Latest / Sorta Sophisticated / Episode 106 - Marilyn Monroe: The Most Seen, Least Known Woman in History

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Episode 106 - Marilyn Monroe: The Most Seen, Least Known Woman in History · Sorta Sophisticated

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Welcome to Sorta Sophisticated with Pete and Amanda. Okay, so quick question. When I say Marilyn Monroe, what's the first thing you think of?
• 0:09
  Speaker B: Happy birthday, Mr. President.
• 0:11
  Speaker A: Can you sing Happy Birthday, Mr. No.
• 0:13
  Speaker B: She's singing like so seductive, didn't she?
• 0:15
  Speaker A: Oh, a little breathy, yeah. Happy birthday, Mr. President.
• 0:20
  Speaker B: I just saw something on Marilyn Monroe recently.
• 0:22
  Speaker A: You know why? Uh huh. Because she's turning 100 and that's what we're doing, right? So here, you just played into my hole. My whole. This is it. This is why we're doing the episode today. But here's the problem with how we started. The whole Happy birthday, Mr. President, or the whole like white dress and the subway. Great, right? Yeah, yeah, that's what we remember Marilyn Monroe for, right? Her face and her body and I
• 0:44
  Speaker B: mean, she was a sex symbol, playboy,
• 0:46
  Speaker A: the whole thing, right? Platinum blonde, arguably the most photographed woman in the world. Really faces everywhere, right? I mean, come on.
• 0:54
  Speaker B: Well, iconic.
• 0:55
  Speaker A: But here's the thing. So I did all this in honor of like her hundredth birthday and I realized we don't know anything about her. Like, nobody gives two shits to learn she was murdered. No, not that she. Well, of course, you conspiracy theorist. And we got that out of the way early. Jeanette, thank you very much. Murder mystery. No, this is. There's so much more to this woman. I'm gonna argue that was a character she played her entire life. She put on the character in the morning when she woke up. That's how good she really was. So when I went down this rabbit hole, it was insane. So stick with us. Cause here's what we're gonna dive into today. First, we're gonna learn the story of who Marilyn Monroe really was and why she spent all her free time. Amanda, studying philosophy at UCLA and reading Tolstoy. Yes, there's a lot here. Okay. Second, the four moves she made that were genuinely radical for her time, like in the 1940s, 1950s, that most of us never even cared to learn about because we're all just staring at her picture somewhere. And finally, what this all says about us and the way we consume women and whether we've actually gotten any better at it in 2026. I'm kind of agreeing with you. I'm kind. After this whole thing, I kind of
• 2:02
  Speaker B: am agreeing with you.
• 2:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And on that note, welcome to another episode of Sort of Sophisticated, the podcast where culture, curiosity and chaos collide. I'm Pete, and with me, as always, driving me nuts is Amanda.
• 2:14
  Speaker B: What would you do without me?
• 2:15
  Speaker A: Hi, Amanda.
• 2:16
  Speaker B: Hello, everyone.
• 2:16
  Speaker A: I don't know what I would do without you. I would probably fold this podcast. Number one. Two, I would never have any more parties. That would just. My party planner's gone. Three, I probably wouldn't go on vacations anymore.
• 2:28
  Speaker B: That's not true.
• 2:29
  Speaker A: Who am I traveling with? You're my travel buddy. Four, I mean, no more therapy. So who would be. I don't even know who'd be.
• 2:35
  Speaker B: We would lose a lot. Our life would be very boring without each other.
• 2:38
  Speaker A: Well, my life would be very. You would. I would argue yours would get much more enhanced.
• 2:43
  Speaker B: No, mine maybe. On the other hand, agree to disagree.
• 2:46
  Speaker A: You're being very nice. All right, so our official title today, if you haven't been following, is Marilyn Monroe the most seen, least known woman in history. Because I think she might be the only person in Hollywood who's figured out that being underestimated was actually the strategy. That is my whole Jedi mind trick today. It was her weapon, and we are like, amanda, you're gonna be blown away. Trust me. This is gonna be like Miles Davis. You're gonna be blown away by the end of this.
• 3:11
  Speaker B: I mean, I am actually really excited because, again, I can't remember what it was, but, like, she had popped up somewhere.
• 3:16
  Speaker A: It's coming.
• 3:16
  Speaker B: And it was just talking about Marilyn Monroe. And.
• 3:20
  Speaker A: Yep, every streaming service is going to be going bonkers.
• 3:22
  Speaker B: Like, tidbit, right? Is there a show coming out the
• 3:26
  Speaker A: whole month of June? They're going to be replaying all of her stuff, right? Like, every movie she's ever.
• 3:30
  Speaker B: But it was the only. It was about men. Like blondes or something like that.
• 3:34
  Speaker A: Gentlemen prefer blondes. Yes, Gentlemen.
• 3:36
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, they were talking about that, right? And how she was not paid a lot of money. Oh, no, this is all that.
• 3:42
  Speaker A: Oh, no, this is my point.
• 3:43
  Speaker B: Outside of the Happy Birthday, Mr. President, and that iconic photo of her in her dress, the only other thing I've learned, which was recently somewhere, was this gentleman's perfur. Blondes. And she got paid significantly less a pittance than who the brunette was.
• 4:00
  Speaker A: Okay, this is one of. This is one of my. Like when I said the four things she actually. That were radical for a time. This is number one. Oh, yeah, totally.
• 4:07
  Speaker B: Oh, very. I don't even know why, like, I was. I just listened to a little bit, and I think it was her last interview, maybe that she talked about it. I don't even know. But I was then fascinated, and it literally clicked in my head where I was like, I should learn more about Marilyn Monroe. And it Went away. And here we are today, and we're doing it. Thank you. Read my mind.
• 4:22
  Speaker A: We're doing it.
• 4:23
  Speaker B: I appreciate it.
