To begin with, a poem I wrote eons ago, one of the few I struggled with to force it to rhyme. Laugh if you will, you're entitled, but it came from my youthful heart.
Light Begat Night
She covered her eyes from the glare
of the lights
asked me to lead her someplace else
for the night.
"They don't understand",
she said as we walked,
"All they see is what's on that screen."
She continued to talk.
"When I was younger, boys would talk;
Does she or doesn't she?
Will she or won't she?
We'd go to a nearby park
to feed the birds,
but they'd pin me to the bridge's arc,
lift my blouse, my breasts to bare
and stare.
I cried at night,
softly, so as not to wake my mother.
I never knew what was right.
They called me cheap,
behind my back
made it hard to sleep
without the comfort of tears.
I've never known love,
save for some good friends
that stay, regardless."
She shivered in the night's chill,
I loaned her my coat,
she smiled.
We walked silently to a door
that opened to her flat.
I said, "Keep the coat."
She squealed, "Imagine that!"
She said she'd call,
I knew she'd forget
for she was a dream,
a fleeting vision
I'd wished to life.
"Goodnight, Marilyn,
sleep tight."
Suddenly it's the silver screen
And a face so beautiful that I have to cry out
from The Who's "How Many Friends"
You had the grace to hold yourself
While those around you crawled
from Elton John's "Candle In The Wind", lyrics by Bernie Taupin
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.
Henry W. Longfellow
But so fair,
She takes the breath of men away
Who gaze upon her unaware.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
from "Break, Break, break" - Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)
She looked like, if you bit her, milk and honey would flow from her.
Franz Kline
Goodbye Norma Jean. Au revoir Marilyn. When you happen on Bobby and Jack, give the wink. And if there's a wish, pay your visit to Mr. Dickens. For he, like many another literary man, is bound to adore you, fatherless child.
Norman Mailer, in "Marilyn: A Biography"
How foolish those people were who underrated her as a dumb blond.
W.J. Weatherby, in "Conversations with Marilyn"
Yet there was something indefinably shy about her, an almost old-fashioned inferiority complex and fear of rejection, a wall flower streak in the beautiful woman.
W.J. Weatherby, in "Conversations with Marilyn"
She wasn’t classically beautiful by any means, but she had a strong, attractive body and chameleon moods that could make her body convey anything she wished.
W.J. Weatherby, in "Conversations with Marilyn"
She was the light, and the goddess, and the moon. The space and the dream, the mystery and the danger. But everything else all together too, including Hollywood, and the girl next door that every guy wants to marry.
photographer Bert Stern
Oh, I just want to be wonderful.
Marilyn Monroe
A dollar for your thoughts!
Marilyn Monroe
I’ve never dropped anyone I believed in.
Marilyn Monroe
Money, that’s what it’s all about.
Marilyn Monroe
Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul.
Marilyn Monroe
No one seems honest or sincere anymore. They all want chunks out of me.
Marilyn Monroe
People respect you because they feel you’ve survived hard times and endured, and although you’ve become famous, you haven’t become phony.
Marilyn Monroe
I could never be a kept woman or marry just for money. I like my independence too well.
Marilyn Monroe
When I start a new picture, it's like learning to act all over again. Maybe it's because I know that my screen image doesn't at all represent me, my real me, the way I feel, the way I act and talk. It's something very much apart from my personality, this being a dumb sexy blonde. I'm neither dumb, nor any prettier than any other woman. But they don't think I can act, so I'm stuck playing the sextress. That's my own word, I coined it myself. I'm not an actress. I'm a sextress! And it's really awful.
Marilyn Monroe
Playing those sexy screen roles, they think you want to keep at it off screen, too. Well, I'm not made that way. Sex isn't that important to me.
Marilyn Monroe
Why haven't I the right to grow and expand like everyone else?
Marilyn Monroe
A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.
Marilyn Monroe
Why must I always be the aggressor with the men I want? Then as soon as I get them, nothing ever works out. Is this the cross I must bear for fame? To be a love symbol, and not be loved?
Marilyn Monroe
People you run into feel that, well, who is she - who does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe? It's nice to be included in people's fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.
Marilyn Monroe
Fame has a special burden. I don't mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual. We are all born sexual creatures, thank God, but it's a pity so many people despise and crush this natural gift. Art, real art, comes from it - everything.
Marilyn Monroe
Fame will go by and, 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've experienced, but that's not where I live.
Marilyn Monroe
I feel I'm just beginning. I want to do all kinds of films -- comedy, romance, tragedy. After all, without a challenge what is there to life?
Marilyn Monroe
Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die, young, but then you'd never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know yourself.
Marilyn Monroe
I was always lonely -- that's why I loved the movies so much. I could completely forget myself. When I got home I closed the bedroom door and acted out the parts that I saw on the screen. For a twelve-year-old, it was very serious pantomime. I had a crush on every movie star. But my real heartthrob was Clark Gable. He was my idol and hero. My greatest dream is that when I become an actress I'll star opposite him. That would be the top. After that I don't think there'd be much else to live for.
Marilyn Monroe
(years later, she starred opposite Gable in "The Misfits", her last film)
All we demanded was our right to twinkle.
Marilyn Monroe
(from a telegram written a few weeks before her death where she likened herself to an "earthbound star")
Marilyn Monroe ~ My Words
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