“I don’t mind living in a man’s world, as long as I can be a woman in it.” – MM.
Whilst having a good read of my mum’s Yours Retro magazine late last year, I found some fascinating snippets about Clark Gable’s halitosis during filming of the aptly named Gone With The Wind and Humphrey Bogart’s loose false teeth, which had to be held in place by chewing gum during filming of the immortal “kid” line in Casablanca.
I enjoyed reading this Silent Generation, post-war movie Smash Hits-style magazine so much, I requested a subscription as a Christmas present.
A follow-up edition contained a lengthy article about the movies of Marilyn Monroe, who starred with Gable in her final film, The Misfits (no mention, in this case, of his bad breath). The Misfits was written by her then-husband and playwright Arthur Miller, and filmed during the final months of their crumbling marriage.
The end of the article noted that a new Monroe exhibition was coming to The Arches at London Bridge and would feature a curated collection of 250 personal items and objects, “unveiling Marilyn as never before”. My mum insisted I visit: “She was never really given credit for what she did for women; never seen beyond her beauty. She was brave.”
The South Bank is one of my favourite destinations in the capital. I’m often down that way to visit the News Building for Times Radio, or to take a stroll along the river, which is the loveliest of walks. The views of the Thames and its skyline remind me that London can be a beautiful city. I need no excuse to visit, and with Marilyn on a limited run I thought I’d better get down there before it ended.
Two stops into the tube journey, totally out of the blue, a woman sitting opposite, with a teenage boy beside her, complimented me on my outfit. “I love your jumpsuit,” she said. She was wearing denim dungarees, so I returned the compliment, and we chatted about it being a one-piece sort of a day for style and comfort. Mum and son were from Brighton, only in London for the day to visit Bubble Planet in Wembley.
Mum and son got off at West Hampstead and the tube sped on to Baker Street, which sparked a new exchange between the man and woman couple to my left.
“It’s very touristy, Baker Street,” he informed her.
“Is it?”
“Oh yes. There’s a lot of museums around this area, there’s all sorts, very busy, too many people for me. Plus it’s where the London Dungeon is.”
“Oh is it? Right.”
Wrong. I had a feeling they were on a date. She was clearly from out of town, and well, he must have been. As they got up at their stop, she looked at me with a sort of half eye roll as if to say this thing is doomed.
I tapped out at London Bridge, where endless pavement pillars covered with Marilyn’s diamond-cut smile served as signposts to The Arches. It’s a two-minute walk, easy to find behind the omnipresent street bench party of The Shipwrights Arms. I collected my ticket, the manager recommended an audio guide (very good), and I soon discovered that the exhibition reveals much of what lay “behind the bombshell”.
Marilyn was exceptionally well read, enjoying Rilke, Tolstoy and psychoanalytic literature in her spare time. She had an IQ of 168, yet when she wedded Miller the newspaper headlines dubbed the pair “The Great American brain” and “The Great American body”.
On a visit to London in 1956 to film The Prince and The Showgirl, with Laurence Olivier, she asked to meet two people: poet and critic Edith Sitwell and dramatist Seán O’Casey. She had met Sitwell prior, in 1953, and they had begun an unlikely friendship based on their mutual love of poetry, literature and philosophy.
During the same trip, she was introduced to Queen Elizabeth at a star studded event. Marilyn refused to follow the conventional dress code, wearing instead a gold lamé gown with cape and bag. Nevertheless, the Queen, a fan of her movies, described their meeting as “lovely” and one she never forgot.
A replica of that gown and one of her famous “Happy Birthday, Mr President” dress – recently borrowed by Kim Kardashian – are included in the exhibition, along with many authentic pieces from from Marilyn’s wardrobe.
It’s all very immersive and wonderful, but it’s the dive beneath her press persona that resonates. Marilyn’s views and attitudes were seen as forward thinking in the 1950s, with gender and racial equality being top of her list.
She was radically at odds with society. She promised the owner of the Mocambo nightclub, usually reserved for white artists only, that she would sit front row every night if he booked Ella Fitzgerald. Ella later said: “I owe Marilyn a lot, she was an extraordinary woman, ahead of her time.”
Marilyn flipped the script on marriage too, ending any “traditional” and “housewife” barriers to her working in film. She made conservative attitudes suddenly look stale and old-fashioned. She brought a new freeing power to females: “A wise girl knows her limits, a smart girl knows she has none.”
After two hours, I exited to the gift shop, where I browsed a selection of 1956 MM replica sunglasses. A woman beside me took a call. “I’m just in London with Auntie Marianne,” she said.
Auntie Marianne was standing, rooted to the floor in front of a screen. She was smiling back at a film of Marilyn’s face. Another woman was chuckling inside a photo booth as the camera captured four images of her face blowing a kiss at the screen.
These women were not just seeing Marilyn Monroe – they were thanking her.
Marilyn: The Exhibition, displaying personal objects from the private collection of Ted Stampfer, is to be extended to incorporate 1st June 2025, which would have been Monroe’s 99th birthday.