Happy Thanksgiving 2022: A la chasse !
Comme chaque dernier jeudi du mois de novembre, Thanksgiving se fête cette année ce jeudi 24 novembre 2022.
As every last Thursday of November, Thanksgiving is celebrated this year this Thursday, November 24, 2022.
Pour ce Thanksgiving 2022,
thème de la chasse à la dinde !
For this Thanksgiving 2022,
theme of turkey hunt !
Marilyn Monroe, 1950
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Esther Williams / Angela Greene / Barbara Bates
Suzi Crandall / Vera Allen / Virginia Gibson
Judy Garland / Liza Minnelli / Lois Lindsay
© All images are copyright and protected by their respective owners, assignees or others.
copyright text by GinieLand.
06/02/1948 - Lettre de Norma Jeane à Berniece
Lettre de 4 pages du 06 février 1948 (tampon de la poste) écrite par Norma Jeane (Marilyn Monroe) à sa demie-soeur Berniece Miracle, qui vivait à Orlando en Floride (USA). Marilyn explique qu'elle est sur le point de déménager et n'a pas encore sa nouvelle adresse. Au dos de l'enveloppe d'envoi, son adresse imprimée au verso était "11348 Nebraska Ave., West Los Angeles, Californie", où elle vivait avec Tante Ana Lower; elle a barré le nom de la rue pour y inscrire à l'encre bleue l'adresse de "1711 North Stanley Avenue" en Californie.
Letter of 4 pages dated February 06, 1948 (date of postmark) written by Norma Jeane (Marilyn Monroe) to her half-sister Berniece Miracle, who lived in Orlando, Florida (USA). Marilyn explains that she is about to move and doesn't have yet her new address. On the reverse mailing envelope, her address printed on the back was "11348 Nebraska Ave., West Los Angeles, California", where she lived with Aunt Ana Lower; she crossed out the street name to write in blue ink the address of "1711 North Stanley Avenue" in California.
En ce début d'année 1948, les studios de la Fox n'ont pas renouvellé son contrat (signé au 24 août 1946, le contrat s'est arrêté au 25 août 1947 et n'a pas été reconduit). Marilyn continue à passer des castings et à poser pour des photos publicitaires, mais sa situation stagne. Néanmoins, elle indique avoir signé un nouveau contrat * faisant référence à celui signé avec les studios de la Columbia, qui s'officialisera le 9 mars 1948, mais qui est donc bien en négociation au moment où elle rédige cette lettre.
Le film "Dangerous Years" dont elle se réfère en fin de lettre (pour lequel elle fut "prêtée" par la Fox au Sol Wurtzel Productions), est sorti en salles américaines le 7 décembre 1947. Elle y tient un petit rôle (celui d'une serveuse), d'où le fait qu'elle mentionne à Berniece de bien ouvrir l'oeil si elle va voir le film.
La lettre montre donc que Marilyn est alors bien occupée en cette période -entre son nouveau contrat et son déménagement- et qu'elle manque de temps pour tenir une correspondance suivie.
Elle évoque aussi leur mère (Gladys Monroe), dont elle ne souhaite pas entretenir de liens, sans pour autant la rejeter, car elle fonde le projet de pouvoir l'aider dès que sa situation financière le permettra.
Elle prend aussi des nouvelles de Paris (le mari de Berniece) et de sa nièce Mona Rae, montrant ainsi l'amour qu'elle porte envers sa soeur et sa famille.
On apprend aussi que durant cette période, elle a un chien (un cocker blond) - peut être Ruffles, un cocker avec qui elle posa en photos pour la Fox (une séance photos sur la plage en 1947).
At the beginning of the year 1948, the Fox studios did not renew her contract (signed on August 24, 1946, the contract ended on August 25, 1947 and was not renewed). Marilyn continues to go to castings and pose for publicity photos, but her situation is stagnating. Nevertheless, she indicates that she has signed a new contract * referring to the one signed with Columbia studios, which will become official on March 9, 1948, but which is therefore in negotiation at the time of writing this letter.
The film "Dangeous Years" to which she refers at the end of the letter (for which she was been "lent" by Fox to Sol Wurtzel Productions), was released in American cinemas on December 7, 1947. She plays a small role in it (that of a waitress), hence the fact that she mentions to Berniece to keep an eye out if she goes to see her in the film.
The letter therefore shows that Marilyn is then very busy during this period -between her new contract and her move- and that she lacks the time to keep a regular correspondence.
She also mentions their mother (Gladys Monroe), with whom she doesn't wish to maintain a relation, without however rejecting her, because she is planning to be able to help her as soon as her financial situation allows it.
She also asks from Paris (Berniece's husband) and her niece Mona Rae, showing her love for her sister and her family.
We also learn that during this period, she has a dog (a blond cocker spaniel) - perhaps Ruffles, a cocker spaniel with whom she posed in photos for Fox (a photo session on the beach in 1947).
Traduction de la lettre:
Ma très chère sœur.
J'ai commencé au moins une douzaine de lettres pour toi, ma chère, mais quelque chose semble toujours interférer pour m'empêcher de les terminer. Mais je pense souvent à toi et je me demande comment tu vas et si tu es heureuse. J'espère que tout va bien pour toi et ta famille. J'aimerais vous voir tous. J'ai failli faire un voyage en Floride mais je viens de signer un nouveau contrat et je ne peux pas m'éloigner en ce moment *.
Demain, je déménage dans un appartement très mignon. Bien sûr, je redoute le matin, mais je devrais me donner un coup de pied parce que je ne peux qu'imaginer ce que cela doit être pour vous lorsque vous déménagez car vous êtes trois. Cependant, ce que je veux vous dire, c'est qu'il y a de la place pour vous si jamais vous voulez faire un voyage ici, vous pouvez rester avec moi.
Tout ce que j'ai pour compagnie, c'est un adorable petit chiot cocker blond - ok c'est juste un petit ange.
Je n'habite plus avec tante Ana depuis presque un an maintenant. Elle est vraiment adorable et bonne avec moi mais il n'y a tout simplement pas de place pour moi là-bas en plus c'est bien d'avoir mon propre chez moi. Dès que je peux, je veux acheter une petite maison, mais c'est un peu loin en ce moment.
Je n'ai pas de nouvelles de Mère et je ne lui écris pas, en fait tout ce que je sais, c'est qu'elle est quelque part dans l'Oregon, où - je n'en ai aucune idée. Elle et moi ne semblons pas être très proches et ce n'est la faute de personne. J'aimerais que ce soit différent mais un jour, j'espère pouvoir l'aider un peu, en ce moment, c'est plutôt difficile pour moi, avec ou sans contrat. Mais tout se passe à merveille donc je n'ai vraiment rien à redire.
J'ai quelques trucs que j'aimerais t'envoyer si tu le veux.
Comment va Mona Rae ? C'est la plus mignonne des petites filles, je suis folle d'elle.
J'espère que Paris va bien là-bas, souhaite-lui le meilleur de ma part.
S'il te plaît, dis-lui que je talonnerais tout le monde sauf ma propre sœur.
Merci Berniece pour votre joli cadeau de Noël, c'était très gentil de votre part.
Je t'enverrai des photos si tu veux en avoir.
J'aimerais bien te voir, j'espère que tu m'écrira bientôt.
Je t'écrirai à nouveau après mon déménagement et te donnerai ma nouvelle adresse.
Tendrement,
Norma Jeane
P.S. "Dangerous Years" se joue encore là-bas. Je suis dedans mais pour l'amour du ciel, ne cligne pas des yeux, tu pourrais me rater.
Letter transcription:
My Dearest Sister.
I've started at least a dozen letters to you dear but something always seems to come up to keep me from finishing them. But I do think of you often and wonder how you are and if you are happy. I hope eveything is fine with you and your family. I would love to see all of you. I almost took a trip to Fla. but I've just signed a new contract and can't get away right now *.
Tomorrow I'm moving to a very cute apt. Of course I dread morning but I should kick because I can just imagine what it must be for you when you move for there are three of you. However what want to tell you is there is room for you if you ever want to take a trip out here you can stay with me.
All I have for company is a darling little blond cocker puppy - ok he's just a little angel.
I havent' lived with Aunt Ana for almost a year now. She is very so cute and good to me but ther just isn't room for me there besides it's nice to have my own place. When I can I want to buy a little house however that's a little ways off right now.
I haven't heard from Mother nor do I write her, in fact all I know is that she is somewhere in Oregon, where - I have no idea. She and I can't seem to be very close due to no one's fault. I wish it could be different but some day I hope to be able to help her out a little, right now it's rather difficult for me, contract or no contract. But everything is coming along wonderfully so I've nothing to complain about really.
I have a few things I would like to send you if you want them.
How is Mona Rae ? She is the sweetest cutest little girl, I'm crazy about her.
I hope Paris is doing all right down there give him my best.
Please tell him I would high heel everyone else in the world but my own sister.
Thank you Berniece for your lovely Christmas gift it was very sweet of you.
I'll send you some pictures if you'd like to have some.
I sure would love to see you I hope you will write to me soon.
I'll write again after I move and give you my new address.
Lovingly
Norma Jeane
P.S. Has "Dangerous Years" played down there yet. I'm in it but for heaven's sakes don't blink your eyes you might miss me in it.
source Lettre vendue aux enchères en 2021 par SCP Auction's
© All images are copyright and protected by their respective owners, assignees or others.
copyright text by GinieLand.
25/09/1938 - Lettre de Oncle Art à Norma Jeane
Lettre dactylographiée datée du 25 septembre 1938, sur du papier à lettres à en-tête "International Correspondence Schools", écrite par "Oncle Art" à Norma Jeane, âgée alors de 12 ans et vivait chez "Tante" Ana Lower (sur Nebraska Avenue, à Los Angeles).
Oncle Art et Tante Allis vivent à San José, en Californie. Ils semblent appartenir à la famille de Grace Goddard et de sa tante, Ana Lower; ils se surnomment eux-mêmes "Oncle" et "Tante" pour Norma Jeane, et semblent bien la connaître par les mots d'affection employés dans la lettre. Ils font référence à leur chien Trinket, dont on peut supposer qu'il est adoré par Norma Jeane.
Typed letter dated September 25, 1938, on "International Correspondence Schools" letterhead, written by "Uncle Art" to Norma Jeane, then 12 years old and living with "Aunt" Ana Lower (on Nebraska Avenue , in Los Angeles).
Uncle Art and Aunt Allis live in San Jose, California. They appear to be relatives of Grace Goddard and her aunt, Ana Lower; they call themselves "Uncle" and "Aunt" for Norma Jeane, and seem to know her well by the words of affection employed in the letter. They refer to their dog Trinket, whom one may assume was adored by Norma Jeane.
Traduction de la lettre:
Notre douce Norma Jean :
Je t'ai promis une lettre, et j'essaie toujours de tenir mes promesses. Etre très attentif à tenir sa promesse est nécessaire à la construction d'un bon caractère, ne penses-tu pas ? Cependant, dans ce cas, tenir ma promesse procure un réel plaisir plutôt que l'accomplissement d'un devoir. V
Tu as appris par nos lettres à tante Ana notre voyage ici et notre nouvelle maison. Nous sommes tous les deux en bonne santé et de bonne humeur, et très heureux de tout. Dieu a été très bon avec nous, et Il en sera ainsi. Trinket a plus de peps que je ne l'ai jamais vue démontrer et est très satisfaite de tout. Il y a un beau parc en diagonale au coin de chez nous où elle peut se défouler sur l'herbe fraîche et verte à sa guise. Elle fait de nombreuses promenades, et il y a des gâteaux pour chiens spéciaux pour elle.
Hier matin, nous sommes allés à San Francisco et, après une conférence avec mes associés, nous avons traversé le pont de la baie de San Francisco. Chérie, c'est la plus grosse chose que j'ai jamais vue à côté de ton oncle Doc Goddard. C'était une belle journée claire et depuis le pont, nous pouvions voir le Golden Gate, la prison fédérale sur l'île d'Alcastraz où sont détenus les prisonniers gouvernementaux les plus difficiles, l'université d'État de Berkeley et toutes les villes autour de la baie de San Francisco. Nous pourrions contempler le parc des expositions du monde - ils l'appellent l'île au trésor - et certains des bâtiments sont déjà terminés. La foire aura lieu l'année prochaine, tu sais. Et c'est l'un des voyages où nous voulons t'emmener avec tante Ana si vous venez nous rendre visite l'année prochaine. Vous apprécierez tout cela, j'en suis sûr.
C'est une belle ville de 85 000 habitants. Ce matin, dimanche, nous sommes allés en voiture dans le quartier où résident les riches - le district de Hester, je pense que c'est ainsi que ta tante Allis l'appelait. Mais même les pauvres ici gardent leurs jardins propres, remplis de pelouse verte et de fleurs. Le pays environnant est le plus beau, les collines sont parsemées de chênes, et dans les vallées, il y a des miles ou des vergers et des fermes maraîchères. Nous sommes ravis de tout.
Maintenant, ma chère, écris-nous et dis-nous comment tu te débrouilles à l'école, et comment tout se passe là-bas. Je suis sûr que tu es heureuse parce que tout le monde là-bas t'aime et veut que tu sois heureux.
Tante Allis se joint à moi dans l'amour et les meilleurs vœux.
Affectueusement vôtre,
Oncle Art
Letter transcription:
Our Sweet Norma Jean:
I promised you a letter, and I always try to keep my promises. To be very careful to keep one's promise is necessary to the building of a good character, don't you think so ? However, in this case, keeping my promise provides real pleasure rather than the performance of a duty.
You have learned from our letters to Aunt Ana of our trip up here, and of our new home. We are both in fine health and spirits, and very happy over everything. God has been very good to us, and He will let Him. Trinket has more pep than I ever saw her demonstrate, and is highly pleased over everything. There is a beautiful park diagonally across the corner from where we live where she can romp over the cool, green grass to her heart's content. She is having many rides, and that is special dog cakes to her.
Yesterday morning we went to San Francisco, and after a conference with my business associates we drove over the San Francisco Bay bridge. Honey, that's the dangdest, biggest thing I ever saw next to your Uncle Doc Goddard. It was a beautiful, clear day, and from the bridge we could see the Golden Gate, The federal prison on Alcastras Island where they keep the thoughest government prisoners, the State University at Berkeley, and all the cities around San Francisco Bay. We could look right down upon the world's Fair grounds - they call it Treasure Island - and some of the buildings are already finished. The fair will be held next year, you know. And this is one of the trips we want to take you and Aunt Ana on if you come to visit us next year. You will enjoy it all, I am sure.
This is a beautiful city of 85,000 population. This morning, Sunday, we drove out into the section where the wealthy reside - the Hester District, I think your Aunt Allis called it. But even the poor up here keep their yards neat and filled with green lawn and flowers. The surrounding country is most beautiful, the rolling hills are dotted with oak trees, and in the valleys are miles or orchards and truck farms. We are delighted with everything.
Now, Dear, write and tell us how you are getting along in school, and how everything is going down there. I am sure you are happy bevause everyone there loves you, and wants you to be happy.
