Featured image of post Marilyn Monroe's friend on her how her death happened

Marilyn Monroe's friend on her how her death happened

Marilyn Monroe’s friend on her how her death happened

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“‘The Cubans weren’t there. The Kennedys weren’t there,” Marilyn Monroe’s friend Amy Greene said of Monroe’s tragic death. Don’t miss “Reframed: Marilyn Monroe” on CNN this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.

Marilyn Monroe Was “Never a Victim”: Seven Ways She Masterminded Her Career

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Sixty years after Marilyn Monroe’s death, the blond bombshell is still remembered as a tragic figure—a passive victim of a patriarchal Hollywood. But as Monroe’s friend, 92-year-old Amy Greene, tells us, “She was never a victim, sweetheart. Never in a million years. She was a young, vital woman who loved life, loved parties, and had a good time.”

Greene has been saying this for about 60 years, since Monroe was her roommate, occasional babysitter to her son, Joshua, and muse to her late photographer husband, Milton. On Sunday, Greene, as well as Monroe biographer Sarah Churchwell and actors including Mira Sorvino, Amber Tamblyn, and Ellen Burstyn, looked back on Monroe’s life and career for a new CNN docuseries, Reframed: Marilyn Monroe, narrated by Jessica Chastain.

Told through a female perspective—and an empathetic, post–#MeToo lens—the docuseries contends that contrary to the way she’s been depicted in the past, Monroe was a shrewd businesswoman who understood the industry’s misogynist rules and played them to her advantage. For executive producer Sam Starbuck, who has spent much of her career covering male subjects alongside male crew members, tackling Monroe’s life and legacy was a rare privilege and opportunity to reveal the real woman behind her sex-object status.

“She’s so much more interesting and smart and funny than I ever could have actually imagined,” says Starbuck. “She was a total power broker and trailblazer.”

Ahead, with the help of Starbuck and Greene, several examples that prove Monroe was an architect of her own fate.

She Helped Create Her Own Hollywood Image

Monroe, like many stars of her era, was a Hollywood product—her name, hair color, and origin story were changed in favor of a more marketable image. But Monroe, who was born Norma Jeane Mortenson, also had an active role in her movie-star metamorphosis. She signed her first contract at 20th Century Fox with executive Ben Lyon, who rechristened her “Marilyn.” The then model insisted she be able to use the surname “Monroe.” She later explained, “I wanted my mother’s maiden name because I felt that was rightfully my name. And true things rarely get into circulation.”

By that point in her life, at about 20, Monroe was already a survivor—of sexual abuse, a chaotic upbringing with a schizophrenic mother who spent years in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and a first marriage devised to keep her out of an orphanage when she was only 16. But she also knew what she wanted—a movie career—and chased it accordingly. After a photographer visited the munitions factory in Van Nuys where Monroe was working in the 1940s, she ultimately quit and signed with a modeling agency, divorced her first husband (who was not supportive of her career), and began approaching studios about acting.

When 20th Century Fox began publicizing Monroe, with her new name, they erased her complicated family history and active pursuit of a Hollywood acting career and created a more marketable origin story. Studio “flacks” advertised her as an orphan who was discovered after babysitting for a talent scout. Monroe not only signed off on the G-rated backstory, but posed for photos changing diapers and reading to children for a story that ran in 1947 under the headline “Pretty Sitter Sittin’ Pretty.”

Says Starbuck, “They took photographs of her with big bows in her hair and changing babies’ diapers. That was completely made up. But she understood what she needed to do to get herself where she wanted to go to.”

Making Powerful Male Allies

Monroe took acting classes and spent hours with photographers to learn about her best angles and refine her on-camera persona. But in the male-dominated studio system, there was only so much Monroe could do on her own. In the words of Mira Sorvino, who played Monroe in 1996’s Norma Jean and Marilyn: “I think Marilyn accepted that she was going to have to date people to get what she wanted. And I don’t think she ever should have had to choose that. But at least there was a decision in it on her part.”

