Two very different blondes: Marilyn Monroe and Joanne Woodward

If your stance is, rightly, that Marilyn Monroe was a kind of genius, an actress for whom the status of sex symbol comes with an asterisk, because she was not helplessly beholden to her iconic image—not the fatuous, buxom blonde that many mistook her to be—but rather an extremely savvy engineer of her own persona, a whip-smart, and self-aware talent for whom the culture’s low expectations proved an opportunity for success; if it’s your belief that this is the truth of Marilyn Monroe’s appeal and the essence of her timelessness, then Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, will not be the movie for you. 

To start, this isn’t so much a movie about Marilyn Monroe. Andrew Dominik’s fictionalized biopic is a relentless pseudo-psychoanalysis that wallows in the screen icon's suffering and ignores her true genius. Blonde and its flaws are already being diagnosed with a handful of compatible but unflattering descriptors (pretentious, misogynistic, masochistic, and ludicrous). More than any of that, this movie is psychoanalytic in excess. From first to last, Blonde tries to draw linear pathways from its heroine’s behavior (and by association the mask-like, glamorous persona she creates) to her experiences, like some cursed psychological map. Monroe’s charisma as a screen presence remains mesmerizing, even for the people still discovering her today, because of its mystery, its contours that feel impossible to properly trace. Nothing about Marilyn Monroe in Blonde, by contrast, is mysterious or mesmerizing. Everything is contingent and predictable. Dominik’s script is more interested in the more incisive question of whether these men would know how to love Marilyn selflessly. It seems it's unknown for Dominik that selfishness is not automatically contrary to love; that’s what can make love so real and difficult. Admittedly, a honest filmmaker would probably find it wise to avoid Oates’ novel altogether, because the novel itself is so histerically reductive. The scandalous, the sensational, are Oates' tools since she can use our helpless fascination against us, by inspiring true repulsion, much like a trickster who’d warned us to be careful what we wish for. Blonde tries to deny who Marilyn Monroe really was, punishing her to punish all of us. The math does not check out, and it shows. Source: rollingstone.com 

“Blonde does not see Marilyn Monroe's joy, it does not see her humour, it does not see her artistry, it does not see her humanity. It uses her as a vessel to comment on consumerism and the darkness at the heart of the Hollywood machine. It claims to be feminist, yet is so so deeply steeped in misogyny. In watching Monroe’s films, you can see an intelligence, a bravery, and a spark that Andrew Dominik’s script and direction never allows Ana De Armas’s performance to even come close to approaching. Blonde wants you to believe that it’s bringing an internal depth to Monroe, as if her performances didn’t already have ten times as much complexity as whatever the hell this movie is trying to do. Marilyn Monroe was not just one of the greatest film comediennes, but also one of its greatest dramatic performers. Dominik seems to resent Monroe's capacity for comedy and interrupts some famous scenes from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot with her sudden meltdowns. It's quite safe to think Marilyn would respond to Dominik's revisionist nightmare with something like Boop-boop-a-doop.” Source: filmsflicker.com

Joanne Woodward in the film Rachel, Rachel (1969) where she gave a fascinating performance, expanding the cliché of the old maid to incorporate a wistful lyricism, intelligence and wit. She was Oscar-nominated but that year the Academy gave an unprecedented tie to Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand. Woodward had already won the Best Actress Oscar for The Three Faces of Eve (1957), which was a triumph of Method technique, but with Rachel, Rachel she achieved real depth. Woodward's greatest strengths as a performer were her pragmatism and likability. Pauline Kael wrote that Woodward had a trouper quality: she was an actress with solidity, great audience rapport and a wide streak of humor about herself. Woodward’s expression of anger was nearly always funny, as in her comedies with Paul Newman—Rally ’Round the Flag, Boys! (1958) and A New Kind of Love (1963). 

Her attempts at sexpot roles, like The Stripper (1963), were more problematic since she was not the Marilyn Monroe type at all. Woodward’s training with the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio had her perceived as a Method actress. In her book The Treatment of Women in the Movies (1987), Molly Haskell describes Woodward as one of the serious artist-actresses in film, comparing her to Geraldine Page, Anne Bancroft, Julie Harris, Kim Stanley and Shelley Winters. These actresses emerged in the Hollywood studio system, but were not movie stars in living Technicolor like Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner or Grace Kelly. 

Haskell seemed to have a point about Woodward, since in the black-and-white The Three Faces of Eve she didn’t give a typical movie-star performance. Her Method origins were also evident in her actor mannerisms, though she used them in real life when interviewed as well. Fox had reportedly had trouble with the film version of The Three Faces of Eve, which was first called The Woman with Three Lives. One problem was casting, since it was hard to find an actress capable of playing the title character who suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder. In 1956, writer-director Nunnally Johnson offered the part to Lana Turner, Olivia de Havilland, Doris Day, Jean Simmons and Carroll Baker, who all declined. Johnson suggested Marilyn Monroe, whom he knew after he had produced and written the screenplay for Fox’s romantic comedy How to Marry a Millionaire (1953).

Marilyn was making Bus Stop at the time, and when Johnson asked her about the part, the actress told him that she didn’t feel capable of assuming three personalities at once. June Allyson said that she was offered it but her husband, Dick Powell, talked her out of it, thinking her miscast for the role. The June 29, 1956, New York Times reported that Susan Hayward was negotiating with Johnson for the role, though another source claims that he went to Hayward after Judy Garland. Johnson had talked to Garland and had decided she would be perfect after she had proven her dramatic skills in the Warner Bros. musical romance A Star Is Born (1954). He sent Garland the script in Las Vegas where she was then performing at the New Frontier Hotel. Garland didn’t quite understand the script, feeling it came across more as a domestic comedy than a dramatic piece. Another source had Paul Newman visiting Judy Garland in her Hollywood home, where he was introduced to Johnson as he was leaving. There Garland showed Newman the script because she wanted him to play her husband. 

