In a 1960 letter to a New York Times editor she knew, Marilyn Monroe assessed leading U.S. presidential hopefuls. Republican Rockefeller was "more liberal than most Democrats," she wrote. She liked what she knew about Humphrey but wanted to know more, and she wished Stevenson could "talk to people other than professors." She had this cutting assessment of the day's leading Repub: "Of course, there hasn't been anyone like Nixon before because the rest of them at least had souls." She had decided at this point (before Kennedy won the Dem nomination) that she liked Kennedy, but as a VP candidate with one of the country's foremost legal minds atop the Dem ticket.
Why do I mention this? It illustrates how there's often more depth to public figures than what we perceive. Marilyn Monroe may have become famous playing "dumb blondes," but she was brighter than those characters or her public persona.
Of course, all of us are more complex than our surface appearances. We all have "back stories" that shaped and continue to shape our real-life characters. In Monroe's case the back story is more dramatic than most, as The Secret Life describes in its 500-plus pages.
The child of a schizophrenic mother and an absent father, she grew up in several different homes with her mother absent most of the time and her father absent entirely. It's no surprise, then, that Hollywood sex symbol Marilyn Monroe carried a bundle of insecurities into and throughout her stardom, right to her death at age 36.
One lesson from this is that maybe we should consider other people's back stories a little more. I think we often neglect to show people the empathy and kindness they deserve. I know I do.
10 comments:
I'd totally bought into the surface image of her.
Her political observations would probably have put most of the Hollywood Bigshots to shame.
Unless I misjudge them too !
Well said, Stimpson! Isn't it curious how the manufactured image of celebrities and politicians can differ so greatly from the real person? Why is there such a prevalent practice of lying or putting forth a false image? It seems that many put forth an unbelievable amount of energy into presenting self-fiction...
That's all true Stimpy, but you gotta also consider the other side of the coin when bozos with Hollywood credentials decide to become politicians and totally f'up. I've seen too many of them spouting their shallow political beliefs on the talking head programs.
Is Angela Jolie really the best choice as a UN ambasador to anything?
All good observations, Oso, JJ and SH.
SH: About Jolie in particular, I'm still puzzled and somewhat appalled by her interest in making a movie version of libertarian nutjob Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. That seems to contradict her UN goodwill ambassador work. Rand, after all, equated altruism with suicide, and I'd say UN goodwill work is altruistic.
Excellent Stimson. I always figured she was super-bright. Most people that sensitive and vulnerable are. I think it also reflects that, back then, people were much more aware of the people and events that effected their lives.
Come on Stimson! Why should I show Marilyn Monroe-type "people the empathy and kindness they deserve" more than I show empathy and kindness to Osos, Jodells, Hillbillys, and Tomcats of the world? Or the Stimpsons? What's gotten into you?
Vig: The Marilyns, especially, should be treated well because they have nice boobs.
Stimpy, I agree 100%. . . boobs automatically get you a certain "up-front" degree of empathy or whatever other form of compassion one with a nice pair desires. . . hopefully it involved warm hugs and long embraces.
Vigil, You need to show empathy to those who are oppressed and scorned. . . like hillbillies, canucks, Indians, fat. . . I mean, weight-challenged people, and even those fruits and nuts from CA.
Stimson has played his Marilyn Monroe card; I'll bank my Lizzi Miller card trumps a royal flush in the MM suit.
Good poker hand, Vigil. Ms. Miller certainly has the "still alive" factor going for her, among her many charms.
My review of this book will be out in a few weeks, BTW. I'll post it after the local broadsheet publishes it.
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