Marilyn Monroe
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Marilyn Monroe (1 June 1926 – 5 August 1962) was an American actress, singer, model, and one of the most famous Hollywood icons of the twentieth century.
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- It's not true I had nothing on. I had the radio on.
- On reports of her nude photographs for a calendar, as quoted in TIME magazine (1952)
- Don't you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn't marry a girl just because she's pretty, but my goodness, doesn't it help?
- As "Lorelei Lee" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
- I've been on a calendar, but never on time.
- Look magazine (5 March 1957)
- I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me — and that I've made of myself — as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman's and I can't live up to it.
- Statement c. 1962, as quoted in Marilyn (1992) by Peter Harry Brown and Patte B. Barham, Ch. 27
- Unfortunately, I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.
- Telegram, turning down a party invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy (13 June 1962)
- Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe. I don't mind making jokes, but I don't want to look like one... I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity... If fame goes by, so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experienced, but that's not where I live.
- Her last taped interview, with Richard Meryman, published in LIFE magazine a few days before her death. (3 August 1962); quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972)
- Say good-bye to Pat, say good-bye to Jack and say good-bye to yourself, because you're a nice guy.
- Last words to actor Peter Lawford, in August 1962, as quoted in US News & World Report (7 October 1985)
- An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine.
- As quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 38
- Why? — It paid the rent.
- On why she had posed nude for a calendar photograph, quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 39
- I restore myself when I'm alone. A career is born in public — talent in privacy.
- As quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 40
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- That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. But if I'm going to be a symbol of something, I'd rather it be sex than some of the things we've got symbols of... I just hate to be a thing.
- Comment on her sex symbol status, quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 40
- I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.
- As quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 41
- The studio people want me to do "Good-bye Charlie" for the movies, but I'm not going to do it. I don't like the idea of playing a man in a woman's body — you know? It just doesn't seem feminine.
- On turning down a role, eventually played by Debbie Reynolds, as quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 41
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- First, I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll convince myself that I'm an actress.
- As quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 42
- Dogs never bite me. Just humans.
- As quoted in "A Beautiful Child" in Music for Chameleons (1980) by Truman Capote
- The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.
- Handwritten note responding to a question about posing nude, as quoted in International Herald Tribune (5 October 1984)
- Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives.
- As quoted in Marilyn Monroe : In Her Own Words (1983), edited by Roger Taylor
- My work is the only ground I've ever had to stand on. I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation — but I'm working on the foundation.
- As quoted in Marilyn Monroe : In Her Own Words (1983), edited by Roger Taylor
- Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.
- As quoted in Marilyn Monroe : In Her Own Words (1983), edited by Roger Taylor
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- When you're famous you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way. It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well, who does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe? They feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you, of any kind of nature — and it won't hurt your feelings — like it's happening to your clothes not you.
- Comment on fame, quoted in Marilyn Monroe: A Life of the Actress (1993) by Carl E. Rollyson, and in Symbolic Leaders: Public Dramas and Public Men (2006) by Orrin Edgar Klapp
- Variant: People feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you, of any kind of nature — and it won't hurt your feelings — like it's happening to your clothing.
- As quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 40
- Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.
- As quoted in The Films of Barbra Streisand (2001) by Christopher Nickens and Karen Swenson
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- I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
- If you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything.
- Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely stupid.
- I don't know who invented High heels but all women owe him a lot.
- A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.
- A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left.
- As of today, I have absolutely no regrets. I think I am a mature person who can take things in stride. I'm grateful for people in my past. They helped me get to where I am, wherever that is. But now, I am thinking for myself and sitting in on all the business transactions.
- Blond hair and breasts, that's how I got started. I couldn't act. All I had was blond hair and a body men liked. The reason I got ahead is that I was lucky and met the right men.
- Fame is fickle and I know it. It has its compensations, but it also has its drawbacks and I've experienced them both.
- For breakfast, I have two raw beaten eggs in a glass of hot milk. I never eat dessert. My nail polish is transparent. I never wear stockings or underclothes because I think it is important to breathe freely. I wash my hair everyday and I am always brushing it. Every morning I walk across my apartment rolling an empty soda bottle between my ankles, in order to preserve my balance.
- I always felt I was nobody and the only way for me to be somebody was to be... well, somebody else.
- I always felt insecure and in the way — but most of all I felt scared. I guess I wanted love more than anything else in the world.
- I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it.
- I don't understand why people aren't a little more generous with each other.
- I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy.
- I knew I belonged to the public and to the world. Not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.
- I let them think what they want. If they just care enough to bother with what I do then, I'm already better than them anyway.
- I never intentionally mean to hurt anyone, but you can't be too nice to people you work with, else they will trample you to death.