Aunt Allis joins me in love and best wishes.
Fondly Yours,
Uncle Art
Oncle Art écrira d'autres lettres à Norma Jeane pendant l'année 1939 dans lesquelles il l'appelle "Petite chérie" et "Nous envoyons tous de l'amour à notre petite fille." Ces correspondances pleines de tendresse montre que malgré les difficultés liées à son enfance sans parents, Norma Jeane était tout de même entourée de personnes attentionnés, soucieux de son bien être.
Uncle Art will write other letters to Norma Jeane during the year 1939 in which he calls her "Little Sweetheart" and "We all send love to our little girl". These correspondences full of tenderness show that despite the difficulties related to her childhood without parents, Norma Jeane was still surrounded by caring people, concerned about her well-being.
source Lettre vendue aux enchères en 2018 par Bonhams
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copyright text by GinieLand.
Tag Marilyn 31 - Cecil Beaton
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12/01/1955, The Australian Women's Weekly: "This is my story" (part 1)
The Australian Women's Weekly
country: Australia
date: 1955, January, 12
content: 4 pages article on Marilyn Monroe
part 1 of a series of articles in 4 parts - "This is my story"
pays: USA
date: 12 janvier 1955
contenu: article de 4 pages sur Marilyn Monroe
partie 1 sur une série d'articles en 4 parties - "This is my story"
Article: "This is my story - by Marilyn Monroe"
I thought the people I lived with were my parents. I called them Mamma and Dad. The woman said to me one day: "Don't call me Mama. You're old enough to know better, I'm not related to you in any way. You just board here. Your Mamma's coming to see you tomorrow. You can call her Mama, if you want to."
I said thank you. I didn't ask her about the man I called Dad. He was a letter-carrier. I used to sit on the edge of the bathtub in the morning and watch him shave, and ask him questions - which way was East or South or how many people there were in the world. He was the only one who had ever answered any questions I asked.
The people I had thought were my parents had children of their own. They weren't mean. They were just poor. They didn't have much to give anybody, even their own children. And there was nothing left over for me. I was seven, but I did my share of the work. I washed floors and dishes and ran errands.
My mother called me the next day. She was a pretty woman who never smiled. I'd seen her often before, but I hadn't known quite who she was.
When I said, "Hello, Mama", this time she stared at me. She had never kissed me or held me in her arms or hardly spoken to me. I didn't know anything about her then, but a few years later I learned a number of things.
When I think of her now my heart hurts me twice as much as it used to when I was a little girl. It hurts me for both of us.
My mother was married at fifteen. She had two children (before me) and orked in a movie studio as a film-cutter. Her young husband got mixed up with another woman; there was a big row, and he left home.
While my mother was crying over the collapse of her marriage he sneaked back one day and kidnapped her two babies. My mother spent all her savings trying to get her children back. She hunted them for a long time.
Finnaly she traced them to Kentucky and hitch-hiked to where they were.
She was broke and with hardly any strenght left when she saw her children again. They were living in a fine house. Their father was married again, and well off.
She met him, but didn't ask him for anything, not even to kiss the children she had been hunting for so long. But like the mother in the movie "Stella Dallas", she went away and left them to enjoy a happier life than she could give them.
She came back to Hollywood and went to work as a film-cutter again. I wasn't born yet.
The day my mother called for me at the letter-carrier's house and took me to her rooms for a visit was the first happy day in my life that I remember.
I had visited my mother before. Being sick, and unable to take care of me and keep a job, too, she paid the letter-carrier five dollars a week to give me a home. Every once in a while she brought me to her rooms for a visit.
I used to be frightened when I visited her and spent most of my time in the closet of her bedroom hiding along her clothes. She seldom spoke to me except to say, "Don't make so much noise, Norma." She would say this even when I was lying in bed at night, and turning the pages of a book. Even the sound of a page turning made her nervous.
There was one object in my mother's rooms that always fascinating me. It was a photograph on the wall. There were no other pictures on the walls, just this one framed photograph.
Whenever I visited my mother I would stand looking at this photograph and hold my breath for fear she would order me to stop looking. I had found out that people always ordered me to stop doing anything I like to do.
This time my mother caught me staring at the photograph, but didn't scold me. Instead, she lifted me up in a chair so I could see better.
"That's your father," she said.
I felt so excited I almost fell off the chair. It felt so good to have a father, to be able to look at this picture and know I belonged to him. And what a wonderful photograph it was. He wore a slouch hat a little gaily on the side. There was a lively smile in his eyes, and he had a fin moustache like Clark Gable's. I felt very warm towards the picture.
My mother said: "He was killed in an auto accident in New York city."
I believed everything people told me at that time, but I didn't believe this. I didn't believe he was run over and dead.
I asked my mother what his name was. She wouldn't answer, but went into the bedroom and locked herself in.
Years later I found out what his name was, and many other things about him. The strange thing was that everything I heard about him, even if it wasn't good, made me feel warmer towards him. The night I met his picture, I dreamed of it when I fell asleep. And I dreamed of it a thousand times afterwards.
That was my first happy time, finding my father's picture. And every time I remember how he smiled and how his hat was tipped I felt warm and not alone. When I started a sort of scrapbook a year later the firt picture I put in it was a photograph of Clark Gable because he looked like my father - especially the way he wore his hat and moustache.
And I used to make up daydreams, not about Mr. Gable, but about my father. When I'd be walking home from school in the rain and feeling bad, I'd pretend my father was waiting for me, and that he would scold me for not having worn my rubbers.
I didn't own any rubbers. Nor was the place I walked to any kind of home. It was a place where I worked as a sort of child servant, washing dishes, clothes, floors, running errands, and keeping quiet.
But in a daydream you jump over facts as easily as a cat jump over a fence. My father would be waiting for me, I daydreamed, and I would come into the house smiling from ear to ear.
Once, when I lay in a hospital after having my tonsils out, and running into complications, I had a daydream that lasted a whole week without stopping.
I kept bringing my father into the hospital ward and walking him to my bed, while the other patients looked on with disbelief and envy at so distinguished a visitor; and I kept bending him over my bed, and having him kiss my forehead, and I gave him dialogue, too.
"You're be well in a few days, Norma Jean. I'm very proud of the way you're behaving, not crying all the time like other girls."
And I would ask him to please take off his hat. But I could never get him in my largest, deepest daydream to take his hat off and sit down.
When I went back to my "home", I almost sick again. A man next door chased a dog I had loved, and who had been waiting for me to come home. The dog barked because he was happy to see me. And the man started chasing him, and ordering him to shut up. The man had a hoe in his hand. He swung the hoe. It hit my dog's back and cut him in half.
My mother found another couple to keep me. They were English people, and needed the five dollars a week that went with me. Also, I was large for my age, and could do a lot of work.
One day my mother came to call. I was in the kitchen washing dishes. She sttod looking at me without talking. When I turned around I saw there were tears in her eyes, and I was surprised.
"I'm going to build a house for you and me to live in," she said. "It's going to be painted white and have a backyard." And she went away.
It was true. My mother managed it somehow, out of savings and a loan. She built a house. The English couple and I were both taken to see it. It was small and empty, but beautiful, and was painted white.
The four of us moved in. I had a room to myself. The English couple didn't have to pay rent, just take care of me as they had done before. I worked hard, but it didn't matter. It was my first home.
My mither bought furniture, a table with a white top and brown legs, chairs, beds, and curtains. I heard her say, "It's all on time, but don't worry. I'm working double shift at the studio, and I'll soon be able to pay it off."
One day a grand piano arrived at my home. It was out of condition. My mother had bought it second-hand. It was for me. I was going to be given piano lessons on it. It was a very important piano, despite being a little banged-up. It had belonged to the movie star Fredric March.
"You'll play the piano over here, by the windows," my mother said, "and here on each side of the fireplace there'll be a love seat. And we can sit listening to you. As soon as I pay off a few other things I'll get the love seats, and we'll all sit in them at night and listen to you play the piano."
But the love seats were not to be. Mother had a nervous breakdown, fell seriously ill, and hed to be taken to the hospital. All the furniture disappeared. The white table, the chairs, the beds, and white curtains melted away, and the grand piano, too.
The English couple disappeared also. And I was taken from the newly painted house to an orphan asylum, and given a blue dress and white shirtwaist to wear, and shoes with heavy soles. And for a long time when I lay in bed at night I could no longer daydream about anything.
I never forgot the white painted house and its furniture. Years later, when I was beginning to earn some money modelling, I started looking around for the Fredric March piano. After about a year I found it in an oid auction room, and bought it.
I have it in my home now in Hollywood. It's been painted a lovely white, and it has new strings and plays as wonderfully as any piano in the world.
My mother's best friend was a woman named Grace. I called nearly everybody I knew Aunt or Uncle, but Aunt Grace was a different sort of make-believe relative. She became my best friend, too.
Aunt Grace worked as a film librarian in the same studio as my mother -Columbia Pictures. She was the first person who ever patted my head or touched my cheek. That happened when I was eight. I can still remember how thrilled I felt when her kind hand touched me.
Grace had almost as rough a time as my mother. She lost her job in the studio and had to scrape for living. Although she had no money she continued to look after my mother, who was starting to have mental spells, and to look after me.
At times she took me to live with her. When she ran out of money and had only a half-dollar left for a week's food, we lived on stale bread and milk. You could buy a sackful of old bread at the Holmes Bakery for 25 cents. Aunt Grace and I would stand in line for hours waiting to fill our sacks.
When I looked up at her she would grin at me and say: "Don't worry, Norma Jean. You're going to be a beautiful girl when you grow up. I can feel it in my bones."
Her words made me so happy that the stale bread tasted like cream puffs.
EVERYTHING seemed to go wrong for Aunt Grace. Only bad luck and death ever visited her. But there was no bitterness in my aunt. Her heart remained tender and she believed in God.
Nearly everybody I knew talked to me about God. They always warned me not to offend Him. But when Grace talked about God she touched my cheek and said that He loved me, and watched over me. Remembering what Grace had said, I lay in bed at night crying to myself. The only One who loved me and watched over me was Someone I couldn't see, or hear, or touch.
I used to draw pictures of God, whenever I had time.
In my pictures He looked a little like Aunt Grace, and a little like Clark Gable.
As I grew older I knew I was different from other children because they were no kisses or promises in my life. I often felt lonely and wanted to die. I would try to cheer myself up with daydreams. I never dreamed of anyone loving me as I saw other children loved. That was too big a stretch for my imagination. I compromised my dreaming of my attracting someone's attention (beside God), of having people look at me and say my name.
When my mother was taken to the hospital Aunt Grace become my legal guardian.
I could hear her friends arguing in her room at night when I lay in her bed pretending to be asleep. They advised her against adopting me because I was certain to become more and more of a responsability as I grew older. This was on account of my "heritage", they said.
They talked about my mother and her father and brother and grandmother all beign mental cases, and said I would certainly follow in their footsteps. I lay in bed shivering as I listened. I didn't know what a mental case was, but I knew it wasn't anything good. And I held my breath waiting to hear whether. Aunt Grace would let me become a State orphan or adopt me as her own.
After a few evenings of argument, Aunt Grace adopted me, heritage and all, and I fell asleep happy.
Grace, my new guardian, had no money, and was out looking for a job all the time, so she arranged for me to enter the Orphan Asylum - the Los Angeles Children's Home Society. I didn't mind going there because even in the orphanage I knew I had a guardian outside - Aunt Grace.
It wasn't till later that I realised how much she had done for me. It not for Grace I would have seen sent to a State or COunty institution where there are fewer privileges, such as being allowed to have a Christmas tree, or seeing a movie sometimes.
I lived in the orphanage only off and on. Most of the time I was placed with a family, who were given five dollars a week for keeping me. I was placed in nine different families before I was able to quit being a legal orphan. I did this at 16 by getting married.
The families with whom I lived had one thing in common - a need for five dollars. I was also an asset to have in the house. I was strong and healthy; and able to do almost as much work as a grown-up. And I had learned not to bother anyone by talking or crying.
I learned also that the best way to keep out of trouble was by never complaining ar asking for anything. Most of the families had children of their own, and I knew they always came first. They wore the colored dresses, and owned whatever toys there were, and they were the ones who were believed.
My own costume never varied. It consisted of a faded blue skirt and a white waist. I has two of each, byt since they were exactly alike everyone thought I wore the same outfit all the time. It was one of the things that annoyed people - my wearing the same clothes.
Every second week the home sent a woman inspector out to see how its orphans were getting along in the world. She never asked me any questions, but would pick up my foot and look at the bottom of my shoes. If my shoe bottoms weren't worn through I was reported in a thriving condition.
I never minded coming "last" in these families except on Saturday nights, when everybody took a bath. Water cost money, and changing the water in the tub was an unheard of extravagance. The whole family used the same tub of water. And I was always the last one in.
One family with whom I lived was so poor that I was often scolded for flushing the toilet at night.
"That uses up five gallons of water," my new "uncle" would say, and "five gallons each time can run into money. You can do the flushing in the morning."
No matter how careful I was there were always troubles. Once, in school, a little Mexican boy started howling that I had hit him. I hadn't. And I was often accused of stealing things... a necklace, a comb, a ring, or a nickel. I never stole anything.
When the troubles came I had only one way to meet them -by staying silent. Aunt Grace would ask me when she came to visit how things were. I would tell her alwayds they were fine, because I didn't like to see her eyes turn unhappy.
Some of my troubles were my own fault. I did hit someone occasionally, pull her hair and knock her down. But worse than that were my "character faults" A slightly overgrown child who stares and hardly ever speaks, and who expects only one thing of a home -to be thrown out- can seem like a nuisance to have around.
There was one home I hoped wouldn't throw me out. This is was a house with four children who were watched over by a great-grandmother who was over a hundred years old.
She took care of the children by telling them bloodcurling stories about Indian massacres, scalpings, and burnings at the stake, and other wild doings of her youth. She said she had been a close friend of Buffalo Bill and had fought at his side in hand-to-hand battles with the savage Redskins.
I listened to her stories with my heart in my mouth and did everything I could to make her like me. I laughed the loudest and shivered the most at her stories.
But one d y one of her own great-grandchildren came running to her with her dress torn from her neck. She said I had done it. I hadn't. But the old Indian-fighter wouldn't believe me and I was sent back to the orphanage in disgrace.
Most of my troubles were of this minor sort. In a way they were not troubles at all, because I was used to them. When I look back on those days I remember, in fact, that they were full of all sorts of fun and excitement. I played games in the sun and races. I also had draydreams, not only about my father's photograph but about many other things.
I daydreamed chiefly about beauty. I dreamed of myself becoming so beautiful that people would turn to look at me when I passed. And I dreamed of colors -scarlet, gold, green, white. I dreamed of myself walking proudly in beautiful clothes and being admired by everyone, and overhearing words of praise. I made up the praises and repeated them aloud as if someone else were saying them.
