a b "Filmmaker interview – Gail Levin". Public Broadcasting Service. July 19, 2006. Archived from the original on August 10, 2016 . Retrieved July 11, 2016. Crowther, Bosley (February 2, 1961). "Movie Review: The Misfits (1961)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 1, 2015 . Retrieved October 18, 2015. My Story is an unfinished autobiography, written by actress and starlet Marilyn Monroe, describes her early adolescence, her rise in the film industry from bit player to celebrity, and her marriage to Joe DiMaggio. After founding MMP, Monroe moved to Manhattan and spent 1955 studying acting. She took classes with Constance Collier and attended workshops on method acting at the Actors Studio, run by Lee Strasberg. [185] She grew close to Strasberg and his wife Paula, receiving private lessons at their home due to her shyness, and soon became a family member. [186] She replaced her old acting coach, Natasha Lytess, with Paula; the Strasbergs remained an important influence for the rest of her career. [187] Monroe also started undergoing psychoanalysis, as Strasberg believed that an actor must confront their emotional traumas and use them in their performances. [188] [i] When Niagara was released in January 1953, women's clubs protested it as immoral, but it proved popular with audiences. [129] While Variety deemed it "clichéd" and "morbid", The New York Times commented that "the falls and Miss Monroe are something to see", as although Monroe may not be "the perfect actress at this point ... she can be seductive—even when she walks". [130] [131]

This autobiography, which was written at the height of Marilyn’s fame but only published over a decade after her death, recounts her early years as a troubled, unwanted foster child and her rise in the film industry, as well as her marriage to Joe DiMaggio. My Storyreveals what we now know to be true about Marilyn Monroe: she was a woman far more complex and intelligent than the blond bombshells she portrayed onscreen. Marilyn: Norma Jeane by Gloria Steinem The multitude of perspectives combine to form a prismatic view of a much-analyzed personality, already subject to constant public reappraisal and re-reappraisal. From the queen bee dumb blonde in Hollywood (said her All About Eve costar Celeste Holm, “I thought she was quite sweet and terribly dumb and my natural reaction was, ‘Whose girl is that?’”), she has been elevated to a silver screen saint martyred by a beastly tabloid media and the ravages of addiction. When her contract at Columbia ended, Monroe returned again to modeling. She shot a commercial for Pabst beer and posed for artistic nude photographs by Tom Kelley for John Baumgarth [83] calendars, using the name 'Mona Monroe'. [84] Monroe had previously posed topless or clad in a bikini for other artists including Earl Moran, and felt comfortable with nudity. [85] [f] Shortly after leaving Columbia, she also met and became the protégée and mistress of Johnny Hyde, the vice president of the William Morris Agency. [86]

Endometriosis also caused her to experience severe menstrual pain throughout her life, necessitating a clause in her contract allowing her to be absent from work during her period; her endometriosis also required several surgeries. [220] It has sometimes been alleged that Monroe underwent several abortions, and that unsafe abortions made by persons without proper medical training would have contributed to her inability to maintain a pregnancy. [221] The abortion rumors began from statements made by Amy Greene, the wife of Milton Greene, but have not been confirmed by any concrete evidence. [222] Furthermore, Monroe's autopsy report did not note any evidence of abortions. [222]

Spoto 2001, p.88, for first meeting in 1944; Banner 2012, p.72, for mother telling Monroe of sister in 1938.None of us growing up in the fifties will ever forget Marilyn, and her story lives on in the various books out there. But her own story in her own words adds significantly to the collection. Monroe was buried in her favorite Emilio Pucci dress, in what was known as a "Cadillac casket"—the most high-end casket available, made of heavy-gauge solid bronze and lined with champagne-colored silk. In April 1944, Dougherty was shipped out to the Pacific, where he remained for most of the next two years. [57] Monroe moved in with her in-laws and began a job at the Radioplane Company, a munitions factory in Van Nuys. [57] In late 1944, she met photographer David Conover, who had been sent by the U.S. Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit to the factory to shoot morale-boosting pictures of female workers. [58] Although none of her pictures were used, she quit working at the factory in January 1945 and began modeling for Conover and his friends. [59] [60] Defying her deployed husband, she moved on her own and signed a contract with the Blue Book Model Agency in August 1945. [61] I don’t see how that woman could say things like "I bought woolen suits because I remembered that New York and Chicago were in the North. I had seen them in the movies blanketed with snow. I forgot it was summertime there as well as in LA."

She continues: “The second one is when they’re doing the announcement of her divorce, and she can’t stop the emotion from showing. She cries, and it’s hard to watch. You see an immense hurt over this failed relationship. Young women today can still connect to that, and to her. As recently as 20 years ago, people would’ve said she was all over the place, mad, hysterical. Now, I see this and think, ‘That’s just being a woman.’” In April 1954, Otto Preminger's western River of No Return, the last film that Monroe had filmed prior to the suspension, was released. She called it a " Z-grade cowboy movie in which the acting finished second to the scenery and the CinemaScope process", but it was popular with audiences. [173] The first film she made after the suspension was the musical There's No Business Like Show Business, which she strongly disliked but the studio required her to do for dropping The Girl in Pink Tights. [172] It was unsuccessful upon its release in late 1954, with Monroe's performance considered vulgar by many critics. [174] Monroe posing for photographers in The Seven Year Itch (1955) At Columbia, Monroe's look was modeled after Rita Hayworth and her hair was bleached platinum blonde. [79] She began working with the studio's head drama coach, Natasha Lytess, who would remain her mentor until 1955. [80] Her only film at the studio was the low-budget musical Ladies of the Chorus (1948), in which she had her first starring role as a chorus girl courted by a wealthy man. [73] She also screen-tested for the lead role in Born Yesterday (1950), but her contract was not renewed in September 1948. [81] Ladies of the Chorus was released the following month and was not a success. [82] 1949–1952: Breakthrough years Monroe in The Asphalt Jungle (1950), one of her earliest performances to gain attention from film critics.

To state the obvious, it’s worth actually reading Anthony Summers’s Goddess, which is more revealing than The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe in many ways. As the author of The Kennedy Conspiracy (1980), Summers is well-versed in the minutiae of JFK’s privileged world, and he homes in on the former President’s relationship with Monroe here, offering up compelling (if not entirely convincing) evidence of a major government cover-up of her death. My Story by Marilyn Monroe (1974)