• 4:23
  Speaker A: Yeah. So this is one of those, like, so I think pop culture relevant because it'll be in sort of streaming and all the stuff. And then it was just one of those things where it's like, when would I ever learn about her? It's true. And again, more than just learning about some woman or some sex symbol, by the end of this, like, I was floored. And to your point earlier, like, are we doing any better in 2026? Spoiler, we. We're not. And I felt about this big because I'm participating in the whole, like. So it was one of those freak out moments for me again, which I totally loved. So here we are. What are you gonna do?
• 4:52
  Speaker B: I'm excited. Let's go. Okay, well, before we start, what is our word of the week? Is it gonna be like, go? What is that? When you, like, gawk at somebody gawking?
• 5:01
  Speaker A: I like gawk. Okay, it's not gawk. We're not playing into this. No, we. We have to not play. It's not goc. It's not gawk. Nothing about.
• 5:09
  Speaker B: I was trying to make it easy for myself, that's all. Okay.
• 5:11
  Speaker A: It's objurgate.
• 5:12
  Speaker B: I'm sorry, and you said you're not
• 5:13
  Speaker A: playing into this objurgate.
• 5:15
  Speaker B: Like we objectify something. Is that what Objurgate?
• 5:17
  Speaker A: No, not at all. Objurgate. No, no, no, no, no. Objurgate is to criticize or scold harshly.
• 5:23
  Speaker B: Oh, interesting.
• 5:25
  Speaker A: I objurgate you.
• 5:26
  Speaker B: Oh, interesting.
• 5:26
  Speaker A: In the name of the law. I don't know. I objurgate my children all the time. Right. Like, we're objurgating. So it comes from the Latin, objugare, ob or ob meaning against, and jergare, meaning to quarrel or scold. So if you're objurgating, you're losing your shit on them. That's what usually happens here somewhere in the podcast. So objurgate is it? That's what's happening.
• 5:48
  Speaker B: I think you already objurgated at the beginning of this podcast when you scolded me.
• 5:51
  Speaker A: I kind of already. It happened. We're done. We just did it just like that.
• 5:55
  Speaker B: All right, but before we start, if you like what you're listening to, hit subscribe and follow us. New episodes come out weekly on any of your favorite podcast platforms. Back to our regular scheduled programming. You want to start with the history?
• 6:07
  Speaker A: I start with this. We got to do history for this.
• 6:08
  Speaker B: Always.
• 6:08
  Speaker A: I mean, there's a lot.
• 6:09
  Speaker B: She was born in a little town in Illinois.
• 6:12
  Speaker A: She was born in. No, no, she was born in Los Angeles, California.
• 6:15
  Speaker B: Was she really?
• 6:16
  Speaker A: I don't know why I said it like that, but yeah.
• 6:17
  Speaker B: She was born in LA.
• 6:18
  Speaker A: LA. Yeah. Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jean Mortensen, June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California, Town of the angels. Did you know her name was Norma Jean?
• 6:29
  Speaker B: Well, after you just said Norma Jean, I just realized I knew, like, four Norma jeans. And now I need to go ask them.
• 6:34
  Speaker A: Now you know why, right?
• 6:35
  Speaker B: Were they named after Marilyn Monroe?
• 6:36
  Speaker A: Do you know Elton John? Candle in the Wind? Yeah. Goodbye, Norma Jean. Oh, though I never knew you at all. Yeah, that's it. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:46
  Speaker B: Fun fact number one, Norman Jean.
• 6:48
  Speaker A: There you go. I love that. Okay, so first, this is how this whole thing starts. Wildest data point ever. No parents out of the picture.
• 6:54
  Speaker B: She's the orphan.
• 6:55
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, Functionally, yes. She was normal.
• 6:57
  Speaker B: But she went to, like, an orphanage.
• 6:59
  Speaker A: Yes, she did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So her mom, Gladys Baker, was diagnosed schizophrenic and spent her entire life in mental institutions. So let's just start with that. Dad wasn't around either because it was an affair when dad decided to do it with mom, and then he bolted. So she didn't even know dad. So sort of from the start, she was screwed. So grew up in the foster system and absolutely ended up in an orphanage in Los Angeles. Do you know there is a Los Angeles home for orphans?
• 7:26
  Speaker B: I'm sure there's tons of orphanages.
• 7:27
  Speaker A: I didn't know that. I didn't know that was a thing. Yes, she stayed in the Los Angeles Home for Orphans. I didn't know that.
• 7:32
  Speaker B: Is this when her trajectory kind of went askew? Because she was bouncing foster home to foster home? And one of the tragic stories we always hear about the foster system, this
• 7:41
  Speaker A: is absolutely what happened. Yeah, it fell quickly. So, yeah, so then, like, I guess fast forward. So she was 16, so she's bouncing around. And her last set of foster parents, like, on record, were wanting to move out of the state of California. And apparently at that time, the foster kids weren't allowed to leave California. Right. I don't know.
• 7:56
  Speaker B: That makes sense.
• 7:57
  Speaker A: I don't know if that's still a law or not or whatever, but she was like, this is bullshit. And you would think, arguably her parents would just. Foster parents would stay with her till she was 18 years old. But they were like, yeah, no, we're Leaving.
• 8:05
  Speaker B: Unless she was a meal ticket, who knows?
• 8:06
  Speaker A: So they totally up and left her. And so instead of her going back to an orphanage because she didn't want to do that again because that was a whole shit show, she decides to get married at 16.
• 8:17
  Speaker B: 16?
• 8:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 8:17
  Speaker B: To who?
• 8:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, her neighbor. So she starts knocking on the doors of the neighborhood to see who would marry her. Okay, sort of. But she did marry her neighbor. Yes, Jim Doherty.
• 8:26
  Speaker B: And how old was Jim Doherty?
• 8:28
  Speaker A: Jim Doherty was 21 years old.
• 8:29
  Speaker B: And married a 16 year old.
• 8:30
  Speaker A: And married a 16 year Old. She like, what? What? What do you mean?
• 8:33
  Speaker B: That was probably more acceptable back then.
• 8:34
  Speaker A: She wanted. She had no other choice.
• 8:36
  Speaker B: Oh, my God.