Newman borrowed the script to show it to Woodward, who was then attached to The Wayward Bus. Rather he wanted Gore Vidal to read it, partly to have the husband part beefed up, so that Newman could take these revisions to the director if he was offered it. Vidal believed the part could be a good star vehicle for Woodward. She was shown the script, though she believed Fox would want Susan Hayward. Garland changed her mind about the film and got cold feet. Woodward supposedly told Newman she feared she had all of Eve’s characteristics but playing her could tip her over the deep edge. The role terrified her because she identified so strongly with Eve. Newman thought that the way was clear for Woodward but Johnson sent the script to Jennifer Jones. Fortunately, she declined the part. Johnson had apparently seen Woodward in a Dick Powell television drama and had been impressed. He said when he finished the screenplay for the film, Johnson had her in the back of his mind. But despite Johnson and Buddy Adler being interested, apparently the people in Fox’s New York office still believed that they needed a star. Woodward said she only got the part because Fox couldn’t get any of the actresses they really wanted. 

The Long, Hot Summer had a screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., and it was based on three Faulkner works: the 1931 novella Spotted Horses, the 1939 short story “Barn Burning” and the 1940 novel The Hamlet. The director was Martin Ritt. Filming took place on the Fox studio backlot and it was completed on November 21 with a final sequence shot on December 6. The story centered on alleged barn burner and farmer Ben Quick (Paul Newman), who arrives in the town of Frenchmen’s Bend, Mississippi, and ingratiates himself with the Varners family. Second billed after Newman, Joanne Woodward played 23-year-old Clara Varner, the schoolteacher daughter of farmer Will Varner (Orson Welles). Her shoulder-length blonde hair was made by Helen Turpin and mostly worn tied back with bangs. Her clothes by Adele Palmer favor pastel colors with matching hair ribbons. Woodward’s scenes with Newman are brimming with sexual tension all through. Bosley Crowther in The New York Times wrote that Woodward was excellent as Clara Varner. 

While Newman commented that in their scenes together they were fighting each other, Woodward reported that they had a close relationship and got along and that’s what emerged in the film. During production she became pregnant with his child. One observer noted that everybody knew better than to knock on the door of whichever trailer the couple was. Newman supposedly once grabbed the collar of the assistant director and told him 'if the trailer’s rockin, don’t bother knockin’! Another version of this story is that Newman told Ritt, “If my dressing room is rock ’n’ rolling, take the advice of that Marilyn Monroe film, Don’t Bother to Knock.” Ritt had originally wanted to cast Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint in the film, so that they would be reuniting after On the Waterfront. But Brando declined and Newman became Ritt’s third choice after Robert Mitchum also turned down the role of Ben Quick. Saint withdrew when she became pregnant and Woodward was cast though there was some resistance from the studio. 

Angela Lansbury, who played Minnie Littlejohn, commented that Newman and Woodward together were a wonderful duo and that’s what made their chemistry so exciting and realistic. They seemed to have such a total understanding of each other that they were able to work in scenes where they were at each other’s throats or falling under each other’s spell. Lansbury also recalled that the couple spent most of their off-camera time alone and away from the other cast members. 

After filming was completed, Woodward and Newman made a trip to Mexico. One source claims this was to allow Newman to arrange a fast divorce, though another says this did not happen until January when he went to Mexico before joining Woodward in Las Vegas. Newman's ex-wife Jackie Witte was given a generous, lifelong financial settlement and agreed the children should live with her. Newman said he felt guilty as hell about leaving his first marriage and family, but without Woodward he would not be happy. They had their wedding at the El Rancho Hotel on January 29, 1958. The tackiness of the locale was said to have fit the couple’s sense of humor. Newman said that after all the anxiety and secrecy surrounding their romance and his divorce, the ability to walk around freely as a man with his wife was intoxicating. 

Back at Chesham Place, Woodward complained of stomach pains so Gore Vidal summoned a doctor, who said that she was having a miscarriage. Taken to St. George’s Hospital, the actress lost their child and remained there to recover from her ordeal. Paul Newman was said to be devastated by the news, and Claire Bloom visited Woodward bringing her flowers. The miscarriage occurred in early March 1958. It was a dark period for the Newmans, since their fights seemed to be more intense during those dark days. Some recriminations, according to close sources, were centered around Woodward's brief fling with Playhouse 90's writer Timmy Everett and Newman's liaison with co-star Lita Milan, both relationships previous to their wedding. 

The Newmans attended the Academy Awards ceremony with their friend Joan Collins on March 26, 1958, at the RKO Hollywood Pantages Theater in Hollywood. The television broadcast directed by Alan Handley was on NBC. On the red carpet, Joanne Woodward predicted that Deborah Kerr would win the Best Actress Oscar, and announced that the dress she wore was homemade. The attention the award gave the actress also evinced comment on her marriage, with a comically jealous Joan Crawford saying Newman could have dated some of the biggest names in Hollywood but preferred “this Georgian redneck and her feedsack dress.” It was rumored that Crawford had sent a letter to Newman, inviting him to a dinner date he'd refused. 

