the Enigma
BEHIND THE MYSTIQUE AND THE WHITE-HOT FAME, MARILYN MONROE WAS A FINELY TUNED ACTOR WITH TALENT TO BURN
WORDS CHRISTINA NEWLAND
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THE BREATHY VOICE, the lips painted like a glossy billboard, the cartoonish but utterly effective mode of hyper-expression: Marilyn Monroe always did lend herself — because of her hyper-femme persona and wiggling sexiness — to seem all ‘movie star’ and no ‘actor’. It’s easy to fall into the trap of seeing her as a ‘natural’ with an instinctive knack for being on camera, so luminous and complete is her screen image, via films like Some Like It Hot (1959) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1955). Whether furrowing her brow and complaining about always getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop, or swinging her hips around in a fuchsia-pink evening gown, she does so with ease and effervescence. But all of her performances, from her early, disturbing turn as a psychotic babysitter in Don’t Bother To Knock (1952) to her underrated, soulful performance as a saloon girl in River Of No Return (1954), were carefully calculated. Time and time again, the work Monroe put in was undermined by the narrative that was best condescendingly described by one of her directors, Otto Preminger, who said: “She had no talent as an actress. But she was a born star.”