Norma Jeane Becomes Her Dreams - Text aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaNotes a Home  

Bill Dorris

© 2009

What would it take to turn bimbo, dumb blonde roles that varied about as much as “the heart scan of a thrombosis victim” - “exploitative, grotesque parodies of a woman’s body” - into something more than “wolfbait”, more than a “no trouble”, easy lay, a celluloid girlie calendar? (1) What would it take to turn them into role models for a generation of teenage girls, for 100s of 1000s, millions, of girls who studied those “enormous white breasts peering from daring décolletage, that breathy little-girl voice, and those vacant stares” , to turn them eventually into a lasting iconic sex symbol? A symbol not of sex in terms of ‘good girls’ and ‘bad girls’, of virgins and whores; not of sex in terms of “guilt and innocence”, but of sex as soda pop, apple pie, and the girl next door; into a lasting iconic symbol of sex without guilt or innocence, a symbol of “sex as natural”.In short what would it take to create a Marilyn Monroe?

Two key characteristics are obvious. (2) First off, It would take the physicality of a Betty Grable, a Lana Turner, a Jayne Mansfield, the physicality of a Playboy centerfold. And it would require the ability to present herself as the next Jean Harlow, as a '50s update of the original early '30s version. It would require presenting herself as the Jean Harlow of Platinum Blonde and Red-Headed Women, with – in Marjorie Rosen’s words - that "marshmallow hair", that "uncompromising presence", that "star quality"; as that "funny, sexy tart" whose "sensuality heightened crude humor"; as the Harlow of Red-Headed Women whose "gold digger's ruthlessness is toned down by comic lines", allowing her to "marry for wealth, try to blackmail and bed her way toward social acceptance"; allowing her to shoot her husband and then “skip off scot free to a charmed future as a noble concubine". It would require being able to present herself as the "hoi-polloi socialite" of Platinum Blonde, who (with "nothing even remotely suggesting class about her either vocally, physically or in the flashy skimp of her costumes") makes "the socialite fantasy accessible". It would require being able to present herself as the Harlow with "her wonderful vulnerability/ resiliency", "her lack of pretension or position", her "basically appealing cheapness". It would require the ability to present herself as a Harlow for the 1950s – the ability to present herself as the next Jean Harlow.

And that would require some modifications of the original. The ‘50s were not the ‘30s. They weren’t about The Depression with its “deafening poverty” inviting escapist fantasies of “brash, wisecracking, gold diggers” living “by their wit”; of "brazen, amoral dynamos emasculating” men and “exposing them as chumps” with "crude man-baiting techniques" .

The early postwar years required something different. Rosie the Riveter was gone and falsies were in – falsies and corsets and bras and girdles, propping up hourglass figures, figures stitched up in sheath dresses and cinch belts, in nylons and crinoline. In the aftermath of World War II women were being “pressured out of the employment market and into conjugal bliss”. For millions of teens and young American women the early ‘50s were about one thing – getting your man and getting him quick.

Marilyn had to fit the fantasies of that era. She needed, in Richard Dyer’s words, to "sum up female desirability in the fifties, to look like she's no trouble… vulnerable… she (needed to) offer herself to the viewer, to be available". She needed to "embody what 'Every Husband Needs' in a wife, namely good sex uncomplicated by worry about satisfying her". She needed to be vulnerable, accessible, offering herself to the camera in poses and roles that were belittling, exploitative, idiotic; in roles that offered little more than sex. She needed to come alive as “a daffy, Magooishly myopic husband hunter”; as a “comically stupid secretary, whose special skill is swinging her hips and behind”. She needed to light up for the camera while “straddling a subway grating with her dress (billowing) high above her thighs”; while stretched out, “back arched” across “a red velvet drape”, with “nothing but the radio on”. She needed to come alive to the camera as if she were genuinely thrilled to be there, to light up so “something flashed from her an instant before the shutter winked”. She needed to light up for the camera as if it were a thousand, a million, loving adoring eyes. She needed to have an almost insatiable hunger for love.

And beyond this creating a Marilyn required another characteristic.(3) The Norma Jeane who was to become this sexual icon needed a fourth key characteristic. She needed to invest herself in these roles, in these "idiotic", "Betty Boop cartoon characters", as if they were her own, as if they were her self, her identity.

And that is exactly what she did in her first sensational cameo role, a role explicitly created to "capitalize on Marilyn's natural sexiness": "Slinking" into Groucho's office in a "tight, low-cut, strapless, iridescent gown, she rests her right hand seductively on the detective's upper chest and leans against him, her fingers moving slowly up his shoulders, as she purrs, 'Mr Grunion, I want you to help me'". Then in response to his "What seems to be the problem?”, with that "trademark roll of the eyes and lift of his thick brows", Marilyn "sways away from him with her eyebrows slightly arched and her lids lowered", replying in that "breathy little-girl voice, 'Some men are following me'".

And in "her first major film" Marilyn again becomes her role. "Arriving at a tourists' party wearing a tight red dress, she reclines languidly and hums a few measures of the song, 'Kiss', which she has requested". Framed in the "lurid" technicolor of a "comic book sex siren", she "warms to her own sensuousness, singing to the record: 'Kiss me… thrill me… hold me in your arms…'". Her "sureness of pitch and breath control, the silkiness and calmness of her approach to each phrase, her smoky vibrato, make the stereotypical 1950 love lyrics (come alive), credible and enticing". She is "at once the incarnation of every male fantasy of available sex". "Isolated in her singing… dreamily, moodily and so suggestively… she seems to be caressing herself", to be "consigned to her own peculiar realm of being", to have retreated into the deepest recesses of her private fantasy life".

And in the role which "fixed Marilyn in the world's consciousness as the exaggeratedly, dishily seductive blonde", she transforms a "silly, Kewpie doll, buxom cartoon" role into a private fantasy. (4)In Carl Rollyson's terms, throughout the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Lorelei "as a person is forever elusive". She "stands apart from, divisible from reality". She has no past, needs no past". She is a "self-generating phenomenon, a perpetual mobile of desire". Throughout the film "Lorelei polishes her role, not her person". She is "distinguished by her ability to hold on to a role, to retain nothing of herself for other times, other settings".

The "famous 'Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend’ musical number elevates and consecrates the glamorous child-woman myth that envelops Lorelei-Marilyn throughout the film". Even as she sings and dances for the "worshipful audience" of "gentlemen in tuxedos who adore her", Marilyn’s focus is ever on her self. With "her hands on her chest, shaking her breasts", with her "arms straight above her head and her fingers outspread", even as she “caresses ropes of diamonds” in her “pink strapless gown”, she "luxuriates in self-love".

And by "the very end of the film", at "their double wedding ceremony", when Dorothy (Jane Russell) says, "Remember, it's all right now to say yes", it's obvious "that Lorelei-Marilyn may not be clear about the limits of her role, that she might just go on playing it because the role is not a means to an end (marriage) but just a means, a way of being… in which she has fully invested herself."

Or as Marilyn herself put it afterwards, "everybody else was talking about how convincing, how much of me must have been in this role, or how much of the role was in me… I began to believe this was all I could do – all I was – all any woman was".

