Marilyn Monroe A Composite View
Edited by Edward Wagenknecht
Hardcover
Publisher: Philadelphia Chilton Book Co (1969)
Language: English
ASIN: B000EN81QS
This book was published seven years after Marilyn’s death and brings together a collection of works taken from magazines and biographies written by people who knew her that had been published in her lifetime and as tributes in the months and years after her death.
Every now and then the discussion comes up when a photo appears of Marilyn Monroe with a cigarette. It seems to be a subject of much confusion and debate: did she or did she not smoke?
Some believe Marilyn was a social smoker, others that she smoked only for photographs or roles, and others believe she was a semi-regular smoker throughout much of her adult life. What’s the truth? Well, it can be gleaned by an examination of photos and a look at the times.
If you are one of the few people who hasn’t seen Mad Men, in the 1950s and into the 1960s, everyone smoked. Well, perhaps not everyone, but it was really, really common. Not only was it not known just how dangerous smoking was, it was actually endorsed by doctors.
Warning labels did not appear on cigarette packages until 1966, and it still took much longer for the true dangers to be understood. We can pretty safely say that Marilyn didn’t know smoking was bad for her health. We can also say for sure that she was photographed smoking throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. The photographic evidence is pretty clear on that. Marilyn isn’t just seen smoking in posed photos, but in candids as well.
Marilyn smoked on screen in Right Cross, Niagara, and The Seven Year Itch as well. But even further back, she lit and put out a cigarette as part of her screen test. There’s a tale that she had to practice smoking for Niagara, as it wasn’t natural for her, and it may be that she wasn’t a regular smoker at that point – but it wasn’t the first time she lit up, either, at least not on screen.
So yes, she smoked on screen, but she was also photographed smoking in her private life as well. These are just a few of the many shots.
And on the sets of her movies when the camera wasn’t rolling. Right up until her final completed film, the Misfits.
In the photographs of her bedroom after her death, there appears to be a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches on the bedside table. Ashtrays were also among the items sold in the auction of her estate in 1999. Ashtrays might be explained as present for the use of guests, but that wouldn’t explain the cigarettes on her bedside table.
In Marilyn’s era, smoking was very popular and very common. Both Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, Marilyn’s second and third husbands, smoked. Friends and co-workers smoked…it was simply the way it was.
Did Marilyn smoke? Yes. We can make guesses as to how heavily she smoked – certainly she was photographed more without a cigarette than with one, but there is no doubt that she was more than just an occasional or social smoker. It’s possible her smoking increased during times when she was around smokers more often, such as during her marriages to smokers and when on the set with other stars who smoked, but it remains a fact that she was photographed with a cigarette over a period of more than ten years, and that adds up to more than an occasional smoker.
And for the record, the video that has gone around claiming to show Marilyn smoking marijuana is simply a video of Marilyn smoking a cigarette…as she clearly often did.
While in this day and age it can be difficult to see the glamorous side of smoking, and some fans find it hard to look at pictures of Marilyn smoking, it was a fact of her times, and those times are a part of history. The way we judge smoking today simply can’t be applied to a time when even Joltin’ Joe, a professional athlete, endorsed it. So don’t be too hard on Marilyn for the bad habit that wasn’t seen as bad in her day.
There may be no star in history who has had her sex life dissected as much as Marilyn Monroe. From claims she had affairs with powerful men to claims that she worked as a call girl, Marilyn’s name has been dragged through every possible sexual situation.
Tales about Marilyn’s sex life are tales you can take straight to the bank, and so it’s no surprise that dozens upon dozens of people have popped up out of the woodwork claiming to have been her lovers. With all the people she’s supposed to have slept with, it’s a wonder she had any time to make movies.
Recently, yet another article has popped up claiming to expose Marilyn’s big sexual secret: that she was a lesbian.
This isn’t a new story; it’s been making the rounds for years. It’s been alleged that Marilyn had a sexual affair with her acting coach, Natasha Lytess. She’s been linked with other famous women in Hollywood, such as Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich.
But the publication of the book “My Little Secret” by Tony Jerris, based on the story of Jane Lawrence, a few years back crossed a whole new line – claiming Marilyn had a sexual relationship with her underage fan club leader, and describing it in detail. The book is full of other lies and nonsense as well, but unfortunately, as with most things Marilyn, once it’s in print people believe it.
So Was Marilyn Sexually Involved With Women?