• 8:37
  Speaker A: Which. Which, go to the sad part. You were all saying, like, this is how she all went askew. They had. They interviewed her later in life about that first marriage. Obviously that didn't work out. Her quote was, I was dying of boredom the entire marriage. Which I find weirdly devastating and like, funny all at the same time.
• 8:55
  Speaker B: I mean, she was 16, right.
• 8:57
  Speaker A: I don't know what was happening there, but whatever. So. Ugh. So the time she turns 18, two years later, she had already done more shit than like most of us had to deal with in our entire life, let's be honest. So then in 1944, she's 18 years old and her husband Jim has to get shipped off to the war. Cause it's World War II and he's gotta go. So Norma Jean decides, what does a military wife do in 1944 if her husband goes to war?
• 9:24
  Speaker B: Either becomes a nurse or joins the factory.
• 9:26
  Speaker A: Factory. Done and done. She went to work in a munitions factory in Van Nuys, California. Which is so random that we were like, right. I don't know. I think that's kind of cool.
• 9:35
  Speaker B: Wasn't LA like an epic center during that time for.
• 9:37
  Speaker A: Apparently it was. So she's in the munitions factory. She's building weapons and bombs or whatever it is. And the story goes, a photographer walks in and he's going to do a piece on women in the home front, like helping the military men. And she immediately lights up in front of the camera, like, freaks out. She's hooked. So totally new. She found her passion, like right away. Passion. Back to our passion. That was it. But it's not like the photographer guy was. He wasn't like, oh, I found somebody. That's not how it worked. She just realized how cool it was. So he left. She went home and started taking all these pictures of herself, starting figuring out, like, what worked in a camera, what didn't work in a camera. Like what the kids are doing nowadays on social media, right? Like, figuring all that kind of shit out. And she was sort of finding her character that we're talking about here. She started finding her character.
• 10:25
  Speaker B: Persona.
• 10:25
  Speaker A: Yes, thank you for Persona. Much better word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she starts sending out all these pictures now and seeing, like, if somebody would take her, like, for modeling or whatever. So she gets rejected by 20th Century Fox, then gets rejected by Columbia, then RKO Studios, which, fun fact, RKO Studio, the orphanage she stayed at Los Angeles Home for Orphans. It was across the street. She would stare at the studio when she was in the orphanage, dreaming one day she would be there. Anyway, she manifested. Sad story. She manifested, but she got rejected by it.
• 10:54
  Speaker B: Oh, they didn't take her.
• 10:55
  Speaker A: Nobody took her. So my point is, nothing was easy. It's not like somebody found her. No bullshit. None of this happened. So she's banging on doors. So she starts modeling a little bit, small gigs. Keeps auditioning for all these little parts. Basically getting up, like us going to work every morning, showing up, doing the, like, doing work during the day.
• 11:12
  Speaker B: She was.
• 11:13
  Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. And eventually in 1951, so, I don't know, 51, 23 years old, 24 years old. Fox finally brings her in to start doing small, little bit parts. One or two lines. But here's the thing. The audiences, even though she was only doing one or two lines, the audiences were eating it up. They loved her. So, like, again, that whole camera, that whole presence thing. So roles increase little by little, like, Nothing major. By 1953, it's on like crazy. It totally explodes, and she's everywhere. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. We were talking about it, how to Marry a Millionaire. She's on the COVID of all the magazines, and she's officially the hot blonde sex symbol. Come 1953, everyone's in love with her. That's sort of. That's the story.
• 11:53
  Speaker B: How did she create this Persona?
• 11:55
  Speaker A: I don't know. She just like.
• 11:56
  Speaker B: She strapped by Marilyn.
• 11:57
  Speaker A: She.
• 11:58
  Speaker B: Oh, oh, oh.
• 11:59
  Speaker A: Why Marilyn Monroe? Why the name? Got it instead of Norma Jean, would you. Would you like bride? Okay, there you go.
• 12:04
  Speaker B: But at the time, like, Norma Jean, I'm sure, was like, Norma Jean. Sexy name.
• 12:08
  Speaker A: So the story was that Both her and 20th Century Fox sort of knew, like, hey, we need to come up with something better than Norma Jean. And there was a woman named Marilyn Miller who was a famous Broadway star back in the 1920s. And they said that she sort of looked like her. She thought she looked like her. Somebody At Fox. I don't. I don't remember what it was. So we're like, oh, my God, Marilyn's awesome. And then she kept Monroe because that was her mother's maiden name and she wanted to, like, have a connection to her mom. And. And then alliteration. So not Monroe.
• 12:38
  Speaker B: Totally ambiguous.
• 12:39
  Speaker A: There is meaning behind it, even though she's really Norma Jean Masterson. So go figure. Yeah, that's the story. That's Marilyn.
• 12:45
  Speaker B: Oh, I love it. Wait, but you said that Marilyn was radical for the time.
• 12:49
  Speaker A: Oh, she was radical.
• 12:50
  Speaker B: What did she do?
• 12:51
  Speaker A: She was totally radical.
• 12:52
  Speaker B: It just sounds like. Okay, so she had a horrible childhood, got married young at 16, somehow stumbled into getting picked up by. By 20th Century Fox.
• 13:02
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 13:03
  Speaker B: Started making movies. People loved her, adored her. She became the sex symbol. But, like, what did she change? What is she?
• 13:09
  Speaker A: Well, that's what everybody thought it was. Yeah. So, okay, here's move number one. Here we go. Okay. 1954, peak fame after all these movies come out. But like you said at the beginning, since it was the 1950s, men were making like 20 times more than women. So you're absolutely right. Wherever you heard, that whole bit was correct. So she was making about 1500 bucks per movie. And dudes, the guys were making hundreds of thousands of dollars already in that time, so not even fair. And she knew she was the biggest draw by far. I told you this woman was smart. She was like, this is bullshit. So she called him out on it. Absolutely. Walks out on 20th Century Fox. Height of her career, Miles Davis, same concept. Left go to New York. Literally just left them high and dry and said, I'm out. I'm gonna start a career over in New York.
