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How many different photographs do we have of Norman Mailer? Suppose we had only five painted portraits of him, like the five Joshua Reynolds did of Dr. Johnson? Would Mailer's greatness seem more singular? Would Dr. Johnson's uniqueness suffer from various replications of his likeness in photographs?
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Carl Rollyson |
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March 29: Marilyn writes to Lester Markel at the New York Times. She likes the Sunday piece on playwright Sean O'Casey. She provides her assessment of various contenders for the presidency, including Rockefeller, Humphrey, Nixon, Stevenson, William O. Douglas, and Kennedy. She considers Rockefeller "more liberal than many of the Democrats," and declares that Stevenson "might have made it if he had been able to talk to people instead of prof..
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 27: Marilyn poses nude for Tom Kelley's calendar photographs while listening to Artie Shaw. She is given a fifty-dollar flat fee for signing a contract, using the name Mona Monroe. Altogether Kelley takes shots of twenty-four poses, although only two are published, titled "A New Wrinkle" and "Golden Dreams."
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 11: Andre de Dienes sends Marilyn a telegram calling her "Turkey Foot," his nickname for her: "STOP FEELING SORRY FOR YOURSELF. GET OUT OF THE HOSPITAL. LET'S GO DRIVING AND HIKING THROUGH THE REDWOODS, INCOGNITO, AND TAKE BEAUTIFUL PICTURES LIKE NOBODY COULD EVER TAKE. IT WILL CURE YOU OF ALL YOUR ILLS. CALL ME UP. LOVE." Nan Taylor, the wife of Frank Taylor, producer of The Misfits, writes to Marilyn: "It seems to me again, as it..
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Carl Rollyson |
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January 23: Niagara is released, making Marilyn a star. She plays Rose Loomis, a femme fatale. The picture features her 116-foot walk to the falls.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 8: Marilyn does her "black sitting" session with Milton Greene. Marilyn poses in black hat and fishnet stockings, her face partially in shadow. She also appears in a shot where she lies down, her left leg extended in the air, as she covers part of her face with her hands. She also kneels, drink in hand, smiling. She props herself up with her arms and draws her knees into her body, with half her face in the dark--a study in moody bi..
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Carl Rollyson |
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We had a lengthy discussion of the difficulties I had had working on other biographies and the efforts made by Martha Gellhorn, Susan Sontag and others to prevent publication. Gellhorn's representative, Bill Buford, sent a threatening letter to my publisher. Michael, a journalist first, called Buford a "dirty dog." I never dreamed, then, that he, too, would, in the end, assume a rather high-handed attitude towards my manuscript, ordering me..
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Carl Rollyson |
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March 11: Marilyn arrives at Greenson's home and tells him she is going to Palm Springs. After memorizing Nunnally Johnson's script for Something's Got to Give, Marilyn learns it has been rewritten by George Cukor and Walter Bernstein. Marilyn is sent forty pages of modifications, but she refuses to play the part as rewritten.
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Carl Rollyson |
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April 22: "I'm a bookworm and proud of it," Marilyn tells columnist Erskine Johnson."
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Carl Rollyson |
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March 30: Marilyn approves of Johnson's script.
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Carl Rollyson |
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February 12: Nunnally Johnson completes a new draft of Something's Got to Give. Marilyn later writes on the script, "We've got a dog here." She pencils in several suggestions and rejects some lines as "not funny."
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Carl Rollyson |
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Queria a liberdade de experimentar outras vidas assim como experimentava vestidos. Incomodava, porem, a ansia por seguranca, por acomodacao ao confortavel, proprias a classe media.
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Carl Rollyson |
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It's time to rip the veneer off the works and days of biographers' lives.
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 28: Shooting begins on There's No Business Like Show Business. Marilyn's director, Walter Lang, does not seem to know how to handle her. Donald O'Connor, Marilyn's love interest in the film, recalls that the director was afraid to ask her to take her shoes off in a scene because her bouffant hairdo and high heels made her look taller than O'Connor. Lang wants the actor to stand on an apple box. O'Connor goes to Marilyn and tells her, "[..
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Carl Rollyson |
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April 29: Fox holds the world premiere of River of No Return in Denver.
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Carl Rollyson |
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Richard Avedon photographs Marilyn, her torso covered in feathers (her sexual plumage) and wearing high heels, her left leg bent and brought up to her body so that the leg projects outward horizontally. Her right arm stretches out diagonally and clutches a fan, and her head is tilted right with her eyes half closed and her mouth wide open, suggesting the dynamism of her erotic allure. Another Avedon shot shows her in a spangled dress. She w..
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 25: Norma Jeane writes to Emmeline Snively about meeting Roy Rogers and riding his horse, Trigger. Fans on the Roy Rogers movie set think she is a movie star and ask for her autograph. When she tells them she is not in pictures, "[T]hey think I'm just trying to avoid signing their books, so I sign them."
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 31: Marilyn shoots scenes with Wally Cox, who is playing a shoe salesman. She makes thirty-eight takes of four camera set-ups (about two-and-a-half pages of the screenplay). June
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 13-14: Marilyn accompanies Miller to Washington, D.C., where he goes on trial for contempt of Congress. She stays with his attorney, Joseph Rauh, and Rauh's wife. May 14: Miller's trial begins.
