Just saying “Marilyn,” or even the word “Monroe,” has always been enough to invoke this star’s beauty, glamour and essence. Monroe was, after all, perhaps the greatest sex symbol of all time and she’ll always remain with us in one way or another.
On Saturday, August 4, 1962, sometime during the late evening hours, Marilyn Monroe expired, and the coroner’s report stated it was suicide. Monroe had been discovered dead by her physician who’d been called in the early Sunday morning hours by her housekeeper at the time.
A 1949 pose Marilyn did for “Playboy” magazine, a calendar fave!
A few months after the Feb. 1952 calendar appeared, Marilyn’s first “Life” spread came!
What really happened the previous night, August 4, 1962? Only Marilyn Monroe herself knows the truth. Innumerable theories abound, many claiming to be based on rigid scientific principles, or so-called eyewitness accounts and most are likely just hearsay.
w/husband Joe DiMaggio, baseball starA later husband, playwright, Arthur Miller
People were clearly aware that Marilyn was unstable. The star reportedly had a bizarre upbringing by a schizophrenic mother and was in and out of foster homes and orphanages as a child. Her intense beauty and sexuality often attracted the unwelcome attentions of predatory men, which does not lead to later adult stability.
Marilyn’s roller coaster ride of emotional highs and lows, extreme melancholy and previous attempts at self-harm laid the groundwork for what followed. It surprised no one, then, when the news came out about the suicide. NBC, CBS and ABC were all over the Monroe debacle. It was big.
From Canadian (Montreal, Quebec) magazine “Biographies”
The public initially accepted the suicide story but years later came those peddling tabloid fodder. They all cried murder, yet not one has offered definitive proof to date.
So, Marilyn Monroe, who died by whatever manner on August 4, 1962, became the larger-than-life legend that she has. Marilyn will likely be remembered as the most important sex symbol of our day.
From hit film “The Seven Year Itch”From April 7, 1952 “Life”
Photographer Philippe Halsman shot celebs jumping in 11/9/1959 “Life” edition
Before Mae West came along in the early sound era, sex symbol Mae Murray sashayed onto the silent screen in the late 1910s. Starting as a talented dancer, the beauty and the sensuality she projected to audiences drew the attention of dancer Vernon Castle, with whom she first appeared and later, Florenz Ziegfeld, who featured her in his legendary Ziegfeld Follies.
Mae Murray was born Marie Adrienne Koenig on May 10, 1885, in New York City, and not the city of Portsmouth, Virginia as she often stated. She died in Los Angeles on March 23, 1965.
Mae Murray, early in her career, came under the tutelage of director Robert Z. Leonard, whom she eventually married. Third husband Leonard carefully crafted the sensuous persona she projected. It has been written that the close-up photographed through a layer of gauze was created specifically for Mae Murray by Robert Z. Leonard. That same technique was later used by French Impressionist directors like Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac and Marcel L’Herbier.
“Princess Virtue,” “A Mormon Maid,” “The Delicious Little Devil,” “Mademoiselle Midnight,” and “Circe the Enchantress” are but a few of the Leonard films that starred Mae Murray in which she was able to showcase her many charms, and for which theatre goers had an eager appetite. Eventually Murray and Leonard divorced.
Early studio stillWW1 pose w/husband Robert Z. Leonard
During the silent film era, some publicity-seeking stars, notably Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson, opted to marry European royalty, and thus gain a title. Not to be outdone, in 1926, Mae Murray married one of the questionable Mdivanis of Georgia – the country of Georgia that is, not the U.S. state.
Regrettably, Prince David Mdivani of Georgia became the manager of his Princess, thus signaling the beginning of the end of her career. He persuaded her to leave MGM Studios, thus offending the powerful Louis B. Mayer, who had her blacklisted. Mdivani also managed to squander the millions of dollars Mae had earned through her successful starring roles. An attempt at transitioning to sound roles with her 1930 remake of “Peacock Alley” proved futile.
Mae’s “Royal Wedding” featuring Matron of Honor, Pola Negri & Best Man, Valentino
Mae Murray did not go down in defeat, however. Before this dramatic fall from grace, she had been cast in the leading role of Erich von Stroheim’s 1925 film, “The Merry Widow.” The film turned out to be the jewel in her crown. Yet it was no longer 1925, it was now 1930 and sound was here to stay! Mae Murray had lost favor with the Hollywood moguls, with the public at large, and thus began Mae’s retreat into her own world of make-believe.
