Marilyn
- linda laroche
- Jun 1
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 5
Being social has always been a big part of my life, but unlike many, I cannot do the same thing week after week. I’m not exaggerating when I say I feel like I’ve explored every nook and cranny of Los Angeles, yet I still manage to maintain a running list of new places to go. Stepping out of the familiar to be surprised is what truly makes my heart sing—it’s exactly why travel is so important to me! Wherever I go, there simply has to be an element of learning, exploration, and discovery to hold my interest.
My recent outings have included two visits to the Italian American Museum, as well as stops at the Italian Cultural Institute, the Spanish Consulate, and the Goethe Institute. I've also attended numerous film festivals, including one focusing on Southern Europe and another at Graumann’s Chinese Theatre. On top of that, there was an opera and two performances with my Zarzuela group—one at the Cathedral and the other at East Los Angeles College. (I’m going to leave a link here to the Mazurca, from professional singers on Youtube. I performed with a male singer and had a lot of fun doing!)
I also enjoyed seeing The Devil Wears Prada 2, and dined at numerous restaurants, including some old favorites like Mike & Anne’s in South Pasadena, alongside Javier’s, Granville, and Nick’s in Pasadena.
But the events that really tickled my fancy lately were having family come to visit for five days—though I wish it could have been two weeks!—and attending yesterday’s opening of the Marilyn Monroe exhibition at the Academy Museum. It was extensive, offering far more than just evening gowns and shoes.
The exhibit featured the clothes Marilyn wore at home. Unlike her on-set wardrobe, her personal style preferred simplicity and clean lines that skimmed the body rather than being skin-tight, favoring a palette of neutrals. We also learned how she walked out on Fox and formed her own production company.
We see her scripts with notes written in the margins. They contained analytical thoughts to help her find the psychological truth of her characters; rather than just memorizing lines, she used her scripts as active working journals to map out emotions, physical cues, and deeply personal memos.
Seeing this, I couldn’t help but wonder how she maneuvered through such a patriarchal society. Perhaps if she had been around to see how the 1960s brought on feminism, she might have had the opportunity to be a powerful advocate for women’s rights.
I’ll leave you with two fascinating discoveries I made at the exhibit. First, she used to travel to Mexico to buy furniture for her Spanish-style home. She knew her way around the country because her mother was born there. Marilyn’s maternal grandfather actually worked for the railroad, painting railway cars, though unfortunately, he too died young from mental illness and alcoholism.
Second, the iconic pink dress we see in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was not the original dress she was supposed to wear. During the filming of the movie, photos resurfaced of her posing nude, for which she refused to apologize. In reaction, the studio designed a second hot-pink number that was less revealing than the original choice to cool the waters of the scandal.
There are so many other facets to this exhibition that are well worth seeing, some of which are quite disturbing. For instance, we see where she was publicly interrogated about her weight, and how her husband Joe DiMaggio called her talentless, while her next husband, Arthur Miller, called her stupid. Her two well-known husbands clearly used put-downs to keep her "in her place" out of a sense of threat and their fragile egos.
Today, she would have been 100 years old. Happy Birthday, Marilyn. You were, and still are, missed by so many who want to know the real you. This wonderfully rich exhibition gets us all a little bit closer to just that.
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