• 13:50
  Speaker B: Well, in New York, yeah.
• 13:52
  Speaker A: Here's what was in New York. She decided to open her own studio, her own production studio.
• 13:55
  Speaker B: Oh, really?
• 13:56
  Speaker A: So, two things, actually. So first, she studies method acting under Lee Stratzberg, who is a super famous director and had the most iconic acting studio in America. So she goes and studies there for a while and, like, really learns method acting. Cause up to this point, she didn't know anything. And then two, she started her own production studio. She grabs her friend, some guy named Milton Green, and names it Marilyn Monroe Productions. Cause it would be really weird if you named it Milton Green Productions. Cause of course, nobody knows who the hell he was. But anyway, everybody in Hollywood then is obviously 20th Century Fox. Starts talking shit like, oh, she's never gonna make it. Oh, this is never gonna work. Right. All the media was like, like, everything. Bullshit. She's gonna, like, want her old job back, all the shit. Cause people love to hate. Everybody's a hater like that. So her new company goes and makes a new movie called the Prince and the showgirl. In 1957, she's out in New York, starring her alongside Laurence Olivier. The famous actor Laurence Olivier. Okay, decent movie, fun fact. The only movie her studio actually ever made. I'll get back to that in a second. That wasn't the point. The point was now she had leverage because she had a movie, it was awesome. And all of a sudden, 20th Century Fox was like, oh, we need you back. Bingo. That's exactly what it was. So would you argue she was a dumb blonde, or would you argue she knew exactly what she was doing? She had no leverage. She created leverage. They come crying back, they rip up her old contract. They come up with a brand new contract. She has all director rights. She has everything she wants. They change her entire, entire salary structure. And now she's making a gazillion dollars because she decided to make one movie and go out on her own. So I'm arguing she understood business a lot better than most people give her credit for, and it totally worked. So subsequently, she now comes back to Hollywood, totally won. She makes the movie Bus Stop, massively famous movie, even more famous than, like, Gentlemen for Blondes, and then ends up shutting down the whole production studio because she doesn't need it anymore. Because leverage, it all worked. Okay, so far, so good.
• 15:53
  Speaker B: Smart lady, man.
• 15:54
  Speaker A: Very smart. Okay, that was the first one.
• 15:55
  Speaker B: Starts her own company, starts her own
• 15:57
  Speaker A: company, creates leverage, figures it. All right, okay. Radical move for the time, right? For a woman in the 1940s, 1950s.
• 16:02
  Speaker B: Start your own production company, Break away, done and done.
• 16:04
  Speaker A: So, second one we were talking about at the beginning, she studied philosophy at ucla.
• 16:08
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, you mentioned that.
• 16:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. She's home. She homeschooled herself. She was amazing. So in her free time on all these sets, while she was in between takes, she was literally learning everything she could learn. Do you know her own personal library? How many books it had in it?
• 16:20
  Speaker B: No.
• 16:21
  Speaker A: 400. 400. And I'm not talking fiction books. I'm talking classics, like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, James Joyce. Like, legitimate Chekhov, like real authors. Did you know she was, like, friends with Truman Capote? Truman Capote? Like the most famous author in American literature, Truman Capote? Not. I knew Truman Capote. Like, best friends with Truman Capote.
• 16:43
  Speaker B: That's crazy.
• 16:44
  Speaker A: You don't hang out with Truman Capote unless you're like, well, you gotta be
• 16:47
  Speaker B: some sort of intellect for him.
• 16:48
  Speaker A: You know who else hung out with Truman Capote? Harper Lee. To kill Himachi. Like, you get that.
• 16:53
  Speaker B: So she ran in the litter. Yes, literally.
• 16:56
  Speaker A: She was eating up, like, learning all this different crap. And everybody thought she was just screwing off on set. And that not true at all. She was completely tutor, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde.
• 17:07
  Speaker B: But why didn't people know this about her?
• 17:09
  Speaker A: It wasn't that people didn't know this about her. People didn't want to know this about her.
• 17:14
  Speaker B: She didn't fit in that bubble.
• 17:15
  Speaker A: So let's go back. So let's go back to the beginning where I said, like, what did we learn since 2026? All this time when we haven't learned anything. People wanted a dumb blonde, a smart lady. Doing this didn't work. It screwed up the whole Persona.
• 17:30
  Speaker B: Because then you can't objectify somebody.
• 17:32
  Speaker A: Bingo. And we needed someone to objectify. And I'm arguing she took advantage of that, was smart enough to recognize it, but then had that character. But then filled her, kept. Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.
• 17:44
  Speaker B: What's the third one?
• 17:45
  Speaker A: Okay. Third one I gotta be a little careful with. Because the story's been told like a hundred times. And honestly, it's got mangled over the years. Because this story I had heard before, and I don't want to blow it out of proportion, but it's an easy one to blow out of proportion. So let me just read what's actually documented. So, 1954, Ella Fitzgerald, one of the greatest jazz singers in the world who's ever lived. Ella Fitzgerald was being shut out of certain clubs because she was black. And Marilyn Monroe, who was at the time peak of her career, picks up the phone and uses her name to help Ella get bookings at a little club in East Los Angeles called Tiffany's. Super famous, totally awesome club. Not only that, she subsequently buys a front row table for every night that Ella's performing. She would go and just watch. She didn't get interviewed. It wasn't any pop, wasn't any fanfare. She wouldn't talk to anybody. She just wanted to go and support a woman who was trying to make it. And she was recognizing other exceptional, genius talent. And she was doing it in her own soft way. That's cool, right? Which I think is amazing. The versions of the stories that are out there, like, she stormed into the manager's office and she, you know, threatened them that she was gonna do away with her business and so on and so forth, all that's bullshit. This was basically one woman helping another woman out. And Ella Fitzgerald. There's actually a quote that Ella Fitzgerald said after Marilyn Monroe passed. She was an unusual woman, a little ahead of her time and she didn't even know it. She always appreciated that Marilyn Monroe helped her with her career and helped launch Ella Fitzgerald. Right. So I wouldn't say. I mean, radical for the. I would say what was like, what do you call it?
