Thanks for tuning back in to my incredibly long (but
informative!) breakdown of The Secret
Life of Marilyn Monroe the movie. This week we focus on the end of Marilyn
and Joe’s marriage and the beginning of her and Arthur’s. Huge thank you to
April for clarifying a few elements with Gladys and Natasha for me on this one.
Before continuing, please check out the previous parts of my review so that
you’re all caught up! Trigger warnings: mental illness, physical
abuse, miscarriage.
Links are here:
Let’s continue!
(1)THE MOVIE: The
film now cuts to a scene with Marilyn again visiting her mother at Rockhaven.
They are strolling the sanitarium grounds and having a conversation about how
Joe wants Marilyn to quit acting. Gladys soon becomes agitated and demands that
Marilyn stop coming to visit her because she only talks about herself. She
walks off saying “I don’t know how I had
such a selfish child.”
(1)REAL LIFE: As
we have covered in previous posts, Marilyn never visited her mother not only at
Rockhaven, but at any other institution she was housed in. Marilyn’s
relationship with her mother was complicated, and truthfully, they didn’t have
much of a relationship at all in Marilyn’s adult life. Marilyn loved her mother
and never stopped providing for her. Every month she paid for wherever Gladys was
staying. She aided her financially from a distance. This way, Gladys’s privacy
was protected and she was out of the public eye. By 1951, Marilyn had hired
financial advisor Inez Melson to be in charge of her mother’s care, becoming
Gladys’s legal guardian in 1952. The last time we can confirm that Marilyn
physically saw her mother was in the summer of 1946 when the two rented out the
lower half of Aunt Ana’s apartment on Nebraska Avenue. However, Gladys did
return to Los Angeles for a short time in 1948 to live with Ana, and it is
likely Marilyn visited her then as well. Gladys did write to Marilyn on several
occasions, and due to her illness, her tone would change frequently, and she
would accuse Marilyn of hating her, which was obviously not true. In a letter
from April 1952, while Gladys was staying at Norwalk, she wrote to her famous
daughter: “Dear Marilyn, please, my dear
daughter, I wish I had some news from you. I only have worries here and I’d
like to leave as soon as possible. I wish I have my child’s love instead of her
hate. Tenderly, your mother.”
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| Marilyn and Gladys, 1926 |
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| From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" |
(2)THE MOVIE: Things
seem well in their marriage when Joe offers to fly to New York with Marilyn and
be there while she is filming The Seven Year Itch. But of course, the trip
takes a horrible turn when Joe becomes furious at seeing his wife display her
underwear to a crowd of a thousand people during the famous skirt-blowing
scene. They return to their hotel that night where Joe beats her up, and the
marriage is ended immediately come morning.
(2)REAL LIFE: In
the previous post, we discussed in detail the nightmare that came as a result
of the skirt-blowing scene, so I’m going to skip it here and move on. Joe and
Marilyn went to New York separately, Joe arriving a few days later. The Seven
Year Itch scene was filmed in the early morning hours of September 15,
1954. Marilyn was back in Los Angeles by October, but Joe had previously gone
back to New York on the 27th to work as a commentator for the World
Series. Their marriage, for the most part, ended right after the early morning Itch scene. On October 2, after Joe had
returned to Los Angeles, Marilyn was out at breakfast with close friend Sidney
Skolsky and informed Joe that she was going to contact her attorney, Jerry
Geisler, and file for divorce. On the 5th, the estranged couple
signed divorce decrees, and on the 6th she publicly announced their
separation.
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| From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" |
 |
| New York, 1954 |
(3)THE MOVIE: The
setting is now back at Marilyn’s home during her session with Dr. DeShields.
They have been discussing the end of her marriage with Joe. Kelli as Marilyn
makes the comment “I never stopped
sleeping with him, you know.”
(3)REAL LIFE: Marilyn
and Joe had a complicated relationship. They both truly loved each other at one
point, and after her divorce from Arthur Miller, they grew closer as friends.
They always cared about each other, and Marilyn wasn’t one to speak ill of her
ex-husbands. They may have endured a messy end to their marriage, but they did
continue to meet up a few times the following year. In 1955, they met up in
Boston while Marilyn was there with Milton Greene for business for Marilyn
Monroe Productions. Joe even helped her move into the Gladstone Hotel in New
York, and she had dinner with him and his family that same month in January. By
June, he attended the premiere of The Seven Year Itch with her, however, they
had an argument that night and Marilyn was driven home by her photographer Sam
Shaw. This is the last time we can confirm they saw each other before her
marriage to Arthur Miller, during which Joe kept his distance, only
re-appearing as a friend after the Millers’ divorce in 1961.
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| From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" |
(4)THE MOVIE: Marilyn
is now married to Arthur Miller, played by Stephen Bogaert, who is in the
middle of writing an important script. He enters the room, asking Marilyn to
give him her opinion of it. As she is about to do so, the telephone rings, and
Marilyn answers to Natasha. After Marilyn explains that she will call back
later and hangs up, Arthur says, “She
never gives you a moment’s peace.” He then tells Marilyn that she doesn’t
need Natasha, and that Marilyn has outgrown her. In the following scene,
Natasha receives a letter from her student informing her that she has been let
go.
(4)REAL LIFE: The
last film in which Natasha worked with Marilyn as her teacher was The Seven Year Itch. After that, she was
replaced by Paula Strasberg, wife of the famous acting teacher Lee Strasberg, who
she had first met in 1954. Marilyn had returned to Hollywood in February of
1956, shortly before her marriage to Arthur, to film Bus Stop. She did not notify Natasha of her replacement. Fox
continued to keep Natasha as an employee, while Natasha relentlessly and
desperately tried to get into contact with Marilyn, who was failing to respond.
She was soon released of her services by both Marilyn and Fox; Marilyn also
stopped going to private lessons with her.
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| Marilyn and Natasha on the set of "the Seven Year Itch," 1954 |
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| From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" |
(5)THE MOVIE: Arthur
continues work on his script and he and Marilyn get into an argument after
Marilyn reads aloud her praise from Variety.
Arthur seems entirely uninterested, and Marilyn, offended, leaves the room. She
soon receives a call from the hospital, who has just confirmed her hopes: she is
pregnant. Marilyn and Arthur are overjoyed.
(5)REAL LIFE:
This part of the movie is most likely meant to take place in 1957, when Marilyn
learned she was pregnant for the first time. Unfortunately, this pregnancy and the
one that occurred in 1958 both ended tragically. The 1957 pregnancy became
ectopic; she had to be rushed to a hospital, and the 1958 one ended in
miscarriage. We’ll discuss them both more in detail in the next installment of
this review, when it is further presented in the film.
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| From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" |
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