Marilyn’s Responsibility Has Opened Her Eyes

It Happened on
October 25, 1953

Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA

Star States Own View of Calendar Picture
By Edwin Schallert

“Responsibility” was the flabbergasting word which Marilyn Monroe shot across to me over the long-distance telephone last week from San Francisco. “A star has a great responsibility,” she said. “I have learned that through the letters I receive and through other contacts with the public. Most of all I have learned it through what several women have said and written to me. It has opened up a new world.”

“Responsibility” is something that just doesn’t associate itself with the young star recently made such an outstanding hit as Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and who afforded her studio, 20th Century-Fox, a tremendous amount of grief and tribulation through her whimsical interludes for which this writer felt she has long been forgiven.

The experience of 20th April has taught her what a great many better stars of a decade in the Bay Area never quite came to essaying.

Willing to Chat

The friendly looker at her side of Joe DiMaggio, named Marie, and Marilyn was willing to chat amiably and to proffer an explanation of why there were so many complications about reaching me.
“I have been working almost steadily for three years,” she said. “I have done two plays of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire. So I really need a rest.”

Calendar Discussed

“I knew if I didn’t sort of blow my own trumpet for the time being, simply wouldn’t have any rest. So I had to have the opportunity for one half-hour chat during the day.”

During her half-hour chat she scooted off the screen to say that she wanted to discuss the much-talked-of calendar picture, concerning which now for once have her version.

She said simply: “It is not true that Tom Kelley who shot the photograph took pity on me on account of my financial condition. It is true that he once lent me $5. But the arrangement about the photograph was strictly a business deal.”

Simple Explanation

“He and his wife at that time, Natalie, had asked me whether I would pose, and he kept asking from time to time if I would. I was living at the Studio Club and had accumulated certain obligations which I wanted to discharge. I knew this money was available and finally once when I determined this was a solution to my economic problem. So I posed. It was all legal. I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible, and that’s all there was to it, but certainly it was definitely a business deal.”

“the telephone when I talk is always tapped.” – Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn put forth a clear-cut, straight viewpoint of the transaction. She added at the close of the subject that Joe DiMaggio approved what she did. Her manner was straightforward. “I have no right to him,” she said, “if he thought otherwise, and further that the telephone when I talk is always tapped.”
When she finished giving her statement, she gathered speed (with DiMaggio) and was on her way to a game at San Francisco Bay.

“the man who has been doing most of my comedy has been none other than Jack Benny.” – Marilyn Monroe

“What I really hope to do in the immediate future,” she said, “is take probably a year off which will be an occasion for a trip. It is our honeymoon trip, but I can’t say where we’re going. All I can tell you is that the man who has been doing most of my comedy has been none other than Jack Benny.”

“Pink Tights” Next

“I am not sure just when Pink Tights will start shooting though it is pretty definitely scheduled as my next picture,” she said. “It’s a very nice thought. He after the first of the year. I have played in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire and it strikes me that this has more like the kind of picture I’d like to do.

“Films such as River of No Return I liked well. No cinematography in it was offered me.”

Photo Caption
SUPREME PIN-UP Marilyn Monroe’s lure for servicemen and general public today seems unrivalled. Simultaneously, through pictures like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and probably also forthcoming How to Marry a Millionaire, she will become bigger and bigger box office.

Note: On the topic of Pink Tights

Marilyn Monroe was originally slated to star in the musical The Girl in Pink Tights but refused the role due to the “substandard” script and being paid significantly less than her co-star. She was suspended by 20th Century Fox in January 1954 for not showing up to work. In 1954, Zizi Jeanmaire starred in a Broadway musical of Girl in Pink Tights.

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Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.
- Jocko Willink