How Marilyn Monroe helped her ‘very favorite person’ Ella Fitzgerald’s career

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On Sunday’s CNN documentary special “Reframed: Marilyn Monroe,” viewers learned quite a lot about the iconic Hollywood star. One notable story was the examination of Monroe’s friendship with famous jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald.

“My very favorite person and I love her as a person as well as a singer, I think she’s the greatest and that’s Ella Fitzgerald,” Monroe once said.

Monroe’s close friend Amy Greene recalled the time that the famous Mocambo club wouldn’t let Fitzgerald perform because of her race and appearance. Upon learning this, Monroe reached out to the club directly.

“Marilyn read this in the paper and got very annoyed and called the manager and said hi, this is Marilyn Monroe and if you rebook Ella Fitzgerald I will come every night to hear her sing. Both shows!”

While the women’s act of friendship would not be seen as unusual today, historians noted that this occurred in the midst of the civil rights movement and during a time of heightened racism. So Monroe’s support of Fitgerald could have hurt her career, but she did it anyway.

“Advocating for somebody like Ella Fitzgerald when she didn’t have to and unpopular, this speaks to her principles,” Michele Mitchell said. “Ella did say Marilyn Monroe was ahead of her time and she didn’t even know it.”

Video Transcript

AMY GREENE: Ella Fitzgerald knew she had a voice like an angel, and Marilyn played her records all the time.

KYLIE ERICA MAR: On Sunday’s CNN special “Reframed: Marilyn Monroe,” viewers learned about the close relationship between Monroe and famed jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald.

MARILYN MONROE (VOICEOVER): My very favorite person, and I love her as a person as well as a singer. I think she’s the greatest, and that’s Ella Fitzgerald.

KYLIE ERICA MAR: Monroe’s close friend Amy Greene recalled at the time that the famous Mocambo Club wouldn’t let Fitzgerald perform because of her race and appearance, which led to Monroe intervening.

AMY GREENE: Marilyn read this in the paper. She got very annoyed. So she called the manager and said, “Hi. This is Marilyn Monroe. And if you rebook Ella Fitzgerald, I will come every night to hear her sing. Both shows!”

KYLIE ERICA MAR: While the woman’s act of friendship would not be seen as unusual today, historians noted that this occurred in the midst of the civil rights movement and during a time of heightened racism. So Monroe’s support of Fitzgerald could have hurt her career, but she did it anyway.

MICHELE MITCHELL: Advocating for somebody like Ella Fitzgerald when she did not have to and when it was unpopular, this speaks to her principles. Ella did say Marilyn Monroe was ahead of her time, and she didn’t even know it.

CNN turns New Trier alumna’s Marilyn Monroe ‘crusade’ into documentary series

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Biographies are marketed as enlightening accounts of influential and captivating people.

But when Sarah Churchwell, a New Trier High School alumna, read a biography to learn more about the tragic death of icon Marilyn Monroe, she did not feel enlightened.

So she read another one. And another one. Each one told a different story, and none of them answered her questions.

“I realized it was this factory of fiction,” Churchwell said. “They all claimed to be biography but they were simply not telling the truth in any way that we understand that phrase. And what a reasonable reader of biography would expect to be getting is not what you’re getting.”

Using that as motivation, Churchwell beganwhat she called “a bit of a crusade” 20 years ago to counter the “cultural lie that was being told” about Monroe’s death and life.

The efforts of Churchwell — which were published in her PhD thesis and her 2004 book, “The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe” — have been revived by CNN for a four-part documentary called, “Marilyn Monroe: Reframed,” that uses Churchwell’s work as its foundation.

Promotional material from CNN for the docu-series.

The docu-series is an all-female production narrated by actress Jessica Chastain. It premiered on Sunday, Jan. 16, and wraps up with the final two episodes on Sunday, Jan. 23.

According to CNN, the project “re-examines Monroe’s story to uncover themes of feminism, sexuality and power to drive the cultural conversation today.”

To Churchwell, the profile of Monroe offered in the CNN series is in stark contrast to the biographies she read that framed the Hollywood star as a tragic victim who was overpowered by a male-dominated industry.

Churchwell contends that many biographers and historians — most of whom were male — made a lot of leaps about Monroe’s character as they attempted to understand and explain her actions.

