February 28, 11:38 p.m.: Marilyn writes a love letter to DiMaggio, who has departed for work in New York City: I want someday for you to be proud of me as a person and as your wife and as the mother o...
February 26: Picture Week features a smiling Marilyn in black-and-white, dressed casually in a loose blouse, resting the right side of her face on her hands and her upper body on her elbows. A Glimpse...
February 26: Grace signs documents to prepare for Norma Jeane’s release from the orphanage.
February 26: At the French Film Institute in New York City, Marilyn receives the Crystal Star as Best Foreign Actress for her performance in The Prince and the Showgirl. At the party afterward, she is...
February 25: Mr. and Mrs. Rupe write to Marilyn about their son’s reaction to her Korean trip. They quote his letter to them: When she appeared on the stage, there was just a sort of gasp from the aud...
February 25: Marilyn returns to Hollywood to star in Bus Stop. Hundreds of reporters meet her at the airport, and she conducts a press conference. She is photographed in a dark business suit, wearing...
February 24: Marilyn and Joe return to the mainland.
February 20: Time publishes Co-Stars, about the Monroe-Olivier matchup.
February 17: With Maureen Stapleton, Marilyn performs a scene from Anna Christie at the Actors Studio to a round of applause, but she doubts she has given a good performance. Afterwards she suffers fr...
February 17: Andre de Dienes publishes a color photograph of Norma Jeane on the cover of Parade. He shoots her from her left side. She is wearing a green sweater and yellow-gold slacks in a strongly d...
February 16: The Asphalt Jungle is previewed at the Picwood Theatre in West Los Angeles. Audience appraisal cards refer to the hot blonde and request, Let’s see more of the blonde.
February 10: After several days of steady work, Marilyn calls in sick just after Miller leaves for Ireland to consult with John Huston about The Misfits
Biographers are often made to feel like supplicants. But Michael’s first phone call was a wooing,
Before dinner we had our usual round of Scotch, chips, and olives. [MF] I think it’s better with the olives, don’t you? [CR] Good contrast with the chips—crisps, Americans call them chips; the British...
April 27: On the last day of the shooting week, Marilyn again fails to show up at the studio.
April 22: I’m a bookworm and proud of it, Marilyn tells columnist Erskine Johnson.
[CR] What about Barbara Castle. You never had a sexual relationship with her? [MF] No. Never. I wanted to, maybe, but in 1938 we went across the channel together, waiting to start on our new jobs. I h...
[CR] This book is about how marriages stay together, even when there are these strains and tensions. [MF] That’s right.
With the Hellman biography, I encountered for the first time, the issue of authorization, a rather quaint notion that no modern historian would take seriously. Who gets to tell history?
We read Byron’s letters there [in Venice] together. Then we were going up in the world, having the bloody government pay for our holidays. . . Venice revived him [Byron]. It restored him, Michael insi...