By this point in her career -- having become the top female star in Hollywood, “the biggest thing that’s happened to Hollywood in years”, having created the definitive, iconic "person/symbol Marilyn Monroe" – she was ready to move on, to expand herself beyond the "dishily seductive, all body, no thought, blonde" that was Marilyn. (5) She was eager to play the likes of Dostoevsky’s ‘Grushenka’ and Ibsen’s 'Nora’, to play ‘Gretchen’ in Faust , eager to be appreciated for her "fine dramatic performances". Like any developing person who's achieved a level of accomplishment, a level of development of her skills, her performance, and hence of her self, her identity, Marilyn was feeling the need to expand, to explore, to move to new levels. But creating the Marilyn Monroe of the early '50s, the definitive iconic sexual symbol she became, did not require such development. It required something else. It required the self Norma Jeane brought to Hollywood in the mid '40s, the self Norma Jeane sought so desperately to move beyond in her early roles and in those definitive roles which created the iconic Marilyn Monroe. It required the self Norma Jeane so desperately sought to find as she struggled to become Marilyn, the self she glimpsed for the first time in Ladies of The Chorus, in “two song-and-dance routines”, in the “brightness of her own image” lighting up the screen. Marilyn, driving back and forth past the theatre, reading and rereading her new name up on the marquee, as if she were “watching the announcement of her new identity”. Creating Marilyn Monroe required Norma Jeane’s fourth key characteristic -- the one that drove her to find a new self, a new identity, in the creation of Marilyn. It required Norma Jeane’s perfect self doubt.

And creating Marilyn Monroe required one final key characteristic. In the casting couch world of Hollywood – with 1000s of starlets, pinups, and models all aiming to get their name up on the marquee as the next Betty Grable, Lana Turner, Jean Harlow - in a world where "girls have to go to bed a lot", a world where, as Marilyn later said re her childhood, everyone lied about “everything from soup to Santa Claus", to survive, let alone go from folding chutes on an assembly line to becoming a film legend, required "certain ethical standards".(6) It required knowing at some basic level – that no matter how much you wished it otherwise – life was always gonna be another card game on a sinking ship, another cattle market parading for the highest bidder. "Vulnerable soul" she might be, but to make it to the top, to even get a shot at it, Marilyn'd have to "know which tales evoked a sympathetic reaction from this or that person". She's have to be "savvy enough" to play the "lost stray" for the handouts she needed; to purr up to John Carroll in her "tight sweater and white flared shorts", a "lost waif" who hadn't "eaten since yesterday" and "had no transportation home". Savvy enough to put "all her money into (acting classes), rent, and auto maintenance", to "walk the boulevard for her meals"; savvy enough to "play 'pretend games' to evoke pity and elicit comfort", to "secure a professional's talent" and then "thank" him "with her body". Eight years from folding chutes to Gentlemen; eight years surviving by playing her strong suit in the only game in town, bartering with her self, her body and soul. Eight years of bartering that required "certain ethical standards (that) were not those of most mortals", a bartering where Marilyn with her "injured innocence" was about as "helpless as a sharp knife", a bartering that required Marilyn's fifth key characteristic – her survivor morality.

Five key characteristics, and Marilyn wasn’t exactly born with them. Neither was Norma Jeane.

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Some people say that If Marilyn Monroe “hadn’t existed, the ‘50s would have had to invent her”. (7) Marilyn’s mother obviously wasn’t one of them. In fact by the spring of 1926, Gladys Monroe Baker Mortensen was already taking definite steps to ensure that wouldn’t be necessary. Well separated from her 2nd husband and deep into the Jazz Age - a flapper “doing lots of fast living” - the 23 year old Hollywood film splicer suddenly found herself pregnant. With Stanley Gifford, Hal Rooney, Clayton MacNamara, Ray Guthrie and any other likely candidates all keeping a safe distance, Gladys’ mother, Della, hit upon a solution that encumbered no one. On June 13, 1926 , 13 day old Norma Jeane Mortensen got her 1st big break on the road to stardom - her mother “dropped her off” just across the street from Della’s; dropped her off at Ida and Albert Wayne Bolender’s; dropped her off for 7 & 1/2 years of foster care.

Norma Jeane didn’t need any hunger or poverty or abuse from the Bolenders. (8) That wasn’t necessary to become Marilyn. What Norma Jeane needed was 7 & 1/2 years without a mother or father; 7 & 1/2 years watching other kids come and go - 2,3,4. . . 8, 10, 12. . . and more - arriving like her, then growing and leaving - other kids with parents, with “someone to call mother and father”. What Norma Jeane needed was 7 & 1/2 years with only Ida and Albert - Ida who did her diapers and her meals, who ran up little blouses on her Singer, who marched her off to Sunday school - plain spoken, decent, God-fearing Ida - day after day after week after year - who was always there, but was “Not her mother “. Ida and Albert Wayne who had to be her daddy; who was ever shaving all the creamy off his face and forever answering her questions about God, and where He lived, and all the people in the world. Albert Wayne who had to be her daddy; had to be, but wasn’t.

What Norma Jeane needed was 7 & 1/2 years of Ida and Albert Wayne, and that other woman. The woman with the red hair who came sometimes, and took her to the beach and the ocean, to the blue & foaming white, shining, hot & golden. To the beach and the ocean, who bought her lunch and ice cream, and a big umbrella one time, maybe when they saw the jugglers and the fireaters. The woman who seldom spoke, who used to take her to beach sometimes, and ice cream. . . who didn’t come much anymore. The woman she “was told to call mother”.(9)

What Norma Jeane needed was 7 & 1/2 years with Aunt Ida and no mother, with quiet Uncle Albert and no father; with the woman with the red hair, who came less and less, who maybe forgot, who maybe “didn’t know Norma Jeane exists”. 7 & 1/2 years looking for a mother, a father, for someone to love her. Looking in the church, in her prayers every night; looking to the Jesus high over the altar - the Jesus that Ida & Albert loved, the Jesus she could sing to in the church, in the crowded cafeteria, on the roller coaster road ride to the beach. Looking to the Jesus in Norma Jeane’s favorite song - the Jesus who loves me, the Jesus she could sing to anytime, anywhere, whenever the mood struck her, which was often.

Looking in her dreams - in her “recurring dreams” of standing up in church, before all the people, the orchestra, hills, stars & sky. Standing without her black robe, without her little white tunic; standing up in church without any clothes on; standing and walking naked over all the people lying at her feet, naked over the adoring congregation.(10)

Looking to Tippy, to the little black and white mongrel who followed Albert Wayne home one night; who worshipped Norma Jeane and followed her to school; who waited for her at recess and the 3 o’clock bell. Looking to Tippy’s warm body and pattering feet, to the music of his bark, racing along behind her roller skates. Looking to that little tuff of fur who made Norma Jeane “feel unique for the first time in her life”. (11)

Looking to the photo on the mantle. The photo in the red haired woman’s house. The dark haired, moustached man she said was Norma Jeane’s father, the smiling man in the slouch hat, in the fedora. Looking to the missing father she knew would return and love her, the decent man with the thin moustache, the man “she

dreamed of a thousand times afterwards”, the man she could feel and see bending over her hospital bed - the man she knew was there, day after day, comforting her and kissing her forehead, telling her all week how proud he was of her, how brave she was, telling her for the whole week, the whole week after she had her tonsils out. The man she could feel and see. . . the man she could never touch.(12)

Looking, looking. . . for a mother, a father, an adoring little dog - warm, wagging, waiting, ever loving, then gone. gone like a broken dream - shattered - a blasting sound, blown away in the night, blown away like a lost fedora - like a memory that was and never was. A mother, a father, a dream, a dog who loved her - cut off in the dead of night. Gone, cut off, shotgunned - a mother, a father, a dog. . . a dream of love.