1925: Mae Murray (1889 – 1965) stars as dancer Sally O’Hara in the film ‘The Merry Widow’, directed by Erich Von Stroheim for MGM.
w/von Stroheim & John GilbertMae toured far & wide doing the Merry Widow waltz made famous with Gilbert
Mae Murray’s penchant for living in a fairytale world only grew worse with age, and she eventually morphed into a Norma Desmond-like character. Many believe the inspiration for Billy Wilder’s famous 1950 film “Sunset Boulevard” was Mae Murray’s overly extravagant sense of self-worth and her steadfast refusal to accept that she was no longer a star.
The 1959 biography of Mae Murray called “The Self Enchanted,” written by Jane Ardmore, is the source for many of the photographs featured here. Unfortunately, a lot of the material Miss Ardmore cites was provided by Mae Murray. There is no mention of her childhood growing up in New York City, the daughter of an alcoholic father. Additionally, the book simply leaves blank a 20-year period from the 1930s through 1959, when the book was released. A much better source of information is from her second biographer, Michael Ankerich, who authored “Mae Murray: the Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips.”
w/Jason Robards Sr. in “Love at First Sight”w/Brian Donlevy in stage play “Milky Way”
Mae posed for a magazine, having designed a fashion line to be named for her
I urge you to search out on YouTube the 1950 video “Mae Murray Speaks on Heart Throbs of Yesterday” as well as one of the many Mae Murray films that are posted. If you can find a copy of “The Merry Widow,” it is a must-see film. Currently, TGZ Classic Movies has this film posted on YouTube. There is also a 3-part radio interview with Mae Murray from 1960, which is worth listening to. I am listing a Wikipedia link to a February 24, 1964 Ottowa Citizen newspaper article, which reported that the former star was found wandering in a state of confusion in St. Louis, Missouri, mistakenly believing she was on her way to New York.
Yes, Mae Murray had hit rock bottom, wandering hither and yon in a state of delusion.
The dancing, frolicking sex symbol who danced with Vernon Castle, starred in the Ziegfeld Follies, went on to be a major silent screen idol, Mae Murray…who had all the right curves in all the right places…the girl with the bee-stung lips…Once at the top of the world, her millions had been squandered, and Mae Murray died in obscurity.
Young ingenue, Mae MurrayMae in “The French Doll”
From the 1931 sound offering, “Bachelor Apartment.” Mae’s star had waned by now.
The life of John Gilbert ended tragically on January 9, 1936 at the young age of 38. Gilbert’s final performance involved no acting at all. It was that of a dying man clutching at his chest, writhing in pain, and falling to the floor for his last gasps of air. What must those last moments have been like for someone who had been at the top of the world, only to become one of the casualties of the nemesis feared most by silent actors…THE MICROPHONE!
John Gilbert’s complete biography can be found on Wikipedia, an excellent source of information. Informative as well as convenient, Wikipedia always has the most up-to-date information on a variety of subjects. I wouldn’t be without it when researching the old Hollywood stars.
John Gilbert was a longtime friend of comedienne Marion Davies who is probably best remembered as the decades-long love interest of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. In Davies’ posthumous memoir, “The Times We Had,” she spoke of Gilbert’s feelings for Lillian Gish with whom he’d been paired for the 1926 MGM film, La Bohème.”
w/Renée Adorée in “The Big Parade”w/Lillian Gish in “La Bohème”
Davies said, “Jack Gilbert would stay downstairs with a bunch of violets in his hand. He might as well have waited for the sun to come out at night, because she was dodging him. They were making ‘La Bohème’ and he was madly in love with her. Jack Gilbert was the sort of person who took the movies seriously. When he played in a love scene with somebody, he fell in love with her. So he’d be down there, standing with a bunch of violets, waiting for Lillian. But she was only there for the one picture. She only did that one picture, and she paid no attention to Jack Gilbert with his violets – none whatsoever.”