• 19:22
  Speaker B: I mean, it sounds like she was like being an activist of the time, but not being an activist, really, truly. It was just her being herself.
• 19:28
  Speaker A: That's it.
• 19:29
  Speaker B: She wanted to support another woman and did it maybe like that people were treating other people unfairly.
• 19:34
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 19:35
  Speaker B: An outside the box thinker.
• 19:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I argue that's radical because she wasn't doing it for herself. She didn't want to get recognized literally for anything. Well, I thought was totally cool. Okay. And then the last move is like, we sort of talked about it already, like with the character piece. This is my whole point that I'm sort of bringing home. And she knew how to make money. She knew the machine needed her to be a certain way to make money. And my argument of why I believe that this is true and not. Oh, Peter, are you sure? Here we go. So in 1959, she makes this movie, Some Like It Hot. Okay. Which essentially was another movie about her being a dumb blonde again. Okay. But if you watch this movie, she plays it so good. She can't be that dumb. She's totally bullshitting us. And she knows she's doing it the whole time. Bear with me. So one of her co stars, Tony Curtis, super famous dude at the time, there's this famous quote from him. He says working with her was incredibly frustrating. She kept forgetting her lines in one scene alone, literally dozens and dozens of times. And it was only three words. Where's the bourbon? I mean, how do you screw that up? That's what he said. So here's. Why am I telling you this? Here's the argument. She didn't screw up where's the bourbon? 50 times. She didn't. She was doing it because she wanted people to think that she was dumb in real life. Because Tony Curtis got to the set and was playing a character on the set. She got to the set, was already playing her character before the camera rolled. So in order for her to do that, she had to screw up the line 50 times so people would go, geez, she really is that dumb. She wasn't that dumb at all. Like zero. She was just playing into the machine, making sure. That people were like, oh, okay, perfect. She's doing what we need her to do. You follow what I'm saying? Like, she was milking the system that thought it was milking her. This is my judo flip here.
• 21:26
  Speaker B: Yeah. Giving her back the power from what was taken from her, from being this iconic dumb blonde.
• 21:31
  Speaker A: Right. So, I mean, she had a choice to make. Right. She could have absolutely just been like, oh, you know, whatever. I'm not really dumb, and here's what's going on, and I'm gonna try to make my way into a career. But I would argue she recognized everything that was going on around. So go back to the whole first point where she leveraged a production studio to make her mother. Who does that? What woman goes and does that in 1940? I'm telling you, she was just wicked smart, man. No, she totally was wicked smart. And so all these things I'm talking about get absolutely skipped, because all people remember, certainly, guys, is how pretty she was. 1953, Playboy. Boobs, right? Hugh Hefner, did you. Do you know the boobs story? Do you know that story?
• 22:09
  Speaker B: No.
• 22:10
  Speaker A: Do you think she posed for Playboy?
• 22:12
  Speaker B: Yeah, didn't she?
• 22:13
  Speaker A: She didn't.
• 22:13
  Speaker B: What?
• 22:14
  Speaker A: Nope. So it was 1949. She needed. She needed to pay rent. You know how much she got paid for it? 50 bucks in 1949. Forgot the guy's name, something, something. I don't know. Anyway, Hugh Hefner in 1953 wants to start Playboy and buys the rights to those pictures. Puts them from the guy, from the guy. Has nothing to do with Marilyn. She signed. She signed all the rights away when she took the 50 bucks. Yeah. She didn't know any better. So I'm gonna argue again. Very smart woman. She could have absolutely lost her shit in 1953 when those pictures came out, and she did.
• 22:47
  Speaker B: And she rode the wave.
• 22:47
  Speaker A: And she rode the wave, right? And she didn't say, like, oh, look at me, and look at all my womanness, either. She was just awesome about it. They are what they are. They're out there. It is what it is, and I'm gonna keep moving on. And I would argue helped catapult her career because of the way she even decided to handle that. It could have been terrible. And I know this is. I'm nuancing this, but I'm arguing. Some women lean into that even more, and they're like, oh, my God, look at my sexuality. She wasn't really doing that at all. She was just like. That happened. I'm dealing with the fact that it happened. I'm not gonna give them what they want one way or the other, and they're gonna be screwed as a result of it. And so totally worked to advantage because she just powered through.
• 23:30
  Speaker B: But that had to come at, like a cost to her, though. It totally came because, I mean, mentally,
• 23:34
  Speaker A: her whole life did.
• 23:35
  Speaker B: Emotionally, I mean.
• 23:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, this is what I do. I go down these rabbit holes and I find out all this good stuff about all these people. And they're amazing and they do all these awesome things and they come right.
• 23:46
  Speaker B: The Debbie Downer. Here we go.
• 23:47
  Speaker A: It is kind of the Debbie Downer. So that was all the good parts, but the bad parts are like. Okay, so let's start super bad, a little bad. Well, let's start with she overdosed and killed herself.
• 23:56
  Speaker B: I mean, right?
• 23:56
  Speaker A: There's that, right? We all know that one.
• 23:58
  Speaker B: Well, did she, though?
• 23:59
  Speaker A: Oh, my God. What's yours? What's your conspiracy theory on this one?
• 24:03
  Speaker B: That she was having an affair with the President that she sang the song to and she got unalived?
• 24:09
  Speaker A: No, no. This is what you know about her. This is terrible. Okay. Yeah, not even close. Okay, so let me start with her marriage.
• 24:16
  Speaker B: Kennedy's.
• 24:17
  Speaker A: That's true. Oh, my God. There's a little bit that went on there. Okay. Her marriages sucked. Okay. Three marriages, all kind of sucked. So the 21 year old guy, Jim Dougherty.
• 24:26
  Speaker B: Yes. What happened?
• 24:27
  Speaker A: We talked about him. I don't know. He buzzes off to war and she's done with him. Then she marries.
• 24:31
  Speaker B: Obviously have to get divorced or something, but whatever.