Looking for a love that was sure, constant, ever admiring, gazing, praising - a love like her church congregation, a whole congregation beneath her, adoring, like that decent man in the photo with his slouch hat and moustache, with that smile in his eyes. Looking for love, like a father, a gentle loving father, like school boys fighting to walk her home, like a photographer’s lens - holding her, admiring her, loving her -like the lights, the cameras, the crew, capturing her for millions; like the love of millions. . . Looking for a love that even Norma Jeane could never have dreamed would ever come true. (13)

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That dream, that hope, that desperate hunger for love was crucial, crucial to becoming Marilyn; but it wasn’t all Norma Jeane got from her years at the Bolenders. (14) The sober, devout Ida and her quiet backer, Albert Wayne - his “silence severer than any open threat of punishment” - gave the tiny girl something extra - an essential something that her mother could never have provided, much less fit into the chaos of her life & days. ‘Cos while Gladys and Grace McGee and their flapper friends were splicing film and sleeping in, skipping shifts and spilling gin and rolling up the rug, Ida and Albert Wayne were doing the Lord’s work - work that started early and lasted late, work that never ended. They were working for the Lord and Aimee Semple McPherson. For Sister Aimee, blonde, golden, green & blue, velvet gowns & robes and mirrors & lights, shining bright & white and beaming. Sister Aimee and Ida & Albert, the Angelus Temple and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, in deep and constant battle with the Devil in all his guises - with boozing, smoking, card playing, movies, painted ladies, jazz, and sin. Church services and Sunday sermons, and daily prayer and instruction - testifying to the righteousness of the Lord, to “the way, the truth, and the life” - their gospel sheet rolling hot off Albert’s little press, the Bolenders were ever fighting that ever losing battle with every wickedness in the heart of man.

Vowing not to buy, drink or sell, or give alcohol, and from all tobacco abstain; vowing never to take the Lord’s name in vain, Ida and Albert were ever cleansing the Temple of the Holy Spirit, ever scrubbing and soaking and cleansing, but never quite cleansing enough; never quite removing that taint of sin, trying and trying but somehow always falling short - meals, chores, play and the tub; ever chasing that tidy, clean, ordered routine, but never quite clean enough; never quite shifting that frown from Ida’s face. Scrubbed, brushed, pressed and tidy, but always and ever Norma Jeane “could have done better” - never quite ready, never quite clean enough, never quite acceptable, presentable, never quite right.

7 & 1/2 years of never quite right, 7 & 1/2 years of constant doubt. 7 & 1/2 years of striving and striving for perfection - to get that hair combed, the body scrubbed, the skirt pressed. 7 & 1/2 years of striving for perfection and falling short, always short. 7 & 1/2 years of always wrong, never right, of wondering “what’s wrong with me?”. 7 & 1/2 years of constant doubt. (15)

7 & 1/2 years that’d drive her to hours in the mirror - checking the lipstick and eye shadow, the base and toning and highlights - that’d drive her to “scrutinizing every negative and print and contact sheet for the tiniest fault”; to agonizing herself, the actors & crew, the entire orchestra - everyone on the set - through take after retake til she got it “just right”. 7 & 1/2 years of constant doubt. 7 & 1/2 years that’d turn to perfection when the lens was focussed, when the crowds were buzzing, when the lights were bright. 7 & 1/2 years that’d turn to stuttering, mumbling, and retreat; that’d turn to hiding and pills - to turning on herself - when the faces were too many and too sharp, when the times were too long and too alone; when the shadows were too dark.

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By 7 & 1/2 Norma Jeane needed something the Bolenders could never hope to give her.(16) She needed to stretch that doubt, that hunger for love; she needed to pump them up into a way of living, a way of being, practically a philosophy. She needed a world where a little girl’s always last in line and first to get dumped, where she could never think of herself as much. A world where nothing’s real and nothing lasts, where everyone “lies about everything from soup to Santa Claus”, where noone’s ever what they claim to be. She needed a world just like Hollywood, a world of fantasy, where love’s just a song in your head, just golden greens & blues, and lavender, scarlet, shining white & bright, just colors flickering across a screen. (17) Where a little girl’s only hope, only chance, is to play the waif, the stray, the little lost kitten - to play them for every scrap of her dreams. (18)

What Norma Jeane needed was a world where the woman who sewed and wiped and fed and clothed her for week after week after month after year was just her aunt, and the shadowy, red haired woman who was never there, who never seemed to care, was her mother; a world where she was marched off to the pews by day and night, to the United Pentecostal Church, to promise and pray to God and Baby Jesus and Sister Aimee not to drink or smoke or buy or sell, or alcohol or tobacco; where next thing you know she’s at the picture show, and there’s no more tidy Ida, Baby Jesus or Albert Wayne; no more Holy Writs and rules, just cigarettes and beer and sweet lotions, just caps popping and tall beakers flowing; where her real mother, the red haired woman, is rolling the rug and dancing the jitterbug, cutting the cards and dealing.

What Norma Jeane needed was a world where all her singing and praying and testifying to God and Baby Jesus could fade right into the Pantages and Grauman’s Chinese, into sitting all day and half the night watching Mae West sparkling and Claudette bathing nude, watching Raquel Torres vamping Groucho right through the Duck Soup; into watching that platinum, glimmering, electric blonde simmering; watching Jean Harlow kissing, forgetting all about Ida & Albert Wayne and the holy Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission. What this little 7 & 1/2 year old needed was for her scrubbed & soaked & early to bed so tidy to slip right into chipped beef & melted cheese & hash on toast, into partying day & nightly with her new Aunt Grace, with the live in English couple and their daughter; into partying with all her new aunts and actors, stand ins, friends & splicers; into partying right there in Norma Jeane’s very own, brand new home, the one that belonged to her red haired mother.

What Norma Jeane needed was a life that flickered across the screen, like a fantasy, a nightmare, an endless dream; like the summer that faded to fall and winter; to Gladys, shrieking, laughing, stalking the hall; to Norma Jeane, front row center. To pills and prescriptions and doctors coming in; to Aunt Grace saying “not to worry”, “nothing’s wrong” to her little lost kitten.

A life that flickered across the screen, Fred & Ginger & Norma Jeane; dancing & singing, front row center. Gladys “insane” and picking at her plate and Grace chattering, right through Sunday dinner: “Norma Jeane’s doing just fine at school. Look at her pink ribbons. Now, Norma Jeane, show mother your little curls”. Highlights, peroxide, lavender rinse, and twirls; another flicker across the screen. Aunt Grace with her colors and hemlines and her little lost kitten. Her little lost kitten, Norma Jeane.

And by the time fall comes round again, the English couple’s gone and the house is sold and Gladys is back in the hospital, mumbling. And Norma Jeane’s in another quicksand fantasy; with the Griffens out in West LA , with Emma Willette over on Lodi Place , with Grace swooping in, shimmering in platinum, ever promising to “fix things up”, to “take my little girl away”, to become her “legal guardian”.