In The Fugitive Kind (1960), Woodward hated working with Marlon Brando, resenting his pauses and vagueness, feeling she had nothing to reach out to, and she complained to Sidney Lumet that Brando was a complete blank “regardless of how much money he was hauling in for this turkey.” Woodward stated the only way she would work with Brando again was if he was “in rear projection.” A source claims that the actor somehow mistreated her to get back at Newman who was now considered a greater exponent of the Actors Studio Method than him. To torment both Newmans, Brando spread the rumor that he was shacking up with Woodward during the making of the film. Though it was untrue, Newman knew that Brando had dated Woodward briefly in 1953 and he suspected that Brando had seduced the actress. During production, director Otto Preminger noted that Newman was an oddity in the business because he really loved his wife. Newman was a sex symbol who was off limits to that special breed of Hollywood starlet who circled young men like sharks ready for the kill; apparently, Newman could not be seduced and was devoted to Woodward. 

Woodward was confirmed to be in the United Artists musical romance Paris Blues (1961) and the director was again Martin Ritt. It was shot on location in Paris and at the Studios de Boulogne from October 10 to late December. The screenplay was by Jack Sher, Irene Kamp and Walter Bernstein, adapted by Lulla Adler from the novel by Harold Flender. Trombonist Ram Bowen (Newman) and saxophonist Eddie Cook (Poitier), American ex-pat jazz musicians living in Paris, perform at the Club Prive. They meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls on vacation. Woodward played Lillian “Lilly” Corning, a divorced mother of two. Her hair by Carita is blonde, worn in a short sculptured style with bangs. Her wardrobe includes a black shimmery short-sleeve knee-length dress with a wide coat, and in one scene she wears only a bodice outfit. The film was released on September 27, 1961; although it was not a box office success but its music score was Oscar-nominated.

Marilyn Monroe was also considered for the part of Lilly but declined. During filming, Woodward became pregnant again. She reported that they rented a place in Montmartre. One source claims it was a two-story house, another that it was an apartment that Picasso had once lived in. Sources do agree there was a backyard garden. In her time off, the actress visited museums and looked after Nell. She was also visited by her mother for three weeks. The Newmans grew tired of the French food that Desiree, the studio maid, prepared, so Newman set up a barbecue in their garden. The couple also frequented an American Southern–style restaurant they found just below Place Pigalle. To the Parisians they did not look like movie stars, with Woodward described as looking more like a Kansas housewife. The Newmans toyed with the idea of buying an apartment in Paris and relocating but lost interest. They sailed back to the United States and reportedly lent their support to John F. Kennedy, the Democrat presidential hopeful. The couple also campaigned for Gore Vidal in his unsuccessful run for a Congressional seat in the New York State. 

The Stripper (1963) was a drama shot at 20th Century-Fox. The screenplay was written by Meade Roberts and the director was Franklin Schaffner. Lila Green (Woodward) is a failed Hollywood actress and showgirl in The Great Ronaldo & Madame Olga Magic show, which comes to a small town in Kansas. Her hair by George Masters appears peroxide-blonde and is worn in a straight short bubble style with bangs. Travilla gives Lila an all-white wardrobe, which includes a midriff-baring pants and top outfit, and a jaguar fur jacket. The role sees Woodward participate in a magic act and she does a stripping act singing “Something’s Gotta Give.” Director Schaffner and Travilla protect her from being physically exposed in the stripping scene, as she wears a fishnet and tassel under-costume and balloons strategically placed over her. Pauline Kael wrote that everything Woodward did in The Stripper was worth watching, and gave the Marilyn Monroe–ish role a nervousness that cut through its pathos. In fact, the role of Lila had been originally intended for Monroe. Kim Novak had been announced to replace her before Woodward was cast. 

Her hairstyle recalled the same that Monroe donned for the unfinished Fox comedy Something’s Got to Give, and Woodward also sang the title song of Monroe's last film. Marilyn Monroe’s death on August 3, 1962, oddly contributed to the idea of her ghost hovering over the part played by Woodward. There had been a specific reference to Marilyn that was cut in the film, when Lila was seen walking down the street. Originally an observer asked who Lila was, adding that she looked like Marilyn Monroe, and a bus driver said that it was not her. But the name was changed to Jayne Mansfield and Woodward said it just wasn’t right. Woodward also commented that she had a visual image of Lila as Marilyn but she wasn’t imitating her. Woodward described the film as a mess and was sorry that it was botched. Screenwriter Meade Roberts invented a wonderful prop for her: the teddy bear she held onto. 

There was a vulnerability and resilience in the character that the actress tried to capture in her walk, a combination of a jiggle and a voluptuous swagger. She felt Travilla had designed the wardrobe as an homage to Marilyn Monroe (who was still alive during pre-production). They had a wonderful time rehearsing and the script was charming but the death of Jerry Wald saw Darryl Zanuck, now back as Fox studio head, take over. Zanuck saw a rough cut and threw Schaffner off the film. Zanuck said that Woodward couldn’t sing or dance so he cut almost all of her dancing, which had been choreographed by Alex Romero, though Lila not being able to sing or dance was the point. 

The only place where Woodward was a sex symbol was at home, she said, and she was very lucky that Newman thought her so sexy and alluring. Woodward also said she didn’t worry about other women coming on strong with him because she knew what Newman thought of them. Long-time friend Stewart Stern described the Newmans as the most hand-holding couple he'd ever seen and it was Newman who reached for his wife’s hand more often than her. When Marilyn Monroe was found dead, the Newmans attended a private homage at the Actors Studio held by Lee Strasberg. There was despair in the air, Strasberg recalled. Woodward was glad she "wasn’t grabbed at and mauled" the way she had seen Marilyn Monroe at an Actors Studio premiere for East of Eden (1955). Also there were in its day rumors about Marilyn flirting with Paul Newman during the acting classes at the Studio.

