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Photo by Uncredited/AP/REX/ShutterstockWhile Marilyn Monroe’s iconic JFK “Happy Birthday” dress is expected to sell up to $3 million later this week, other personal items going under the hammer at the same auction reveal a window into the blonde bombshell’s glamorous but troubled life.
None more so than a collection of handwritten letters and notes that Julien’s Auction House of Los Angeles expect to fascinate fans and interest bidders.
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As Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien’s Auctions, explains, “This diverse collection gives us a most intimate glimpse of the screen legend. Never before has there been so many important artifacts from the life and career of the much loved global icon.”
For a preview of the detail within these letters, here are five highlights from the Marilyn collection.
These three sheets of lined notebook paper contain thoughts from a tired and hopeless Monroe. During this time, the actress was living in rural Roxbury, Connecticut with husband Arthur Miller, but appeared to be disenchanted with domestic country life.
“I’ve tried to imagine spring all winter – it’s here and I still feel hopeless. I think I hate it here because there’s no love here anymore,” she wrote. “I see myself in the mirror now, brow furrowed. If I lean close I’ll see what I don’t want to know – tension, sadness, disappointment, my eyes dulled, cheeks flushed with capillaries that look like rivers on a map.”
In these two pages, likely written in the privacy of her dressing room, Monroe expresses her frustration and pressure she felt.
“I almost threw up my whole lunch. I’m tired. I’m searching for a way to play this part I am depressed with my whole life since I first remember,” she wrote. “How can I be such a gay young hopeful girl … my concentration wavers most of the time. I must try to work and work on my concentration.”
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On a single page of lined paper, Monroe scribbles a series of projects and items she had to attend to throughout her day. From going to her John Moore fitting to getting her hair done to attending a Strasberg Matinee, Monroe was a busy lady. The page also references a number of people in the icon’s life, including dress designer Ceil Chapman, Paula and Lee Strasberg, designer John Moore, publicist Arthur Jacobs and business partner Milton Greene.
These two pages from 1956 were torn from a spiral-bound notebook and contain blotches of red ink stains. The first page was published in “Fragments” and references “The Sleeping Prince,” an early title for Monroe’s film “The Prince and the Showgirl.” Here, Monroe becomes a boss of her own life and instructs herself to make a to-do list, work on exercises and to persevere.
Some notes she jotted down include “don’t stop myself” and “learn lines logically.” She also wrote, “I can’t do more than one thing at a time” and “Take my time to think.”
This 1956 letter is addressed to Marilyn Monroe’s psychoanalyst, Dr. Hohenberg. The sentences skip through various topics, but it mainly references her difficult relationship with her former acting coach, Natasha Lytess. Additionally, it mentions her conflicting, pained feelings towards Arthur Miller.
“Arthur writes me everyday at least it gives me air to breathe. I can’t get used to the fact that he loves me and I keep waiting for him to stop loving me,” she wrote. “Though I hope he never will, but I keep telling myself, ‘Who knows?'”
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