There is zero evidence to support Marilyn having sexual relationships with women. Marilyn herself stated clearly that she was not a lesbian:
“A man who had kissed me once had said it was very possible that I was a lesbian because apparently I had no response to males-meaning him. I didn’t contradict him because I didn’t know what I was……Now, having fallen in love, I knew what I was. It wasn’t a lesbian.” – Marilyn Monroe, My Story, 1954.
None of the other stories have ever been supported. The gossip-filled article going around right now (no, we won’t link to it) offers several unsupported claims as truth, including that Marilyn propositioned both Betty Grable and Judy Garland. The sources of these claims are unreliable, and that’s putting it mildly. These two women were friends of Marilyn’s. Even if something like that had happened, both were far too classy to ever tell the tale. And there’s not only no evidence, but the behavior doesn’t fit Marilyn’s personality at all.
The article admits that the Jane Lawrence book may have some lies, but then goes on to quote it anyway. This is how these stories continue to be spread in spite of having no basis in truth.
Is it possible Marilyn at some point had a sexual encounter with a woman? Sure. Is there any real evidence of it? No.
Does it Matter if She Liked Women?
No, it doesn’t matter. We aren’t refuting these tales because we care whether or not Marilyn had sexual relationships with women. Marilyn herself was known to be open-minded about sexual orientation.
She was supportive of her gay male friends forced to hide who they really were in a restrictive era, and we at IM like to think she would have been front and center in the fight for marriage equality had she lived long enough to see it.
It’s not a question of whether or not Marilyn’s fans care who she slept with. It’s a question of the truth, and of debunking the lies and rumors that surround Marilyn.
And the truth is that there is no evidence to show that any of the claims of affairs with women are true.
A few important words on how fake quotes and Photoshop are degrading Marilyn’s legacy, from the September 18, 2015 episode of Goodnight Marilyn Radio.
What I want to say about Marilyn’s legacy most is what danger the real Marilyn faces – how easily her true legacy can be lost.
We live in an age when anyone can take any quote, put Marilyn’s name on it, and share it around the world in a matter of minutes. When anyone can Photoshop her head onto another body, or her entire body into a false situation, and before you know it it’s been re-pinned and shared a million times over as a real photo.
I want to share Marilyn’s words on the subject of how she wanted to influence her fans:
“I refuse to let articles appear in movie magazines signed ‘By Marilyn Monroe’. I might never see that article and it might be okayed by someone in the studio. This is wrong, because when I was a little girl I read signed stories in fan magazines and I believed every word the stars said in them. Then I’d try to model my life after the lives of the stars I read about. If I’m going to have that kind of influence, I want to be sure it’s because of something I’ve actually said or written.”
I frequently hear people say that false quotes and Photoshops are not a big deal – that they are art, or that Marilyn would have approved of the sentiment even if she didn’t actually say it.
False quotes take the place of the things she really did say. Photoshopped pictures cloud her real story. And Marilyn herself wanted only her real words and her real intentions to be shared in her name.
Marilyn has been gone over 50 years, and in another 50 years who will be left with any real memory of her? The fans of today will have to hand the torch to a new generation of fans, and it is our job to make sure that the truth is handed down and not a slew of fake quotes and Photoshopped pictures. Marilyn deserves to have her real legacy live on.
That real legacy is incredible artistry put down on film – still and motion pictures alike – and honest words showing incredible insight into not only herself, but humanity. It needs to be preserved now so it can be shared with the future.
So before I get off my soapbox – I want to implore all of Marilyn’s fans to join us in sharing Marilyn’s real words, and her real image, and keeping her legacy true to who she really was. We have a Facebook page, Immortal Marilyn Quote UnQuote where we share real quotes – please visit and help us share her real words.
All of Immortal Marilyn’s carefully sourced REAL quotes can be found on the Facebook page as well as here on our website. Please share and help preserve her memory for the future!
We see photos everywhere of Marilyn Monroe… Which aren’t exactly Marilyn Monroe.
It’s such a common thing nowadays for people to manipulate images of stars but we at Immortal Marilyn think it’s wrong, disrespectful and plain silly. Why take the face of one of the biggest Hollywood icons in the world and a morph it onto someone else’s body (and sometimes even her own!)?
The internet is full of photoshopped pictures of Marilyn. How do you tell which are real and which are fake? And why are photoshopped pictures so harmful both to Marilyn’s legacy and to her fans?
