After Marilyn Monroe died during the wee hours of August 5, 2012, perceptions of her life and career began to change, and her blonde bombshell star image evolved into something more complex. Like others who have become pop culture icons—Elvis, James Dean, John Lennon, and second-tier figures like Hank Williams, Louis Brooks, Jean Harlow—death launched a second career for her. The entertainment industry, biographers, and filmmakers as well as fans were instrumental in charting this phase of her career. But, I can’t help but think that MM had no control over this “second” career, and it yielded no benefits for her. And, her struggle to control her work and image was important to her personally, and it is crucial in understanding her place in film history.

ON THE SET OF 'SOMETHING'S GOT TO GIVE,' A NEWLY SLIMMED MM SURPRISED PHOTOGRAPHERS BY PLAYING A SCENE NUDE.

Marilyn Monroe’s career began in earnest when she signed the 1950 contract with Fox that was negotiated by agent Johnny Hyde. It was typical of those offered during the Golden Age. Much has been written about the major studios and their iron grip over their stables of stars who were under long-term, iron-clad contracts. Actors who hoped to play challenging roles often felt imprisoned by the star images constructed for them by studio executives, who did not want their most popular stars jeopardizing their careers by experimenting with roles. In the 1950s, when the studio system began to break down, the big studios let go of some of their control over the star system. Several popular male stars took the opportunity to free themselves from the tyranny of studio heads, allowing them creative control over their careers and images. It was not only a major turning point in the film industry, but it changed what it meant to be an actor in Hollywood, and it began to alter the public’s perception of movie stars.

Monroe was one of the few female stars to take control of her career during the 1950s. Darryl F. Zanuck’s vision for MM’s career was based on the classic-era model of recasting her in the same roles over and over because the films made money for Fox; Marilyn fought to free herself from these roles, which were at best repetitive and at worst demeaning. Her success in renegotiating a contract with Zanuck that allowed her a measure of control makes her a key figure of 1950s Hollywood. Instead of the seven-year, exclusive contract in which MM had to appear in whatever properties the studio purchased for her, she and her team negotiated for a non-exclusive deal allowing her to star in films for her own company or in those for other studios and producers. Under this deal, she was to make three more films for Fox, and she was allowed director and cinematographer approval. The difference in the two contracts is the difference between night and day, or the difference between the old star system and the new one emerging during the 1950s.

FROM 'THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL'

At the time, the press, who preferred the blonde bombshell to the serious actress, ridiculed the “dumb blonde” in her desire to play dramatic roles and run her own career. Not surprisingly, they did not mock Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, John Wayne, or Jimmy Stewart for heading their own production companies or foregoing a long-term studio contract to work as free agents. The perception painted of MM at the time masked her hard-fought win over Fox—an accomplishment with long-term ramifications for stars. Then, after her death, the evolution of her star image into an icon of either Hollywood glamor or Hollywood exploitation robbed her of her importance to film history.

Monroe completed four films after her successful contract renegotiation. The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) was directed by Laurence Olivier, perhaps the most respected actor on two continents at the time, and it was produced for Marilyn Monroe Productions, Inc. However, this stagy and talky drawing-room comedy did not enjoy the success of Bus Stop. Let’s Make Love (1960), the weakest of the lot, was one of her contractual obligations to Fox. In 1962, she began work on another contractual obligation, Something’s Got to Give, which was a remake of the screwball comedy My Favorite Wife. MM was famously fired from this film: In 33 shooting days, she showed up for work only 12 times, claiming illness and fatigue. Despite the participation of pal Dean Martin and legendary woman’s director George Cukor, MM was not interested in this film for Fox, and her attitude showed it.

MM CELEBRATED HER BIRTHDAY ON THE SET OF 'SOMETHING.' A SHORT TIME LATER, SHE WAS FIRED.

In contrast, Some Like It Hot and The Misfits were high-profile productions that have taken on added significance since her death. Though remembered as MM’s finest comedy, Some Like It Hot really belongs to the male actors—Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, and Joe E. Brown. In this story of phony identities, Curtis and Lemmon play musicians who are in disguise as women to escape from gangsters. Both take on second ruses, Curtis as a millionaire who courts Sugar, and Lemmon as a gold-digger letting “herself” be wooed by Brown. Marilyn realized early on that her character, Sugar Kane, was little more than a straight man for the antics of the boys. She requested that director Billy Wilder and his writing collaborator, I.A.L Diamond, add bits to the script that would allow the character to be a more active participant in the fun. One of the scenes that Wilder and Diamond rewrote allowed Marilyn to exercise her skills at physical comedy. As Sugar hurriedly wobbles on her high heels to catch a train, a sudden blast of steam noisily bursts across her undulating bottom. Her walk, the emphasis on her derriere, and her reaction echo the type of gag found in silent comedy, helping to establish that the dumb blonde archetype would be exaggerated and spoofed a bit. (Other Hollywood archetypes are spoofed in the film, including the coin-flipping gangster and  the cop who is in dogged pursuit.)