“You can only see that if you stack the books together and see how they contradict each other, steal from each other, make (stuff) up outright,” she said. “And I just got so interested in that that it took over what I was doing. I was also on a bit of a crusade because I felt like there was this big lie being told and we deserve to know. This is nonsense.

“So I just felt something for me that was urgent in that. It was this cultural lie and it was sexist and gross and I just really wanted to take it on.”

The author of two more nonfiction books, Churchwell fed her literary passions early and often.

When she turned 7, her father gave her a book with the inscription, “To the little girl who likes words.”Churchwell remembers reading near the lake while living in Winnetka or “sitting on the rooftop on a spring day and plowing through novels.” She started to write her own novel at age 12.

While at New Trier High School, Churchwell took creative writing classes and edited the school’s literary and arts magazine, Calliope. Outside the classroom, she became infatuated with Old Hollywood and black-and-white film.

“That’s how I misspent my youth as a teenager at New Trier,” Churchwell joked. “I just got really into (old movies) as a teen. Everybody else was into David Bowie and I was watching Cary Grant movies. Just a total geek.”

Specifically, Churchwell was enamored by the “fast-talking, strong women,” often played by screen icons such as Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis. In that context, she naturally got curious about Marilyn Monroe.

Churchwell matriculated at Vassar College and earned a degree in English literature before collecting master’s and doctorate degrees in English and American literature from Princeton.

I was also on a bit of a crusade because I felt like there was this big lie being told (about Marilyn Monroe) and we deserve to know. … It was this cultural lie and it was sexist and gross and I just really wanted to take it on.” Sarah Churchwell on the inspiration for her book “The many Lives of Marilyn Monroe”

During her collegiate years, Churchwell discovered nonfiction writing was a viable path, something she thinks should be better communicated to young writers.

“I wish when we were growing up that people reminded us that there were other kinds of writing and fiction isn’t the only thing that makes you a writer,” she said. “I think I have various instincts for history and nonfiction, but people didn’t talk about that as writing. I wish someone pointed it out to me. It took a long time to figure that out.”

Churchwell became a literature professor in England, first at the University of East Anglia, and then in the School of Advanced Study at London University, where she also teaches humanities and is the director of the Being Human festival.

After authoring the Monroe title, Churchwell got back to what she called her “true love,” the world and community created by F. Scott Fitzgerald and his most famous work “The Great Gatsby.” She released “Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gasby,” in 2015.

Three years later, Churchwell’s book on American ideologies, “Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream,” came out.

Churchwell is also a journalist. She has been more active in news writing for the past five years and specializes in politics and history. In 2021, she was longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Journalism for her political commentary.

Though her work is nonfiction, Churchwell said much of it — including Gatsby, the American dream and Monroe — shares mythical attributes that she unpacks and at times, debunks.

“Where I sit is in a space around American icons and American myths,” she said, “where American literature, culture, film and history mix. Marilyn is the least historical of my books and is the most cultural. … Marilyn and Gatsby actually have an enormous amount in common. She’s a total Gatsby figure: She came from poverty, she changed her name, she reinvented herself, she became the perfect version of herself that everybody wanted her to be and it killed her.”

The final two episode of “Marilyn Monroe: Reframed” will air at 9 and 10 p.m., respectively, on CNN.

13 period-piece movies and TV shows coming in 2022

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The Crawley family travels to the south of France in “Downton Abbey: A New Era.”

Julian Fellowes wrote “Downton Abbey: A New Era.” Focus Features/YouTube

Premiere date: March 18, 2022

Where to watch: In theaters

Time period: The south of France in the 1930s

Synopsis: “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” a sequel to Fellowes’ 2019 film, picks up right where the last movie left off: the ’30s. And this time, the Brits are headed to France.

Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham played by Maggie Smith, informs the Crawleys that she’s found herself in the possession of a villa in the south of France.

Though the trailer doesn’t offer much information about the film’s plot, it does show Tom Branson (Allen Leech) and Lucy Smith’s (Tuppence Middleton) wedding nuptials, along with many of the beloved characters from Fellowes’ original six seasons.

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