Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters (20 page)

FUNERAL EULOGY

by Lee Strasberg

Marilyn Monroe was a legend.

In her own lifetime she created a myth of what a poor girl from a deprived background could attain. For the entire world she became a symbol of the eternal feminine.

But I have no words to describe the myth and the legend. I did not know this Marilyn Monroe.

We, gathered here today, knew only Marilyn—a warm human being, impulsive and shy, sensitive and in fear of rejection, yet ever avid for life and reaching out for fulfillment. I will not insult the privacy of your memory of her—a privacy she sought and treasured—by trying to describe her whom you knew to you who knew her. In our memories of her she remains alive, not only a shadow on a screen or a glamorous personality.

For us Marilyn was a devoted and loyal friend, a colleague constantly reaching for perfection. We shared her pain and difficulties and some of her joys. She was a member of our family. It is difficult to accept that her zest for life has been ended by this dreadful accident.

Despite the heights and brilliance she had attained on the screen, she was planning for the future: she was looking forward to participating in the many exciting things she planned. In her eyes and in mine her career was just beginning. The dream of her talent, which she had nurtured as a child, was not a mirage. When she first came to me I was amazed at the startling sensitivity which she possessed and which had remained fresh and undimmed, struggling to express itself despite the life to which she had been subjected. Others were as physically beautiful as she was, but there was obviously something more in her, something that people saw and recognized in her performances and with which they identified. She had a luminous quality—a combination of wistfulness, radiance, yearning—to set her apart and yet make everyone wish to be part of it, to share in the childish naivete which was at once so shy and yet so vibrant.

This quality was even more evident when she was on the stage. 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 a 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.

I cannot say goodbye. Marilyn never liked goodbyes, but in the peculiar way she had of turning things around so that they faced reality—I will say au revoir. For the country to which she has gone, we must all someday visit.

August 9, 1962

CHRONOLOGY

June 1, 1926

Birth of Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles, third child of Gladys Pearl Baker, born Monroe, of unknown father. The baby was immediately placed in a foster home, first of all with the Bolenders and then with various other families. Sometimes Grace Goddard, one of her mother's friends, looked after her.

June 19, 1942

At only sixteen years old, Norma Jeane married Jim Dougherty, who was five years her senior.

1945

First meeting and first photo shoot with André de Dienes.

August 1946

First contract with Twentieth Century Fox. Ben Lyon persuaded her to change her name to Marilyn, after the musical star Marilyn Miller, and Monroe, which was her mother’s maiden name.

June 1950

First screening of John Huston’s
The Asphalt Jungle
. Marilyn received rave reviews in spite of her relatively small part.

March 13, 1952

The nude calendar scandal. Marilyn’s career was jeopardized, but her confession, “I was hungry,” drew public support.

1953

Henry Hathaway’s
Niagara
, in which she had a dramatic role, was a big hit, as was
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
, directed by Howard Hawks, which came out the same year.

October 1953

Marilyn met the photographer Milton H. Greene at a reception given in honor of Gene Kelly.

November 4, 1953

Premiere of
How to Marry a Millionaire
, a brilliantly successful comedy.

January 14, 1954

Marilyn married baseball superstar Joe DiMaggio.

February 1954

Marilyn entertained American troops engaged in the Korean War while on her way to Japan. She considered this one of the most important events in her life.

August 10, 1954

The filming of
The Seven Year Itch
began in New York. The famous scene with Marilyn standing over an air vent trying to hold down her billowing skirt was filmed on September 15 in front of a flabbergasted crowd and to DiMaggio’s great displeasure.

October 5, 1954

Official separation from Joe DiMaggio.

November 1954

Supported the appearance of Ella Fitzgerald at the Mocambo club, where it was unusual for African Americans to be booked. Marilyn kept her promise of sitting at a front-row table every night.

Christmas 1954

Marilyn decided to leave Hollywood and move to New York, even though a magnificent dinner had just been given in her honor. She traveled under the name of Zelda Zonk, wearing a black wig and sunglasses.

December 31, 1954

Marilyn and Milton H. Greene founded their own production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, Inc.

January 15, 1955

At a press conference for the new production company, Marilyn said that henceforth she wished to handpick her parts and included Grushenka in Dostoyevsky’s
Brothers Karamazov
as an example. The press seized on this comment to hold her up to ridicule.