Daydreaming made my work easier. When I was waiting on the table in one of the poverty - stricken, unhappy homes where I lived,I would daydream I was a waitress in an elegant hotel, dressed in a white waitress uniform, and everybody who entered the grand dining-room where I was serving would stop to look at me and openly admire me.
But I never daydreamed about love.
At 12 I looked like a girl of 17. My body wase developed and shapely. But no one knew this but me. I still wore the blue dress and the blouse the orphanage provided me. They made me look like an overgrown lummox.
I had no money. The other girls rode to school in a bus. I had no nickel to pay for the ride. Rain or shine, I walked the two miles from my "aunt's" home to the school.
I hated the walk. I hated the school. I had no friends.
The pupils seldom talked to me, and never wanted me in their games. Nobody ever walked home with me, or invited me to visit their homes. This was partly because I came from the poor part of the ditrict, where all the Mexicans and Japanese lived. It was also because I couldn't smile at anyone.
Once a shoemaker standing in the doorway of his shop stopped me as I was walking to school.
"What's your name ?" he asked me.
"Norma," I said.
"What's your last name ?" he asked.
I wouldn't give him the name I had - Norma Mortensen - because it wasn't the name of the man with the slouch hat and the Gable moustache. I didn't answer.
"You're a queer kid,' the shoemaker said. "I watch you pass here every day, and I've never seen you smile. You'll never get anywhere like that."
I went on to school, hating the shoemaker.
In school the pupils often whispered about me and giggled as they stared at me.
They called me dumb and made fun of my orphan's outfit. I didn't mind beign thought dumb. I knew I wasn't.
One morning both my white blouses were torn, and I would be late for school if I stopped to fix them. I asked one of my "sisters" in the house if she could loan me something to wear. She was my age, but smaller. She loaned me a sweater.
I arrived at school just as the maths class was starting. As I walked to my seat everybody stared at me. It was a very tight sweater.
At recess a half dozen boys crowded around me. They made jokes and kept looking at my sweater as if it were a gold mine. I had known for sometime that I had shapely breasts and thought nothing of the fact. The maths class, however, was more impressed.
After school four boys walked home with me, wheeling their bicycles by hand. I was excited but acted as if I nothing unusual were happening.
The next week the shoemaker stopped me again.
"I see you've taken my advice," he said. "You'll find you get along much better if you smile at folks."
I noticed that he, also, looked at my sweater as he talked. I hadn't given it back to my "sister" yet.
The school and the day became different after that. Girls who had brothers began inviting me to their homes, and I met their folks, too. And there were always four or five boys hanging around my house. We played games in the street and stood around talking under the trees till suppertime.
I wasn't aware of anything sexual in their new liking for me and there were no sex thoughts in my mind. I didn't think of my body as having anything to do with sex. It was more like a friend who had mysteriously appeared in my life, a sort of magic friend.
A few weeks later I stood in front of the mirror one morning and put lipstick on my lips. I darkened my blonde eyebrowns. I had no money for clothes, and I had no clothes except my orphan rig and the lone sweater. The lipstick and the mascara were like clothes, however. I saw that they improved my looks as much as if I had put on a real gown.
My arrival in school with painted lips and darkened browns, and still encased in the magic sweater, started everyone buzzing. And the buzzing was not all friendly. All sorts of girls, ont only 13-year-olds, but seniors of 17 and 18, set up shops as my enemies.
They told each other and whoever would listen that I was a drunkard and spent my nights sleeping with boys on the beach.
The scandals were lies. I didn't drink, and I didn't let any boys take liberties. And i had never been on any beach in my life. Bu I couldn't feel angry with the scandal-makers. Girls being jealous of me ! Girls frightened of losing their boyfriends because I was more attractive ! These were no longer daydreams made up to hide lonely hours. They were thruths !
And by summertime I had a real beau. He was 21, and despite being very sophisticated, he thought I was 18 instead of 13. I was able to fool him by keeping my mouth shut, and walking a little fancy. Since taking the maths class by storm a few months ago I had practised walking languorously.
My sophisticated beau arrived at my home one Saturday with the news that we were going swimmings. I rushed into my "sister's" room (the one who was a little smaller than me) to borrow her bathing suit. Standing in front of the bureau mirror I spent an hour putting it on and practising walking in it.
My beau's impatient cries finally brought me out of the bedroom in an old pair of slacks and a sweater. The bathing suit was under them.
It was a sunny day and the sand was crowded with bathers and with mothers and their children. Despite being born and raised only a few miles from the ocean I had never seen it close up before. I stood and stared for a long time. It was like something in a dream, full of gold and lavender colors, blue and foaming white. And there was a holiday feeling in the air that surprised me. Everybody seemed to be smiling at the sky.
"Come on, let's get in," my beau commanded.
"In where ?" I asked.
"In the water," he laughed, thinking I had made a joke.
I thought of my tight bathing suit. The idea of hiding myself in the water while wearing it seemed to me ridiculous. But I said nothing. I sttod watching the girls and women and felt a little disappointed. I hadn't expected that half the feminine population of Los Angeles would be parading the sands with almost nothing on. I thought I'd be the only one.
My beau was getting impatient again so I removed my slacks and sweater and stood in my skimpy suit. I thought, "I'm almost naked," and I closed my eyes and stood still.
My sophisticated boyfriend had stopped nagging me. I started walking slowly across the sand. I went almost to the water's edge and then walked down the beach. The same thing happened that had happened in the maths class, but on a larger scale. It was also much noisier.
Young men whistled at me. Some jumped up from the sand and trotted up for a better view. Even the women stopped moving as I came nearer.
I paid no attention to the whistles and whoops. In fact, I didn't hear them. I was full of a strange feeling, as if I were too people. One of them was Norma Jean from the orphanage who belonged to nobody. The other was someone whose name I didn't know. But I knew where she belonged. She belonged to the ocean and the sky and the whole world.
BUT nothing happened out of the great vision that smote me on the beach. I went back to my blue dress and white blouse and returned to school. But instead of learning anything I grew more and more confused. So did the school. It had no way of coping with a thirteen year old siren.
Why I was a siren, I hadn't the faintest idea. I didn't want to be kissed and I didn't dream of having a duke or a movie star fall in love with me. The thruth was that with all my lipstick and mascara and precocious curves, I was as unsensual as a fossil. But I seemed to affect people quite otherwise.
The boys took to wooing me as if I were the only girl in the district. I used to lie awake at night wondering why they chased after me. Occasionally I let one of them kiss me to see if there was anything interesting in the performance.
There wasn't.
I decided finally that the boys came after me because I was an orphan and had no parents to look after me. This decision made me cooler than ever to my train of admirers. But neither coolness nor disdain nor "get out of here," "don't bother me," none of my frozen attitudes changed the pictures.
The boys continued to pursue me as if I were a vampire with a rose in my teeth.
The girl pupils were another problem, but one I could understand. They disliked me more and more as I grew older. Now, instead of being accused of stealing combs, nickels, or necklaces, I was accused of stealing young men.
Aunt Grace suggested a solution for my troubles.
"You ought to get married," she said.
"I'm too young," I said. I was still 15.
"I don't think you are," Aunt Grace laughed.
"But there's nobody wants to marry me," I said.
"Yes there is," she said.
"Who ?" I asked.
"Jim," said my aunt.
Jim was Mr. Dougherty. He lived near me. He was good-looking, polite, and fullgrown.
"But Jim is stuck on my 'sister'," I told her.
"It was you he took to the football game," Aunt Grace said, "not her."
"It was awful boring," I said. "I hate football games."
"How do you feel about Jim ?" she asked.
"I don't feel anything," I said, "He's like the others, except he's taller and more polite."
"That's a fine quality in a man," said Aunt Grace, "politeness".
The "aunt" and "uncle" with whom I was living - my ninth set of relatives - helped me to make up my mind. They were going to move. This meant I'd have to go back and live in the orphanage tii they unloaded me on another family.
I married Jim Dougherty.
The first effect marriage had on me was to increase my lack of interest in sex. My husband either didn't mind this or wasn't aware of it. We were both too young to discuss such an embarrassing topic openly.
Jim's folks didn't care much for me, for which I couldn't blame them. I was a peculiar wife. I disliked grown-ups. I preferred washing dishes to sitting and talking to them.
As sson as they started playing cards or having arguments I would sneak out of the house and join the kids in the street. I liked boys and girls younger than me. I played games with them until my husband came out and starting calling me.
My marriage brought me neither happiness nor pain. My husband and I hardly spoke to each other. This wasn't because we were angry. We had nothing to say. I've seen many married couples since that were just like Jim and me.
They were usually the more enduring kind if marriages, the ones that were pickled in silence.
The most important thing my marriage did for me was to end forever my status as orphan. I felt grateful to Jim for this. He was the Lochinvar who rescued me from my blue dress and white blouse.
My various advisers had been right about marriage putting an end to my popularity as a siren. The boys did not come after Mrs. Dougherty. The rose seemed to have fallen out of her teeth.
Jim joined the Merchant Marine in 1944, and I went to work in a parachut factory. The great war was on. Battles were being fought. Juke boxes were playing. People's eyes were lit up.
I WORE overalls in the factory. I was surprised that they insisted on this. Putting a girl in overalls is like having her work in tights, particularly if a girl knows how to wear them. As parachute inspector I was back in the maths class again. The men buzzed around me just as the high school boys had done.
I have noticed since that men usually leave married women alone, and are inclined to treat all wives with respect. This is no great credit to married women. Men are always ready to respect anything that bores them.
The reason most wives, even pretty ones, wear such a dull look is because they're respected so much.
Maybe it was my fault that the men in the factory tried to date me and buy me drinks. I didn't feel like a married woman. I was completely faithful to my overseas husband but that wasn't because I loved him or even because I had moral ideas. My fidelity was due to my lack of interest in sex.
Jim finally came home and we lived together again. It's hard to remember what you said, did, or felt when you were bored.
Jim was a nice husband. He never hurt me or upset me - except on one subject. He wanted a baby.
The thought of having a baby stood my hair on end. I could see it only as myself, another Norma Jean in an orphanage. Something would happen to me. Jim would wander off. And there would be this little girl in the blue dress and white blouse living in her "aunt's" home, washing dishes, being last in the bath water on Saturday night.
I couldn't explain thsi to Jim. After he fell asleep beside me at night I would lie awake crying. I didn't quite know who it was that cried, Mrs. Dougherty or the child she might have. It was neither.
It was Norma Jean, still alive, still alone, still wishing she were dead.
I feel different about having a child now. It's one of the things I dream of. She won't be any Norma Jean now. And I know how I'll bring her up - without lies. Nobody will tell her lies about anything. And I'll answer all her questions. It I don't know the answers I'll go to an encyclopedia and look them up. I'll tell her whatever she wants to know - about love, about sex, about everything !
But chiefly, no lies ! No lies about there being a Santa Claus, or about the world being full of noble and honorable people all eager to help each other and do good to each other. I'll tell her there are honor and goodness in the world, the same as there are diamonds and radium.
This is the end of my story of Norma Jean. Jim and I were divorced. And I moved into a room in Hollywood to live by myself. I was 19 and I wanted to find out who I was.
When I just wrote "This is the end of Norma Jean," I blushed as if I had been caught in a lie. Because this sad, bitter child who grew up too fast is hardley ever out of my heart. With success all around me I can still feel her frightened eyes looking out of mine.
She keeps saying: "I never lived, I was never loved," and often I get confused and think it's I who am saying it.
I had been a sort of "child bride." Now I was a sort of "child widow." Many things seemed to have happened to me. Yet, in a way, nothing had happened, except that I was 19 instead of nine, and I had to look for my own job.
The sort of instinct that leads a duck to water led me to photographer's studios. I got jobs posing for ads, and layouts. The chief trouble was that the photographers were also looking for work. Finding a photographer who wanted me as a model was easier than finding one who could pay more than promises.
But I made enough money for room rent and a meal a day, although sometimes I fell behind on my eating. It didn't matter, though. When you're young and healthy a little hunger isn't too important.
WHAT mattered more was being lonely. When you're young and healthy loneliness can seem more important than it is.
I looked at the streets with lonely eyes. I had no relatives to visit or chums to go places with.
My aunt Grace and Aunt Anna were working hard to keep food in their kitchens and the rent paid. When I called on them they felt sorry for me and wanted to help me. I knew how they neede the half-dollars in their purses, so I stayed away unless I had money and could take them to a restaurant or the movies.
I had only myself. When I walked home from the restaurant in the evening with the streets lighted up and a crowd on the sidewalks, I used to watch the people chatting to each other and hurrying some place. I wondered where they were going and how it felt to have places to go or people who knew you.
There were always men willing to help a girl be less lonely. They said "Hi! baby," when you passed. When you didn't turn to look at them they sneered, "Stuck up, eh ?"
I never answered them. Sometimes I felt sorry for them. They seemed as lonely as I was. These lonely street-corner wolves "Hi babying" me sounded like voices out of the past calling me to be Miss Nobody again.
One evening I met a man in a restaurant.
"This town has sure changed a lot in the past 40 years," he said. "Used to be Indians right where we're walking."
"Did you use to live here 40 years ago," I asked.
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "How old do you think I am ?"
"About 60," I said.
"Seventy-seven my last birthday," he corrected me. "The name is Bill Cox. You going anywhere ?"
I said I wasn't.
"Why not to drop in on me and the missus ?" he said. "Live right near here. I'm taking her home a sandwich."
I became a friend of Bill Cox and his wife. The three of us would walk together in the streets at night sometimes.
He talked chiefly about the Spanish-American War, in which he had been a soldier, and about Abraham Lincoln. These two topics were very exciting him.
I had never heard of the Spanish-American War. I must have been absent from school the week it was studied by my history class.
Walking with Bill Cox in the lighted Hollywood streets and hearing stories about the Spanish-American War and Abraham Lincoln, I didn't feel lonely and the sidewalk wolves didn't "Hi-baby" me.
One evening Bill Cox told me he was going back to Texas.
"I'm felling sick," he said, "and I'd hate to die any place except in Texas."
He sent me a few letters from texas. I answered them. Then a letter came from his wife saying Bill Cox had died in an Old Soldier's Home in Texas. I read the letter in the restaurant where I had met him, and I walked home crying. The Hollywood streets seemed lonelier than ever without Bill Cox, his favorite war, and Abraham Lincoln.
YOU sit alone. It's night outside. Automobiles roll down Sunset Boulevard like and endless string of beetles. Their rubber tyres make a purring, highclass noise. You're hungry and you say "It's good for my waistline not to eat. There's nothing finer than a washboard belly."
And you say your speech lesson out loud:
"Ariadne arose from her couch in the snows in the Akrakaronian mountains." Followed by "Hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert."
The lessons are a dollar apiece. For a dollar you could buy a pair of stockings and a hamburger will never make you an actress. Speech lessons may. So with bare legs and an empty stomach you hit the consonants of, "Hail to thee, blithe spirit."
I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, "There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest."
You don't have to know anything to dream hard. I knew nothing about acting. I had never read a book about it, or tried to do it, or discussed it with anyone. I was ashamed to tell the few people I knew of what I was dreaming. I said I was hoping to make a living as a model. I called on all the model agencies and found a job now and then.