In WUSA (1970), Joanne Woodward played Geraldine Crosby, a former prostitute from West Virginia. A jaded widow, she starts a relationship with Rheinhardt (Paul Newman) who gets a job at the WUSA station. Woodward's hair by Sydney Guilaroff is a soft blonde shade, worn in a straight casual style, and her wardrobe is by Travilla. Woodward also wears a scar on her right cheek, courtesy of makeup by Lynn Reynolds. The role has her use a Southern accent, and she adds to her mannerisms by playing with her hair, though it has context since Geraldine sometimes does so to hide her facial scar. Woodward’s best scene is when Geraldine is imprisoned and the actress has a silent reaction of fear, stopping herself from screaming in hysterics, and pondering how she can kill herself. Satisfied by her enacting of such a difficult role, Woodward also regarded her husband’s performance in WUSA as one of the best of his career. Newman was angry with Paramount and denounced the studio for its interferences in the production of the film. For his part, director Stuart Rosenberg found the Newmans to be virtuosos and observed their different approaches they took to reach an accomplished performance level. —Joanne Woodward: Her Life and Career (2019) by Peter Shelley

Marilyn Monroe's myths reconstructed in "Blonde"

In Dominik’s eyes, Marilyn Monroe is a weirdo artist, a clever and experimental mind who was thwarted by things beyond her control, poor mental health and the Hollywood system, mostly. But as much as Dominik seems to appreciate Monroe on those merits, he eventually puts her through a nightmarish ordeal leading to her death that is  harrowing and relentless (and, eventually, tiresome) on film. Ana de Armas can’t do much to conceal her Cuban accent as she approximates Monroe’s breathy vocal melodiousness. Unfortunately, she lacks the necessary nuance which is far off her reach. We don’t necessarily get to know the reality of Monroe here; the movie offers precious little of her at work, or in her social element. It’s pretty much all pain, all the time, crafting a vivid and frightening picture of the madness of fame. 

Throughout her numerous travails, Monroe conceives and then loses several babies, either by coerced abortion or miscarriage. That becomes a heavy emotional throughline in the film, as does Monroe’s yearning to know her father, whom she’s never met but idolizes nonetheless. Dominik explores several noted film productions (Don’t Bother to Knock, Niagara, The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot are all attenuated through interesting moments) and significant license is taken when examining her more famous romantic, troubled relationships. And it's especially insulting the portrait of Joe DiMaggio and President John F Kennedy as abusive chauvinists. In May, Christie’s sold Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn portrait of the actress for a staggering $195 million. It is the most expensive 20th-century artwork to ever sell at auction. In the summer, Madame Tussauds installed a wax sculpture of the film legend at the Lexington Hotel, a place Marilyn and her husband Joe DiMaggio once called their home. In 2020, Forbes listed Monroe as the 13th-highest-paid dead celebrity, raking in $13 million her estate earned the year prior. The outlet reported that her likeness was officially licensed by nearly 100 brands globally, including Dolce & Gabbana, Zales, and Lego Group. 

As art historian Gail Levin told PBS’ American Masters about Monroe, “She could, arguably, be the most-photographed person of the 20th century.” By her own admission, the woman she presented onscreen to the American public was just the façade of a glamorous sex bomb Hollywood decided to market her as, not the insecure Norma Jeane Baker who grew up in a string of foster homes. A persona that now, decades after her death, threatens to totally eclipse her actuality and erase any genuine human complexity that doesn’t align with her best-selling tragic paradigm. In Blonde Marilyn Monroe is no longer a real person but a more of a void that members of the public can fill with their own vague desires. In her essay “Thirty Are Better Than One: Marilyn Monroe and the Performance of Americanness,” academic Susanne Hamscha writes that Monroe has become “a surface on which narratives of American culture can be (re-) constructed” and “functions as a cultural type that can be reproduced, transformed, translated into new contexts, and enacted by other people.” 

As Ana de Armas says in the trailer’s voice-over, “Marilyn doesn’t exist. When I come out of my dressing room, I’m Norma Jeane. I’m still her when the camera is rolling. Marilyn Monroe only exists on the screen.” We've abstracted this woman so far from herself, even during her own life, that she was always essentially a figment of our imagination. What we conceive of as Marilyn is actually just the output of our collective projection of her. And, as a heavily fictionalized version of her life, Blonde makes no attempt at correcting the legends surrounding this woman or grounding her in reality, instead adding yet another layer of illusion to her already mythologized existence, and a particularly scandalous one at that. Source: vanityfair.com

“One of the bright spots in Ladies of Chorus (1948) is Miss Monroe’s singing,” wrote critic Tibor Krekes. “She is pretty and, with her pleasing voice and style, she shows promise”—hardly a rave, but nevertheless a gratifying first review that altered Marilyn's career. Marilyn’s singing is more than pleasing, and she displays a remarkable control of pitch and range. Perhaps more remarkable is her on-screen lambency. Even in this early role, when Marilyn appears in-frame, everything around her fades into the background. Harry Cohn, president of Columbia Pictures, was not impressed and her contract was not renewed. Her dismissal from Columbia did not have the same impact on her as her earlier dismissal from Fox. After a brief hiatus, Marilyn’s next appearance on film would be in a Mary Pickford production, featuring her in a scene with Groucho Marx in Love Happy (1949).

Natasha Lytess was the staff drama and acting coach at Columbia when Marilyn signed her six month contract. Natasha left Columbia and became Marilyn’s formal drama coach, a function she performed through the filming of The Seven Year Itch. Marilyn’s directors, co-stars and many other Hollywood notables blamed Natasha over the years for what was occasionally termed Marilyn’s stiff mannered speech. Harry Cohn was probably the most despised man in Hollywood. Later, after Marilyn’s rise to international fame, Cohn admitted his mistake of not having renewed her contract at Columbia. 