- I think cheesecake helps call attention to you. Then you can follow through and prove yourself.
- I used to think as I looked at the Hollywood night, 'There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest.'
- I want to be an artist not an erotic freak. I don't want to be sold to the public as a celluloid aphrodisiac.
- I want to grow old without face-lifts ... I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made. Sometimes, I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but you'd never complete your life, would you? You'd never wholly know yourself.
- I was a mistake. My mother didn't want to have me. I guess she never wanted me. I probably got in her way. I know I must have disgraced her. A divorced woman has enough problems getting a man, I guess, but one with an illegitimate baby.... I wish, I still wish, she had wanted me.
- I won't be satisfied until people want to hear me sing without looking at me.
- I'm not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.
- I've never dropped anyone I believed in.
- I've never liked the name Marilyn. I've often wished that I had held out that day for Jean Monroe. But I guess it's too late to do anything about it now.
- If I am a star the people made me a star.
- If I had observed all the rules, I'd never have gotten anywhere.
- In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You're judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty.
- It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well, who does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe? They feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you, of any kind of nature — and it won't hurt your feelings — like it's happening to your clothes not you.
- It's far better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone — so far.
- Joe doesn't think any man can love me except him. He's my best friend in the world. I don't want to lose him. I don't want to lose Jose (Bolanos). Oh, help me, somebody...
- Men who think that a woman's past love affairs lessen her love for them are usually stupid and weak. A woman can bring new love to each man she loves, providing there aren't too many.
- My great ambition is to have people comment on my fine dramatic performances.
- My how fast the months go — and the calendars!
- My illusions didn't have anything to do with being a fine actress. I knew how third rate I was. I could actually feel my lack of talent, as if it were cheap clothes I was wearing inside. But, my God, how I wanted to learn, to change, to improve!
- No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they are pretty, even if they aren't.
- No sex is wrong if there is love in it. But, too often, people act like it's gymnasium work, mechanical.
- Only the public can make a star. It's the studios who try to make a system out of it.
- People ask me if I am going on making cheesecake pictures now that I'm a star. My answer is that as long as there is a boy in Korea who wants a pinup of me, I'll go on posing for them.
- People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror instead of a person. They didn't see me, they saw their own lewd thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the lewd one.
- Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature.
- She (the character, Sadie Thompson) was a girl who knew how to be gay even when she was sad. That's important, you know?
- Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress, they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh. Somehow they don't expect me to be serious about my work.
- The most unsatisfactory men are those who pride themselves on their virility and regard sex as if it were some form of athletics at which you can win cups. It is a woman's spirit and mood a man has to stimulate in order to make sex interesting. The real lover is the man who can thrill you just by touching your head or smiling into your eyes or by just staring into space.
- The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them and fooling them.
- Those people have been writing all those lies about me, all I know, it's their problem. Those people, I don't even know them or if we met it's been brief. Can I take it? Most of course! I'm used to it and remember the old saying: 'consider the source'.
- With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, and somebody else's ideas about you, but what's important is how you feel about yourself — for survival and living day to day with what comes up.
- You can't sleep your way into being a star. It takes much, much more. But it helps a lot of actresses get their first chance that way.
- You know who I always depend on? Not strangers, not friends. The telephone! That's my best friend. I seldom write letters, but I love calling friends, especially late at night, when I can't sleep.
- Beneath the make-up and behind the mask I am just a girl who wishes for the world.
- I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
[edit] Quotes about Monroe
- When Marilyn Monroe got out of the game, I wrote something like, "Southern California's special horror notwithstanding, if the world offered nothing, nowhere to support or make bearable whatever her private grief was, then it is that world, and not she, that is at fault."
I wrote that in the first few shook-up minutes after hearing the bulletin sandwiched in between Don and Phil Everly and surrounded by all manner of whoops and whistles coming out of an audio signal generator, like you are apt to hear on the provincial radio these days. But I don't think I'd take those words back.- Thomas Pynchon in a letter to Jules Siegel, published in Cavalier magazine (August 1965)
- If Marilyn is in love with my husband it proves she has good taste, for I am in love with him too.
- Simone Signoret, responding to rumors that her husband Yves Montand was romantically involved with Monroe. The New York Journal-American (14 November 1960)
- I remember her on the screen, huge as a colossus doll, mincing and whispering and simply hoping her way into total vulnerability.
- Gloria Steinem from “Marilyn Monroe: The Woman who Died Too Soon” in Ms. magazine (August 1972); later published in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983)
[edit] External links
- Andy Warhol's Marilyn Pictures
- Marilyn Monroe at the Internet Movie Database
- TIME 100: Marilyn Monroe
- Archival newsreels of Monroe
- Coverage of Monroe's death and aftermath by the Los Angeles Times
- Excerpts from a forthcoming book by John Gilmore