MM's PERSONAL LIFE WAS A MESS DURING 'SOME LIKE IT HOT,' MAKING FOR A NOTORIOUS PRODUCTION.

I believe MM had as keen an understanding of her image as John Wayne, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart had of theirs. She knew there was a fine line between using her potent star image to create a character and being imprisoned by it. She spent her career walking that line. After her death, Sugar Kane was one of the roles that epitomized her star image as the dumb blonde bombshell, alongside The Girl in The Seven Year Itch and Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

In July 1960, principal production finally began on The Misfits, which Arthur Miller had written for Monroe, his wife at the time. Directed by John Huston and costarring Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, and Eli Wallach, The Misfits is a haunting allegory about three alienated men who belong to a West that had long since faded away. Together, they capture beautiful wild mustangs, which they sell to a manufacturer of dog food. Despite the presence of three strong male leads, the focus of the film is Marilyn’s character, Roslyn Tabor. Roslyn’s sensitivity and ethereal beauty draw each of the men to her, because she represents something each of them needs or desires. Roslyn also feels alone in the world, because she has come to Reno for a divorce.  Reno, the divorce capital of the world, provides the perfect setting for a story of alienation.

IN RETROSPECT, MM's ROLE AS ROSLYN IN 'THE MISFITS' IS INTERPRETED AS EVIDENCE OF HER SERIOUSNESS AS AN ACTRESS AND HER SENSITIVITY AS A WOMAN.

Roslyn forces the men to confront their barren existences when she pleads with them not to kill the wild mustangs they have worked so hard to round up. The three believe that their occupation gives them a freedom that is better than the slavery of working for “wages.”  Paradoxically, it is this “freedom” that keeps them isolated from society and alienated from other human beings. Their steadfast adherence to their brand of independence is both their strength and their weakness. Like the cowboys, the wild horses are the last of a vanishing breed — a parallel that eludes the three men. By killing off the horses, the cowboys are destroying the last vestiges of the lifestyle they so desperately cling to. In killing the horses, they are essentially killing themselves.

The shoot of The Misfits was a tortuous one. Estranged from Miller, Marilyn increased her prescription-drug intake considerably, a situation made more dangerous by her drinking. Her despair during the first few weeks of production darkened until it seemed as though she would be swallowed up completely. Miller had hoped that The Misfits would bring Marilyn back to him, but he quickly realized that “if there was a key to Marilyn’s despair I did not possess it.” After the shoot was over, life continued to spiral downhill: Costar Clark Gable, whom Marilyn adored, dropped dead from a heart attack, and she and Miller separated, finally divorcing.

ON THE SET OF 'THE MISFITS'

The Misfits was a major disappointment at the box office, but later in the 1960s after her death, it was picked up for television broadcast by the networks. The character of Roslyn and news of MM’s own personal problems during production combined to give the film a meaning it did not have on original release. In retrospect, The Misfits seems to reveal another side to Marilyn—the sensitive MM behind the sex symbol mask—to paint her as a victim of Hollywood exploitation. [The Misfits airs on TCM on the evening of July 16.]

The year after her death, Fox released a documentary titled Marilyn to compensate for losses resulting from Something’s Got To Give. The studio finally got that last film out of her even after her death. Narrated by Rock Hudson, the documentary consists of clips from the films she had made at Fox. The film chronicles her career up to Something’s Got to Give, but it concludes with the production number “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with Hudson declaring that this was the way he (meaning Fox) preferred to remember her. Except for Bus Stop, the films showcased in the documentary were the comedies and musicals that Marilyn struggled so hard to leave behind her. By leaving out most of her work in dramatic roles, Marilyn contributed to shaping MM’s post-death identity as the exaggerated blonde bombshell—an icon of Hollywood glamour and stardom. It is ironic that 20^th Century Fox continued to mold her star image after her death given that MM had worked so hard to distance herself from their control.

ROCK HUDSON PRESENTED MM WITH A GOLDEN GLOBE JUST MONTHS BEFORE SHE DIED. THE FOLLOWING YEAR, HE NARRATED FOX'S DOCUMENTARY ABOUT MM.