But there was this secret in me -acting. It was like being in gaol and looking at a door that said "This Way Out."
Acting was something golden and beautiful. It was like the bright colors Norma Jean used to see in her daydreams. It wasn't an art. It was like a game you played that enabled you to step out of the dull world you knew into worlds so bright they made your heart leap to think of them.
When I was eight I used to look out of the orphan asylum window at night and see a big lighted-up sign that read: "R.K.O. Radio Pictures." I hated the sign. It reminded me of the smell of glue. My mother had one taken me to the studio where she worked. The smell of the wet film she cut and spliced had stuck to my nose.
That was Norma Jean's nose. Norma Dougherty, the aspiring actress, had no such fellings towards studio signs. To her they were the beacons of a Promised Land - the land of Ingrid Bergman, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland, Gene Tierney, Jennifer Jones.
That's the way it was when I sat alone in my Hollywood room. I went to sleep hungry and woke up hungry. And I thought all actors and actresses were geniuses sitting on the front port of Paradise - the movies.
To be continued
Next week
. Marilyn Monroe writes about a Hollywood you don't see on the screen - "the Hollywood of failure... where we were the prettiest tribe of panhandlers that ever overan a town... and around us were the wolves."
Traduction
"C'est mon histoire - par Marilyn Monroe"
Je croyais que les gens avec qui je vivais étaient mes parents. Je les appelais maman et papa. La femme me dit un jour : "Ne m'appelle pas maman. Tu es assez grande pour savoir, je ne suis en aucun cas apparentée à toi. Tu es juste de passage ici. Ta maman vient te voir demain. Tu pourras l'appeler maman, si tu veux."
Je lui ai dit merci. Je ne lui ai pas posé de questions sur l'homme que j'appelais papa. Il était facteur. J'avais l'habitude de m'asseoir sur le bord de la baignoire le matin pour le regarder se raser et lui poser des questions - où était l'Est ou le Sud ou combien de gens il y avait dans le monde. Il était la seule et unique personne à toujours répondre à mes questions.
Les gens que je pensais être mes parents avaient eux-mêmes des enfants. Ils n'étaient pas méchants. Ils étaient juste pauvres. Ils n'avaient pas grand-chose à donner à qui que ce soit, pas même à leurs propres enfants. Et il ne restait alors rien pour moi. J'avais sept ans, mais j'ai fait ma part du travail. Je lavais par terre, faisais la vaisselle et les courses.
Ma mère est venue me voir le lendemain. C'était une jolie femme qui ne souriait jamais. Je l'avais souvent vue auparavant, mais je ne savais pas vraiment qui elle était.
Quand je lui ai dit cette fois là "Bonjour maman", elle m'a regardé fixement. Elle ne m'avait jamais embrassée ni tenue dans ses bras, ni à peine parlé. Je ne savais rien d'elle à l'époque, mais quelques années plus tard, j'ai appris un certain nombre de choses.
Quand je pense à elle maintenant, mon cœur me fait deux fois plus mal qu'au temps où jétais une petite fille. Ça me fait mal pour nous deux.
Ma mère s'est mariée à quinze ans. Elle a eu deux enfants (avant moi) et a travaillé dans un studio de cinéma en tant que monteuse de pellicules. Son jeune mari a fréquenté une autre femme; il y a eu une grande dispute, et il a quitté la maison.
Alors que ma mère pleurait sur l'effondrement de son mariage, il est revenu en douce un jour et a enlevé ses deux bébés. Ma mère a dépensé toutes ses économies pour essayer de récupérer ses enfants. Elle les a cherchés pendant longtemps.
Finalement, elle a retrouvé leur trace dans le Kentucky et a fait de l'auto-stop pour y aller.
Elle était fauchée et à bout de forces quand elle a revu ses enfants. Ils vivaient dans une belle maison. Leur père s'était remarié etgagnait bien sa vie.
Elle a discuté avec lui, mais ne lui a rien demandé, pas même d'embrasser ses enfants qu'elle cherchait depuis si longtemps. Mais comme la mère dans le film "Stella Dallas", elle est repartie et les a laissés profiter d'une vie plus heureuse qu'elle ne pouvait leur offrir.
Elle est revenue à Hollywood et est retournée travailler comme monteuse de pellicules. Je n'étais pas encore née.
Le jour où lors de l'une de ses visites, ma mère est venue me chercher chez le facteur pour m'emmener chez elle, fut le premier jour heureux de ma vie dont je me souvienne.
J'avais déjà été chez ma mère. Étant malade et incapable de s'occuper de moi, et comme elle travaillait, elle payait le facteur cinq dollars par semaine pour que je puisse bénéficier d'un foyer. De temps en temps, elle venait me chercher.
J'avais peur quand j'allais chez elle et passais le plus clair de mon temps dans le placard de sa chambre à me cacher le long de ses vêtements. Elle me parlait rarement, sauf pour me dire : "Ne fais pas autant de bruit, Norma." Elle disait cela même quand j'étais allongée dans mon lit le soir et que je feuilletais un livre. Rien que le bruit d'une page qu'on tourne la rendait nerveuse.
Il y avait quelque chose dans sa chambre qui m'avait toujours fasciné. C'était une photographie accrochée au le mur. Il n'y avait pas d'autres photos sur les murs, juste cette photo encadrée.
Chaque fois que je rendais visite à ma mère, je restais debout à regarder cette photo et retenais mon souffle de peur qu'elle ne m'ordonne d'arrêter de regarder. Je m'étais rendu compte que les gens m'ordonnaient toujours d'arrêter de faire ce dont j'avais envie.
Ce jour là, ma mère m'a surprise en train de regarder la photo, mais ne m'a pas grondé. Au lieu de cela, elle m'a soulevé sur une chaise pour que je puisse mieux voir.
"C'est ton père", a-t-elle dit.
Je me sentais tellement excitée que j'ai failli tomber de la chaise. C'était si bon d'avoir un père, de pouvoir regarder cette photo et savoir que je lui appartenais. Et quelle magnifique photo c'était. Il portait un chapeau mou, cavalièrement incliné sur un côté. Son regard était vif et souriant, et il avait une fine moustache comme celle de Clark Gable. Je me sentais réconfortée à voir cette image.
Ma mère a dit : "Il a été tué dans un accident de voiture à New York." D'ahbitude, je croyais toujours ce que les gens me disaient, mais cette fois-là, je n'y croyais pas. Je ne croyais pas qu'il avait été renversé et qu'il était mort.
J'ai demandé à ma mère comment il s'appelait. Elle ne répondit pas, mais alla s'enfermer dans sa chambre.
Des années plus tard, j'ai découvert son nom et bien d'autres détails à son sujet. Le plus étrange était que tout ce que j'entendais à son sujet, même si ce n'était pas glorieux, me faisait me sentir encore plus chaleureuse envers lui. La nuit où j'ai vu sa photo pour la première fois, j'en ai rêvé en m'endormant. Et par la suite, j'en ai rêvé des milliers de fois.
Ce fut le premier moment heureux de ma vie, celui de découvrir la photo de mon père. Et chaque fois que je me rappelais de son sourire et comment son chapeau était incliné, je me sentais réconfortée et plus seule. Un an après, quand j'ai commencé à faire un album photos, la première photo que j'ai mise dedans était une photo de Clark Gable parce qu'il ressemblait à mon père - surtout la façon dont il portait son chapeau et sa moustache.
Et j'avais l'habitude de rêvasser, non pas de M. Gable, mais de mon père. Quand je rentrais de l'école à pied sous la pluie et que je me sentais déprimée, je faisais comme si mon père m'attendait et qu'il me grondait de ne pas avoir porté mes bottes en caoutchouc.
Je ne possédais aucune bottes en caoutchouc. Ce n'était pas non plus l'endroit où je rentrais chez moi. C'était un endroit où je travaillais comme une sorte d'enfant domestique, lavant la vaisselle, la lessive, les sols, faisant des courses, tout en gardant le silence.
Mais dans nos rêveries, on saute par-dessus les faits aussi facilement qu'un chat saute par-dessus une clôture. Je rêvais que mon père m'attendrait et que j'entrais dans la maison avec un immense sourire d'une oreille à l'autre. Un jour que j'étais à l'hôpital après l'opération d'ablation de mes amygdales suivies de complications, je me suis laissée emportée par mes rêves qui ont duré une semaine entière sans s'arrêter.
Je ne me lassais pas d'imaginer que mon père venait me voir à l'hôpital, s'approchant de mon lit, pendant que les autres patients regardaient avec incrédulité et envie un visiteur si distingué; et il se penchait sur mon lit pour m'embrasser sur le front, tout en discutant avec lui aussi.
"Tu seras guérie dans quelques jours, Norma Jean. Je suis très fier de la façon dont tu te comportes, ne pleure pas tout le temps comme les autres petites filles."
Et je lui demandais de bien vouloir enlever son chapeau. Mais même dans mes pensées de rêveries les plus folles et des plus intenses, je n'ai jamais réussi à lui faire enlever son chapeau, ni qu'il s'asseye à côté de moi.
Quand je suis rentrée "chez moi", j'ai failli retomber malade. Un voisin s'est mis à chasser un chien que j'aimais tellement et qui attendait mon retour. Le chien aboyait parce qu'il était content de me voir. Et l'homme s'est mis à le chasser en lui hurlant de la boucler. L'homme avait une houe à la main. Il a balancé la houe qui a touché le dos de mon chien et l'a coupé en deux.
Ma mère a trouvé un autre couple pour me garder. C'était des anglais et avaient besoin des cinq dollars par semaine pour me garder. De plus, j'étais grande pour mon âge, et je pouvais faire beaucoup de travail.
Un jour, ma mère est venue me voir. J'étais dans la cuisine en train de faire la vaisselle. Elle resta debout à me regarder sans parler. Quand je me suis retournée, j'ai vu qu'elle avait les larmes aux yeux, et j'ai été surprise. "Je vais construire une maison pour que toi et moi y vivions", a-t-elle déclaré. "Elle sera peinte en blanc et aura une arrière-cour." Et elle s'en alla.
C'était vrai. Ma mère s'est débrouillée d'une manière ou d'une autre, avec ses économies et en faisant un prêt. Elle a construit une maison. Le couple anglais et moi avons tous deux été emmenés pour la voir. Elle était petite et vide, mais belle, et était peinte en blanc.
Nous y avons emménagé tous les quatre. J'avais une chambre pour moi toute seule. Le couple anglais n'avait pas à payer de loyer, il s'occupait juste de moi comme ils le faisaient avant. Je travaillais dur, mais ce n'était pas grave. C'était mon premier foyer. Ma mère a acheté des meubles, une table avec un dessus blanc et des pieds marron, des chaises, des lits et des rideaux. Je l'ai entendue dire : "Tout est à crédit, mais ne t'inquiète pas. Je travaillerai deux fois plus au studio et je pourrai bientôt tout payer."
Un jour, un piano à queue est arrivé à la maison. Il était hors d'état. Ma mère l'avait acheté d'occasion. C'était pour moi. On me donnerait des leçons de piano avec. C'était un piano très important, même s'il était un peu cabossé. Il avait appartenu à la star de cinéma Fredric March.
"Tu joueras du piano ici, près des fenêtres", dit ma mère, "et ici, de chaque côté de la cheminée, il y aura une causeuse. Et nous pourrons nous asseoir à t'écouter. Dès que j'aurai fini de payer les autres choses, j'achèterai les causeuses, et nous nous assiérons tous dessus la nuit pour t'écouter jouer du piano."
Mais il n'y eut jamais de causeuses. Maman a fait une dépression nerveuse, est tombée gravement malade et a dû être emmenée à l'hôpital. Tous les meubles ont disparu. La table blanche, les chaises, les lits et les rideaux blancs, ainsi que le piano à queue.
Le couple anglais a disparu aussi. Et j'ai quitté ma maison fraîchement repeinte pour être emmenée dans un orphelinat, où on m'a donné une robe bleue et une blouse blanche à porter, et des chaussures à grosses semelles. Et pendant longtemps, quand j'était couchée la nuit, je ne pouvais plus rêver de rien. Je n'ai jamais oublié la maison peinte en blanc et ses meubles. Des années plus tard, alors que je commençais à gagner un peu d'argent en tant que mannequin, j'ai commencé à chercher le piano Fredric March. Environ un an après, je l'ai retrouvé dans une salle des ventes aux enchères et je l'ai acheté.
Je l'ai chez moi maintenant à Hollywood. Il a été peint d'un beau blanc, et il a de nouvelles cordes et joue aussi merveilleusement que n'importe quel autre piano au monde.
La meilleure amie de ma mère s'appelait Grace. J'appelais presque toutes les personnes que je connaissais par ma 'tante' ou mon 'oncle', mais tante Grace était différente de tous mes autres pseudo-parents. Elle est aussi devenue ma meilleure amie.
Tante Grace travaillait comme documentaliste dans le même studio que ma mère, à la Columbia. Elle a été la première personne à m'avoir tapoté la tête ou caressé ma joue. C'est arrivé quand j'avais huit ans. Je me souviens encore à quel point j'ai été ravie lorsque sa main bienveillante m'a touchée.
Grace a eu des moments presque aussi difficiles que ma mère. Elle a perdu son travail au studio et a dû s'escaner pour vivre. Bien qu'elle n'ait pas d'argent, elle a continué à s'occuper de ma mère, qui commençait à avoir des troubles mentaux, et à s'occuper de moi. Parfois, elle m'emmenait chez elle. Quand elle a manqué d'argent et qu'il ne lui restait plus qu'un demi-dollar pour manger dans la semaine, nous vivions de pain rassis et de lait. On pouvait acheter un sac de pain rassis à la boulangerie Holmes pour 25 centimes. Tante Grace et moi faisions la queue pendant des heures pour remplir nos sacs.
Quand je la regardais, elle me souriait et me disait: "Ne t'inquiète pas, Norma Jean. Tu seras une belle fille quand tu seras grande. Je peux le sentir au plus profond de moi".
Ses mots me rendaient si heureuse que le pain rassis avait le goût de choux à la crème.
TOUT semblait mal tourner pour tante Grace. Seules la malchance et la mort ont fait parti de sa vie. Mais il n'y avait aucune amertume chez ma tante. Son cœur restait tendre et elle croyait en Dieu.
Quasiment toutes les personnes que je connaissais me parlaient de Dieu. On m'a toujours averti de ne pas l'offenser. Mais quand Grace me parlait de Dieu, elle caressait ma joue et me disait qu'Il m'aimait et veillait sur moi.
Me rappelant de ce que Grace m'avait dit, je restai dans mon lit la nuit à pleurer. LE seul qui m'aimait et veillait sur moi était quelqu'un que je ne pouvais ni voir, ni entendre, ni toucher.
J'avais l'habitude de dessiner des portraits de Dieu, chaque fois que j'en avais le temps.
Dans mes dessins, il ressemblait un peu à Tante Grace et un peu à Clark Gable.