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Carl Rollyson |
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June 7: Norma Jeane leaves the Los Angeles Orphans Home to live with Grace and her husband, Doc Goddard, at 6707 Odessa Avenue in Van Nuys. Norma Jeane hears on the radio that Jean Harlow has died. A drunken Doc Goddard evidently tries to fondle Norma Jeane, who complains to Grace about the abuse. September
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Carl Rollyson |
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I am of the Samuel Johnson school of biography that adheres first to the truth as the biographer sees it, and not first to the feelings of others. What
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 12: At Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, Marilyn makes the ceremonial first kick at a soccer match between the United States and Israel. She is photographed standing in an open field and with her tongue out as she prepares to kick the ball. She hits it hard and sprains two of her toes. But she stays to the end of the game and presents a trophy to the winning team.
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 9: The London tabloid Empire News publishes Marilyn's account via Ben Hecht of child abuse. What happened exactly is not clear, although apparently she was fondled, and then stammered when she tried to tell a foster mother what happened and was not believed. Journalist Jack Rosenstein, in Hollywood Closeup (May 17, 1974), quotes Marilyn saying later, "It did happen. But I didn't run out of the room crying or screaming. . . . I knew it w..
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 5: At 5:00 a.m., Marilyn awakes with chills and sheets drenched in perspiration. Her fever is again 101 degrees, and her vision is blurred. Marilyn hires a bicycle at the cost of eighteen dollars a month, a rental from the Hans Ohrt Lightweight Bicycles store in Beverly Hills. But Marilyn never acts on her plans to ride this English-style bicycle to the studio. Marilyn purchases Rodin's The Embrace, and Poucette's oil painting The Bull,..
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Carl Rollyson |
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April 27: On the last day of the shooting week, Marilyn again fails to show up at the studio.
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Carl Rollyson |
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June 1: Tuesday, 9:30 a.m., Norma Jeane Mortensen is born at the Los Angeles General Hospital, delivered by Dr. Herman M. Beerman. The birth certificate misspells her last name as Mortenson. The father is identified as Edward Mortenson. His address is listed as "unknown." At the time, Gladys is separated from her husband. Gladys lists herself as Gladys Monroe (her maiden name), living at 5454 Wilshire Boulevard. Early accounts of Marilyn Mo..
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Carl Rollyson |
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June 15: Norma Jeane writes to Grace McKee Goddard, "Of course I know that if it hadn't been for you we might not have never been married and I know I owe you a lot for that fact alone, besides countless others. . . . I love Jimmie in a different way I suppose than anyone, and I know I shall never be happy with anyone else as long as I live, and I know he feels the same toward me. So you see we are really very happy together, that is of cou..
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Carl Rollyson |
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Biography deserves its Marlow, one who flinches not and is willing to see the horror as well as the hope in the biographer's heart.
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Carl Rollyson |
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June 8: The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) serves Miller with a subpoena to testify on June 14 in Washington, D.C. The committee agrees to delay the hearing until June 21, so that Miller can complete his Reno residency. June
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 26: Filming of Niagara begins.
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Carl Rollyson |
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I am not the first biographer to write a memoir about his work. But after reading the reminiscences of my colleagues, I am still looking for the kind of insider look this book offers.
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Carl Rollyson |
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April 21: A Ticket to Tomahawk is released. Marilyn plays Clara, one of four showgirls. She makes four appearances (with dialogue) in group scenes and musical numbers.
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Carl Rollyson |
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my reliance on fair use in the Hellman biography became a template for how I was to approach my unauthorized biographies of Martha Gellhorn, Susan Sontag, and Sylvia Plath.
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 23: Cukor shoots Marilyn's nude swimming scene from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with a twenty-minute break for lunch. She takes off her flesh-colored bathing suit and swims in the nude. Photographers take shots of her naked for about an hour.
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Carl Rollyson |
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April 25: Billy Wilder sends a telegram to Marilyn expressing his delight that she will appear in Some Like It Hot. She is to receive her usual $100,000 fee, plus 10 percent of the profits. She is photographed signing a contract with the film's producer, Walter Mirisch.
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Carl Rollyson |
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be versatile, cunning, and ruthless in his pursuit--in other words, have all the attributes of a good spy.--Erika Ostrovsky, Eye of Dawn: The Rise and Fall of Mata Hari (1978)
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Carl Rollyson |
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A reader of biography will discover how biographies get made. A scholar will appreciate discussions of methodology and strategy. I show what it is like for a professional biographer who moves from subject to subject.
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Carl Rollyson |
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April 16: An alarmed Weinstein tells screenwriter Walter Bernstein that Marilyn wants major changes in the script. She rejects one section as "sentimental schmaltz."
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 30: Shooting is on hiatus for Memorial Day. Marilyn stays home working on a watercolor of a red rose she wants to present to President Kennedy for his forty-fifth birthday.
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Carl Rollyson |
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June 3: Life publishes "Unlikely Pair Make Great Match."
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 3: Responding to reports that she is not an orphan and that her mother is alive, Marilyn issues a statement through Erskine Johnson in the Los Angeles Daily News: "My mother spent many years at the hospital. Through the Los Angeles County, my guardian placed me in several foster families and I spent more than a year at the Los Angeles Orphanage. I haven't known my mother intimately, and since I'm an adult, and able to help her, I have c..
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Carl Rollyson |
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April 26: Marilyn attends the Newspaper Public Convention luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria. She is photographed with Hedda Hopper and J. Edgar Hoover.
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Carl Rollyson |
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May 20: Marilyn visits the Louella Parsons radio show.
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Carl Rollyson |
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June 24: Marilyn appears at the studio to watch her scenes with Montand. John Huston leaves New York to look at locations in Nevada for The Misfits.
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Carl Rollyson |