Coming close to Marilyn
7:50 PM
The previously unpublished diaries, poems and letters from Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe mirror her inner disturbance. How close does the intimate reading bring us to Marilyn, the person?
The final curtain, black and heavy, was hiding the body of Marilyn Monroe. It needed to be drawn from one side to the other by the audience itself. The viewer was about to look into a sparsely furnished room: A bed, a table, nothing else. On the table tablet were bottles, on the bed there was a woman's body. Her head was placed on the right cheek, her right hand was clutching a telephone receiver. The body was naked and silent.
The scene described above might have taken place the 5th of August, 1962. The imaginary audience must have arrived early that day at 3am in the morning in front of a bungalow in Brentwood, California. Here, they might have seen the death scene of Marilyn Monroe.
The final curtain, black and heavy, was hiding the body of Marilyn Monroe. It needed to be drawn from one side to the other by the audience itself. The viewer was about to look into a sparsely furnished room: A bed, a table, nothing else. On the table tablet were bottles, on the bed there was a woman's body. Her head was placed on the right cheek, her right hand was clutching a telephone receiver. The body was naked and silent.
The scene described above might have taken place the 5th of August, 1962. The imaginary audience must have arrived early that day at 3am in the morning in front of a bungalow in Brentwood, California. Here, they might have seen the death scene of Marilyn Monroe.
Actually, the audience consisted of a housekeeper and a psychologist.
Throughout the years this scene on Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood has been rewritten again and again. The drama did not promise salvation, but endless repetition. Each biography, any movie piece, each magazine photograph series about the great Monroe also tackles the end of her life.The play offered was the tragedy of the rise and fall of Norma Jeane Mortenson from being a Cinderella to the most glorious and glamorous star of all time. Her fall was deep. There was no trace of catharsis.
The question beneath the media coverage: Did she kill herself? Was she that desperate, that lonely? Or was it murder after all?
Never seen before material of Marilyn Monroe, the diva, the movie goddess, will push us head over toes into this desire of getting closer to her – and morever, making sense of her death. Does it make her more touchable?Will we ever be tired of speculating? Like children listening to fairytales, the 21st century audience of grown-ups indulges in a personal tragedy – one that just so happened to sparkle around a pretty, famous face.
What is it that we enjoy reading about inner demons?
What they found was this: A black notebook, note papers from the Hotel Waldorf Astoria; on it can be seen scribbled, or narrowly typed capital letters flowing over small pages; next to them are tables, something underscored or crossed out. There were fragments of sentences, of thoughts, recipes, shopping lists, memos from analyses, notes from the acting classes.
Her desire for death was feared, not a friend, who did not speak of it. She died many little deaths before the big one. She feared nothing so much as the night, anxiously she fled from her sleep via alcohol and pills.
Perhaps she was only truly herself in the fraction of a second in which the shutter of a camera opened for this special fusion of glamour and pain in her photos. Then, when she was alone, her long look in the mirror might have been the real enemy.
In a later entry, Marilyn wrote:
“I haven’t had Faith in Life
meaning Reality—what
ever it is
or happens
There is nothing to
hold on to—but reality
to realize the present
whatever it may be
—because that’s how it
is and it’s much better”
meaning Reality—what
ever it is
or happens
There is nothing to
hold on to—but reality
to realize the present
whatever it may be
—because that’s how it
is and it’s much better”
Maybe that is exactly what Marilyn left to this world – fragments, which suitingly is also the title of the published book.
This article was first published 08/10/2010 on maltastar.com.
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