Marilyn was just one of several female stars that Cohn pursued, along with Rita Hayworth, Mary Castle, Kim Novak and Evelyn Keyes. Lucille Carroll, whose stage name was Jane Starr, she worked as a Broadway actress and she would become the first female studio executive in Hollywood. According to Lucille Carroll, “Under Marilyn’s baby-doll, kitten exterior, she was tough and shrewd and calculating,” was Lucille’s assessment. One day during her last summer in 1962, Marilyn told her confidante Susan Strasberg: ‘Hollywood will never forgive me—not for leaving, not for fighting the system—but for winning, which I’m going to do.’ Maybe Hollywood has not forgiven her after all this time. —Marilyn Monroe: The Biography (2014) by Donald Spoto

"Blonde" (spoilers), Lotusland, The Hustler

“It soon became clear that Marilyn was no pushover,” Anthony Summers wrote. “She worked the Hollywood system to her advantage.” And yet, in an interview with Summers, director John Huston describes what he saw in Marilyn Monroe: “Something so vulnerable, something you felt could be destroyed.” In interviews with over 700 people, Anthony Summers, author of Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe (2017) encountered nothing to suggest that Daryl Zanuck or another Hollywood producer assaulted Marilyn Monroe. Summers is suspicious about Andrew Dominik's film Blonde: "When Oates’ novel Blonde came out, her defence was that, in a work of fiction, she ‘had no particular obligation’ to the facts. In my view, that is not so. The people she named in her novel were real people with real reputations – and historical legacies – and such fictional fabrication is unjustifiably cruel. The fact that the individuals concerned are dead is no defence." Joyce Carol Oates's only defence was her warning: What follows is fiction. Biographical facts should be sought elsewhere. 

In Blonde, Cass Chaplin and Eddy G.— played, respectively, by Xavier Samuel and Evan Williams, and who in Oates’ book are as victimised by the Hollywood system as Monroe is—are conniving rotters in the film, with uncomfortable echoes of homophobic films of the 1950s. Blonde also contains moments of erotic surrealism, including a threesome filmed as an elegantly distorted kneading of flesh into strange new configurations, like a sexy version of the climax of Brian Yuzna's Society. Spoilers: The star’s death is reframed to directly implicate these former lovers rather than the Kennedys. The dialogue is cringey, the direction is misguided, and again, there is far too much skin shown. Blonde isn’t subtle, that’s for sure. Sometimes pushing the envelope helps a movie excel, but in this case it doesn’t work out. In fact, it drastically takes away from what this could have been. Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is exploitative. For most of the film the despair is palpable; the dramatic purpose is not. Blonde frames Monroe, stylishly and icily, as a hysterical woman. She deserves better. Source: empireonline.com

A femme fatale, at least in her own mind, Anais Nin was a woman of mystery and passion, known for extravagant sexual exploits which included a torrid affair with Henry Miller and his wife June. She was not known at the time for her bicoastal life where she had a husband stashed in New York and a younger husband in Los Angeles. "She was liberated decades before female liberation," said the chauvinist author Norman Mailer. "I never let her seduce me that day she came on to me at a party in Greenwich Village. She got Jack Kerouac instead." Anais told novelist James Leo Herlihy she was intrigued by Paul Newman, while Herlihy was lobbying to get Newman to star as Willart in John Frankenheimer's All Fall Down (1962), a role with similarities to Newman's Hud, that ended up on Warren Beatty's hands. Anais told Herlihy. "I suspect Newman will go far in an industry that is all about illusion. There is a self-awareness in this handsome young man. In spite of the hot sun, he already knows that California is a cold, harsh land. He does not want it to hurt him. So what must he do? 

I predict he'll have a miserable life in Hollywood. Beneath all of his swagger, I suspect there is a sensitive man lurking somewhere there. I feel sorry for Newman because if he wants to be a movie star, then he has to be as artificial as Marilyn Monroe. He has to become a sort of dream figure for the women of America. And American women are shallow. They always make gods and goddesses out of cardboard figures. I predict Newman will turn into a cardboard figure. There will be no reality to him. He can't be real. We'll never know who Paul Newman is, because he doesn't know himself. Perhaps one harsh, brutal morning, when that world tumbles in around him, he'll look into the mirror and see himself for the first time. But it will frighten him. A tragedy, really. But, this is, after all, Lotusland." Later, Herlihy confided: "I don't know if I learned anything about Paul Newman from listening to her. But Anais was not clever enough to conceal her own deceit. She was actually attracted to Newman, but could not admit that to herself. From the way she talked about him, I felt she wanted to add him to her stable of lovers. But knowing how hopeless that was, she chose to trash him instead, the way she did with Gore Vidal in her diary." –Anais Nin: The Last Days (2013) by Barbara Kraft

The Hustler's (1961) - Journey of Ambition and Redemption: One of Paul Newman’s most iconic films, it remains a frighteningly nuanced psychological study and societal portrait. The film delights in illuminating the dark “shadows” of our times: ruthless ambition, pangs of personal growth, capitalist dreams, and the pursuit of alcohol to provide a fleeting smile in times of sorrow. These themes are often silently stalking us, hiding around unforeseen corners, as we do not generally bring them up in polite discourse. As Fast Eddie Felson approaches his peak, the need for mastery looms. The drive for mere pleasure falters when confronted by the will for being recognized and having lasting power. And to Eddie, power is achieved by beating the greatest pool player in the country, Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). 