En grandissant, je savais que j'étais différente des autres enfants parce qu'il n'y avait ni baisers ni promesses dans ma vie. Je me sentais souvent seule et je voulais mourir. J'essayais de me remonter le moral avec mes rêveries. Je ne rêvait jamais que quelqu'un m'aime comme j'ai vu d'autres enfants aimés. C'était trop d'imagination pour mes rêveries. Je me contentais de rêver d'attirer l'attention de quelqu'un (Dieu mis à part), des gens qui me regarderaient et prononceraient mon nom.
Quand ma mère a été emmenée à l'hôpital, Tante Grace est devenue ma tutrice légale. Je pouvais entendre ses amis discuter dans sa chambre la nuit quand j'étais allongé dans mon lit en faisant semblant de dormir. Ils lui ont déconseillé de m'adopter car il était certain que je deviendrai une responsabilité de plus en plus lourde à gérer en grandissant. C'était à cause de mon « héritage », disaient-ils. Ils ont parlé de ma mère, de son père, de son frère et de sa grand-mère, tous atteints de troubles mentaux, et ont dit que je suivrais certainement leurs traces. J'étais allongée sur le lit, frissonnant en les écoutant. Je ne savais pas ce qu'était un trouble mental, mais je savais que ce n'était rien de bon. Et je retenais mon souffle en attendant de savoir si Tante Grace me laisserait devenir orpheline d'État ou m'adopterait comme da propre enfant. Après quelques soirées de discussions, Tante Grace m'a adoptée, héritage ou autre, et je me suis endormie heureuse. Grace, ma nouvelle tutrice, n'avait pas d'argent et passait son temps à chercher du travail, alors elle s'est arrangée pour que j'entre à l'orphelinat - celui du Los Angeles Children's Home Society. Cela ne me dérangeait pas d'y aller parce que même à l'orphelinat, je savais que j'avais une tutrice à l'extérieur - tante Grace.
Ce n'est que plus tard que j'ai réalisé tout ce qu'elle avait fait pour moi. Sans Grace, j'aurais été envoyée dans une institution d'État ou de comté où il y a moins de privilèges, comme l'arbre de Noël ou de voir un film de temps en temps.
J'ai vécu dans l'orphelinat seulement par intermittence. La plupart du temps, j'étais placée dans une famille qui recevait cinq dollars par semaine pour me garder. J'ai été placée dans neuf familles différentes avant de pouvoir mettre un terme au statut légal d'être orpheline. Je l'ai fait à 16 ans en me mariant.
Les familles avec lesquelles je vivais avaient un point commun : le besoin d'avoir les cinq dollars. J'étais aussi un atout à avoir dans une maison. J'étais forte et en bonne santé ; et capable d'abattre autant de travail qu'un adulte. Et j'avais appris à ne déranger personne en parlant ou en pleurant.
J'ai aussi appris que la meilleure façon d'éviter les ennuis était de ne jamais se plaindre, ni de demander quoi que ce soit. La plupart des familles avaient leurs propres enfants et je savais qu'ils passaient toujours en premier. Ils portaient des vêtements colorés et possédaient toutes sortes de jouets, et c'étaient toujours eux que l'on croyait.
Mon habillement n'a jamais varié. Il se composait d'une jupe bleu délavée et d'une blouse blanche. J'en avais deux exemplaires de chaque, parfaitement identiques, si bien que tout le monde pensait que je portais toujours les mêmes vêtements. C'était l'une des choses qui agaçaient les gens - le fait d'être toujours habillée pareil.
Tous les quinze jours, le foyer envoyait une inspectrice pour voir comment ses orphelins se débrouillaient dans le monde. Elle ne me posait jamais de questions, mais soulevait mon pied pour regarder la semelle de mes chaussures. Si mes semelles n'étaient pas usées, elle signalait que j'étais placée dans de bonnes conditions.
Cela ne me dérangeait pas d'être la « dernière » dans ces familles, sauf le samedi soir, quand tout le monde prenait un bain. L'eau coûtait cher, et changer l'eau de la baignoire était une extravagance inouïe. Toute la famille utilisait la même baignoire d'eau. Et je passais toujours en dernier.
Une famille avec laquelle je vivais était si pauvre que j'étais souvent réprimandée pour avoir tiré la chasse d'eau la nuit.
"Cela consomme 15 litres d'eau", pouvait dire mon nouvel "oncle", et "15 litres à chaque fois, ça coûte de l'argent. Tu peux tirer la chasse d'eau que le matin."
Peu importe que je sois prudente ou non, il y avait toujours des problèmes. Une fois, à l'école, un petit garçon mexicain s'est mis à hurler que je l'avais frappé. Je ne l'avais pas fait. Et j'ai souvent été accusée d'avoir volé des choses... un collier, un peigne, une bague ou une pièce de cinq cents. Je n'ai jamais rien volé. Lorsque les problèmes surgissaient, je n'avais qu'un seul moyen de les confronter - c'était de garder le silence. Quand elle venait me voir, Tante Grace me demandait comment ça se passait. Je lui disais toujours que tout allait bien, parce que je n'aimais pas voir son regard empli de tristesse.
Certains de mes problèmes étaient de ma faute. De temps en temps, je frappais une fille, je lui tirais les cheveux et je la jetait par terre. Mais le pire cela était mes "défauts de caractère". Une enfant un peu trop grande qui regarde fixement et ne parle presque jamais, et qui s'attend à une seule chose d'un foyer -en être mise à la porte- peut sembler être une nuisance autour de soi.
Il y avait une maison dont j'espérais ne pas être chassée. C'était une maison avec quatre enfants qui étaient gardés par une arrière-grand-mère qui avait plus de cent ans.
Elle s'occupait des enfants en leur racontant des histoires sanglantes sur les massacres indiens, les scalps et les incendies sur le bûcher, et d'autres actes sauvages de sa jeunesse. Elle a dit qu'elle avait été une amie proche de Buffalo Bill et qu'elle avait combattu à ses côtés dans des combats au corps à corps avec les sauvages Peaux-Rouges.
J'écoutais ses histoires le coeur au bord des lèvres et j'ai fait tout ce que j'ai pu pour qu'elle m'aime. C'est moi qui riait le plus fort et qui frissonnait le plus à l'écoute de ses histoires.
Mais un jour, l'une de ses arrière-petites-filles accourut vers elle avec sa robe arrachée au col. Elle a dit que c'était moi. Je n'avais rien fait. Mais la vieille ennemie des Indiens n'a pas voulu me croire et j'ai été renvoyée à l'orphelinat en disgrâce.
La plupart de mes problèmes étaient de ce genre, plutôt sans importance. D'une certaine manière, ce n'étaient pas du tout des problèmes, parce que j'y étais habituée. Quand je repense à cette période, je me souviens qu'en fait je prenais beaucoup de plaisir et d'excitation. Je jouais au soleil et je faisais la course. Je rêvassais toujours, non seulement sur la photographie de mon père, mais aussi de bien d'autres choses.
Je rêvais surtout de beauté. Je rêvais de devenir si belle que les gens se retourneraient sur mon passage. Et je rêvais de couleurs - écarlate, or, vert, blanc. Je rêvais marchant fièrement dans de beaux vêtements et admirée par tout le monde, entendant leurs éloges. J'inventais ces louanges et me les répéter à haute voix comme si quelqu'un d'autre me les disait.
Ces rêves me faciliateint le travail. Quand je servais à table dans l'une des maisons misérables et malheureuses où je vivais, je rêvais que j'étais serveuse dans un hôtel élégant, vêtue d'un uniforme blanc, et tous ceux qui entraient dans la grande salle à manger où je servais, s'arrêtaient pour me regarder et m'admiraient ouvertement.
Mais je n'ai jamais rêvé d'amour.
À 12 ans, j'en paraissais 17. Mon corps s'était développé et j'étais bien galbée. Mais personne ne le savait à part moi. Je portais toujours la robe bleue et le chemisier que l'orphelinat m'avait fourni. J'avais l'air d'une grosse nunuche.
Je n'avais pas d'argent. Les autres filles allaient à l'école en bus. Je n'avais pas un nickel pour payer le trajet. Sous la pluie ou le soleil, je faisais les trois kilomètres à pied de la maison de mes "tantes" à l'école.
Je détestais marcher. Je détestais l'école. Je n'avais pas d'amis.
Les élèves me parlaient rarement et ne voulaient jamais jouer avec moi. Personne n'a jamais fait le trajet avec moi, ni ne m'a invité à venir chez eux. C'était en partie parce que je venais du quartier pauvre du district, où vivaient les Mexicains et les Japonais. C'était aussi parce que je ne sourais à personne.
Un jour, un cordonnier qui se tenait à la porte de son magasin m'a arrêté alors que j'allais à lécole.
"Comment t'appeles-tu ?" me demanda-t--il.
"Norma," lui dis-je.
"Quel est ton nom de famille ?" me demanda-t-il.
Je ne voulais pas lui dire mon nom - Norma Mortensen - parce que ce n'était pas le nom de l'homme au chapeau mou et à la moustache de Gable. Je n'ai pas répondu.
"Tu es une gamine étrange", dit le cordonnier. "Je te regarde passer ici tous les jours et je ne t'ai jamais vu sourire. Tu n'arriveras à rien comme ça."
J'ai repris mon chemin, détestant le cordonnier.
À l'école, les élèves chuchotaient souvent à mon sujet et ricanaient en me fixant.
Il me traitaient d'idiote et se moquaient de ma tenue d'orpheline. Je me fichais qu'on me croie idiote. Je savais que je ne l'étais pas.
Un matin, mes deux chemisiers blancs étaient déchirés et j'aurais été en retard à l'école si je les aurais raccommodés. J'ai demandé à l'une de mes «sœurs» de la maison si elle pouvait me prêter quelque chose à porter. Elle avait mon âge, mais était plus petite que moi. Elle m'a prêté un pull.
Je suis arrivé à l'école au moment où le cours de maths commençait. Pendant que je me dirigeais vers ma chaise, tout le monde me regardait. C'était un pull très serré.
A la récréation, une demi-douzaine de garçons m'entouraient. Ils faisaient des blagues et continuaient à regarder mon pull comme s'il s'agissait d'une mine d'or. Je savais depuis quelque temps que j'avais des jolis seins mais je n'y pensais pas. La classe de maths, cependant, en était plus impressionnée.
Après l'école, quatre garçons ont fait le chemin avec moi, tenant leurs vélos à la main. J'étais excitée mais j'agissais comme si rien d'inhabituel ne se passait.
La semaine suivante, le cordonnier m'a de nouveau arrêté.
"Je vois que tu as suivi mon conseil," dit-il. "Tu t'endendras mieux avec les gens si tu leur souris."
J'ai remarqué qu'il regardait aussi mon pull en me parlant. Je ne l'avais pas encore rendu à ma "soeur".
L'école et les journées sont devenues différentes après cela. Des filles qui avaient des frères ont commencé à m'inviter chez elles, et j'ai aussi rencontré leurs parents. Et il y avait toujours quatre ou cinq garçons qui traînaient près de chez moi. On jouait dans la rue et on restait à discuter sous les arbres jusqu'à l'heure du souper.
Je ne me rendais pas compte de l'aspect sexuel à travers les égards qu'ils me portaient et il n'y avait aucune pensée sexuelle dans mon esprit. Je ne pensais pas que mon corps avait un rapport avec le sexe. C'était plutôt un ami qui était mystérieusement apparu dans ma vie, une sorte d'ami magique.
Quelques semaines plus tard, un matin, devant le miroir, je me suis mise du rouge à lèvres. J'ai foncé mes sourcils blonds. Je n'avais pas d'argent pour acheter des vêtements, et je n'avais pas de vêtements à part ma tenue d'orpheline et le seul et unique pull. Le rouge à lèvres et le mascara étaient cependant comme des vêtements. J'ai vu qu'ils amélioraient mon apparence autant que si j'avais porté une vraie robe.
Mon arrivée à l'école, avec les lèvres peintes et les sourcils noircis, et toujours moulée dans le pull magique, a fait vibrer tout le monde. Et les réactions n'étaient pas toutes amicales. Pleins de filles, pas seulement celles de 13 ans, mais les plus âgées de 17 et 18 ans, sont devenues mes ennemies déclarées.
Elles racontaient entre elles, et à qui voulait bien les entendre, que j'étais une ivrogne et que je passais mes nuits à coucher avec des garçons sur la plage.
Les scandales étaient des mensonges. Je ne buvais pas et je ne laissais aucun garçon prendre des libertés avec moi. Et je n'avais jamais été sur aucune plage de ma vie. Mais je ne pouvais pas me sentir en colère contre les faiseurs de scandales. Des fillesjalouses de moi ! Des filles avaient peur de perdre leurs copains parce que j'étais plus attirante ! Ce n'étaient plus là des rêveries pour tromper ma solitude. C'étaient des vérités !
Et en été, j'ai eu un vrai soupirant. Il avait 21 ans, et bien qu'il soit très intelligent, il pensait que j'avais 18 ans au lieu de mes 13 ans. Je parvins à l'abuser en parlant le moins possible et en marchant d'une manière suggestive. Depuis que j'avais fait la conquête du cours de maths quelques mois avant, je m'étais entraînée à marcher langoureusement.
Mon soupirant intelligent est arrivé chez moi un samedi pour m'annoncer que nous partons nous baigner. Je me suis précipitée dans la chambre de ma "soeur" (celle qui était un peu plus petite que moi) pour lui emprunter son maillot de bain. Debout devant le miroir du bureau, j'ai passé une heure à m'entraîner à marcher après l'avoir mis.
Les cris d'impatience de mon soupirant me firent enfin sortir de la chambre, vêtue d'un vieux pantalon et d'un pull. Le maillot de bain était en-dessous.
C'était une journée ensoleillée et le sable envahi de baigneurs et de mères avec leurs enfants. Bien que née et ayant été élevée à seulement quelques kilomètres de l'océan, je ne l'avais jamais vu de si près auparavant. Je suis restée debout et je l'ai regardé pendant un long moment. C'était comme dans un rêve, pleins de couleurs or et lavande, d'un bleu et blanc mousseux. Et il y avait un esprit de vacances dans l'air qui m'a surprise. Tout le monde semblait sourire au ciel.
"Viens, allons-y", ordonna mon cavalier.
"Où ?" je lui ai demandé.
"Dans l'eau" dit-il en riant, pensant que je plaisantais. J'ai pensé à mon maillot de bain moulant. L'idée de me cacher dans l'eau en le portant me paraissait ridicule. Mais je n'ai rien dit. J'ai regardé les filles et les femmes et je me suis sentie décue. Je ne m'attendais pas à ce que la moitié de la population féminine de Los Angeles défile sur le sable portant presque rien sur elles. Je pensais être la seule.
Mon soupirant s'impatientait enocre alors j'ai enlevé mon pantalon et mon pull et restait plantée là, dans ma tenue étriquée. J'ai pensé : "Je suis presque nue", et j'ai fermé les yeux et je suis restée immobile.
