ON APRIL 27, 1970, WALTER BRENNAN WAS INDUCTED INTO THE HALL of Great Western Actors at the Cowboy Hall of Fame’s annual awards ceremony in Oklahoma City. After listening to several speakers lavish pr...
Never meant to be more than a B picture entertainment produced on the Universal International backlot and at the Iverson Ranch (a five-hundred-acre family property often used for location shoots), it...
Michael was the male partner in a dance, but he did not know how to lead. Or rather, he led by default, since Jill did not challenge his authority. He simply filled a vacuum. As a political man, he wo...
Michael often spoke of his father and their book discussions. Isaac Foot would visit London nearly every fortnight, Michael recalled, and they would see each other. Michael rarely spoke of anyone else...
May 9: The London tabloid Empire News publishes Marilyn’s account via Ben Hecht of child abuse. What happened exactly is not clear, although apparently she was fondled, and then stammered when she tri...
May 5: At 5:00 a.m., Marilyn awakes with chills and sheets drenched in perspiration. Her fever is again 101 degrees, and her vision is blurred. Marilyn hires a bicycle at the cost of eighteen dollars...
May 4: Hedda Hopper publishes The Blowtorch Blonde in the Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine: Marilyn Monroe who has zoomed to stardom after a three-year stretch as a cheesecake queen is easily the most...
May 3: Responding to reports that she is not an orphan and that her mother is alive, Marilyn issues a statement through Erskine Johnson in the Los Angeles Daily News: My mother spent many years at the...
May 28: Shooting begins on There’s No Business Like Show Business. Marilyn’s director, Walter Lang, does not seem to know how to handle her. Donald O’Connor, Marilyn’s love interest in the film, recal...
March 6: Emmeline Snively, head of the Blue Book Modeling Agency, sends Norma Jeane to Joseph Jasgur for test shots. In The Birth of Marilyn, Jeannie Sakol reports Jasgur’s first impressions: What he...
Just then I felt I must confront the question of whether I was to do Michael’s biography as well as Jill’s. From our first meeting, Julie had been urging me to do so, to make sure I got my place in li...
June 24: Marilyn appears at the studio to watch her scenes with Montand. John Huston leaves New York to look at locations in Nevada for The Misfits.
June 21: Marilyn consults with her attorney, Aaron Frosch, and Lee Strasberg about Rain.
June 1: Tuesday, 9:30 a.m., Norma Jeane Mortensen is born at the Los Angeles General Hospital, delivered by Dr. Herman M. Beerman. The birth certificate misspells her last name as Mortenson. The fathe...
June 17: A letter from Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton & Garrison (probably written by John F. Wharton) suggests that an article in Motion Picture by Hedda Hopper is libelous, according to Sam Silverman,...
June 15: Norma Jeane writes to Grace McKee Goddard, Of course I know that if it hadn’t been for you we might not have never been married and I know I owe you a lot for that fact alone, besides countle...
June 14: Marilyn does a sound test with Robert Wagner, who stars with her in Let’s Make It Legal.
January 26: Kazan asks Miller to escort Marilyn to a party that Charles Feldman is hosting in honor of Miller. Miller and Marilyn spend time together visiting bookshops and going on a picnic. He watch...
January 25: Marilyn is filmed singing My Heart Belongs to Daddy. It is a production number in which she is surrounded by a group of adoring men, who ferry her across the stage in a routine reminiscent...
January 24: Marilyn agrees to do Something’s Got to Give, providing that the script changes are acceptable to her. Advice columnist Ann Landers writes Marilyn a note: Just read where you are back in H...