WEIRDLAND: Marilyn Monroe, her sad diary and white dress

"FIVE decades after her death, Marilyn Monroe emerged in her own words yesterday as a suicidal, inadequate and thoughtful woman who feared losing her mind.

Her private writings, to be published for the first time, also show the late star to have been an avid reader who quotes John Milton and Sigmund Freud as she despairs over her loneliness.

The actress's voice comes over clearly in Fragments, a collection of notes, letters and poems that were left to Lee Strasberg, her acting guru, on her death in Los Angeles in 1962 at the age of 36.

Le Nouvel Observateur, the French news weekly, published extracts from the papers, which were edited by Bernard Comment, a Swiss writer, and Stanley Buchthal, their current owner. The English edition is to be published on October 14 by HarperCollins.

Monroe's mental turmoil and literary aspirations are well-known. But her own vivid accounts of her inner life, from teenage years to a time close to her death, bring home how far the real woman was from the dumb blond she portrayed in her films.

"Why do I feel this torture?" she scribbled in a diary in 1955, according to the French translation. "Or why is it that I feel less human than the others (always felt in a certain way that I am subhuman, why in other words, I am the worst, why?) Even physically, I have always been sure that something was not right with me."

In 1958, under psychoanalysis and after the failure of her marriage to Arthur Miller, the playwright, she writes: "Help, help, help. I feel life approaching when all that I want is to die." Miller is the only person in her life she trusted as much as herself, she confides in her notebook.

In another undated fragment, she describes her desperation on a film set. "I am tired. I am searching for a way to play this role. My whole life has always depressed me. How can I play such a gay girl, young and full of hope?"

As a rising star in the early 1950s, she wrote verses about her solitude. "I am alone. I am always alone, whatever happens . . . " Source: www.heraldsun.com.au

"William Travilla is best known for dressing Marilyn Monroe for eight of her films and this exhibition showcases five prototypes of these dresses, alongside two dresses designed for Marilyn for personal appearances.

'The White Dress', from the film 7 Year Itch (1955) is likely to be the most famous dress he ever made for Marilyn Monroe.

On display is an identical copy made by William Travilla during her lifetime from the original pattern, as the dress worn in the film is owned by actress Debbie Reynolds". Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall, co-stars in "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953)

"How to Marry a Millionaire earned an Academy Award nomination for Color Costume Design for 20th Century-Fox wardrobe director Charles LeMaire, a 16-time Academy Award nominee and winner for All about Eve, The Robe and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, and Travilla (William "Bill" Travilla), a four-time Oscar nominee and winner for The Adventures of Don Juan. Travilla was also known for designing Monroe's costumes.

nowhere near as broad as she was in Blondes, Monroe here is just a more sentimental version of the same type, and the part doesn't add up to much more than blonde window dressing. Bacall has the serious audience sympathy, and Gable the biggest heart, so this was exactly the kind of part Monroe so desperately wanted to flee".

Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen prefer blondes" (1953)

"Blondes is immediately recognizable as a Hawks film for a number of reasons pointed out by Robin Wood in his essays from 30 years ago. The glib toughness is there, with the unspoken understanding that the girls are 'professionals'. They're proud of their man-killing, just like Hawks' soldiers or fliers are. They have an impromptu sing-along number at a Paris cafe, also very Hawksian. Russell even delivers her lines similarly to Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not". Source: www.dvdtalk.com