Marilyn Monroe‘s name is still not given enough respect 60 years after her death, despite Netflix’s forthcoming biopic, Blonde, which may help change that.
She wasn’t always easy to work with, suffering from insecurities that may express in a variety of director-exasperating ways on location, but serious directors nonetheless lined up to work with her, hoping to capitalize on her star quality and boundless charisma.
The camera loves her, as the oft-quoted cliché goes, but her work with acting maestro Lee Strasberg also helped refine her skill. And it’s visible across an acting resume that includes 29 completed films and one unfinished project, with plenty of performances that debunk any notions of her as merely a sex symbol there to dolly up the image.
With Ana de Armas’ take on her in Blonde premiering on Netflix, here are seven real-life examples of what Monroe could do.
THE MISFITS :
Both on and off the screen, John Huston’s western is a heartbreaker. It was her penultimate on-screen job, as well as co-star Clark Gable’s – it was also one of Montgomery Clift’s – and the set was a tumultuous, hard-drinking location from which Monroe would disappear for two weeks in treatment.
It’s also a film about wounded, lonely souls who discover unity through breaking horses on the Nevada salt flats. Arthur Miller, Monroe’s then-husband, wrote the screenplay that cast her as jaded divorcee Roslyn Tabor, a beautiful, complicated woman who serves as a blank canvas for disturbed men to pour their hopes onto.
Perhaps it’s self-awareness in a character whose emotional wounds are virtually obvious. It’s the most profound and powerful move of her career. It also makes you wonder what she might have gone on to do.
SOME LIKE IT HOT :
Billy Wilder’s gold-plated comedic classic, as well as its film set, are likely to appear in Blonde. (Both Wilder and Monroe’s co-star, Tony Curtis, play characters in the picture.) Her Golden Globe-winning performance as ukulele-playing singer Sugar ‘Kane’ Kowalczyk was just deserted for a comedy portrayal that’s as light as air and irresistibly endearing.
Sure, she used a lot of film stock – many of her lines required 40 or more takes – but the ultimate product left Wilder raving: ‘All I can tell you is that if Marilyn was here today, I’d be on my knees, saying, “Please, let’s do it again!”‘
GENTLEMAN PREFER BLONDES :
Howard Hawks’ comedy of excess features Monroe knocking it out of the park as material girl Lorelei Lee, who travels to France with her less materialistic chum Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) to marry wealthy fiancé Gus.
When she performs a jazzy rendition of ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ in an incandescent pink ball gown, it could be the ultimate four minutes of cinema. If there was a drawback to this cinematic adventure, it was that it reinforced stereotypes of her as a ‘dumb blonde’ on-screen.
NIAGARA :
Monroe rose to prominence in the late heyday of Hollywood noirs, and while she never had the kind of big parts that Gloria Graham, Gene Tierney, and Barbara Stanwyck had, she did play a rather effective femme fatale in Henry Hathaway’s overheated thriller.
Rose Loomis is the unhappy wife of a traumatized Korean war veteran (Joseph Cotten) whose notion of a romantic holiday to Niagara Falls entails horrific murder. The picture – and its costume department – focuses heavily on Monroe’s sex appeal, but she plays the conniving wife with satisfying grit.
The most memorable memory of Niagara is Andy Warhol’s famous ‘Marilyn Diptych,’ which employs a single advertising photo of Monroe promoting the film.
THE SEVEN-YEAR ITCH :
‘She had the most empathy of any performer I’d seen,’ claimed Monroe’s acting coach, Lee Strasberg, who frequently compared her to Marlon Brando.
This frothy romcom, in which she shows off her comic abilities in a role so conventional, the character is dubbed ‘The Girl,’ does not rely on much of her sensitivity.
The romance is about as seductive as a cold kipper, but the coquettish Monroe is a lightning bolt of brightness – as caught in the iconic blowy-dress shot above a subway vent, made under the confines of the Hays Code.
However, the vent was the only thing airier than the film, which even its director, Billy Wilder, derided as a “nothing picture.”
DON’T BOTHER TO KNOCK :
A hotel-set psychodrama starring Marilyn Monroe as a troubled babysitter who seduces Richard Widmark’s airline captain on the rocks with her feminine charms.
Yes, it’s that movie – yet the actress expertly fleshes out this portrayal of mental illness to offer extra nuances to the character, drawing on her own schizophrenic mother’s experiences.
THE ASPHALT JUNGLE :
Monroe appears in this dark noir as the bright young moll to Louis Calhern’s clammy lawyer-turned-robber, one of two remarkable collaborations with John Huston.
Also read: Blonde: Netflix Biopic on Legendary Monroe
It’s an early demonstration of her ability to portray a rare type of freighted innocence (she’s nice, but she’s trouble), and it emerges here as a crucial shard of light to pierce the encompassing gloom of Huston’s fast-souring heist film.
ALL ABOUT EVE :
Another breakout supporting role in an all-time classic, Monroe (and her agency) hit her stride early as Broadway ingénue Claudia Casswell, who finds herself caught in a crossfire of catty put-downs at a party hosted by Bette Davis’s Margo Channing. It’s easy to imagine Monroe as a young woman experiencing impostor syndrome among a cast of known greats, but she lends grace and balance to this famous scene
She stands out amid the black ties and skirts, dressed entirely in white, as an evident outsider with no prospect of entering into this cynical, jealous society.