April 8, 1955

From Greene’s house in Connecticut, Marilyn appeared on a popular morning TV talk show,
Person to Person,
hosted by Edward R. Murrow. More than fifty million people watched the program.

Spring of 1955

Living in New York, Marilyn studied at the Actors Studio as well as taking private classes with Lee Strasberg. She had sessions with her psychoanalyst, Dr. Margaret Hohenberg, up to five times a week.

February 25 to June 2, 1956

Marilyn returned to live in Hollywood to work on
Bus Stop
, directed by Joshua Logan. The terms negotiated with Fox were much more advantageous after the enormous success of
The Seven Year Itch
.

June 29, 1956

Marilyn and Arthur Miller were married in a civil ceremony; the religious ceremony took place on July 1 after Marilyn’s conversion to Judaism.

June 14 to November 6, 1956

Marilyn and her husband went to London for the filming of
The Prince and the Showgirl
, directed by and starring Laurence Olivier, and produced by Marilyn’s company. The couple lived at Parkside House in Surrey.

Spring of 1957

Marilyn fired Milton H. Greene from her production company. In May she went to Washington to support Arthur Miller during his House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearing.

August 4 to November 6, 1958

The filming of
Some Like It Hot
. Relations with Billy Wilder and actors Jack Lemmon (cast despite competition from her friend Frank Sinatra) and Tony Curtis were tense. Marilyn regretted Wilder’s choice of filming in black and white.

1960

The filming of
Let’s Make Love
, directed by George Cukor, with Yves Montand (suggested by Arthur Miller after Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Charlton Heston, and Rock Hudson had all withdrawn). Marilyn had an affair with the French actor.

March 8, 1960

Marilyn won the Golden Globe for best actress for her performance in
Some Like It Hot
.

July 18 to November 4, 1960

The filming of
The Misfits
in Nevada.

November 11, 1960

Press announcement of the separation of Marilyn and Arthur Miller.

February 7 to February 10, 1961

Against her will and following a “misunderstanding.” Marilyn was forcibly admitted into Payne Whitney psychiatric unit in New York on the recommendation of her current analyst, Dr. Kris. Lee and Paula Strasberg, whom she called for help, couldn't legally intervene, as they were not family members. Only DiMaggio was able to effect her release. She then spent three weeks at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center undergoing a rest cure.

November 19, 1961

Marilyn met John Kennedy at his brother-in-law Peter Lawford’s Santa Monica house.

February 1962

Marilyn bought a house in Brentwood, a fashionable neighborhood in Los Angeles.

April 23, 1962

The filming of
Something’s Got to Give,
directed by George Cukor and produced by Henry Weinstein, began. Because Marilyn was repeatedly late or absent, production stopped on June 8. The film was never finished.

May 19, 1962

President John Kennedy’s birthday gala was held at Madison Square Garden in New York. Marilyn made a memorable appearance.

June 23, 1962

Marilyn began the long photo shoot for
Vogue
with Bert Stern that came to be known as “The Last Sitting.”

August 3, 1962

Marilyn appeared on the cover of
Life
magazine.

August 5, 1962

Marilyn Monroe died at night at her house in Brentwood.

Karen Blixen (1885–1962)

On February 5, 1959, a luncheon was organized at Carson McCullers’s house in Nyack, New York, with Karen Blixen, who, on a lecture tour of the United States, had expressed a desire to meet Marilyn Monroe. She wrote to the American writer Fleur Cowles Meyer on February 21, 1961: “I think Marilyn is bound to make an almost overwhelming impression on the people who meet her for the first time. It is not that she is pretty, but she radiates, at the same time, unbounded vitality and a kind of unbelievable innocence. I have met the same in a lion-cub, which my native servants in Africa brought me. I would not keep her, since I felt that it would in some way be wrong…I shall never forget the most overpowering feeling of unconquerable strength and sweetness which she conveyed. I had all the wild nature of Africa amicably gazing at me with mighty playfulness.”

Truman Capote (1924–1984)

The author of In Cold Blood met Marilyn in 1950 on the set of John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle. They became close friends, and in Music for Chameleons, Capote dedicated a magnificent short story to her, entitled “A Beautiful Child.”

Carson McCullers (1917–1967)