And finally winter turns to spring, to dreams of a happy ending - to Doc, taller than the Western sky, dancing the fango, twinkling, a sparkler in Grace’s eye. And its the summer of ‘35 and they’re all buzzing, alive - 4 bees in a bungalow - Doc and his little Nora and Grace and Norma Jeane. Just 4 bees in a bungalow, except. . . except there’s no cash flow and suddenly someone’s got to go.

And by 9 Norma Jeane’s in another nightmare fantasy, ever dressed in faded blue, in her “uniform of poverty”. Once again the little lost kitten, the 3,463rd child at the LA Orphan’s Home - ever hoping, playing for a handout, a pet; living on 2 years of golden greens & scarlet, lavender, bright & shining white; of Fred & Ginger and dancing, singing, cheek to cheek, and day & night; on 2 years of “gonna bring you home”, “gonna fix things up”; on 2 years of weeks and months in faded blue, of Saturdays in theatres and beauty parlors and hairdos; on 2 years of hopes and dreams that never could but somehow did come true, bringing Norma Jeane back home to Grace and Doc, back home at last, back home . . . back home til suddenly daddy comes in, drunk, staggering, leaning o'er her, closing the door; back home til daddy comes in and the fairytale ends, til Norma Jeane gets dumped once more.

What Norma Jeane needed was a world just like Hollywood, where nothing’s real and nothing lasts; where the woman who loved her could suddenly dump her way out in Compton in another broken dream, with 3 more “cousins” and another “aunt” - all poor and hungry, all hustling, grabbing every scrap. A world where morality’s whatever works, cuts the hurt, whatever gets you past; where a little lost kitten could suddenly become an orphan, the poor child the teachers all loved because both her parents were “killed in an accident”.(19)

Another 8 months of hoping and waiting, of fabricating, of living on fantasy. 8 months of Aunt Grace poppin in with a new hat, smiles and hugs, and 5 pairs of shoes; then swissh, gone again, nowhere to be seen when cousin Jack decides his frisky little wank needs a quick taste of the real thing.

And just as she was going under, couldn’t swim, caught in a nightmare that never ends, Aunt Grace shows up and dives in; taking her back from cousin Jack, back home to yet another aunt - a very special aunt - back home to Aunt Ana, to West LA, to a new beginning; taking her back home to the perfect school for Grace’s little 12 year old protégée, back home to the perfect fairytale ending.

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But first she needed a bit of training. (20) After her years of hungering to be loved, accepted, seen; her years of constant doubt, of being the waif, the stray, ever caught in nightmare and fantasy, Norma Jeane needed a part to play, a part to be. She needed to try on the Marilyn we all would see - her smile and lips, her curls and tints, her eyes, her style, her gaze. She needed 5 years as Aunt Grace’s protégée. (21) Five years in the hands of the “cosmetic wizard” - the studio supervisor who knew all about lights & shadows & filters, all about quick snips of the scissors, the infinite varieties of cosmetic surgery, every trick of the dream factory; the “freewheeling whirlwind of irrepressible ambition”, totally without inhibitions; the 40 year old who had longed for a career as a movie actress then lavished her money and ambitions on two nieces, and now with both them and Gladys gone, had Norma Jeane to “rave about like she was her own”; who had a child to raise, to form and shape; an opportunity to create the daughter nature had denied her, an eager little 8 year old to become the beneficiary of Grace’s experience, a Norma Jeane just waiting to be rouged, dyed, powdered, preened & curled; just ripe for ribbons & tints, patent shoes, sunsuits and bows; just perfect to become “the new Jean Harlow”.(22)

So finally in those years of bursts and bits, of whirlwind visits, Norma Jeane found a part to play, a part to be . . . 8, 9, 10 . . . 5 full years of training, of learning the perfect part for her worlds of nightmare and fantasy. 5 full years of learning how a movie star uses her body, her eyes, her walk & talk, her clothes, her incandescent blonde hair . 5 years of hearing “There’s no reason why you can’t grow up to be just like her, with your blue green eyes and that chin; just like the blonde bombshell, Norma Jeane”.

5 years of “Where do we go today? Where do we go on Saturday? No, before the movies. That’s right, up you go in the chair. Now watch closely, Norma Jeane, let’s let the lady do her magic with those curlers, with her irons and brushes. Now, look in the mirror, Norma Jeane. Look, that’s my baby. Here, now, the eyeliner. . . and your lipstick . . . just a bit. . . That’s it, Norma Jeane, press them together. . . Now, look. Aren’t we pretty!”

5 years of new dresses and dreams, of signs and hopes, and “Guess what, Norma Jeane, right on your very own birthday. On your very own 10th birthday! Jean Harlow’s made it official. No more ‘Harlean Carpenter Mcgraw Bern Rosson and diddle lee doo’. Now she’s just ‘Jean Harlow’. ‘Jean’, baby, just like you. Maybe we should drop that ‘e’ and make it official too.”

And “Oh no. No. did you hear it on the radio? No, not the very day you’re coming home. But wait, it’s a sign, Norma Jean. It must be a sign. Just as you’re leaving The Home. Just as you’re free, coming back to Aunt Gracie, it must be! It must be a sign. Jean Harlow’s gone but not for long. Just til we get you up and grown, Norma Jean. Just til we get you up there on the big screen. See your eyes there, smile in the mirror, Norma Jean. See, same eyes, same chin. Just touch that up a bit. . . a little cosmetic surgery, that’ll do it.”

5 years of signs and hopes and heading for the silver screen. 5 years of “There you are Norma Jean. Isn’t that just your color. A sunny sunsuit and this little beach hat. And which pair of shoes will we wear? Now hold out your hand, you thought I wasn’t coming, but here I am. . . 4, 5, 6 silver dollars. And do you know what that’ll get you at the Compton Curlers? Yes, yes, and more. A whole treatment, Norma Jean, a whole treatment. Now you run in there and try on this dress. We’re gonna get you off on the right foot. 12 years old and ready for your first shoot and, oh look how tall you’ve grown. Now let’s just touch up those cheeks with a little powder. . . that’s it, just a dab there and we’re gonna take that first big step Norma Jean. That’s right, right on your birthday. Your first big step towards the silver screen. Your very own professional photographic session. That’s right, now take this scrapbook. We’re gonna put all your photos in here. We’re gonna start filling it right up. And you know what else? What else you need right now? We’re gonna get you a proper school, a proper school for our very own little Norma Jean, for our very own little Norma Jean Harlow”.

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And so by the fall of ‘38 the lanky little 12 year old was set. (23) Shy, withdrawn and filled with her constant doubt, Norma Jeane was once again the new girl in town. With little schooling, few friends and even fewer clothes, living out in West LA, on the wrong side of the tracks, with all the Okies and Mexicans and yet another aunt, Norma Jeane was set. She had her hunger - her desperate hunger for love - and she knew all about chasing her fantasies - how to smile and purr and play the little lost stray. And she knew all about ribbons and powder, rouge and tints and curls - all about what lipstick and mascara can do for a girl. By the fall of ‘38, the lanky little 12 year old was set. She just didn’t quite have all the tools yet.