The documentary Marilyn provides one example of how the elements of her image and career can be shaped depending on the perspective or agenda of the person or institution doing it. Like other stars who became icons after death, the characteristics of her star image were reduced to a set of physical attributes that become immediately recognizable to fans and viewers. In MM’s case, it’s her red lips, white blonde hair, breathy voice, sexy walk, and white dress. But, the meaning denoted by those attributes can signify something different, depending on their context and depending on who is interpreting them. Andy Warhol’s silk-screened paintings, for example, offer a commentary on the commercialization of Marilyn Monroe. He first used Marilyn’s image in 1962 for a silk-screen-on-canvas entitled “The Six Marilyns,” or “Marilyn Six-Pack.” He chose a publicity photo of MM as the blonde bombshell from Niagara, blew up her face to tremendous proportions, and silk-screened the image onto a canvas six times. He manipulated the image by using garish greens and magentas for the eyes and lips and by placing the color slightly off-register. By purposefully distorting her face and lips, Warhol calls attention to those attributes that had already been exaggerated in her films via makeup. In doing so, he reminds us of the artificiality of her look and the way it was used to turn her into a commodity. Warhol recycled his portrait of Marilyn in a number of silk-screens-on-canvas throughout the 1960s, occasionally using it as wallpaper in installation pieces. Warhol’s Marilyn silkscreens reveal his obsession with the nature of fame and celebrity, which he mocked, criticized, or ridiculed. He referenced the same aspect of MM as the Fox documentary—her image as a glamorous blond bombshell—but gave it a completely different interpretation.

MM BY WARHOL: REDUCED TO HER FAMOUS PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES

Biopics of MM or films featuring her as a character also use the attributes to evoke Monroe the icon but for different reasons with varying interpretations of her impact, significance, or meaning in our culture. The biopics, which began in the early 1970s, are generally responsible for spinning MM’s life story and career into a tragedy to suggest that she was a victim of Hollywood exploitation. One of my favorite biopics is a made-for-cable film called Norma Jean and Marilyn in which two actresses play MM: Ashley Judd portrays MM as the struggling young model and budding actress still using her real name; Mira Sorvina plays MM as the unhappy Hollywood star remade into every man’s fantasy. Judd has the better role as it was supposed to represent a flesh-and-blood human with dreams, troubles, and ambitions. But, the double casting helps to underline the film’s main point—that Marilyn Monroe was a creation of Hollywood. One of the most intriguing depictions of Marilyn Monroe can be found in director Nicolas Roeg’s Insignificance (1985), recently released on DVD. Based on a play by Terry Johnson the movie is not really about Marilyn but is a speculation on fame and the appeal of pop culture icons during eras of social trauma (here, the 1950s). The narrative revolves around the hotel-room liaisons of a group of unnamed characters—a movie star, a ballplayer, a scientist, and a Red-baiting senator—who are and are not Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, Albert Einstein, and Senator Joseph McCarthy.

'INSIGNIFICANCE': THERESA RUSSELL AS MM. THE DRESS AND HAIR ARE SIGNIFIERS OF MM THE ICON.

Two films featuring MM are scheduled for the release over the next year, My Week with Marilyn and Blonde. The former stars Michelle Williams as MM, and it takes place during the production of The Prince and the Showgirl. Perhaps Williams and the film will spark a renewed interest and a different perspective on the original film, which is not well remembered. Blonde stars Naomi Watts as the title character in a version of Joyce Carol Oates’s imaginary Monroe memoir. Like the previous cinematic incarnations of MM, neither will be “true” or intended as an accurate depiction of her life; both will use her image to signify an idea or ideal in order to make a point or suggest a theme.

The longevity of Marilyn Monroe’s celebrity results from the way her star persona has been used to evoke ideas and themes since her death. We see her today as much more than a 1950s sex symbol. Though she remains an icon of sexuality, that part of her image is undercut by the harshness of her life, which has been revealed in biographies, magazine stories, and biopics. Her iconic status at once celebrates Hollywood stardom while reminding us of its pitfalls. In addition to the symbolic power of her physical characteristics, her life and career have been used to demonstrate any number of issues, from the hypocrisies of the film industry to the frequent victimization of women in a male-dominated society. Icons are always interesting to analyze when used by artists, writers, or directors as part of their art; each new biography makes absorbing reading as contradictory or sensationalized information is revealed, adding to the lore and literature instead of illuminating it. While all of that is fascinating, I am hoping that the 50^th anniversary of MM’s death will inspire us to go back to her films to watch them on their own terms and to re-evaluate the impact of her career on the industry and her place in film history.

Whatever happens, Marilyn Monroe is a touchstone for our culture. She belongs to us—something Marilyn herself realized in her unfinished autobiography. “I knew I belonged to the public and to the world,” she wrote, “not because I was talented or even beautiful but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.”