MARILYN

Norma Jeane Baker / Marilyn Monroe ( June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962 )

"It's Marilyn Monroe's birthday and I have long been fascinated by her. She was not the characters she portrayed and men who thought they might control her were in for a shock or at least a rude awakening. All her relationships might be considered failures largely down to the men who thought she could be controlled. She was no dumb blonde and when she finally earned enough she enrolled at the Actor's Studio, the then greatest serious acting classes on the planet. She married amongst others, the greatest American playwright intellectual of the day in Arthur Miller and when she could afford it, started her own company who's first act was to caste the then greatest living actor Sir Laurence Olivier to act opposite. Her greatest sadness perhaps was that she didn't or couldn't have children and she suffered at least four miscarriages that we know of. Adored almost universally, women liked her too and were surprised at her sisterly and genuine approach to other's who many women of the time might consider a threat. She also pioneered racial equality and was friends with many people of colour which was largely hushed up or ignored at the time for it was frowned upon still. She encouraged the career of Ella Fitzgerald with whom she was friends and helped break the music colour bar getting her work in a previously whites only Jazz club. She is worth remembering with respect and some might argue she was a comic genius."

“She was an absolute genius as a comedic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comedic dialogue. It was a God-given gift. Believe me, in the last fifteen years there were ten projects that came to me, and I’d start working on them and I’d think, ‘It’s not going to work, it needs Marilyn Monroe.’ Nobody else is in that orbit; everyone else is earthbound by comparison.”

Billy Wilder

"She sure registered on that screen. The minute the camera turned on her she became this incredible creature, and she was absolutely dazzling. She was-there’s no question about that. During our scenes she’d look at my forehead instead of my eyes. At the end of a take, she’d look to her coach for approval. If the headshake was no, she’d insist on another take. A scene often went to fifteen or more takes. Despite this I couldn’t dislike Marilyn. She had no meanness in her- no bitchery. She just had to concentrate on herself and the people who were there only for her… Fifty years on, we’re still watching her movies and talking about her. That’s not a dumb woman- trust me. “ —Lauren Bacall

“Her searches after knowledge were arbitrary and without context. It was as if she were shining a small flashlight of curiosity into the dark room of the world.” ― Gloria Steinem

”Marilyn is a dreamy girl. She’s the kind who’s liable to show up with one red shoe and one black shoe. “ —Jane Russell 

”She’d come out of our apartment in a shleppy old coat, looking like my maid, and all the people would push her aside to get my autograph. She loved it.”— Shelley Winters

“She returns to us as the camera’s gift, the treasure of remembrance. She returns in echoes of dark and light, in a truth only the image can yield, the shutter’s eye which sees and tells. The image of Marilyn haunts and flowers from generation to generation. There are not many of her kind. She was born to film, that illusion transforming life into the reality of art.” —Sam Shaw

She seemed to have a kind of unconscious glow about her physical self that was innocent, like a child. When she posed nude, it was ‘Gee, I arn kind of, you know, sort of dishy,’ like she enjoyed it without being egotistical.” —Elizabeth Taylor

”She’s scared and unsure of herself. I found myself wishing that I were a psychoanalyst and she were my patient. It might be that I couldn’t have helped her, but she would have looked lovelv on a couch. “ Billy Wilder

”When you look at Marilyn on the screen, you don’t want anything bad to happen to her. You really care that she should be all right…happy.” —Natalie Wood

”I never worked with Marilyn Monroe, but if she’d lived, I think she would have been all right. She would have been President of the United States. “ —Walter Matthau

”She was not the usual movie idol. There was something democratic about her. She was the type who would join in and wash up the supper dishes even if you didn’t ask her.” —Carl Sandburg

”Marilyn was an incredible person to act with…the most marvelous I ever worked with, and I have been working for 29 years.” —Montgomery Clift

”When she’s there, she’s there. All of her is there! She’s there to work. “—Clark Gable

”Still she hangs like a bat in the heads of the men who met her, and none of us will ever forget her. “— Sammy Davis, Jr. 

”Marilyn’s need to be desired was so great that she could make love to a camera. Because of this, her lust aroused lust in audiences, sometimes even among women. There was nothing subtle about it. She was no tease. She was prepared, and even eager, to give what she offered. “ —William Manchester

”Do you remember when Marilyn Monroe died? Everybody stopped work, and you could see all that day the same expressions on their faces, the same thought: ‘How can a girl with success, fame, youth, money, beauty … how could she kill herself?’ Nobody could understand it because those are the things that everybody wants, and they can’t believe that life wasn’t important to Marilyn Monroe, or that her life was elsewhere. “ —Marlon Brando

”It may sound peculiar to say so, because she is no longer with us, but we were very close. Once when we were doing that picture together, I got a call on the set: my younger daughter had had a fall. I ran home and the one person to call was Marilyn. She did an awful lot to boost things up for movies when everything was at a low state; there’ll never be anyone like her for looks, for attitude, for all of it. “— Betty Grable

"I was determined, no one was going to use me or my body—even if he could help my career. I’ve never gone out with a man I didn’t want to. No one, not even the studio, could force me to date someone. The one thing I hate more than anything else is being used. I’ve always worked hard for the sake of someday becoming a talented actress. I knew I would make it someday if I only kept at it and worked hard without lowering my principles and pride in myself.”

"Please quote me right."

"Those people that have been writing all those lies about me. All I know, it’s their problem. Those people, I don’t even know [them], or if we have met, it’s been brief. Can I take it? Are you kidding? I’m used to it, and remember the old saying: Consider the source.”

“Remember there is nothing you lack, nothing to be self conscious about yourself. You have everything but the discipline and technique which you are learning and seeking on your own - after all nothing was or is being given to you, you have had none of this work thrown your way. You sought it, it didn’t seek you.”

"I want to be an actress with integrity. As I said once before, I don’t care about the money. I just want to be wonderful."

"What the world really needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, labourers, Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers."

“Too often they don’t realize what they have until it’s gone. 

…they’re too stubborn to say, ‘Sorry, I was wrong’ 

they hurt the ones closest to their hearts, 

and we let the most foolish things tear us apart” 

— Marilyn Monroe 

Marilyn Monroe