With no phone, few friends, and no room to invite them in, after school was mostly just humming and dreaming, sunrise & sunset, Glenn Miller & his orchestra; Norma Jeane, “the string bean”, walking home. 12 to 13, day after day after week, walking to school, lanky and shy, new girl in town, first year at Emerson Junior High, pretty much walking and dreaming and humming alone.

But not for long. Before the year was out Norma Jeane had plenty of friends - horns honking, men waving, whistling; boys fighting to walk her home. Plenty of friends because by the fall of ‘39 Norma Jeane had “suddenly grown two heads”; plenty of friends because she knew exactly how to use them. Plenty of friends because by the fall of ‘39 Norma Jeane had all the tools she needed. (24)

With Aunt Ana childless, vulnerable and on her own at 58, Norma Jeane got nothing but “kindness and love” whenever the teacher sent her home, sent her home to clean up her act, to take off her tight boys pants. Nothing but kindness as she poured herself back into the few clothes she had, back into her faded blue dress, with Ana’s hugs and caress, back into her tight, undersized dress with no bra and no underblouse. Nothing but kindness as she poured herself back, touched up her lipstick, and torched the math class. (25)

Suddenly all the definite “no no’s” for girls of 13 were all go go’s for Norma Jeane - straight out of her years of hungering for someone to love her, to adore her, to Clark Gable her - tooting all the way home; her years of fantasy & daydream, of scarlet blue & golden greens, of lavender, shining white & bright; of dancing, singing, cheek to cheek, and day & night; her years of playing the waif, the orphaned stray, ever hoping for a handout, a pet; her years of prepping and priming, getting ready to photo, of learning all about lipstick & mascara, tints & curls Norma Jeane knew just what to do with her “two heads”, just how to turn them into something real. Hour after hours in home, in school, checking her makeup in mirror after mirror; pulling out every stop in the endless cosmetic shop that was ‘40s LA - Norma Jeane was suddenly the only person she had a chance to be, the only self she could find in the factories of Emerson, and Van Nuys, and University High.

Overnight from Norma Jeane, “the string bean”, into 5’ 5” with “pertly rounded breasts” bouncing off her chest, into the flashing, vibrant, happy to be alive. “The Mmmm girl” with her new friend BeBe laughing, swapping clothes and playing along; dancing the rumba and the conga, surveying the boys and writing in The Emersonian about how “gentlemen prefer blondes”. Hanging out at the HiHo and TomCrumpler’s, sipping cokes over Chuckie’s jokes - trading smiles and winks with Chuck Moran, the top jock with the sweet talk and girls all over him, with the Chuck Moran, and him wanting nothin’ more than that “Mmmm girl”, nothin’ more than Norma Jeane. (26)

13, 14, 15 and Norma Jeane was set - totally sexual, totally naive, and totally safe. If it’d been the ‘60s or ‘70s or later, Marilyn would have never made it past Norma Jeane. She’d been easy jailbait - knocked up and pregnant by 17. But it was the ‘30s, barely the ‘40s, not ‘58, ‘60, or ‘73. The boys mightta been dreaming, drooling, and steaming, but they weren’t flashing their wheels or dropping her pants. Nobody was rockin’ ‘round the clock or humping up in the hills after the dance. No trojans, no ticklers, and no penicillin; no chevies at the levy and noone was willin’ - not even Chuck Moran - to push it much past her lips and a few hopeless gropes way up on Mulholland.

13, 14, 15 and Norma Jeane was using everything she’d become to fill that constant doubt, that “naked need for love”. A sex siren without knowing it - nothing inside holding her back; nothing outside to keep her from winking, wiggling. . . going for it.

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15 and Norma Jeane was ready to move on. (27) She knew all the dances, even the New Yorker; she didn’t need any more high school classes, kisses, or Coca-Cola. Norma Jeane was ready to graduate to the next level. What she needed was a nice, safe apprenticeship in the real thing - turning the hearts and heads of real men - what she needed was a nice, safe intro into using her body for the first time in bed. What Norma Jeane needed was an older, dependable, 21 year old protector - the kind of guy who’d give up a college football scholarship because his mom needed the extra money he could pull down working the swing shift; the kind of guy who’d play his guitar and listen, listen to Norma Jeane, soft and sweet and singing right along with him; the kind of “handsome, dreamboat of a Clark Gable” Norma Jeane couldn’t help but fancy. The kind of guy Grace needed to take over when she went East with Doc; the kind of guy she she could easily maneuver into those warm, shy, hungry arms - to stroll, chat, waltz and hold her - from the Christmas dance to the boat rides and hikes and picnic lunches Grace always packed; the kind of guy Grace could maneuver right up to the altar. (28)

What Norma Jeane needed was a young merchant marine for a husband, a marine instructor based way out on Catalina Island, a marine whose job left her alone for days, weeks, months on the beach; alone in her shy smiles and “skimpy bathing suits”, just walking her dog and heating up the troops; alone for months of strolling and turning and glowing and strolling again, for months of “Gee fellas, can’t a girl get a tan?”.

Alone for months of specialist training at her own little boot camp way out on Catalina Island - months of seeing and feeling and tasting her power to move men, 1000s of men; of seeing it, feeling it, tasting it safely, ever so safely, as the untouchable, newly married bride of a young marine. What Norma Jeane needed was her perfect apprenticeship, as the untouchable Mrs James Dougherty.

And beyond that what she needed was an entree into the movie industry, an entree she was never gonna find in the dope room at Radioplane - working 10 hour days on the varnish spray - an entree Norma Jeane would have dumped altogether if she’d gotten her way - desperately “begging to have a baby” when Jimmie went overseas. (29) An entree that fell in her lap, straight out of the blue, when the army’s shutterbugs marched in one day in the fall of ‘44 for a patriotic shoot - marched in and found “a photographer’s dream” right there on the assembly line, just smiling and folding the chutes.

What Norma Jeane needed was the entree that Corporal Conover offered when he signed her on for some still color shots, for some modeling, and some more contacts; the entree that “lit up every camera”, every lens, as Norma Jeane smiled and flirted with her new found admirers and friends. An entree that took her from Conover to Emmeline Snively and her Blue Book Agency, to classes on “posture and makeup, grooming and carriage and lowering her smile” to immediate assignments for her curly, chestnut-colored hair and flashing bluegreen eyes, for her dresses and blouses and bathing suits that were always too tight. An entree that took her to Zuma Beach and Mount Hood and Mojave; that took her from Conover to de Dienes and Burnside and Moran and Jasqur - “shy, breathless, helpless, anxious to please”, giving herself to the cameras, to the photographers, to the 100s and 1000s of men beyond the lens, in her fantasies. (30) An entree that took her from Radioplane to Pageant and Parade, to Laff and Peek and See. An entree that soon brought Harlow back into focus - giving hope and shape to Grace’s dreams - that dumped Jimmie off in Vegas while he was still way overseas. An entree that Emmeline took up the boulevard and wrapped in crinoline, in floor length crinoline - Norma Jeane, walking poised and confident, smiling yet vulnerable; Norma Jeane, “radiating sex” in every frame, in every frame of her first test for Zanuck and Fox, of her first test for the silver screen.

