of the other men depicted in the film, he’s one of the few people in her life who’s not using her or seeking to take something from her. Whitey is present for many of Marilyn’s most vulnerable moments in the film, constantly helping her transform from Norma Jeane to her glamorous Marilyn Monroe persona. After being unceremoniously dragged through the halls of a hotel by Secret Service agents, she’s shown to the politician in a manner that she likens to “meat to be delivered.” She asks The President, who’s on a phone call while watching a rocket launch, how she can help, and he coerces her into giving him a hand job and oral sex, before the scene ends with him raping her. In reality, there’s no no evidence that Monroe was in a throuple or that the relationship was ever a subject of Hollywood gossip, although a brief affair between Monroe and Chaplin was the subject of rumors at the time and was later In Blonde, two of the more consistent characters in Marilyn’s life are her makeup artist Whitey and her talent agent, Mr. In the film, they meet in 1955 when she auditions to perform in one of his plays, while living in New York and attending the Actors’ Studio; the duo bond over a shared love of Anton Chekov’s The Three Sisters, with Miller being surprised and impressed by Marilyn’s intelligence and insight. When Miller applied for a passport to go to London with Monroe for a shoot, it triggered an investigation about his alleged ties to communism, opening both him and Monroe to scrutiny and surveillance, with Monroe supporting him publicly, despite the possible ramifications for her career. The real fissures in their marriage arise from his volatile jealousy and domestic violence, including a traumatizing scene in which he beats Marilyn with a belt after watching her film her famous subway grate scene for The Seven Year Itch. In real life, DiMaggio’s jealousy and violent behavior led to the end of his marriage to Monroe. [Marilyn Monroe](https://time.com/6215213/blonde-marilyn-monroe-legacy/)‘s presence has loomed large in our collective imaginations, providing [endless inspiration for film, television, books, music, and art.](https://time.com/6171269/mystery-of-marilyn-monroe-review-netflix/) This fall, Monroe is once again at the center of cultural conversation with the Sept. [one of the world’s most famous women](https://time.com/4346417/marilyn-monroe-time-1956-cover/). A pregnancy that ends in an abortion brings the end of “the Geminis'” relationship.

I'm writing, of course, about “Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend,” the cabaret number in the 1953 film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” that Monroe performs in a ...

“In the best years with DiMaggio, her physical coordination is never more vigorous and athletically quick,” Mailer writes in his Monroe biography. I’m willing to believe their romance sparked all kinds of new feelings and connections in Monroe, who searched her whole life for love, approval and protection. Listen, Lorelei tells us: There are plenty of men out there who are stupid and vain enough to want you for a very simple transaction. Happily, a Fox rep intervened and kept the ladies to the original plan. Say what you will about the questionable career goals of Lorelei Lee, whose single ambition, in the film’s view, is to sweet-talk a millionaire into marrying her. “Diamonds” offers a prismatic look at the actress, the culture and the times. Fox executives were so afraid of public backlash they scrapped plans for Monroe to wear a bikini-type confection for “Diamonds,” as film historian Debra Levine has written. The number is a socko blend of seduction, release and control. This is Monroe up close, the way the world covets her; Monroe is animating her body in small, sharp, emphatic ways. Jule Styne, who wrote the song, praised her voice, with good reason — her uniquely sultry, jazz-influenced interpretation is ranked 12th-best on the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 songs in 20th-century American films. According to movie lore, neither of the actresses took easily to the film’s dance sequences, but with her generous charm and soft physicality, Monroe looks like Margot Fonteyn next to tall, square-shouldered Russell. “Blonde” wants you to believe that one of Hollywood’s most enduring icons was a haunted, hated sad sack who cried, screamed and groveled her way through film history.

The Netflix film turns Monroe into an avatar of suffering, brought low by a miserable childhood, a father she never knew and an industry full of men who ...

It left me feeling that Monroe deserved better, not just from the industry that chewed her up and spat her out, but from any filmmaker hoping to make sense of her legacy. But Blonde is too thuddingly repetitive — and finally, unimaginative — to bring us any closer to understanding the woman behind that construct. Like that film, Blonde feels like a slow-motion death march: It's The Assassination of Marilyn Monroe by Basically Everyone She Ever Met. The movie turns Monroe into an avatar of suffering, brought low by a miserable childhood, a father she never knew and an industry full of men who abused and exploited her until her death in 1962, at the age of 36. Blonde suggests that Monroe desperately wanted a child, to become the loving, supportive mother she herself never had. I had much the same thought after watching Blonde, which focuses so narrowly on Monroe's pain and trauma that it feels less like a biographical drama than a passion play.

The new Marilyn Monroe biopic, starring Ana de Armas, is out now – but what's the truth behind the screen legend?

In the last years of the 1950s and early 1960s, as her marriage to Miller ended, Monroe's behaviour became increasingly erratic and she was plagued with ill health. [unpick the mysteries of her death](https://time.com/6171269/mystery-of-marilyn-monroe-review-netflix/), though the sad reality may indeed be that she did kill herself. It allowed her to renegotiate a new contract with Fox, which gave her more control over the projects she chose. It may not have been what she wanted, but Monroe's sex appeal became her abiding currency during the 1950s – the decade in which she became one of the most famous, top-billed actresses in Hollywood. During the late 1950s, she moved to Manhattan to study acting at the famous Lee Strasbourg Institute and married the legendary playwright Arthur Miller in 1956. It was here that she made her first notable (but still small) appearances, in iconic films All About Eve and The Asphalt Jungle (both 1950). Monroe signed a modelling contract in the 1940s and spent most of this decade working as a pin-up star, after straightening her hair and dyeing it blonde. She won a Golden Globe for the role. A need for security amid the flux and pain of her childhood may have led her to marry a neighbour's 21-year-old son, James Doughty, just after her 16th birthday. Her premature, and arguably mysterious death, aged 36, established Monroe as a tragic figure; a symbol of the exploitative studio system and its ingrained misogyny. Hollywood's pin-up and its most enduring sex symbol remains a source of fascination and the subject of countless documentaries and films. She was the ultimate blonde bombshell and, in many ways, even 60 years after her death, she still is.