• 24:33
  Speaker A: They did get divorced. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then she marries some not so famous people. 1 Joe DiMaggio, if you know who he is.
• 24:40
  Speaker B: I was like, that name sounds.
• 24:41
  Speaker A: The Yankee Clipper. Yes, Very famous. Very, very famous. The other one, Arthur Miller, also incredibly famous playwright, Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller. Okay, yeah, yeah. So Joe DiMaggio, total controlling freak, wanted to keep her in her little box, just like we were talking about the whole time. So that didn't work out. And then Arthur Miller writes this. Writes her as a character into one of his plays, but doesn't tell her that. And then she finds a script later and she's like, wait a second, what did you just write about me? Who do you think I am? And that blew up in his face because he should have probably like, said, like, oh, I was using you as my muse. Yeah. Bad and bad all the way around. So anyway, yeah, she dies on August 4, 1962, at her home in Brentwood in Los Angeles. Her housekeeper found her in her bedroom early in the morning. Official ruling, barbiturate poisoning, overdose of sleeping pills. Oh, yeah. So I don't. I don't you want to say the. You know, the theory of jfk, whatever. I mean, I know there's some stuff like Chappaquiddick and some other things that were some bad stuff, but I'm arguing she had a tough, tough life. She was only like 36 years old.
• 25:42
  Speaker B: Dang.
• 25:42
  Speaker A: Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It caught up with her, right? I mean, like, she grew up from nothing, like, and then. And then got super famous and was fighting a system that was corrupt and evil. And I think she did awesome and did the best she could. Here's a really sad part.
• 25:56
  Speaker B: There's more sad part.
• 25:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, I know. So play that forward a little bit more. So I don't remember 1962.
• 26:02
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 26:02
  Speaker A: So, yeah, so JFK, President, Civil Rights movement, like, totally getting started, right? Vietnam feminism, second wave of feminism movement is coming. So I think had she lived, she would have been an iconic leader coming in at just the right time in America with all of those different things sort of happening and what she could have symbolized with how smart she was and the way she was using all of her leverage. And now all we get is a picture of her on a poster, which I think sucks.
• 26:34
  Speaker B: So I'm glad we're doing this podcast so you could objurgate her.
• 26:38
  Speaker A: Who am I objurgating?
• 26:39
  Speaker B: Her image that everyone.
• 26:41
  Speaker A: Oh, we're objurgating the patriarchy.
• 26:43
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:44
  Speaker A: Yes, that's what we're doing. We're objurgating the patriarchy for the way they handled everything.
• 26:48
  Speaker B: Shinash is a pretty face. Jerk feels much more jerk.
• 26:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, Jerk store. Right? Totally lame.
• 26:53
  Speaker B: Speaking of OBJ in the patriarchy, what is happening now? Right? Like, I mean, earlier you had mentioned that you kind of thought about, well, have we gotten any better? And you said no. Right?
• 27:05
  Speaker A: Well, you said no too.
• 27:06
  Speaker B: I did say no.
• 27:06
  Speaker A: Admittingly.
• 27:07
  Speaker B: We both said, I have my own opinion.
• 27:09
  Speaker A: Well, now I want to know your own. I want to know your opinion.
• 27:11
  Speaker B: I mean, well, clearly, like, women are still very much objectified.
• 27:14
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 27:15
  Speaker B: And you just take even bathing suits.
• 27:18
  Speaker A: I mean, don't get me started. Right?
• 27:21
  Speaker B: How small is, you know, Roost.
• 27:23
  Speaker A: Bathing suit? Yeah, it's pretty small. Yeah.
• 27:25
  Speaker B: But, like, and that's okay. That's what's expected. And if you don't do it, then you're not cool. So what?
• 27:32
  Speaker A: Well, I'll go further than. I'm just going to go further than the sex symbol part. I'm arguing man or woman. But I mean, I'll get back to. I'll get back. Yes. Objectifying women. That's. I also think it's a. We put people in boxes, period. Like, you could argue you put me in a box. I could argue I put you in a box. It is what it is. Right. And we. Then we've designed a system in our head on how you are going to show up to me or how I'm going to show up to you, or how we expect. Let's go with our celebrities to show up to the world. Let me go on the surface. I think, about objectifying women. We're doing it again. Sydney Sweeney, Crazy Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, like any famous musician right now. And we're doing it all over the. It's crazy, Right? And then you'd argue some of those women are incredibly smart, using it to their advantage again, much like Marilyn Monroe, you'd argue maybe some of them aren't. I totally get it. But, like, my whole problem with the whole hundredth birthday of Marilyn Monroe is what are we celebrating? Are we celebrating the sex symbol part of her, or are we celebrating the smart woman part of her?
• 28:34
  Speaker B: Right. But it's even just like when we talked about Miles last week, Right. About how, yes, great music, great musician, we're celebrating that piece of it. But also very radical in what he did as well.
• 28:46
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 28:47
  Speaker B: And I think if we're going to be celebrating, you know, people's hundredth birthdays or, you know, commemorating them at some point, it should be about who they were as a whole person. But I don't. I don't think we'll get there.
• 28:59
  Speaker A: No. Because see, in this case, fun fact, Authentic Brands Group bought the rights to Marilyn Monroe's image in 2011, and they literally are shoving her on everything they can. I don't. Whatever it is, it's a fountain pen or a champagne flute. I don't even care. It's everywhere. Right. So, like, you're objectifying the hell out of her, and it's like, take the poster and make millions and millions of dollars. But then the other hand, you have like the Academy Museum. There's an exhibition going on for the hundredth year celebration where it's like they're like they're pulling out all the stops and you could literally find like, her letters and her writings and the books that she was reading in her library.
• 29:43
  Speaker B: That just feels better to me.