Norma Jeane, barely 20, with a new life and a new name.

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A year later and Marilyn was still cycling to the studio, to dancing & singing & acting lessons, still stealing scripts and sneaking home to practice them, still haunting wardrobe and makeup and publicity in her tight sweaters and eager smiles, still posing in negligees and bikinis, pestering anyone who could help her - asking about fabrics and foundations and period costumes, about lighting and camera motion and makeup, about toning, outlining, eyeshadowing for color, for black ‘n white. (31)

A year later and Marilyn was still eager, still hungry, still desperate to learn, to change, to become her new name, still asking, “How do you become a star?”

A year later and Marilyn was still a walkon in Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay, a 14th credit in Dangerous Years; still invisible at the bottom of Zanuck’s photo pile, still a “no call”, going nowhere.

A year later and Marilyn was doing her last photocall for Fox - just another starlet posing for the cameras, caddying a 2nd string lead man round the Cheviot Hills golf course. Caddying a tall, handsome, a gentle, a decent man . . . a Clark Gable to light up with her tight sweater and flared shorts, with her bright eyes and purr and smile, with her quiet hungry words, down to her last paycheck. A Clark Gable to buy her dinner and drive her home, home to her tiny, dark, seedy apartment. A Clark Gable to invite in, to “thank” for the dinner, for the day, for . . . a Clark Gable to help her, to hold her, to tell her everything will be all right.

A Clark Gable with a wife who could never resist an orphan, a waif, a stray; a poor little girl who was raped at 9, almost daily by 11; who was padding her bras and working the boulevard again, to pay for her meals, her classes, her acting lessons. A little “lost waif” with no money, no home, no job, no hope, no friends. A “stray kitten” Lucille Ryman just couldn’t dump out on the street again. (32)

John Carroll and his wife and their “hungry little kitten”, who could stay in the spare flat on top of El Palacio, right there on La Cienega, handy for her acting lessions, for her auditions. Their hungry little kitten who just needed a daddy to call on the set, a mother to phone in her office at MGM, to say, “it’s all right, Marilyn, I’m right here, of course you should take a bath. yes, try the lemon rinse”. Who just needed $50, $80, $100 a week, after week, after week; a mother, a father, a lead actor, a talent director; an apartment in Hollywood, a ranch house in the valley with John Huston’s team of Irish stallions, with Lucille’s gowns and coats and slacks, parties and friends, like Pat DeCicco, the Bon Bon king, like his old pal, his good buddy, the Fox mogul, Joe Schenck.

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Joe Schenck, a weatherbeaten beefy old bear of a man, with his limo and butler and poker buddies, with his Renaissance mansion. (33) The old mogul with a 1000 stories to tell, of shooting silents back on East 48th with Dutch and Norma and Buster Keaton, of Harlow and Billie Cassin, Pierce Arrows and the bareass Charleston; of Frank Netti and Willie Bioff, payoffs and rackets and studio hypocrites; of old Harry Warner, still the cobbler’s son, still pinching pennies and licking his lips, still picking up nails off the set.

The old mogul with his memories and poker buddies, the guys who were there with Fatty and Lillian and D W Grif. The old mogul with all his stories and memories and wisdom; with his wide-eyed, hungry, little innocent- smiling, purring and lapping it all up, ever gazing at him, taking it in. . . seeing the “whole history of Hollywood in his face”, in his years of exploration. The old mogul with his little kitten, laughing, purring, pouring the highballs, and dealing; laughing and purring and rubbing him up.

The old mogul with his mansion and limo and poker buddies, with Spyros and Bon Bon and Harry Cohn. Harry the Horror, the Columbia kingpin. With his old buddy Harry who could always find a spot for “Joe Schenck’s girlfriend”.

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Not quite 22 and Marilyn was back in the game, back on the lot with a 26 week Columbia contract. (34) Back on the lot eager, hungry driven to make herself into something new. Back on the lot with her electric sexuality, with her reedy tight squeak of a voice, with her constant doubt. Back on the lot frozen, terrified of any audience, soon to be lined up for a singing part in Ladies of the Chorus. Back on the lot with not a hope once she opened her mouth, once she froze on the set.

The producer, director, talent scout, they all agreed - even the “tiny demands of chorus girl role were beyond Marilyn’s capabilities”. Drooping in her “vacuous expression and hip hugging dress, unable even to take refuge in her own insignificance”, this girl needed more than a drama coach, she needed a Stanislavsky, a Chekhov, a Max Reinhardt, she needed the Moscow Art Theatre, the whole German Rep - she needed a scraggy, greying “frantic stork” of a woman, who shouldda been a Garbo, a Bernhardt, a Duse; a greying, lonely, rage of a woman, done by the Nazis, by the studios, by her husband; bitter, hungering for recognition, acknowledgement of her culture, her talent, hungering for a chance to live her dreams , to mold one of these empty little “trollops” into what she should have been. Looking for a “channel for what she had to give”, a wide-eyed, empty, hungry, little starlet just needing Natasha to “breathe for her”, to teach her every “gamut of human emotion” , every nuance of the Russian soul; a perfect venus, in the softest clay, just waiting to be reworked, refined, caressed; remade into the perfect Garbo, the perfect Bernhardt, the perfect Natasha Lytess.

A “new friend” for Marilyn, an acting coach, a “woman of deep culture”, who’d show her how to move, express, tell her what to read, Tolstoy & Turgenev, how to speak and act and dress. Who’d take her in and fill her up; who’d work her, drive her, pound her, keep her focused, on track... get her to practice, recite over and over, to stress every syllable, every “d” & “t”:

“’I did not want to pet the dear. . .’ Again Marilyn. Move your lips before you speak, before.. ‘I did not want...’ every ‘d’, every ‘t’, ‘did not want to pet... .‘ Enunciate clearly. ‘did’, ‘not’, ‘want’. enunciate.. Every syllable.. and get those final dentals sharp. Now try it again. ‘I did not want to pet the dear soft cat’.”

Who’d study, watch, guide every move, every nuance of expression; who’d calibrate every scene, and signal every bit - “too low, bring it up, voice up”; “no, you’ve lost your inner poise”; “too soon, turned too soon”; “empty, you’re missing the connection, the motive, get the motive” - at home, the studio, right there on the set. Right there in the projection rooms, filling the daily rushes, scene after scene of Marilyn ”finishing her dialogue, shading her eyes and looking out”, getting the nod, the gesture, the signal she’d finally got it right.

A drama coach who’d give herself to Marilyn, teaching her, berating her, pounding her; sculpting, refining, pacing her; making sure she never got beyond herself, making sure she never found herself:

“Of course Karamazov would make a good movie. . . Dmitry and Grushenka, Marilyn. Grushenka. The first syllable, accent the first syllable. . . . You? You play Grushenka??? Of course, Marilyn. . . of course.”

A drama coach who was clinging, controlling, living through Marilyn, critiquing her every step, every word, making sure she was terrified to face two lines alone, without Natasha right there on the set, just off the screen; making sure she understated every move, enunciated, articulated every “d” & “t”; giving her that perfect breathy little voice to go with her electric sexuality; making sure she had no hope of Grushenka, but was perfect, just perfect for purring "baby-faced", strapless up to Groucho, just perfect for ".. . some men are following me”.

