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Lot 127
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A very personal Marilyn Monroe notepad, from the start of her demise
A very personal Marilyn Monroe notepad, from the start of her demise
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Description:

Monroe Marilyn 1926 - 1962 A very personal Marilyn Monroe notepad from the start of her demise



Spiral bound stenographer notebook, 6" x 9", by Chase Press Stationers & Printers, who supplied Monroe with her custom stationery. Four pages with notes in Monroe's hand. The first page reads "Tonight / be there at 7:15 - Strassberg's [sic]" then "Later - Norman & Hedda - drums?" and "Tomorrow be ready at 12:30PM (for lunch) - John Houston [sic]" and "4:00 Norman's play reading." The second page has a list of phone calls to make. The other two pages contain single words: "Ruby" and "My".


It is always a thought provoking event to hold someone's personal note pad 'post mortem', but with this one being Marilyn Monroe's, in somewhat chaotic scribble, one can 'see' between the lines. Although only a few pages have writing on them, they clearly time stamp the note pad and show that this was the beginning of Monroe's demise.

The people Marilyn scripts in her note pad are John Huston, Strassberg, and Norman and Hedda. Her notes are chaotic, rushed. Although Arthur Miller, her then husband is not referenced in this pad, Miller's long time friends, Norma and Hedda are. They were artistic college friends of Arthur Miller's and the two would visit them at their home/cottage in Port Jefferson. Monroe had been seeing them since she moved to Manhattan even though they were both still married at the time.

John Huston, a Hollywood director, (who she misspells as Houston on two occasions in the pad), is also referred to in her notes. Huston only directed a few films with Monroe, however the one that matches the timing elements to her friendship of Norma and Hedda, and Arthur Miller, can only be on the set of the "The Misfits", a film drama released in 1961 which was written for Monroe by her then husband Arthur Miller, and sees her acting alongside her childhood hero, Clark Gable, as well as the great Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, and Thelma Ritter. It was directed by the legendary John Huston, and Monroe's acting coach at the time was Paula Strasberg, who Monroe also refers to in her personal pad.

It is especially ironic that this film's title and concept focused on a plot centering on a recently divorced woman (Monroe) and her time spent with a cowboy (Gable) and his rodeo-riding friend (Clift) in the Western Nevada desert in the 1960s. The uncanniness of both Monroe's personal life at the time along with the issues of the cast and crew completely paralleled the plot of the movie. The making of The Misfits was troublesome on several accounts, not the least of which was the sometimes 108 degrees (42 å¡C) heatof the northern Nevada desert and the breakdown of Monroe's marriage to writer Arthur Miller, Monroe's then husband. This was Miller's first original screenplay, written as a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe, whom he had married four years earlier. However, it was literally during the filming of this movie that their marriage broke and crumbled, and Monroe was sinking further into alcohol and prescription drug abuse. According to the director, Huston, in a 1981 retrospective interview, he was "absolutely certain that she was doomed" while working on that film: "There was evidence right before me every day. She was incapable of rescuing herself or of being rescued by anyone else. And it affected her work. Monroe was nearly always late to the set, sometimes not showing up at all. Huston noted we had to stop the picture while she went to a hospital for two weeks." Monroe was nearly always late to the set, sometimes not showing up at all. Huston literally had to shut down production in August 1960 to send Monroe to a hospital for detox.

But the chaos did not end with Monroe's marital demise or her path into alcohol and drugs, Huston himself was struggling with his own demons. Director Huston gambled and drank, and occasionally fell asleep on the set. The production company had to cover some of his gambling losses. In a documentary about the making of "The Misfits", Wallach told a story of Huston's directing a scene in which Wallach was at a bar with Gable. Huston told him that the most intoxicated he had ever been was the day before, even though he had seemed sober. Mr. Huston got involved in other local Nevada activities outside gaming, including promoting the first annual camel races, which have continued annually every September to this day. But during one of his commutes, Huston's car overheated on the drive up to Virginia City via Hwy 341 Geiger Grade, and Huston "executed" the car by reportedly firing a stunt gun blank into the radiator (no doubt an act which was not performed sober).

The chaos did not end during the making of the film either, and found within what is considered the most powerful image of the film was perhaps but a premonition of things to come, Monroe was in the scene where she runs into the middle of the desert and in her helplessness shouts: "You are all dead, you are all dead!". Just two days later after the filming ended, Clark Gable, suffered a heart attack and died ten days later, November 16, 1960. Monroe and Miller divorced, and her addition to alcohol and drugs was in full throttle. Monroe later said that she hated the film and her performance in it. Within a year and a half, she was dead of an apparent drug overdose.

There may be only a few pages of writing in Monroe's personal notepad, but it tells of many, many stories between the lines. A phenomenal and highly personal piece for a Monroe collector!

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