Eddie finds refuge in the form of the eternal feminine. His love interest, Sarah Packard, is attracted to the charming masculinity of Newman's character, yet she's painfully aware of his immaturity. Her instinct to introspection is actually frightening to him. Eddie secretly knows he must accept the instinct of Sarah to improve himself before he can embark on a disciplined and mature approach to life. However, success in his life will entail a confrontation with the Mephistophelian “devil” straight from the tragedy of Goethe’s Faust. This force is personified by Bert Gordon, a rich speculator, gambler and owner of men’s souls. Eddie’s “excuses” for losing do not gain any sympathy from such a Machiavellian character. In a deep conversation with Sarah, Eddie finds the source of his passion, likening it to a jockey having developed such precise control of the powerful stallion (his inner nature), that propels him towards an undeniable victory. Sarah calls Eddie a winner.

The Hustler culminates with an emotionally wrenching and tragic climax. Fast Eddie enters the Ames Pool Hall, the billiard coliseum, with his final $3000 dollars. Harnessing his remnant passion for the game and for life that he realized through Sarah, he now drags his damaged pride during his last pool match. Sarah’s insight helped Eddie find out the truth about his moral weakness. Rossen shows the pool game as a graveyard collection of dispassionate symbols. Fats is a champion, but his love for the game has been reduced to a “high percentage” ritual. Eddie won’t lose because he has someone who inspires him to fight for. Eddie says defiantly to Bert, “You don't know what winning is. You're a loser, Bert. 'Cause you're dead inside. You can't live unless you make everything else dead around you!”

Despite its reputation as a truly bleak film, it's somehow a story of moral triumph. A determined hustler can beat the system, no matter how far he has fallen. When Eddie invests all he’s got (his life savings), no mere percentage player can match his fervent determination. And yet it also warns us against chasing false symbols of success that prevent a deeper emotional connection. All the glitz and glam of a Las Vegas evening cannot fill that unquenchable human void that inspires the greatest of feats. “I think Robert Rossen had actually signed somebody else,” Newman remembered, “and then he found out I was available and called me and said, ‘Can I send you a script?’ I read half of it and called my New York agent at six o’clock in the morning and said, ‘Get me this film.’ And he did.” Rossen, whose major Hollywood career had been interrupted by encounters with the House Un-American Activities Committee, was now hobbled by a combination of diabetes and alcoholism, but he was determined to make a film about a world that he knew well, the demimonde of smoky billiard halls and itinerant pool sharks. It was a bravura bit of pulp, tightly atmospheric, filled with pinpoint detail and spare, snappy dialogue. 

Newman respected Rossen’s knowledge of the subject matter and his commitment to the job. “He just pulled himself together to do the film,” Newman remembered, “and he was incredible.” Too, Newman loved the material and knew it was the best thing he’d ever had in his career. In his view, Eddie Felson was a guy trying to find himself, to express himself and his talents in an unorthodox way, to burst into the world and be a somebody instead of a nobody, and mostly, to realize his true self. Newman told an interviewer, “I spent the first thirty years of my life looking for a way to explode. For me, apparently, acting is that way.” Newman always recalled The Hustler fondly, as one of his best roles. “It was one of those movies when you woke every day and could hardly wait to get to work,” Newman said, “because you knew it was so good that nobody was going to be able to louse it up.” Rossen was free to operate on the cheap and get an authentic feel; the picture was shot in mid-town Manhattan during the spring of 1961. Rossen used the Greyhound Bus Terminal, some dive bars on Eighth Avenue, and, especially, the Ames Billiard Academy on West Forty-fourth Street.

Piper Laurie, a promising young actress with a résumé rather like Joanne Woodward’s of a couple years before, would play brilliantly her bittersweet role as Eddie's love interest. Sarah is an alcoholic writer with a shady past, and she's partly lame. Laurie's chemistry with Newman is so powerful and disturbing that evokes the best noir dramas. To prepare for the film, Newman took lessons from the famed billiard champion Willie Mosconi; he moved a billiard table into his Upper East Side apartment where he lived with Joanne, getting good enough to play most of his pool shots in the film. The Hustler was in contention for an impressive nine Oscar awards: best picture, actor, actress, director, screenplay, cinematography, art direction, and two for best supporting actor. All these nominations were worthy, but Paul Newman’s was especially well deserved. He was the center of the film and carried it all—the naïvete, the swagger, the nervous tension, the sexual confidence, the crushing humiliation, the not-quite-focused calculation, the hard-earned redemption—with disarming certainty. 

—Paul Newman: A Life (2009) by Shawn Levy

Marilyn Monroe: not a blonde stereotype

“Marilyn Monroe has been given many labels, both during her life and after. Probably the two most insulting are that she was a dumb blonde and a victim. She was neither. The characters she played on-screen were often harebrained and made people laugh, but that did not mean that the real-life woman was dumb. She lost some battles and her ending was tragic and devastating, but that does not make her a victim. On the contrary, her determination to fight in such a male-oriented and hostile industry makes her one of the bravest women of her generation. Mental health is a topic that is still frequently dealt with behind closed doors, and the knowledge that Marilyn felt deep despair at times often makes people uncomfortable. Marilyn did have psychological issues, and to look at them can help spread the word about mental health, which is of paramount importance. Knowing that Marilyn suffered too may help those struggling with their own issues, and she would have been terrifically proud of that. The Marilyn Monroe seen in manipulated images, fake stories, and even false quotes is not the person who really existed. The exagerations around her character really have no bearing on the human being at all. By allowing ourselves to see only the legend, we reduce Marilyn to merely a character—someone who has no more bearing on real life than Betty Boop or Mickey Mouse.