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22 and back on the lot, with her reedy voice, her constant doubt. (35) Frozen, terrified of any audience, lined up for a singing part in Ladies of the Chorus. Back on the lot, with a new part, another chance. With no hope.

Back on the lot with a vocal coach who could hear possibilities in her voice; who’d play the piano and talk for hours about Fred & Ginger, about Cole Porter and Ella, about Gershwin, about Glenn Miller. A vocal coach who’d put his son to bed and sit and play for her; who was “live and strong”, whose “voice was like a medicine”; who’d take her to his friends’ homes, to small intimate parties, maybe in the hills over Malibu, maybe out at Richard Quine’s; who’d coax her up for a number or two, one of Marilyn’s favorites, maybe “Begin the beguine”, maybe “Baby won’t you please”. Just the two of them at the piano over drinks. Just the two of them with a few friends.

A vocal coach who brought her home to the family bungalow, to his mother and sister, to Nana and Mary, to coos and hugs and giggles, to kids who were “crazy about her”. A vocal coach who brought her home to the love of the whole Karger family, who let her “open up”, forget Norma Jeane, who let “a new me appear in Marilyn’s skin”.

A vocal coach with his own dance band and sidemen, who were all playing for her, pulling for her to come out and sing, do a few of her favourites at their gigs, in Long Beach, Arcadia, in Pasadena; all pulling for her to slip on Freddy’s ring.

A vocal coach who took her from the frozen terror, trembling, ever hiding in the wings to two songs and a dance routine; who took her from walkons & crowd scenes, clips on the cutting room floor to the Motion Picture Herald, to “Everybody Needs a Da, Da, Daddy”, to the “brightest spot” in Ladies of the Chorus.

A vocal coach who had her driving back and forth, up and down Santa Monica Blvd, back and forth past the Carmel Theatre, reading and rereading her name bright up there on the marquee, sitting low in the middle row, hiding in dark glasses and a baggy overcoat, just a little girl peeking up at the screen - a new self, a new life - Marilyn, MARILYN!!, no more Norma Jeane.

A vocal coach caught in a bitter divorce, who “talked a lot about women and the emptiness of their love”. A vocal coach who suddenly discovered that Marilyn, the poor little waif, the little lost homeless waif, the helpless stray kitten, had tricked him, had conned him into taking her in. That Marilyn in her hunger for love, her desperate need for a father, a family, a daddy, had babyfaced lied her way into his home. A bitter vocal coach who suddenly realized that she was too hungry, too weepy; that her mind was barely hatched, “embryonic”, “inert”, half naked all the time; that she was just “floating through life on a pair of water wings”; her clothes, her mind, and did you ever notice that little overbite. . . sure that can all be fixed.. . sure, Dr Taylor can even up those teeth. But the tears, the lies. . . what if I should drop dead, die? Would that be fair to the kids, leaving them with a mother like this.

And so by January of ‘49 it was over. Fred Karger had taken Marilyn from frozen in the wings to front and center, ready to face any audience, ready to sing. And in her hunger for love, her rush to belong, Marilyn had gotten herself crushed, rejected, thrown out. Just in time. January of ‘49 and Marilyn was set - a starlet moving in just the right circles; bruised, battered, broken -- perfect, ready to move on.

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What Marilyn needed now was a gentle, friendly fatherly man, an older wiser man who would talk to her in a quiet voice, who’d look at her with kind eyes, who’d listen. (36) A man who knew about broken hearts and lives, about mixups and wrong starts; who didn’t blame or criticize; a man who’d accept all the pain and desperate things in Marilyn, in Norma Jeane. Marilyn needed a busy man, ever in demand, on the phone, on the run; who somehow found the time he didn’t have to be there, to turn her tears to smiles, to laughter for the first time in months.

Marilyn needed a short little, "sandy haired bantam weight" of a man who filled the room with kindness and made you feel like maybe somehow the heart might love again. A man who was more than a friend, more than a father, more than a sweetie. What Marilyn needed was one little man who “seemed just like a whole family”.

And Marilyn needed a mentor, a talent scout. No contract, no work, no money, no prospects - a man who knew exactly why she couldn’t get a job, why she couldn’t even earn enough to eat. A man who’d smile and tell her “it’s hard for a star to get a job”, who could see it, feel it in her, “stars aren’t made for eating jobs”. A man who knew because he saw 100s of actresses every week; who “discovered a girl just like you once, years ago, brought her to Metro”. A girl “just like you, only you’re better, you’ve got more than her, you’ll go farther, farther than Lana Turner”.

Marilyn needed a mentor who laughed at Zanuck and Cohn and Dore Schary; laughed at them for sacking her at 20th and Columbia , for refusing her at Metro. “’Not photogenic’. That’s good. ‘not star material’ Ha!” A mentor who laughed because he’d seen her on the set and on the screen, because he’s sat in the theater watched the sparks, felt the steam; laughed because he knew, she had more than Turner, more than Rita Hayworth, more than Clara Bow; laughed because she was “another Harlow”.

Marilyn needed a mentor who understood her dreams, who saw beyond Hollywood , beyond the silly scripts, the candyfloss, sirens and sexpots. A mentor who know about serfs and peasants and outcasts, like Grushenka, and Marilyn and Norma Jeane. A mentor who’d recite a few lines of Pushkin, of Andreyev; who’d remember the Tzar mumbling round the Winter Palace, who’d remember the days, the hopes, of ‘17.

A mentor who didn’t think it was funny, her reading Tolstoy and listening to Tchaikovsky, who knew that everything was possible, a mentor who let her hope and smile and dream again. A mentor who “changed the world” for Marilyn.

And Marilyn needed a promoter, a promoter who took her to the fashion houses, to Saks Fifth Ave, to Jax out on Wilshire; who took her from bare legs, a beat up old polo coat, to nylons and cashmere, to gowns and silk; who hired a personal stylist to give her weekly sessions, a Beverly Hills surgeon to touch up her nose, soften her chin.

A promoter who “swarmed all over the studios” by day, who took her around on his arm at night, to Palm Springs and Malibu and Bel-Air; to Stone Canyon, the Palisades, to Romanoffs and Chasens. A promoter who knew Zanuck and Cohn and Schary; Hawks and Cukor and Wilder; every Huston, Warner, and Mayer; who knew every player, every insider.

A promoter who never confused Hollywood ’s realities with Tolstoy or Grushenka, with Marilyn’s dreams; who never confused real acting with making it on the screen. A promoter who know exactly what the studios had to sell, who knew it was all down to one thing - the right projects, the right producers, the right combo for Marilyn’s magical innocence, for her “luminous sex appeal” What Marilyn needed was a promoter who could walk up and introduce her to a producer like Lester Cowan; walk up and next thing you know Lester’s new film has added a little cameo, with just Groucho and Marilyn, a little cameo just made for “Johnny’s girlfriend”.