Mon petit ami intelligent avait cessé de m'embêter. J'ai commencé à marcher lentement sur le sable. Je suis presque allée jusqu'au bord de l'eau, puis j'ai longé la plage. La même chose s'est produite que ce qui qui s'était produit dans la classe de maths, mais à plus grande échelle. C'était aussi beaucoup plus bruyant.
Les jeunes hommes me sifflaient. Certains ont sauté du sable et couraient en trottinant pour mieux voir. Même les femmes s'arrêtèrent de bouger à mesure que je m'approchais.
Je ne prêtais aucune attention aux sifflets et aux cris. En fait, je ne les ai pas entendus. J'étais envahie d'un sentiment étrange, comme si j'étais deux personnes. L'une d'elles était Norma Jean de l'orphelinat qui n'appartenait à personne. L'autre était quelqu'un dont je ne connaissais pas le nom. Mais je savais où elle se trouvait. Elle appartenait à l'océan, au ciel et au monde entier.
MAIS rien ne s'est passé en dehors de la vision grandiose qui m'avait frappée sur la plage. Je retrouvai à ma robe bleue et ma blouse blanche et je suis retournée à l'école. Mais au lieu d'apprendre quoi que ce soit, je suis devenue de plus en plus confuse. A l'école aussi. Ils ne savaient comment appréhender face à une sirène de treize ans.
Pourquoi j'étais une sirène, je n'en avais pas la moindre idée. Je ne voulais pas être embrassée et je ne rêvais pas qu'un duc ou une star de cinéma tombe amoureux de moi. La vérité était qu'avec tout mon rouge à lèvres, mon mascara et mes courbes précoces, j'étais aussi sensuelle qu'un fossile. Mais il semble que j'exerçais un effet opposé sur les gens.
Les garçons se sont mis à me courtiser comme si j'étais la seule fille du quartier. Je restais éveillée la nuit en me demandant pourquoi ils me poursuivaient. De temps en temps, je laissais l'un d'eux m'embrasser pour voir s'il y avait quelque chose d'intéressant dans la performance.
Il n'y en avait pas.
J'en ai finalement conclu que les garçons me couraient après parce que j'étais orpheline et que je n'avais pas de parents pour s'occuper de moi. Cette conclusion m'a rendu encore plus froide face à ma meute d'admirateurs. Mais ni ma froideur, ni mon dédain, ni mes « sors d'ici », « ne me dérange pas », aucune de mes attitudes figées ne changeaient les choses.
Les garçons continuaient à me poursuivre comme si j'étais un vampire avec une rose entre les dents.
Les filles de l'école étaient un autre problème, mais je pouvais le comprendre. Elles me détestaient de plus en plus à mesure que je vieillissais. Désormais, au lieu de m'accuser de voler des peignes, de la monnaie ou des colliers, j'était accusée de voler les garçons.
Tante Grace a suggéré une solution à mes problèmes.
"Tu devrais te marier", dit-elle.
"Je suis trop jeune," lui dis-je. J'avais encore 15 ans.
"Je ne pense pas que tu l'es", riait Tante Grace.
"Mais il n'y a personne qui veuille m'épouser," dis-je.
"Si, il y a quelqu'un", a-t-elle dit.
"Qui ?" ai-je demandé.
"Jim," dit ma tante.
Jim était M. Dougherty. Il habitait près de chez moi. Il était beau, poli et adulte.
"Mais Jim vise ma 'soeur'," lui dis-je.
"C'est toi qu'il a emmenée au match de football", a déclaré tante Grace, "pas elle."
"C'était terriblement ennuyeux," lui dis-je. "Je déteste les matchs de football."
"Que penses-tu de Jim ?" m'a-t-elle demandé.
"Je ne ressens rien," lui ai-je répondu, "Il est comme les autres, sauf qu'il est plus grand et plus poli."
"C'est une belle qualité chez un homme", a déclaré tante Grace, "la politesse".
La "tante" et "l'oncle" avec qui je vivais - ma neuvième famille - m'ont aidé à me décider. Ils allaient déménager. Cela signifiait que je devais retourner vivre à l'orphelinat où on m'aurait replacé dans autre famille.
J'ai épousé Jim Dougherty.
Le premier effet que le mariage a eu sur moi a été d'augmenter mon manque d'intérêt pour le sexe. Mon mari ne s'en souciait pas ou n'était pas au courant. Nous étions tous les deux trop jeunes pour discuter ouvertement d'un sujet aussi embarrassant.
Les parents de Jim ne se souciaient pas beaucoup de moi, ce dont je ne pouvais pas les blâmer. J'étais une femme particulière. Je n'aimais pas les adultes. Je préférais faire la vaisselle plutôt que de m'asseoir et leur parler.
Dès qu'ils commençaient à jouer aux cartes ou à avoir des discussions, je sortais de la maison en douce et je rejoignais les enfants dans la rue. J'aimais les garçons et les filles plus jeunes que moi. Je jouais avec eux jusqu'à ce que mon mari sorte de la maison et commence à m'appeler.
Mon mariage ne m'a apporté ni bonheur, ni douleur. Mon mari et moi ne nous parlions à peine. Ce n'était pas parce que nous étions fâchés. Nous n'avions rien à nous dire. J'ai vu beaucoup de couples mariés depuis qui étaient comme Jim et moi.
Ce sont généralement les mariages les plus durables, ceux qui sont vécus dans le silence.
La chose la plus importante que mon mariage a eu comme effet pour moi, a été de mettre fin à jamais à mon statut d'orpheline. J'étais reconnaissante envers Jim pour cela. C'est le chevalier qui m'a délivrée de ma robe bleue et de ma blouse blanche.
Mes différents conseilleurs avaient eu raison de dire que le mariage mettait fin à ma popularité de sirène. Les garçons ne venaient plus après Mme Dougherty. La rose semblait être tombée de ses dents.
Jim a rejoint la marine marchande en 1944, et je suis allée travailler dans une usine de parachutes. La grande guerre était lancée. Des batailles se livraient. Des juke-box jouaient. Les yeux des gens étaient illuminés.
JE PORTAIS des salopettes à l'usine. J'ai été surprise qu'ils ai insisté là-dessus. Mettre une fille en salopette, c'est comme la faire travailler en collants, surtout si une fille sait comment les porter. En tant qu'inspectrice de parachutes, j'étais de nouveau comme en classe de maths. Les hommes bourdonnaient autour de moi comme les lycéens l'avaient fait.
J'ai remarqué depuis que les hommes laissent généralement les femmes mariées tranquilles et ont tendance à les traiter avec respect. Ce n'est pas glorieux pour les femmes mariées. Les hommes sont toujours prêts à respecter ce qui les ennuie.
La raison pour laquelle la plupart des femmes, même les plus jolies, paraissent aussi ternes, c'est parce qu'elles sont trop respectées.
C'était peut-être de ma faute si les hommes de l'usine ont essayé de sortir avec moi et de m'offrir à boire. Je ne me sentais pas comme une femme mariée. J'étais complètement fidèle à mon mari parti en mer mais ce n'était pas parce que je l'aimais ou même parce que j'avais des idées morales. Ma fidélité était due à mon manque d'intérêt pour le sexe.
Jim est finalement rentré à la maison et nous avons de nouveau vécu ensemble. C'est difficile de se rappeler ce qu'on a dit, fait ou ressenti quand on s'ennuie.
Jim était un mari gentil. Il ne m'a jamais blessé ou contrarié - sauf sur un sujet. Il voulait un bébé.
L'idée d'avoir un bébé me dressait les cheveux sur la tête. Je ne pouvais l'imaginer que comme un double de moi-même, une autre Norma Jean dans un orphelinat. Il se passerait quelque chose. Jim s'éloignerait. Et il y aurait cette petite fille en robe bleue et chemisier blanc vivant chez une "tante", faisant la vaisselle, étant la dernière à aller dans l'eau du bain le samedi soir.
Je ne pouvais pas expliquer cela à Jim. Dès qu'il s'endormait à côté de moi le soir, je restais éveillée à pleurer. Je ne savais pas trop qui pleurait, Mme Dougherty ou l'enfant qu'elle aurait pu avoir. Ce n'était ni l'une ni l'autre.
C'était Norma Jean, toujours vivante, toujours seule, souhaitant toujours d'être morte.
Je ressens différemment les choses maitenant sur le fait d'avoir un enfant. C'est l'une des choses dont je rêve. Elle ne sera plus une Norma Jean maintenant. Et je sais comment je l'élèverai - sans mensonges. Personne ne lui dira des mensonges sur quoi que ce soit. Et je répondrai à toutes ses questions. Si je ne connais pas les réponses, j'irai les chercher dans une encyclopédie. Je lui dirai tout ce qu'elle veut savoir - sur l'amour, sur le sexe, sur tout !
Mais surtout, pas de mensonges ! Pas de mensonges sur le fait qu'il y ait un Père Noël, ou que le monde soit rempli de gens nobles et honorables tous désireux de s'entraider et de se faire du bien. Je lui dirai qu'il y a de l'honneur et de la bonté dans le monde, tout comme il y a des diamants et du radium.
C'est la fin de mon histoire de Norma Jean. Jim et moi avons divorcé. Et j'ai emménagé dans une chambre à Hollywood pour vivre seule. J'avais 19 ans et je voulais savoir qui j'étais.
Quand je viens d'écrire "C'est la fin de Norma Jean", j'ai rougi comme si j'avais été surprise dans un mensonge. Parce que cette enfant triste et amère qui a grandi trop vite n'est presque jamais sortie de mon cœur. Avec le succès qui m'entoure aujourd'hui, je peux encore ressentir ses yeux effrayés regarder au-delà des miens.
Elle n'arrête pas de dire : "Je n'ai jamais vécu, je n'ai jamais été aimée", et souvent je suis confuse et je pense que c'est moi qui dis ça. J'avais été une sorte d'«enfant épouse». J'étais maintenant devenue une sorte d'«enfant veuve». Beaucoup de choses semblaient m'être arrivées. Pourtant, d'une certaine manière, il ne s'était rien passé, sauf que j'avais 19 ans au lieu de 9 et que je devais me chercher un boulot.
L'espèce d'instinct qui conduit un canard à l'eau, m'a conduit vers les studios des photographes. J'ai obtenu des emplois posant pour des publicités et des mises en page. Le principal problème était que les photographes cherchaient eux aussi du travail. Trouver un photographe qui me voulait comme modèle était plus facile que d'en trouver un qui pouvait payer plus que des promesses.
Mais je gagnais assez d'argent pour me payer le loyer d'une chambre et un repas par jour, même si parfois je faisais l'impasse sur le repas. Cela n'avait pas d'importance, cependant. Quand vous êtes jeune et en bonne santé, avoir un peu faim n'est pas très important.
CE qui importait le plus, c'était d'être seule. Quand on est jeune et en bonne santé, la solitude peut sembler plus importante qu'elle ne l'est. Je regardais les rues avec des yeux solitaires. Je n'avais pas de parents à visiter ni de copains avec qui sortir.
Ma tante Grace et tante Anna travaillaient dur pour se nourrir et payer le loyer. Quand je les ai appelés, elles ont eu pitié de moi et ont voulu m'aider. Je savais qu'elles avaient grand besoin des demi-dollars restant dans leurs sacs à main, alors je restais à l'écart jusqu'à ce que j'ai assez d'argent pour pouvoir les emmener au restaurant ou au cinéma.
Je n'avais que moi. Quand je rentrais du restaurant à pied le soir dans les rues illuminées avec la foule sur les trottoirs, j'avais l'habitude de regarder les gens bavarder entre eux et se dépêcher de partir quelque part. Je me demandais où ils allaient et ce que ça faisait d'avoir des endroits où aller ou de connaître des gens.
Il y avait toujours des hommes prêts à aider une fille à se sentir moins seule. Ils disaient "Salut ! bébé", quand vous passiez dans la rue. Quand vous ne vous retourniez pas pour les regarder, ils ricanaient: "Coincée, hein ?"
Je ne leur ai jamais répondu. Parfois, je me sentais désolée pour eux. Ils semblaient aussi seuls que moi. Ces loups solitaires du coin de la rue à beugler "Salut bébé" me résonnait comme des voix du passé m'appelant à être à nouveau Madame Personne.
Un soir, j'ai rencontré un homme dans un restaurant. "Cette ville a certainement beaucoup changé au cours des 40 dernières années", a-t-il déclaré. "Avant, il y avait des Indiens là où nous sommes."
"Est-ce que vous habitiez ici il y a 40 ans ?", lui ai-je demandé.
"Oui, m'dame", dit-il. "Quel âge pensez-vous que j'ai ?"
"Environ 60", dis-je.
"Soixante-dix-sept ans à mon dernier anniversaire", me corrigea-t-il. "Mon nom est Bill Cox. Vous allez quelque part ?"
J'ai dit que non.
"Pourquoi ne pas venir chez moi et madame ?" dit-il. "On vit juste à côté d'ici. Je lui ramène un sandwich."
Je suis devenue amie avec Bill Cox et sa femme. Nous nous promenions tous les trois dans les rues parfois le soir.
Il parlait principalement de la guerre hispano-américaine, dans laquelle il avait été soldat, et d'Abraham Lincoln. Ces deux sujets l'excitaient beaucoup.
Je n'avais jamais entendu parler de la guerre hispano-américaine. Je devais être absente de l'école la semaine où on l'a étudié en cours d'Histoire. En marchant avec Bill Cox dans les rues éclairées d'Hollywood et en écoutant les histoires sur la guerre hispano-américaine et Abraham Lincoln, je ne me sentais pas seule et les loups des trottoirs ne m'accostaient plus par "Salut bébé".
Un soir, Bill Cox m'a dit qu'il retournait au Texas.
"Je suis malade", m'a-t-il dit, "et je détesterais l'idée de mourir ailleurs qu'au Texas."
Il m'a envoyé quelques lettres du Texas. Je lui répondais. Puis une lettre est parvenue, écrite par sa femme, disant que Bill Cox était mort dans une maison retraite pour soldats au Texas. J'ai lu la lettre dans le restaurant où je l'avais rencontré et je suis rentrée chez moi en pleurant. Les rues d'Hollywood semblaient plus vides que jamais sans Bill Cox, sa guerre préférée, et Abraham Lincoln.
VOUS êtes assise seule. Il fait nuit dehors. Les voitures roulent sur Sunset Boulevard comme un chapelet interminable de scarabées. Leurs pneus en caoutchouc émettent un ronronnement distingué. Vous avez faim et vous vous dîtes "C'est bon pour ma ligne de ne pas manger. Il n'y a rien de plus beau qu'un ventre plat." Et vous récitez votre leçon de diction à voix haute :
"Ariane s'est levée de son canapé parmi les neiges des montagnes d'Akrakaronian." Suivi de "Salut à toi, esprit joyeux, oiseau que tu n'as jamais été."
Les cours sont à un dollar. Pour un dollar, vous pourriez vous acheter une paire de bas et un hamburger, mais qui ne fera jamais de vous une actrice. Les cours de diction le peuvent. Ainsi, avec les jambes nues et l'estomac vide, vous frappez les consonnes de "Salut à toi, esprit joyeux".