Later in her memoir, she references Greta Garbo, who co-starred with John Gilbert in several films, notably 1926’s “Flesh and the Devil,” where the two created a romantic sensation. Davies wrote, “I felt awfully sorry for Jack Gilbert. He was in love with Greta Garbo, and she would have no part of him at all. That was why he was blue. He was very much the artist type, with flashing black eyes and nervous, emotional moods. Those writers didn’t understand it. They were just watching and pushing him. And imagine the emotions going on inside him.”
w/Greta Garbo in “Flesh and the Devil”
Those emotions must have eventually overwhelmed him, for gossip columnist Louella Parsons wrote in her 1944 memoir “The Gay Illiterate” that, “John Gilbert landed in jail on a charge of disturbing the peace after Greta Garbo got as far as the courthouse – and then refused to marry him.”
Parsons reported exactly how Gilbert’s career was ruined by sound pictures. “John Gilbert and Greta Garbo, in such silent pictures as ‘Flesh and the Devil,’ had become the great lovers of the movies. In one fell swoop – to be exact, a dreadful movie called ‘His Glorious Night’ – Jack was ruined. It has been said, and is now accepted almost as legend, that the great Gilbert had a falsetto voice that ill became his manly physique and that audiences tittered when he spoke.”
Louella Parsons went on to say, “While Jack’s voice wasn’t so deep as the ocean, it was a thoroughly normal speaking voice. But in those days there was little ‘mixing’ or regulation of sound. If the microphone was pitched along the leading lady’s favorite key the hero sounded ‘way up there’ with her, too.”
w/Mae Murray in “The Merry Widow”Eric von Stroheim’s 1925 masterpiece, “The Merry Widow”
One part of the Marion Davies memoir really showed how troubled John Gilbert really was. Davies wrote of Gilbert’s frequent mood swings and stated, “One night at the beach we had gotten tired of sitting around the swimming pool and had gone out on the sand. There were thirty or forty of us. There was a group of writers around Jack, and I could hear an argument. I heard Jack say, ‘I’m going to commit suicide.’ And they said, ‘Dare you to.’ Well, that was not the thing to say to a man who was in that mood, but they were teasing him. They said, ‘Prove it. You’ve talked about suicide so much, prove it to us. If you’ve got the guts to do it, show us.’ And Jack said, ‘All right, I will.’”
w/Norma Shearer & Lon Chaney, Sr.
“While everyone was chattering away, he went out and walked into the waves. And he kept on walking until I thought, This is not funny. I said, ‘Somebody stop him.’ But they said, ‘Let him alone. He’ll stop himself. Just watch him. He won’t do it.’ They thought it was a big joke. Maybe their voices carried across. Whatever, he suddenly threw himself down, and then he came wading in and went down on the sand. He burst into sobs and beat the sand and cried his heart out. He couldn’t do it; he had been challenged and he couldn’t do it.”
Ultimately, John Gilbert got his wish. On January 9, 1936 after a massive heart attack, aggravated by chronic alcoholism, he took a final curtain call.
March, 1960 “Modern Screen” article by columnist, Earl Wilson
In her 1962 memoir, “The Whole Truth and Nothing But,” Hollywood gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper, wrote of Liz Taylor’s “BUtterfield 8” Oscar in the following manner, “She won her Academy Award not for Butterfield 8 but for nearly dying. And her studio joined in by putting on a terrific public relations campaign against Debbie – with planted stories in fan magazines and loaded interviews for the newspapers – to clinch sympathy for Liz.”
Eddie Fisher and Elizabeth Taylor
The aging columnist, who loved judging all Hollywood, was of course referring to the love triangle concerning Elizabeth Taylor, actress Debbie Reynolds and Reynolds’ onetime husband, baritone Eddie Fisher. In 1958, Taylor began a love affair with Fisher, at the time married to actress Reynolds, during the filming of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Eddie Fisher later left Debbie Reynolds to wed Liz.
Hedda Hopper, chief competition for Hearst columnist, Louella Parsons
The public became either decidedly for or against Taylor – either content to accept that all’s fair in love and war, or the opposite view of Liz as predatory homewrecker.
