Reality can be stranger than fiction
The last untold story in the life of Marilyn Monroe. Selected excerpts from André de Dienes's memoirs
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I remember so well which poems Marilyn loved. She was nearly in tears several times. Marilyn wasn't the kind of person who would have tears in her eyes easily, no matter how deep the emotion. But the poems touched her immensely. She was holding herself back from bursting into sobs while she was reading a poem entitled, "Lines on the Death of Mary." She told me that it fit her, but the lady who wrote it forgot to put the "lyn" after the name "Mary!" I remarked that a few days before in the cemetery she told me she preferred a long, happy life and now she was saying she would not live long.... The poem we were reading about the death of Mary was a prediction for her that she would die young!
The reading ended and I began taking pictures of her, one by one, depicting the moods she interpreted for me. An entire spectrum of life, depicting happiness, pensiveness, introspection, serenity, sadness, torment, distress-I even asked her to show me what "death" looked like in her imagination. She threw a blanket over hear head; that was how she interpreted it.
The photo that followed was her own idea. She told me to get ready with my camera because she was going to show me what her own death would look like-some day. She looked down with a very sordid expression, pointing out to me that the picture's meaning would be "THE END OF EVERYTHING." I quickly snapped the photo. I asked her why she pictured her death so sordid, so gloomy, instead of giving me an expression of calm smile as if dying was nothing more than going from one world into another, a beautiful transfiguration. But Marilyn insisted that was the way she imagined her death. The next photo was my idea. I asked her to lie down on the ground to show me what she would look like when dead and again, I snapped the photo. It was already late afternoon; we were taking photos on the top of a cliff, overlooking the ocean. The scenery and the light of the setting sun was magnificent; I was in the mood to take many more poetic photos of her, but after I took the photo of her face simulating death, suddenly she sprang to her feet and, part seriously, part wittily, she began shouting, screaming at me, "Hell's bells, look what you've made me do to my hair! I have a date tonight!" And she was shaking her head and taking out the pieces of straw that stuck in her hair.
I calmed her down by promising that someday I would do a beautiful album with her pictures, accompanied by all kinds of lovely quotations from my book, and even some of the poems she liked in that album we'd just read together.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
I remember so well which poems Marilyn loved. She was nearly in tears several times. Marilyn wasn't the kind of person who would have tears in her eyes easily, no matter how deep the emotion. But the poems touched her immensely. She was holding herself back from bursting into sobs while she was reading a poem entitled, "Lines on the Death of Mary." She told me that it fit her, but the lady who wrote it forgot to put the "lyn" after the name "Mary!" I remarked that a few days before in the cemetery she told me she preferred a long, happy life and now she was saying she would not live long.... The poem we were reading about the death of Mary was a prediction for her that she would die young!
The reading ended and I began taking pictures of her, one by one, depicting the moods she interpreted for me. An entire spectrum of life, depicting happiness, pensiveness, introspection, serenity, sadness, torment, distress-I even asked her to show me what "death" looked like in her imagination. She threw a blanket over hear head; that was how she interpreted it.
The photo that followed was her own idea. She told me to get ready with my camera because she was going to show me what her own death would look like-some day. She looked down with a very sordid expression, pointing out to me that the picture's meaning would be "THE END OF EVERYTHING." I quickly snapped the photo. I asked her why she pictured her death so sordid, so gloomy, instead of giving me an expression of calm smile as if dying was nothing more than going from one world into another, a beautiful transfiguration. But Marilyn insisted that was the way she imagined her death. The next photo was my idea. I asked her to lie down on the ground to show me what she would look like when dead and again, I snapped the photo. It was already late afternoon; we were taking photos on the top of a cliff, overlooking the ocean. The scenery and the light of the setting sun was magnificent; I was in the mood to take many more poetic photos of her, but after I took the photo of her face simulating death, suddenly she sprang to her feet and, part seriously, part wittily, she began shouting, screaming at me, "Hell's bells, look what you've made me do to my hair! I have a date tonight!" And she was shaking her head and taking out the pieces of straw that stuck in her hair.
I calmed her down by promising that someday I would do a beautiful album with her pictures, accompanied by all kinds of lovely quotations from my book, and even some of the poems she liked in that album we'd just read together.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
Photo: André de Dienes