J'avais l'habitude de penser en observant dehors la nuit à Hollywood: "Il doit y avoir des milliers de filles assises seules comme moi qui rêvent de devenir une star de cinéma. Mais je ne vais pas m'inquiéter pour elles. Je suis celle qui en rêve le plus fort."
Vous n'avez pas besoin de savoir quoi que ce soit pour rêver si hardemment. Je ne connaissais rien au métier d'acteur. Je n'avais jamais lu un livre à ce sujet, ni essayé de le faire, ni discuté avec qui que ce soit. J'avais honte de dire aux quelques personnes que je connaissais ce dont je rêvais. Je disais que j'espérais gagner ma vie en tant que mannequin. J'ai fait appel à toutes les agences de mannequins et je trouvais du travail ici et là.
Mais il y avait ce secret en moi: jouer la comédie. C'était comme être en prison et regarder une porte qui disait "Sortie".
Jouer était comme de l'or et c'était beau. C'était comme les vives couleurs que Norma Jean avait l'habitude de voir dans ses rêveries. Ce n'était pas un art. C'était comme un jeu qui vous permettait de sortir du monde ennuyeux que vous connaissiez pour vous projeter dans des mondes si brillants qu'ils faisaient bondir votre cœur rien que d'y penser.
Quand j'avais huit ans, je regardais par la fenêtre de l'orphelinat la nuit et je voyais un grand panneau lumineux sur lequel était écrit : "R.K.O. Radio Pictures". J'ai détesté ce panneau. Cela m'a rappelé l'odeur de la colle. Ma mère m'avait amené une fois au studio où elle travaillait. L'odeur de la pellicule mouillée qu'elle découpait et collait s'était impregnée dans mes narines.
C'était les narines de Norma Jean. Norma Dougherty, elle, l'actrice en herbe, n'avait pas un tel ressenti envers l'enseigne du studio. Pour elle, ils représentaient des projecteurs menant à une terre promise - la terre d'Ingrid Bergman, de Claudette Colbert, de Joan Crawford, de Bette Davis, d'Olivia De Havilland, de Gene Tierney, de Jennifer Jones.
C'était comme ça quand je m'asseyais seule dans ma chambre à Hollywood. Je m'endormais affamée et je me réveillais affamée. Et je pensais que tous les acteurs et actrices étaient des génies assis devant la porte de ce paradis: le cinéma.
À suivre
La semaine prochaine
. Marilyn Monroe parle d'un Hollywood qu'on ne voit pas à l'écran - "le Hollywood de l'échec... où nous étions la plus jolie tribu de mendiants qui n'ait jamais envahi une ville... et autour de nous se trouvaient les loups".
pour info
Il s'agit ici de la publication dans la presse (et du vivant de Marilyn) de ce qui restera considéré comme son "autobiographie" débutée mais jamais achevée, le fruit d'une collaboration émaillée d'entretiens avec le journaliste Ben Hecht au début de l'année 1954 et publiée dans un livre intitulé (comme cet article) "My Story" en 1974 et publié en France en 2011 sous le titre de "Confession inachevée".
This is here the publication in the press (and during Marilyn's lifetime) of what will remain considered as her "autobiography" started but never completed, the result of a collaboration punctuated by several interviews with the journalist Ben Hecht at the early of the year 1954 and published in a book entitled (like this article) "My Story" in 1974 and published in France in 2011 under the title of "Confession inachevée".
- Blog: 19/01/1955, The Australian Women's Weekly: "This is my story" (part 2) -
- Blog: 19/01/1955, The Australian Women's Weekly: "This is my story" (part 3) -
© All images are copyright and protected by their respective owners, assignees or others.
copyright text by GinieLand.
Sur le tournage de Let's Make Love 6
Le Milliardaire
Sur le tournage
Pendant la scène
During the shooting scene
- George Cukor, Marilyn Monroe & Arthur Miller - 
- Marilyn Monroe & Yves Montand -
Sur le plateau
On the set
- Marilyn Monroe & boy scout -
(remise d'une médaille ? / awarded with a medal ?)
- Alan Whitey Snyder, Marilyn Monroe & des personnes de l'équipe du film -
Alan Whitey Snyder, Marilyn & members of the crew of the movie 
Dans la loge
In her dressing-room
- photographies: Lawrence Schiller -
- Marilyn Monroe & Yves Montand - 
- photographies: Robert Vose -
© All images are copyright and protected by their respective owners, assignees or others.
copyright text by GinieLand.
1961 Instantanés de Maf
Instantanés de Maf, le (dernier) chien de Marilyn, pris dans son appartement de New York, en 1961. Photographies probablement prises par Marilyn Monroe.
Snapshots of Maf, the (last) Marilyn's dog, taken in her New York's apartment, in 1961. Photographs probably taken by Marilyn Monroe.
© All images are copyright and protected by their respective owners, assignees or others.
copyright text by GinieLand.
Octobre 1958 Les perruches de Marilyn & Arthur
Photographies des perruches de Marilyn Monroe et Arthur Miller: Bobo, Butch, Clyde et Josua (nom incertain), prises en octobre 1958 par Marilyn Monroe.
Photographs of the pet parakeets of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller: Bobo, Butch, Clyde and Josue (not sure by the name), taken in October 1958 by Marilyn Monroe.
© All images are copyright and protected by their respective owners, assignees or others.
copyright text by GinieLand.
Marilyn Monroe Auction - 11/2016 - photos 1 -snapshots
Photographies - Instantanés en public & privé
Photographs - Public & Private Snapshots
Lot 197: MARILYN MONROE AND ELI WALLACH SNAPSHOTS
Three vintage black and white glossy photographs of Monroe, two with Eli Wallach, at a party in the late 1950s. Two images have creases from being folded, and one has distortion in the emulsion of the photo paper.
3 1/4 by 4 1/4 inches
Estimate: $700 - $900 
Lot 209: MARILYN MONROE PHOTOGRAPHS OF JOE DIMAGGIO
A group of 17color snapshots likely taken by Monroe while relaxing in Canada with Joe DiMaggio during filming of River of No Return in 1953. Six images feature DiMaggio on a boat and against scenic backdrops. Four images feature an elk; six feature scenic views. Two images feature Jean Negulesco, who was uncredited for his work on the film.
3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500 
Lot 267: MARILYN MONROE OWNED PHOTOGRAPHS OF ARTHUR MILLER
Five images of the famous American author and then husband of Monroe: a vintage candid photo of Miller as a young man, a photograph of Miller playing baseball, two smaller photographs of Miller by David Gahr with photographer's stamp on verso, and a snapshot of Monroe and Miller as they attended a ceremony to receive the American Friends of the Hebrew University award in Philadelphia September 27, 1959.
Largest, 8 by 10 inches
Estimate: $400 - $600 
Lot 315: MARILYN MONROE SNAPSHOTS
Three vintage black and white glossy photographs of Monroe playing badminton with Hedda and Norman Rosten in Amagansett, New York, 1955.
3 1/2 by 5 inches
Estimate: $600 - $800 
Lot 317: MARILYN MONROE PARAKEET PHOTOGRAPHS
Four color snapshots of pet parakeets including Butch, a pet parakeet kept by Monroe and Arthur Miller. The images are stamped with a date of October 1958. Additional birds named Bobo, Clyde, and another illegibly named in the margin are visible in the photographs.
3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
Estimate: $300 - $500 
Lot 496: PHOTOGRAPH OF MARILYN MONROE WITH MAF
A small trimmed color photograph of Monroe holding Maf, her poodle, with super fan and friend of Monroe James Haspiel taken in June 1961. The photograph was printed subsequently in December of the same year.
2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
Estimate: $300 - $500 
Lot 498: MARILYN MONROE PHOTOGRAPHS OF MAF
Two small color snapshots of Monroe's pet Maltese Maf, short for Mafia, a gift from Frank Sinatra.
3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
Estimate: $400 - $600 
Lot 572: MARILYN MONROE INCOGNITO SNAPSHOT
A small color snapshot of Monroe wearing a brunette wig and scarf around her head in disguise. A number of stories have been told regarding Monroe dressing in a brunette wig and going out to bars to see how men responded to her when she wasn't "being" Marilyn. This image documents Monroe as she appeared in a brunette disguise.
3 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches
Estimate: $800 - $1,200 
Lot 587: MARILYN MONROE PHOTOGRAPHS OF FIFTH HELENA DRIVE PROPERTY
A group of four vintage black and white photographs, most likely of the kitchen and laundry room of the guest house at Monroe's Fifth Helena Drive property prior to her renovations and decorating.
8 by 10 inches
Estimate: $300 - $500 
Lot 627: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of three original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1953. In the photographs, Monroe wears her costume from the thriller Niagara (20th Century, 1953). One image is marked on verso "Leaving the El Capitan Theater."
Largest, 5 by 4 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $200 - $400 
Lot 633: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of four original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1953, with "La Rue Restaurant" inscribed on verso of three of the images. Some photographs from this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $300 - $500 
Lot 635: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of four original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1953. One photograph is marked on verso "In front of the Mocambo,” and two are marked "Mocambo Club." All are likely never before seen images of Monroe.
Largest, 3 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $300 - $500 
Lot 643: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of seven original color and black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken on September 9, 1954, the same day she was interviewed by Ed Wallace at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. This lot contains three color and four black and white photographs.
Largest, 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $600 - $800 
Lot 644: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDES
A group of three color slides of Marilyn Monroe from September 9, 1954, the day she was interviewed by Ed Wallace at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $200 - $400 
Lot 645: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPH
An original black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe taken with a young fan, likely in New York City, circa 1954.
5 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $200 - $300 
Lot 650: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of five original color and black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe in New York City from September 12, 1954, one of which includes superfan James Haspiel. Monroe had arrived days earlier to film The Seven Year Itch (20th Century, 1955). This lot includes one color photograph and four black and white photographs, some possibly never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 7 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $400 - $600 
Lot 656: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPH
An original color photograph of Marilyn Monroe taken on November 6, 1954, at a party thrown for Monroe at Romanoff’s restaurant in Beverly Hills to mark the end of shooting for The Seven Year Itch (20th Century, 1955).
3 3/4 by 2 1/4 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $200 
Lot 658: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of eight original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken on various occasions, circa 1955. Most images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $700 - $900 
Lot 659: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A pair of original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1955. One photograph shows Monroe leaving the Gladstone Hotel in New York City; the other shows her with husband Joe DiMaggio in the background. Both images are possibly never before seen.
Larger, 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $300 
Lot 660: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of 15 original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1955, taken in front of the Gladstone Hotel in New York City. Some images show her with her press agent Jay Kantor. Several images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 7 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $1,400 - $1,600 
Lot 661: MARILYN MONROE SIGNED SNAPSHOT
A black and white snapshot of Marilyn Monroe driving a car and posing through the driver's side window taken in the mid-1950s. The image is signed in blue ballpoint pen "Marilyn Monroe." The autograph was obtained by Frieda Hull, one of the "Monroe Six," a group of legendary fans with whom Monroe became friendly.
3 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $2,000 - $3,000 
Lot 662: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of six original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken at a party she attended with friend and Hollywood reporter Sidney Skolsky. Some photographs from this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $500 - $700 
Lot 666: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A pair of original Marilyn Monroe color photographs that show Monroe seated in the backseat of a vehicle, circa January 1955.
3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $200 - $400 
Lot 668: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of nine original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe; one reads "1/55" on verso, believed to have been taken on January 26, 1955, at the Gladstone Hotel.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $900 - $1,100 
Lot 671: MARILYN MONROE COLOR PHOTOGRAPH
An original color photograph of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1955, from when she attended Skin of Our Teeth at the ANTA Theatre in New York City. "Skin Of Our Teeth/Anta Theatre" is written in pencil on verso. This play, written by Thornton Wilder, opened in New York on August 17, 1955, and starred Helen Hayes, George Abbott, Mary Martin, and Florence Reed. The director was Alan Schneider.
5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $200 
Lot 672: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPH
An original black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe, possibly taken on September 7, 1955, when she was going to a birthday party for Elia Kazan that had been organized by the Actors Studio. This is likely a never before seen photograph of Monroe.
5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $200 
Lot 673: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDE
A color slide of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1955, showing her in the driver's seat of a convertible wearing sunglasses. It is a candid image of Monroe "caught in the moment."
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $200 
Lot 674: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDES
A group of five slides of Marilyn Monroe, from various events, circa 1955.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $400 - $600 
Lot 675: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of nine color original photographs of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1955. Monroe is shown smiling and laughing and signing autographs for fans. Several images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $800 - $1,000 
Lot 677: MARILYN MONROE SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH
A black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe in New York City circa 1955 wearing a black gown, white fur and white evening gloves. The photo is signed in blue ink "Marilyn Monroe." The autograph was obtained by Frieda Hull, one of the "Monroe Six," a group of legendary fans with whom Monroe became friendly.
7 by 5 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $2,000 - $3,000 
Lot 678: MARILYN MONROE SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH
A black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe in New York City circa 1955 wearing a black gown and white fur. The photo is signed in blue ink "Marilyn Monroe." The autograph was obtained by Frieda Hull, one of the "Monroe Six," a group of legendary fans with whom Monroe became friendly.
7 by 5 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $1,500 - $2,000 
Lot 679: MARILYN MONROE SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH
A black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe in New York City circa 1955 wearing a black gown, white fur and black evening gloves, signed in blue ink "Marilyn Monroe." The autograph was obtained by Frieda Hull, one of the "Monroe Six," a group of legendary fans with whom Monroe became friendly.
7 by 5 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $2,000 - $3,000 
Lot 680: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDE
A color slide showing Marilyn Monroe in New York City, circa 1955, signing autographs for fans.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $200 
Lot 681: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDES
A group of five slides of Marilyn Monroe, from various events, circa 1955.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $400 - $600 
Lot 682: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of nine original color photographs of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1955, likely taken in front of the Gladstone Hotel in New York City. Some images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 3 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $800 - $1,000 
Lot 683: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of five original color and black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken on February 26, 1955, when she attended Jackie Gleason's birthday party with husband Joe DiMaggio. This lot contains four black and white photographs and one color photograph. Some images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $400 - $600 
Lot 684: MARILYN MONROE SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH
A black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe taken on February 26, 1955, when she attended Jackie Gleason’s birthday party with husband Joe DiMaggio. The photo is signed in blue ink “Marilyn Monroe.” The autograph was obtained by Frieda Hull, one of the “Monroe Six,” a group of legendary fans with whom Monroe became friendly.
7 by 5 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $2,000 - $3,000 
Lot 685: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of four original color photographs of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1955, from an unidentified event. One image shows Monroe with friend, photographer, and business partner Milton Greene. Some images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $500 - $600 
Lot 690: MARILYN MONROE SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH
A black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe in New York City circa 1955 smiling while signing an autograph for a fan. The photo is signed in ballpoint pen "To Frieda, Love & Kisses Marilyn Monroe." The image is signed to Frieda Hull, one of the "Monroe Six," a group of legendary fans with whom Monroe became friendly. The corners of the photo are trimmed, and there is a crease on the right side of the photograph.