Elizabeth Taylor had originally catapulted to stardom at the young age of 12 in the 1944 film, “National Velvet.” Taylor blossomed into a lovely, sensual young woman as the world watched and was often publicized as the most beautiful woman in the world. When her third husband, director Michael Todd, was suddenly killed in a plane crash on March 22, 1958, there was an outpouring of public sympathy for Liz.
w/Mike Todd & Lizaw/one of Michael Wilding’s sons
Then came the Reynolds-Fisher-Taylor romance scandal, turning many sharply against her. All ill feelings were quickly forgotten though, after Liz’s near date with death from pneumonia two years later, just prior to the Academy Awards. Nominated for best actress in the 1960 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film “BUtterfield 8,” Liz garnered the coveted award many felt was undeserved. It certainly hadn’t hurt Taylor (or M-G-M) that she’d languished for weeks in an intensive care unit close to death just before the Oscars that year.
Still frail from her recent illness, Elizabeth Taylor was helped to the stage by Eddie Fisher, who’d co-starred with her in “BUtterfield 8.” He’d recently divorced Debbie Reynolds to be at Liz’s side, making him Taylor’s fourth husband to date.
As Helen of Troy in “Doctor Faustus”
To decide for yourself if Elizabeth Taylor’s 1961 Oscar was really a “sympathy award,” check out her competition that year: Shirley MacLaine for “The Apartment” – a satirical look at office politics; Melina Mercouri for “Never on Sunday,” the story of a Greek prostitute; Greer Garson for “Sunrise at Campobello,” a dramatization of former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s battle with polio; and Deborah Kerr for “The Sundowners,” a film about life in the Australian outback.
Jayne Mansfield was amply suited for promo during the 1950s
Jayne Mansfield, popular sex symbol of the 50s met future husband, Mickey Hargitay, a bodybuilder on stage one evening at Mae West’s popular Las Vegas revue featuring musclemen. Mansfield and Hargitay enjoyed a whirlwind romance, married, then later divorced yet the couple remained close friends throughout the remainder of Mansfield’s short life, which ended on a lonely Louisiana highway the night of June 29, 1967.
Mickey Hargitay, Hungarian bodybuilder, with Jayne Mansfield
In video footage posted on YouTube, Mickey Hargitay wistfully recalled his visit to a mortuary containing the remains of his ex-wife, Jayne Mansfield, shortly after her tragic automobile accident which killed three people. Hargitay was visibly disturbed when reliving the moment, was overcome with emotion, and struggling for the words to explain what he’d found, “I saw her the last time…it wasn’t really her anymore, you know, soul was gone, spirit was gone…it was just a machine, it wasn’t her…”
Hargitay had met Jayne Mansfield while performing at Mae West’s renowned 1950’s nightclub revue which broke Las Vegas box office records. In Mae’s typical Westian style, a collection of musclemen would cavort about the sexagenarian star, while flexing their biceps and chest muscles. It was all carefully orchestrated by the aging West to create the illusion that she was just as luscious and desirable as ever, as the men dutifully paid her homage by lustfully ogling her. West would then sing a few songs, knock off a few of her double-entendre one-liners and sashay about the stage, looking as voluptuous as a sex symbol in her mid-60s could.
Mae West’s 1950s Las Vegas act w/entourage of bodybuilders
While the bodybuilders were little more than props for West’s increasingly inflated ego, Mae’s exaggerated sense-of-self unwisely entertained the notion that Mickey Hargitay was perhaps interested in something more, namely the incomparable Mae West. Yet Hargitay happened to be looking in another direction that evening, and the object of his attention was Miss Jayne Mansfield.
In West’s inimitable egomaniacal and narcissistic manner, Mae quickly turned the page by arranging publicity about a few musclemen in her show that were battling for the elderly star’s affections, reportedly coming to blows in the process.
Mae West circa 1933 in her younger years
West was then left with her successful show minus Mickey Hargitay, and had only to reap the enormous financial rewards, not to mention several choice musclemen, in particular a bodybuilder named Chester Rybinski (aka Paul Novak). Novak, smitten with Mae West, doted on the aging star for over 26 years until her death in 1980.
Sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, some 40 years younger than West, and Hungarian bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay were soon christened “couple of the hour” by the American press, quickly married, and left the aging Mae West far, far behind. The two likely never looked back…