Out goes the human being who loved poetry and music, and in comes a character like the ones she played on-screen. The real woman is still out there—she can be found in interviews and photographs that have existed for the past seventy years—and yet some still prefer her fake giggling blonde image. Perhaps the real woman is too much to handle. Maybe she was always too much and the fake version fits a certain mold that people are more accepting of. By humanising Marilyn, we are each given a lesson in empathy, hopefully inviting to see Marilyn in a more sensitive and caring light. For a woman who fought her entire life to be recognised as an intelligent, ambitious actress, the least we can do is understand that while she often played ditzy women on-screen, the opposite was true in real life.” —‘Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist’ (2018) by Michelle Morgan

Amy Greene, now 92, was one of Monroe’s closest friends and confidantes. She was the Cuban model-turned-housewife of Milton Greene, a celebrity photographer who first photographed Monroe in 1953; hit it off with her; and had her as his and Amy’s houseguest at their home in Weston, Connecticut, where they lived with their infant son, for four years (1954-1957) while Monroe, at the height of her fame, took a hiatus from living and working in Hollywood, and eventually returned on her own terms, as the co-chief — with Milton — of her own production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions. Some highlights:

How did Milton and Marilyn first meet? (“It was the week before our wedding [that he was to photograph Marilyn, who had seen and been impressed by his work]. He flew out, and when he walked in she said, ‘But you’re just a boy!’ ‘Cause he looked like he was 12 years old. And then he said, ‘You’re just a girl! Let’s go to work.’ They hit it off right away.”) What was Marilyn’s state of mind at this time? (“At this point Marilyn was such a recluse that no one in the industry really knew her or said, ‘Oh, I saw her at a party,’ ’cause she never went anywhere… Really all she did was eat, sleep, and work… She wasn’t getting the life that she wanted in Los Angeles.”)

What appealed to Marilyn about moving in with them in Connecticut? (“She was excited because she loved the house, she loved our lifestyle… She would take walks in the woods everyday. Nobody bothered her… She felt protected.”) What was it like to share a house with the world’s most beautiful and famous woman? (“She was neat. She wouldn't cook… She was no problem whatsoever… She was a good sport… She was smarter than she looked… She read a lot.”)

Was she ever concerned that Marilyn might tempt her husband? (“I was secure in my marriage and I was secure with her… There’s no way she would shaft me to bang Milton.”) What was the impetus for Marilyn Monroe Productions? (“[The idea of creating an independent production company for Marilyn so that she could break out of her typecasting and make films that she wanted to make was] Milton’s, Lew Wasserman‘s, and Jay Kanter‘s… She loved it. She preened. She said, ‘I’m gonna be the head?!’… Milton owned forty-nine percent, Marilyn owned fifty-one.”)

What was the reaction of Marilyn’s second husband, the baseball star Joe DiMaggio, as he watched hundreds of New Yorkers watch Marilyn shoot the famous dress-blowing scene in the 1955 film The Seven-Year Itch? (“I’m standing next to him, and the man is turning white as snow… He said to me, ‘I can’t take it anymore!' I knew he loved her, though.”)

What did she make of Marilyn’s third husband, the playwright Arthur Miller? (“Arthur was a bore… a son-of-a-bitch… a creep. I saw through him the first time I met him.”) Why did Marilyn Monroe Productions ultimately break up? (“Because of Arthur. Not only was he jealous of Milton, but he was jealous of the time that they spent together… Arthur said, ‘It’s either him or me.'”)

What was her relationship with Marilyn like after the split? “We would speak on the telephone and, strangely enough, we met at her hairdressers meetings.”

What was the weird premonition that she had in July 1962 — just a month before Marilyn died — on the night before she and Milton were going out of town? “I was given to a midwife who was kind of a witch… Every once in a while I have these dreams where I can foresee something. This time I woke up and I said to Milton, ‘Call Marilyn… just call her. She needs you.’ He did call her, and they spoke for three hours.”

What did the heiress Alicia Corning Clark say to the Greenes and Marlene Dietrich while drunk at a dinner the night before Marilyn died? (“She said to me, ‘Well, how’s your friend Marilyn?… Then she blurted out, ‘Well, she’s gonna die soon’ I said, ‘Oh, I'll comment it to Milton, he must talk to Marilyn.'”)

What does she think really happened to Marilyn on the night that she died? (“It was a mistake. No doubt in Milton’s mind, no doubt in my mind… That doctor would have been shot at dawn… he gave her all those pills.”) Source: hollywoodreporter.com

As the filming of The Misfits neared its inexorable end during Nevada’s scorching late summer months of 1960, Susan Strasberg noticed Marilyn moving deeper and deeper into depression—not just a melancholy one, but the lament of a deeply wounded psyche. She told him one night about how, during July of 1957, she’d learned that she was pregnant of Arthur Miller. A month later, as she recalled, her doctor told her she’d been diagnosed as having an ectopic pregnancy. “After hearing that, my life went on a roller coaster ride to hell. After losing my little girl, I thought ‘to hell with my career.’ My marriage was collapsing, my life falling apart. Instead of Arthur making a rare appearance in my bed, I preferred to sleep with a bottle of liquor and bottles of pills on my nightstand. I’ve tried other men—Elia Kazan, Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum, Paul Newman.” “Paul Newman, really, how was that?,” Susan asked. “We met at the Actors Studio in New York. It was just deep necking, he looked a bit intimidated, to be honest,” Marilyn giggled. “I think he's not the flirty type. His last affair, as Arthur Penn told me, was with Lita Milan while they were shooting The Left Handed Gun, shortly before he married Joanne.” 