7 by 5 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $2,000 - $3,000 
Lot 694: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDES
A group of four slides, three showing Marilyn Monroe and one showing Arthur Miller, at various events, circa 1955.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $300 - $500 
Lot 695: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDES
A group of four slides of Marilyn Monroe, from various events, circa 1955.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $300 - $500 
Lot 698: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of five original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe believed to have been taken in April 1955. A very casual Monroe is seen interacting with and signing autographs for fans.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $400 - $600 
Lot 699: MARILYN MONROE SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH
A black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe in New York City circa 1955 wearing a black gown, white fur and black evening gloves, signed in blue ink "Marilyn Monroe." The autograph was obtained by Frieda Hull, one of the "Monroe Six," a group of legendary fans with whom Monroe became friendly.
7 by 5 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $2,000 - $3,000 
Lot 700: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of four original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe from June 1955, taken when she was returning home following an acting lesson with Lee Strasberg.
Largest, 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $300 - $500 
Lot 701: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A pair of original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken on July 27, 1955, when she was on her way to see Inherit the Wind on Broadway in New York City.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $300 
Lot 702: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of three original color photographs of Marilyn Monroe in New York City taken on June 7, 1955, when she was on her way to see Damn Yankees on Broadway. One photo includes Nathan Puckett, president of one of Monroe's fan clubs, in the background.
Largest, 2 3/4 by 1 3/4 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $200 - $400 
Lot 705: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDES
A group of nine slides of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1955. Monroe is shown smiling and laughing and signing autographs for fans. Several slides in this lot are likely never before seen.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $800 - $1,200 
Lot 707: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDES
A group of 10 slides of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1955, from in front of the Gladstone Hotel in New York City. Some images show her with her press agent Jay Kantor and friend, photographer, and business partner Milton Greene. Some slides in this lot are likely never before seen.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $900 - $1,100 
Lot 709: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of five original color and black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken on various occasions, circa 1955. This lot contains one color and four black and white images. Some images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $400 - $600 
Lot 710: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of nine original color photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken on various occasions, circa 1955. Some images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 3 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $800 - $1,000 
Lot 715: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of three original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken circa 1955 on a New York City street. Monroe superfan James Haspiel can be partially seen in one of the photographs.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $300 - $500 
Lot 716: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of seven original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken in New York City, circa 1955. Some images show friend, photographer, and business partner Milton Greene. Some images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $600 - $800 
Lot 717: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of 10 original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe, circa 1955. Monroe is shown smiling and laughing and signing autographs for fans. Several images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $900 - $1,100 
Lot 725: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A pair of original color photographs of Marilyn Monroe and husband Arthur Miller walking their basset hound Hugo and entering their apartment located at 444 East 57th Street in New York City. These images are likely never before seen.
Larger, 2 1/2 by 2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $300 
Lot 733: MARILYN MONROE PHOTOGRAPHS COLLECTED BY FRIEDA HULL
A collection of 23 color and black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe by multiple photographers (including Milton Greene and Andre de Dienes), taken at various locations and events throughout Monroe's career, including on the set of Bus Stop (20th Century, 1956) and meeting Princess Margaret in England. Many images in this lot have stamps on the reverse from various news agencies/outlets.
Largest, 8 by 10 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500 
Lot 770: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of five original black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe, taken as she exited the Actors Studio in New York City, circa 1960. Several images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $400 - $600 
Lot 771: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDES
A group of six slides of Marilyn Monroe, from July 8, 1960, after she had completed costume and hair tests for The Misfits (United Artists, 1961).
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $500 - $700 
Lot 772: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID AND CONTACT SHEET PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of 12 color and black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken on July 8, 1960, when she completed costume and hair tests for The Misfits (United Artists, 1961). Five sepia-toned photographs of Monroe show her posing for the cameras following the test, and six photographs appear to be shots of the costume and makeup tests, four having been cut from actual contact sheets, two are reproduction photographs. Some images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 4 1/2 by 3 1/4 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $800 - $1,000 
Lot 776: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDE
A color slide of Marilyn Monroe, from January 21, 1961, when she returned from Mexico, where she divorced third husband Arthur Miller. This slide is likely never before seen.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $200 
Lot 777: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A pair of original photographs and one copied color photograph of Marilyn Monroe taken on January 21, 1961, after returning from Mexico, where she divorced her third husband, Arthur Miller. One image is likely never before seen.
Larger, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $300 
Lot 778: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of four original color photographs and one copied color photograph of Marilyn Monroe taken on January 20, 1961, when Monroe left New York City to travel to Mexico to divorce third husband Arthur Miller. Some images in this lot are likely never before seen.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/4 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $300 - $500 
Lot 781: MARILYN MONROE JOE DIMAGGIO NEGATIVES
A set of 16 negatives of Joe DiMaggio vacationing in Florida, most likely on March 22, 1961. Five of the negatives show DiMaggio inside the hotel, and the remaining 11 show him on the beach under a sun cover; some shots are of DiMaggio with fans. Marilyn Monroe accompanied DiMaggio on this trip and was actually on the beach with him at some point this same day, though she's not pictured in these negatives.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $200 - $400 
Lot 782: MARILYN MONROE COLOR SLIDES
A pair of color slides of Marilyn Monroe with her dog Maf, one with superfan James Haspiel, from June 15, 1961, upon Monroe's arrival in New York from Los Angeles. The slide of Monroe with Maf is likely never before seen.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $100 - $300 
Lot 783: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A pair of original color photographs of Marilyn Monroe with her dog Maf, one with superfan James Haspiel, taken on June 15, 1961, upon Monroe's arrival in New York from Los Angeles. The photo of Monroe with Maf is likely never before seen.
Larger, 3 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $300 - $400 
Lot 788: MARILYN MONROE ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS COLLECTED BY FRIEDA HULL
A group of 27 original color and black and white candid Marilyn Monroe related photographs. Monroe is shown in nearly all photograps, which were taken at various times and events throughout her career. One image shows her with superfan James Haspiel and members of the "Monroe Six," and another shows her with third husband Arthur Miller at an airport. Three photographs are on the set of Bus Stop (20th Century, 1956). Many of the candid photographs show Monroe "caught in the moment." Some images are likely never before seen. One photograph in this lot is of Miller only. One photograph shows a woman, perhaps Frieda Hull herself, standing near a cutout of Monroe from the subway grate scene in the Seven Year Itch (20th Century, 1955). One photograph shows a theater marquee displaying titles of two Monroe films, Bus Stop and Let's Make Love, possibly being screened after Monroe's death as the photograph is dated September 1962. One photograph shows a member of the "Monroe Six" with an array of cameras and equipment.
Largest, 5 by 3 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500 
Lot 902: MARILYN MONROE SIGNED AND INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH
A black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe leaning against a tree. Inscribed "Dear Linda, I wish you luck with your acting. Love and kisses, Marilyn Monroe Miller." This inscription was written for child star Linda Bennett.
23 by 19 inches, overall; 10 1/2 by 8 inches, sight
Estimate: $3,000 - $5,000 
Lot 941: MARILYN MONROE CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of eight vintage black and white candid photographs of Marilyn Monroe contained in a small paper album. Accompanied by a small candid color photograph of Monroe with Lois Weber. The photographs are believed to be previously unpublished.
Album, 3 3/4 by 6 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Lois Weber
Estimate: $800 - $1,200 
Lot 942: MARILYN MONROE SMALL-FORMAT PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of 14 small vintage black and white images of Marilyn Monroe. Many of the photographs are candid and date from different points in her career.
Largest, 3 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Lois Weber
Estimate: $800 - $1,200 
Lot 943: MARILYN MONROE CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS
A group of seven vintage black and white candid photographs of Marilyn Monroe. Three were taken on the set behind the scenes of Bus Stop (20th Century, 1956).
Largest, 3 1/4 by 4 3/4 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Lois Weber
Estimate: $600 - $800 
Bobines films & Matériel photographique
Home Movies & Photographic Equipment
Lot 76: MARILYN MONROE JOHN F. KENNEDY 1962 BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FILM REEL
An 8mm film reel of clips from the May 19, 1962, John F. Kennedy 45th birthday celebration held at Madison Square Garden. The eight-minute film shows clips of the venue, performers, and attendees, including John F. Kennedy; Marilyn Monroe, who appears for approximately 30 seconds; Robert Kennedy; Maria Callas; Henry Fonda; Jack Benny; Peter Lawford, who hosted the event; and Lyndon B. Johnson among others. The film was transferred from its original tin reel to a plastic reel. Accompanied by a DVD of the footage.
Reel, 5 3/4 inches
PROVENANCE Lot 41, "Entertainment Memorabilia," Christie's, New York, Sale number 1391, June 24, 2004
Estimate: $4,000 - $6,000 
Lot 248: MARILYN MONROE IN KOREA FILM
An 8mm film reel containing five minutes and 34 seconds of silent film footage, in both black and white and color, of Monroe in Korea in 1954. The first minute and a half features Monroe arriving to camp via helicopter and being escorted by various military personnel. The footage then shifts to color and shows approximately one minute of footage of some of the performers leading up to Monroe. Monroe appears for another minute of footage performing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" and then signing autographs for the crowd. The remaining footage features atmospheric shots of the camp and soldiers. The footage has been transferred to a DVD that is included with this lot.
Estimate: $2,000 - $3,000 
Lot 696: MARILYN MONROE FRIEDA HULL'S PERSONAL SLIDE INDEX AND VIEWER
A 1950s era Fodeco photography slide index and viewer, manufactured by Technical Devices Corporation, that originally belonged to Frieda Hull.
10 1/2 by 5 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $500 - $700 
Lot 697: MARILYN MONROE FRIEDA HULL 35MM CAMERA
A Mercury II, model CX, serial no. 164404, with Universal 2.7 Tricor lens and original leather case. Together with an external flash and reflector, unrelated lens hood and telephoto lens accessory. Frieda Hull can be seen using this camera in lot 726.
Largest, 4 1/4 by 6 1/4 inches
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $200 - $300 
Lot 727: MARILYN MONROE HOME MOVIE REEL
A vintage home movie reel featuring Marilyn Monroe at multiple locations. June 29, 1956, Monroe, soon-to-be husband Arthur Miller, and Miller's parents are seen at a press conference at Miller's farm in Roxbury, Connecticut. Monroe and Miller were married later this day. This scene from the film is approximately 23 seconds. Note that parts of this scene are repeated at the end of the film. Various footage from 1956 shows Monroe at airports traveling to and from Los Angeles to film Bus Stop (20th Century, 1956). These scenes from the film are approximately 40 seconds in length. Total length: one minute, 37 seconds.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $3,000 - $4,000 
Lot 769: MARILYN MONROE JAMES HASPIEL HOME MOVIE REEL
A vintage home movie reel in the original box addressed to James Haspiel, featuring Marilyn Monroe at multiple locations. May 30, 1958, Monroe is seen leaving her 444 East 57th Street apartment in New York City. She carries a large bouquet of flowers as she, husband Arthur Miller, and others pack luggage into a station wagon and then depart. Just three days prior, Monroe was photographed by Richard Avedon for Life magazine. This scene from the film is approximately one minute, two seconds and likely never before publicly seen. May 13, 1959, Monroe and Miller are seen arriving at the Italian Consulate on Park Avenue in New York City, where Monroe received the David di Donatello Award, the equivalent of the Academy Award, for her work in The Prince and the Showgirl (Warner Bros., 1957). This film includes extensive coverage of Monroe inside the Consulate and waving to fans from an upper floor window in the building. This scene from the film is approximately one minute, 22 seconds. July 8, 1961, Monroe is seen posing after having just completed hair and costume tests for The Misfits (United Artists, 1961). Haspiel appears with Monroe in part of this footage. This scene from the film is approximately 38 seconds. Total length: three minutes, three seconds.
PROVENANCE From the Estate of Frieda Hull
Estimate: $4,000 - $6,000 
Kelli Garner films Marilyn Monroe Lifetime mini series
That's one lucky bird! Bombshell Kelli Garner saves pigeon from captivity as she films Marilyn Monroe Lifetime mini series
By Mailonline Reporter
Published: 18 December 2014
online on dailymail.co.uk/
Her new Lifetime TV mini series shows a more personal side of the icon and legend that is Marilyn Monroe.
And on Wednesday Kelli Garner showcased Marilyn's soft spot for little creatures as she filmed a touching scene in Toronto, Canada.
Kelli, 30, was spotted reenacting a real life anecdote from the biography The Secret Life Of Marilyn Monroe, where the Hollywood actress saved some pigeons from captivity in New York's Central Park. Kelli appeared demure during the outdoorsy scene, bundled up in a thick tan trench coat and blue head scarf.
She donned an all-black ensemble beneath her coat consisting of a blouse, loose-fitted trousers, and pumps.
Finishing off her look, The Aviator star sported dark brown leather gloves and black sunglasses, and of course wasn't without Marilyn's signature platinum locks and beauty mark.
The four-hour project is based on J. Randy Taraborrelli's bestseller, The Secret Life Of Marilyn Monroe, and explores the late star's family life and how she succeeded in hiding from an all-too-invasive world.
And Wednesday's scene appeared to be based off a snippet of the book in which the author retells an anecdote by James Haspiel - taking place on a night Marilyn went for an evening walk while living on East 57th street in New York City. The buxom blonde stopped to watch a couple teenage boys use long netted poles to catch pigeons and put them in a cage. The young lads had said they planned on bringing the birds to the market, where they were worth 25 cents a piece.
'Well, if I sit on this bench and wait until you're done, and I pay you for the pigeons, will you then free them ?' Marilyn offered.
The boys obliged and the iconic star did indeed pay them, as promised, for each freed pigeon.
Kelli joins Susan Sarandon, who has been cast as Marilyn's mentally ill mother, Gladys.
The Hollywood icon was just 36 when she was found dead in the bedroom of her home in the upscale Los Angeles neighbourhood of Brentwood on August 5, 1962. The Some Like It Hot star's death was ruled as suicide due to barbiturate poisoning at the time.
But it has become one of the most hotly debated conspiracy theories with many believing Marilyn was murdered because of her links to President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.
In October, Lifetime said of the series: 'Marilyn is both the personification of sex, whose first marriage ironically collapses because of her frigidity, and a fragile artist who seeks the approval and protection of men. 'But after tumultuous marriages with (baseball star) Joe DiMaggio and (playwright) Arthur Miller, she realizes she has the strength to stand on her own. She becomes the face and voice of an era, yet wants most of all to be someone's mother and someone's little girl. She's the Marilyn you haven't seen before, the artist who, by masking the truth with an image, gives her greatest performance.'
Kelli, who broke up with her Big Bang Theory boyfriend Johnny Galecki in August (they had been together for two years) joins a long list of actresses who have played the tragic film star on TV. These include Megan Hilty, Uma Thurman, Katharine McPhee, Charlotte Sullivan, Suzie Kennedy and Constance Forslund.