• 29:44
  Speaker A: Well, I know, but I don't think they're doing Too much American brands group gets too much play. And, like, the Academy Museum is getting squat. Because that's the sexy, though. It's right, right. It's what. It's what the system has created. I think my whole takeaway, because I'm trying to, like, get better at. Why do we do an episode on Marilyn Monroe? Number one, I want to learn about Marilyn Monroe. Like, sometimes I have my own problem with this podcast because part of me is like, oh, we have listeners. And part of me is like, well, I don't know if I want to learn about something. I want to learn about something. I know nothing about Marilyn Monroe. So we're going to learn about Marilyn Monroe. But, like, go back to, like, the we put people in a box. I think that's the takeaway is everybody is a more complicated version of themselves that they're willing to admit.
• 30:28
  Speaker B: Right. But it's not even just the people who are celebrities. I mean.
• 30:30
  Speaker A: No, that's what I'm saying. You and I, like, there's a part
• 30:33
  Speaker B: of me is more complicated. They have a life outside of work. Everybody does.
• 30:37
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 30:37
  Speaker B: The grocer that you see isn't just a grocer. They live a whole life.
• 30:40
  Speaker A: They only give you snippets into their life based on sort of how I call it, passing tests. I think we've talked about this before, like, who's passing my test? Which is terrible to say. I understand, but it's easy. Easiest way for me to sort of have people visualize this. And as a result of that, I've decided where I put people. And I think what I'm. What I. When I said I learned something, like, pretty profound at the end of this. It's like, I want to, number one, allow more people to be their more authentic self in front of me, which means I have to do a whole lot of work fighting against the system that is created. Right. I mean, I'm a white male. It's the patriarchy. Like, people look at me a certain way. I'm 50 years old. That stereotype has to be turned way down for people to trust that I want to see them as authentic. Right. And then two, I want to be able to be authentic in front of people. Because if we can do that, those relationships, I will give you a ton of credit. I would argue that's a relationship that I have with you that I think is only gotten better. And we've got. I mean, Amanda, we've gone through some shit, and it's, like, way better because you let me be authentic and I know. I try really hard to let you be authentic. And it's. Wow. Like, talk about learning a lot. But, like, I'm sitting here learning about Marilyn Monroe and I'm thinking about you while I'm learning about Marilyn Monroe, which makes me feel like I might be onto something, which is kind of cool. So anyway, that. That was like, my whole.
• 32:04
  Speaker B: And encouragement to everyone to take it another step besides the just, like, face value. Right, right. Like, right. Hey, I see you every week. So great to see you again.
• 32:13
  Speaker A: But.
• 32:13
  Speaker B: So it is your life, like, really,
• 32:15
  Speaker A: you know, and especially when you go take it back to Marilyn Monroe and objectifying. So now you see the woman for the first time in the bathing suit, in the bikini, on the beach, and you're like, wait, what do I have to do? I have to learn. What about, like. I'm not saying it's complicated for a man. I'm saying men have to do a better job. Just. Just point, period, paragraph, Better fucking job. Recognizing that there's so much more. And that was like, wham. O. Holy shit. Hit me, like, square across the face. Anyway, I learned a lot. That was it. That's what I got. That's our episode. That's a wrap. I hope we all learned something about Marilyn Monroe. I think she's awesome.
• 32:50
  Speaker B: Skipping fun facts. Because I bet there's a ton of Marilyn Monroe.
• 32:52
  Speaker A: We have fun facts. No, no, no.
• 32:54
  Speaker B: That's a wrap. I was like, oh, no, we're not gonna skip.
• 32:56
  Speaker A: We're not gonna skip fun facts. We'll do fun facts. That was just like, episode.
• 33:00
  Speaker B: Okay, okay, okay.
• 33:02
  Speaker A: Are you ready?
• 33:02
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 33:03
  Speaker A: Okay. Did we use object? We did. You object. Oh, you did? I tried.
• 33:05
  Speaker B: I threw it in there. I don't know if it worked.
• 33:06
  Speaker A: You did Oxygen.
• 33:07
  Speaker B: It was there. It was there.
• 33:07
  Speaker A: So when you were just talking and we said objurgate a few times, I was like, we've already had this word. So I just went back and looked. We didn't. Thank God it was obdurate. Obdurate with a B. Not objurgate. I almost had a heart attack. Like, did we just use a same word twice? We did not. Check tape, people. We're good. Okay, fun fact number one. Here we go. So besides being the first to pose for Playboy, she appeared on the COVID of Life magazine. Wanna guess how many times?
• 33:33
  Speaker B: Three.
• 33:33
  Speaker A: Three. No, not three. Seven.
• 33:35
  Speaker B: Seven.
• 33:36
  Speaker A: Seven times on Life magazine? Yes. No actress. No actress in 1950 for what?
• 33:40
  Speaker B: Just for, like, all her movies. Is it just movies? Because sometimes you're on Life for other things.
• 33:44
  Speaker A: Right. She was just. She was literally, like. She was 1950. She was absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unbelievable. Seven times. Okay. Number two, she was not a natural blonde.
• 33:54
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 33:55
  Speaker A: She was a brunette. Dun, dun, dun. Yeah. Platinum blonde thing. Totally engineered, bleached shaped and styled.
• 34:02
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 34:02
  Speaker A: Every week.
• 34:03
  Speaker B: I mean, it does cost a lot to look that good.
• 34:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, it does. That's what she used it to get. That was it. Into the room where it happens. The room. Okay. Number three, did you know Marilyn Monroe was clinically diagnosed with both anxiety and what doctors called at the time, emotional instability?
• 34:18
  Speaker B: Oh.
• 34:19
  Speaker A: And still showed up and still made 30 films in 15 years. 30. Yes. So while simultaneously running her production company, negotiating studio contracts, studying method acting and reading Tolstoy and having, like, hundreds of books in her library. I'm arguing whatever the opposite of, like, her diagnosis is. That's what she was doing. So, like, leaning into everything. That was awesome. She was doing her own therapy.
• 34:45
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 34:46
  Speaker A: Right.
• 34:46
  Speaker B: I mean, she did have the car stacked against her because her mom, I know, had some issues.