Paul Newman likened Lee Strasberg’s infatuation with Marilyn to Professor Unrath (Emil Jannings), who was fascinated by the charms of Marlene Dietrich (Lola) in Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel. Strasberg had almost nothing to say about his private life with Marilyn, but he issued high praise for her potential as an actress. “When I finally got around to seeing her films, I was not impressed. But when I met her, I saw that what she looked like was not what she really was, and what was going on inside her was not what you saw on the outside, and that always meant there was something to work with. In Marilyn’s case, the results have been phenomenal. It was almost as if she had been waiting for a button to be pushed which would open a door to a treasure of gold and jewels.” Although she received praise from the Strasbergs and fellow actors who included Kim Stanley, Marilyn lamented, “I was bad, very bad. I could just feel it.” 

However, Strasberg praised Marilyn for her “extraordinary and inviolate sensitivity. This sensitive core should have been killed by all that had happened to her in adolescence, or so I’ve heard.” In his public pronouncements about Marilyn, Strasberg became superlative: “She was engulfed in a mystic-like flame, like when you see Jesus at The Last Supper, and there’s a halo around him. There was this great white light surrounding Marilyn.” So far as it is known, Strasberg was the only person who ever compared Marilyn to Jesus Christ. Paula Strasberg agreed to become Marilyn’s new acting coach at a salary of $1,500 a week, which later rose to $3,000 a week on the set of The Misfits. Arthur Miller detested both Lee and Paula Strasberg. He said, “Without Paula, Marilyn felt lost. In effect, Paula was Marilyn’s mother all over again. A fantasy mother who would confirm everything Marilyn wished to hear.” In 1953, Frank Sinatra had taken Marilyn to see a performance of the Broadway play, Picnic, on an evening when a young Paul Newman was filling in for its star, Ralph Meeker. 

While she was observing Paul Newman and Janice Rule, Marilyn felt intrigued with playing the female lead in the film version that was in development stages at the time. On Broadway, the role was interpreted by Janice Rule. After the performance, over dinner that night, Sinatra applauded the idea of pairing Paul Newman with Marilyn as co-stars in Picnic’s film spinoff. “You guys would be terrific,” Sinatra claimed. He was possibly spot-on accurate in his assessment. Monroe-Newman would have been dynamite onscreen, no doubt. But eventually the Hollywood version of William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play reached the screen with a different cast, the roles eventually awarded to William Holden and Kim Novak. 

Marilyn Monroe: "I think I had many problems as the next starlet keeping the Hollywood wolves from my door. These wolves just could not understand me. They would tell me ‘but Marilyn, you’re not playing the game the way you should. Be smart. You’ll never get anywhere in this business acting the way you do.’ My answer to them would be ‘the only acting I’ll do is for the camera.’ I was determined no one was going to use me - even if he could help my career. I’ve never gone out with a man I didn’t want to. No one, not even the studio, could force me to date someone. The one thing I hate more than anything else is being used. I’ve always worked hard for the sake of someday becoming a talented actress. I knew I would make it someday if I only kept at it and worked hard without lowering my principles and pride in myself.” According to her gynecologist, Leon Khron: “The rumors of her multiple abortions are ridiculous. She never had even one. Later there were two miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy requiring emergency termination, but no abortion.”  –Sources: "Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love" (2014) by David Heyman and "Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & the Making of The Misfits" (2021) by Ralph Roberts

In 1961, Jonas Mekas perceived something significant in Marilyn’s performance as Roslyn in The Misfits: he christened her Marilyn Monroe, the Saint of the Nevada Desert. "She still remains there," Mekas wrote, "She haunts you, you’ll not forget her. It is Marilyn that is the film. A woman that has known love, has known life, has known men, has been betrayed, but has retained her dream of man and love and life. Is Marilyn playing herself or creating a part? Maybe she is even talking her own thoughts, her own life? There is such a truth in her little details, in her reactions to cruelty, to false manliness, nature, life, death—that is overpowering, that makes her one of the most tragic and contemporary characters of modern cinema, and another contribution to The Woman as a Modern Hero." In 1998, Dennis Schwartz saw the movie as "an attempt to debunk the Western myth of rugged individualism, by showing how vulnerable the cowboys are and how they try to mask their feelings by acting tough." Emanuel Levy, in 2011, suggested that the movie is a deconstruction of the cowboy myth, both real and reel, and presents them as degraded men who now drive a pick up and ride horses without saddles and also perceives a persistent Miller theme, the degradation of the American Dream. 

In August of 2012 writing for his “Agony & Ecstasy” blog, Tim Brayton opined that The Misfits is about: the universality of suffering and death, and how terribly things can go for those who insist on clinging to optimism and innocence in the face of such a universe. Christopher Lloyd, in 2013, offered this opinion: "America is forced to pull the shroud over the ideal of a land of limitless opportunity. And in the end, that’s what “The Misfits” is about: The death of the cowboy." Casey Broadwater, in his review of The Misfits for “Blu-ray.com” offered the following: "Miller’s script is emotionally perceptive and subtle in a way that few Hollywood films are, and his literary background comes through in dialogue that’s frequently “elevated,” that is, more poetic at times than the language your average cowboy drifter would actually use. This is common in literature and on the stage, but it’s never been as readily accepted in film. Still, this gives the otherwise naturalistic movie a kind of mythic, Faulknerian quality―it feels larger than life, more laden with meaning. The real problem with the script, and the film as a whole, is that the storytelling seems disjointed in places, as if unfinished." Source: marilynfromthe22ndrow.com