{"id":475141,"date":"2026-05-30T19:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/475141\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T19:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:21:10","slug":"americas-sweetheart-exhibition-explores-marilyn-monroes-complex-relationship-to-stardom-marilyn-monroe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/475141\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018America\u2019s sweetheart\u2019: exhibition explores Marilyn Monroe\u2019s complex relationship to stardom | Marilyn Monroe"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s an unsettling moment in Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon<\/a>, a new exhibition opening in Los Angeles this weekend, where some of the star\u2019s last recorded words emanate from the gallery walls.<\/p>\n

Her voice, gentle and unassuming, is taken from a restored audio recording of her final interview, published in Life magazine the day before she died.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith fame, you can read about yourself and somebody else\u2019s ideas about you, but what\u2019s important is how you feel about you, for survival and living day to day with oneself,\u201d Marilyn Monroe<\/a> said in 1962. \u201cI like people, but the public scares me.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a moment that encapsulates Monroe\u2019s complex relationship to stardom and the tension between her public and private lives. And while the exhibition is packed with dramatic costumes and photography, it is the intimate items on display \u2013 letters, notes, personal effects \u2013 that leave the biggest impression.<\/p>\n

Exhibition photography for Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon, at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. Photograph: Emily Shur\/\u00a9Academy Museum Foundation Photograph: Emily Shur\/\u00a9Academy Museum Foundation<\/p>\n

The exhibition is one of several this year \u2013 including at the British Film Institute and National Portrait Gallery<\/a> in London \u2013 to celebrate Monroe\u2019s centenary, and curators worked together to ensure each was unique, says Sophia Serrano, who curated the Academy Museum event. This collection of outfits, belongings, documents and multimedia recordings is presented in the museum\u2019s typically glossy style: an entrance hallway features a red carpet and huge video screen where Monroe blows the viewer kisses; her songs play overhead throughout the exhibition, and it\u2019s decorated in red, with chandeliers and heart-shaped pillows \u2013 a nod to her performance of Diamonds Are a Girl\u2019s Best Friend<\/a> as well as studios \u201cpositioning her as America\u2019s sweetheart\u201d, says Serrano.<\/p>\n

The pink dress she wore during that scene \u2013 which has rarely gone on public display, Serrano notes \u2013 has pride of place. Other items, including a dress from the film Love Happy as well as several letters and photos, have never been available for public viewing. Among the most memorable costumes are an elaborately sequined outfit with a big feathered tail from a charity appearance at Madison Square Garden, where Monroe rode in on an elephant and announced her new production company; on the other end of the spectrum are simple pyjamas from The Seven-Year Itch. The original white dress<\/a> famously buffeted by the air over a subway grate in that film does not make an appearance, but there\u2019s a replica by the same designer, William Travilla.<\/p>\n

Hung on one wall is a pair of Monroe\u2019s jeans, with a caption noting her role in popularizing women\u2019s denim. They\u2019re far less flashy than most of the outfits, but \u2013 along with a collection of her belongings, including a telephone, chair, marked-up scripts, a wine glass and address book \u2013 they offer a compelling look at Monroe\u2019s private life. Particularly powerful are letters and notes written by and about Monroe. A pair of pages feature the actor\u2019s free-associative musings: \u201cI\u2019m afraid to ever say anything about her for fear she will think I am trying to flatter her \u2013 thereby trying to trap her into liking me,\u201d she has scribbled in a circled note about an unidentified person. Elsewhere, she writes: \u201cI\u2019m finding that sincerity is often taken for stupidity.\u201d In a handwritten letter to the director John Huston, Monroe, who had an interest in psychoanalysis, declines a role in a film about Sigmund Freud<\/a>, writing: \u201cI have it on good authority that the Freud family does not approve of anyone making a picture of the life of Freud \u2013 so I wouldn\u2019t want to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon. Photograph: Emily Shur\/\u00a9Academy Museum Foundation<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also an exchange of telegrams between the director Billy Wilder and Monroe\u2019s then husband, the playwright Arthur Miller<\/a>, in which Wilder criticizes Monroe\u2019s behavior on set: \u201cHer biggest problem is that she doesn\u2019t understand anybody else\u2019s problems.\u201d Miller fires back: \u201cYour jokes, Billy, are not quite hilarious enough to conceal the fact. You are an unjust man and a cruel one. My only solace is that despite you her beauty and humanity shine through as they always have.\u201d<\/p>\n

We see throughout the galleries how concerns about public image weighed on the actor; there are newspaper clippings she made of articles about herself and details of her collaborations with favored designers and photographers (one image has a large X painted over it after she rejected it as a potential Vogue cover; in another, after criticism of her fashion choices, she wears a potato sack dress). A reel of television appearances serves as a reminder of the shocking sexism she endured, as well as her sense of humor: when an off-screen interviewer asks whether she weighs the same as she did at a previous event, she says she\u2019s the same, \u201cbut it\u2019s a different suit\u201d. Another voice asks: \u201cYou\u2019re a happy girl now?\u201d Her response: \u201cEh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, she was more than capable of portraying happiness, both on-screen and in life. \u201cFor hours she danced and sang and flirted \u2013 she did Marilyn Monroe,\u201d the photographer Richard Avedon notes in a quote emblazoned on an exhibit wall. \u201cAnd when the night was over … she sat in the corner like a child, with everything gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon. Photograph: Emily Shur\/\u00a9Academy Museum Foundation<\/p>\n

Her own childhood was difficult, she says in the Life interview, but she found joy in imagination and play. \u201cThen I heard somebody say, you know: \u2018That\u2019s acting.\u2019 And I said: \u2018That\u2019s what I want to be!\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then you grow up and you find out,\u201d she says with a dark laugh, \u201cthey make playing very difficult for you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s an unsettling moment in Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon, a new exhibition opening in Los Angeles this weekend,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-475141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}