• 34:50
  Speaker A: I know that wasn't. Oh, God, what a story. Okay, number four, she converted to Judaism when she married Arthur Miller. Because he was a Jew. Yes. In 1955. And even after they divorced, she stayed Jewish for the rest of her life. Who would have known? Yeah. She reportedly said it, quote, felt like coming home. The press, because they never gave her any credit for anything, said it was a total publicity stunt. She never commented in perfect Marilyn Monroe fashion. Never commented about it to anyone.
• 35:15
  Speaker B: Left the mind wondering.
• 35:16
  Speaker A: Yes. Kept it totally private. I love that. I love that about her. Okay, number five. Joe DiMaggio.
• 35:21
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 35:21
  Speaker A: Or Yankee Clipper. Yes. Had roses delivered to her grave three times a week for 20 years after she died. 20 years. And he never got remarried. He was asked later in life why he never got remarried. And he reportedly said, because I had the best.
• 35:36
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 35:37
  Speaker A: Which, depending on how you look at it, either means that's the most romantic thing you've ever heard or the saddest possible thing because he tried to keep her in her own little box forever. In that whatever, he learned his lesson. I don't know. Good old Joe.
• 35:51
  Speaker B: Karma's a bitch.
• 35:52
  Speaker A: I'm just kidding. I wish you were a Seinfeld fan right now. Sorry, you're not a Seinfeld fan. There was a famous Seinfeld word.
• 36:00
  Speaker B: Joe Devonshire, because I didn't get all the jokes.
• 36:02
  Speaker A: He dunks his donuts. Okay. And finally, real quick, for her 100th birthday. Cause I don't think we really went through what we're doing. So the Academy museum exhibition, like I talked about, officially is already open. It's gonna run for nine months. Costumes, letters, production documents, personal items, everything. And another group called the Heritage Auctions is releasing a collection of her stuff, never before made seen to the public. So handwritten letters, personal poetry, watercolor paintings. She dabbled in watercolor? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all straight from her estate, so.
• 36:30
  Speaker B: Oh, that's cool.
• 36:31
  Speaker A: And out here in Palm Springs, they are trying to do a Guinness Book of World Record where they're bringing as many imitation look alikes together as they can to take a picture so they can, like, enter the Guinness Book of World Records. I don't know when they're doing that or whatever, but anyway, that's all I got on Maryland for Fun Facts. Fun facts out.
• 36:46
  Speaker B: I love it. Well, there we go.
• 36:47
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:48
  Speaker B: Well, if we want to learn anything else or be a part of. I know you mentioned a couple things for the hundredth celebration, where can we check out these exhibitions?
• 36:57
  Speaker A: Check them out first. If you want fun facts or the episode summary delivered to your inbox, DM us on Instagram, we're gonna send them out. Thank you for supporting the show. First, go watch Some Like It Hot, like tonight. Go. You have homework.
• 37:09
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 37:09
  Speaker A: I know you were talking about Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but go watch this one because it's seriously one of the funniest movies ever made. Super fun fact. Do you know it is considered the single greatest American comedy ever made according to the American Film Institute? Oh, something like that. I know, right? That was the one with where's the Bourbon? Oh, that was the line. Yeah.
• 37:30
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 37:30
  Speaker A: Right. And it's considered the greatest movie. Thank you very much. And so you tell me. You tell me if she didn't know what she was doing. Okay? Right. Second, the Movie Channel, like I said, is going to play all her movies all month long. So whatever, watch whatever you want. Just put on TMC in the background. It'll be awesome. And then if you're in Los Angeles, go to the Academy museum exhibition. It's called Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood icon. Like I said, it's open through 2027. It's got all her stuff. Yeah, that's like all I got. Go do one of those three things.
• 37:54
  Speaker B: Well, and if you don't really want to do any of that, just remember these details to sound sort of sophisticated. Number one, Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Mortensen on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California. She grew up through 12 foster homes and even had a stint in an orphanage for just a little while. So not really a glamorous story, but a survival story. Number two, she got married when she turned 16 to avoid going back to the orphanage. And two years later, she was discovered by a photographer in a munitions factory. During World War II, because her husband was off to war, she built her Persona from scratch by studying photographs for herself and learning what the camera wanted. Number three. In 1954, at the absolute peak of her fame, she walked out on 20th Century Fox, went Peace out, and she moved to New York to study method acting and founded her own production company. Then she came back to Hollywood and forced them to renegotiate her contract on her terms. Legendary and brilliance all in one total legend. Number four, she owned a personal library of over 400 books.
• 38:51
  Speaker A: You like that one, don't you?
• 38:52
  Speaker B: I do. It's like she's like the real life Belle, but blonde. She read Tolstoy on set, studied philosophy at UCLA, and was described by Truman Capote as having one of the most interesting minds I've ever encountered.
• 39:04
  Speaker A: See? See, that's my point, right? They were like best friends.
• 39:07
  Speaker B: Yeah. Like, who says that he admired her?
• 39:09
  Speaker A: He did.
• 39:10
  Speaker B: She admired him. Mutual respect. Number five. She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress for her role in Some Like It Hot, which, by the way, thanks to Pete, we all know the American Film Institute calls it the single greatest American comedy ever made. And finally, she died at 36. She made 30 films in 15 years and quietly used her fame to do right by people the world was ignoring. All while everyone around her was convinced they were the ones pulling the string. The dumb blonde was the smartest person in the room the whole time.
• 39:38
  Speaker A: Amen.
• 39:39
  Speaker B: And the room never figured it out.
• 39:40
  Speaker A: Perfect. There you have it, dear listeners. We started with a woman the world spent a century reducing down to one image and spent the whole episode trying to put the actual person back together. She was an actress the world shoved into a box, but she was a human being who refused to stay in it if we did our job. Today, you're not just walking away with a Hollywood education. You're walking away with a question. Because we like our questions about who in your life you've decided you already know about whether the people closest to you are being allowed to be their full, complicated selves or just the version of them that's easiest for you to deal with. And as always, if you liked what you listened to hit, subscribe, leave a review and share it with your friends, because that helps us a ton. Until next time, stay curious, stay glamorous. Just like Marilyn. And remember, the blonde was always the costume. Go find out who's underneath.