What Marilyn needed were film roles - the kind of roles that Johnny could get her - roles that “fit her to a’t’”; roles that fit the Marilyn she was and the legend she would become; roles that she could light up like ‘another Harlow’, like “Mae West, Theda Bara and Bo Peep all rolled into one” . Roles that she’d been lighting up since way back in junior high, in her faded blue dress, no bra, no underblouse; in her tight sweater and flared shorts; in her babyfaced and strapless and purring up to Groucho. Roles that ‘fit her to a ‘t’”. Roles like Johnny got her in All About Eve, playing an eager, alluring novice, with more hunger than talent; an eager alluring novice who knew all about gentlemen friends, all about “acquaintances”. Roles like Marilyn had been playing ever since she got to Hollywood, the helpless, innocent little lost waif, ever “thanking” agents, coaches, and friends, ever smiling and listening, ever ”kneeling” for execs. Roles like she played in Asphalt Jungle, napping on the sofa - so helpless, so innocent - just a little kitten glancing up at her sugar daddy, just a little kitten. . . licking cream.

Marilyn needed a man who was lost in her. A man who’d found a cause in her. A man who could never see that she loved him as her long lost father, as her protector, her helper, her benefactor. Marilyn needed a man who’d found his cause, who couldn’t stop -- from the beach to the bed to the endless party circuit; from the beach to the bed to breathless on the landing; bent, folded, gasping; from the beach to the bed to the first heart attack. Marilyn needed a man who lived for nothing but his “fiancee”, his star, his fantasy. A man who could never hear her soft, quiet words of refusal, who could only see that she was always there, ever faithful, loyal, available. Marilyn needed a man who could never understand, never accept that sex was just a way of being close, a way of saying “thanks”. A man who heard the words she said, that she couldn’t marry him; heard the words, but could never accept, not with her legs ever soft, ever warm; not with her legs ever wet.

Marilyn needed a man who was lost in her, who was going to make her a star, make her his wife, who was going to leave her his fortune, his property, save her forever from poverty. Marilyn needed a man who pulled out all the stops, cashed in all the chips, a man who called in all his IOUs hustling one final deal, over the phone from his bed - hustling a 7 year contract with Fox, a 7 year contract for an unknown starlet. A contact that meant her fame, her legend, her place in history. A contract that Johnny Hyde would never live to see.

Marilyn needed a man who was lost in her, who would give his all for her, who would live just long enough to make her career. A man who would live just long enough to die for her.

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And Marilyn needed publicity, the kind of publicity that would make her the studio’s hottest property, the kind of publicity Johnny got her on the cover of Life as Hollywood ’s brightest rising star, the “Busty Bernhardt bringing men running just by standing still and breathing”. (37) The kind of publicity he got her in Young As You Feel, in Love Nest, checking herself in the mirror, taking shorthand with her breasts barely in, turning, rising and then. . . wig, wig, wiggling down the hall. Gliding in and out of clothes and showers, with hints of nylon and bras, and silky slips, with the film set so quiet and packed you “could hear the electricity” snap. Heating up the screen in her little polka dot bikini, the one with “barely enough room for the polka dots”, the one that had the old boys all buzzin at Fox, all buzzin at the stockholders meeting in New York City; all pushing Zanick for more, for bigger parts, pushing Zanuck for all she’s got.

Marilyn needed the kind of publicity that only a studio could give her, cranking out 1000s of photos & stories, gossip and pinups and inuendo -- Marilyn at the annual awards dinner stitched up in her sequins and cleavage, her eyes half closed and mouth half open, leaning and stretching, smiling and turning and purring for the lens, for all the young men stationed way out in Korea with their long hours and cold showers, with their pinups cut out and plastered, wall papering the barracks, the foxholes, the canteen. All those boys in Seoul , in Pusan ; in Yanggu, Mokpo , Kosong. All those boys writing home to their dreams.

Marilyn needed the kind of publicity that made sure no matter how much “depth”, “force” and “nuance” her acting began to show; no matter how many literature classes she took, no matter how hard she studied with Natasha, with Michael Chekhov; no matter how much she dreamed of Tolstoy, Rilke and Proust, how she longed to play Ibsen’s Nora, Grushenka in Karamazov . . . no matter, for the press and the studio, for the stockholders and soldiers, the men who bought the pinups and caught the flicks, who packed the mailbags every week; the men who took the photos, ran the studios, did the interviews; the men who could see only one thing - the dizzy blonde, the cheesecake, the girl with the big tits. . . the girl they were all screwin' right off the screen.

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What Marilyn needed was the kind of press that’d make her “hotter than Harlow ”. (38) The kind of press that comes with having Louella Parsons and Sidney Skolsky mothering and fathering you, wanting to help the “poor little waif”, becoming your “lifelong friend”. The kind of press that came with her latest beau - Joltin Joe, the great DiMaggio, “ America ’s national hero”. The kind of press that came with Louella and Sidney’s syndicated columns, helping millions to chase their dreams - coast to coast, cover to cover, practically live - their dreams about “Joe looking over Marilyn’s curves”, about “Joe batting just fine”.

What Marilyn needed was the kind of press she’d been pulling ever since she grew those “two heads” way back in junior high - the kind of press she got by “tossing out the first pitch at a benefit baseball game, wearing a tight dress with nothing, absolutely nothing, underneath”; the kind of press she got by leading the Miss America Parade “wearing a little here, less there, and nothing much anywhere”; by leading the Miss America Parade in a “neckline that plunged to her waist and threatened to keep on going”; the kind of press she got by explaining how she thought everyone was just “admiring her grand marshall’s badge”.

The kind of press she got oohing her way through “Do It Again” out at Camp Pendleton; by heating up the troops, 1000s of men, with “Come and get it. . Mmmm . . . you won’t regret it” . . . then stampeding ‘em with, “Gee boys, I don’t get all the fuss about us sweater girls. . . I mean, take away the sweater and what have you got?”

What Marilyn needed was the kind of press she got by stretching out across Baumgarth’s 1952 calendar. Marilyn in her “Golden Dreams” with “nothing but the radio on”. Marilyn, innocent, purring, alluring. Marilyn, just a little kitten . . . licking cream.

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What Marilyn needed was the ‘50s. (39) The 50s when the War was over and the heroes were all out in the suburbs, pushing mowers. Out in the suburbs - no more buddies, battles, brothels. No more soldiers. Just the wife and kids; turtle wax, little league, painting the fence; a Saturday night every 5 or 6 weeks. Just the drive-in, the Roxie, the technicolor dreams; the popcorn, the Bon Bons, the Ju Ju B's. Just Marilyn, winking & wiggling, purring across the screen.

The 50s when the boys were all home from the War, and the girls were all back in their usual place, only more. Filing the nails, powdering the nose, eyelining, studying the boys; chasing the quarterback, the manager’s son, most any guy in a letter sweater; chasing a husband. Knitting, stitching, learning to cook; scooping double deckers, banana splits, working the sidecounter at Gams. $5 deposit, saving up month by month; henparties and showers, a 3 piece living room set. The house in the suburbs; the diapers, the Gerbers, the shirts to press. Late nights at the office, bowling league and happy hours. Just over at Jimmy’s fixin the mower. And who does he think he’s kiddin’.

What Marilyn needed was the 50s when the men were all men and the women all had their brains traded in for curlers. The 50s when gentlemen preferred blondes, blondes who would slither and purr and wiggle; blondes who were kindda dumb & stacked and liked to giggle. The ‘50s when women preferred blondes - well one blonde - a blonde who could pull all those bowties right up to her thighs. . . then "gosh" and a big blink while they sizzled.

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