Veronica Abdala
08/14/2021 7:01 AM
Clarín.com
Culture
Updated 08/14/2021 7:01 AM
"I
only ask you not to make a fool of me."
Those were the last words that Marilyn Monroe gave to the press, days before she died.
That morning in the summer of 1962, when the diva received a journalist for the last time in her life -without knowing it, of course-, Richard Merryman, from Life magazine, had arrived at the door of the actress's house without having the all clear what would result from that meeting.
He was nervous, he would admit later:
Marilyn was then a celebrity
and, no doubt, the most desired woman in the West.
A housekeeper in a discreet uniform led Merryman silently into a small sitting room, barely decorated by two chairs and a coffee table.
There, in funny yellow pants, she was.
-Can I help you with something?
Marilyn asked, laughing for no apparent reason.
Thus began a conversation that would last for eight hours and in which she confessed feeling at times
overwhelmed by the high exposure to which she was subjected
:
"Fame, are you leaving? Goodbye, I already know you," she
said at one point in the chat.
His statements acquired with the passage of time a special resonance, after his death.
Marilyn.
The most desired woman in the history of the West?
But then, to Merryman's eyes, she seemed a shy girl, somewhat insecure, very different from the image of her in the media.
Marilyn then said things like this: "I trust people. I don't think the public will turn against me, at least not of their own free will. I like people.
The 'public' scares me, but I trust people.
You may be impressed by the stories about the stars that circulate in the press, but I think that when the public goes to see a movie, in the end they judge for themselves. Human beings are strange creatures and we still reserve the right to think. by ourselves."
And also: "
An actor is not a machine
. Creativity begins with humanity and when you are a human being you feel, you suffer. You are happy, you are sick, you are nervous or whatever."
In light of the years, few seem to have known Monroe in depth, beyond a handful of close friends.
The journalist left intrigued:
who was Monroe really?
Did he give you reason that morning to suspect that he might be thinking of taking his own life?
He found no answer to those questions;
even decades later he said he was not sure they could be answered lightly.
Life magazine published the interview on August 3, 1962, two days before Marilyn Monroe died of long-discussed causes that, for many, remain confusing.
In light of the years,
few seem to have known Monroe in depth
, beyond a handful of close friends.
"She was a street poet," wrote the playwright Arthur Miller, her third and last husband, in his autobiography. "She would have liked to recite her verses to a crowd, but
that crowd was only interested in ripping her clothes off."
Iconic couple.
Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller: the actress and the playwright, married back in 1957. / Photo: Richard Avedon photography
The writer Truman Capote, who maintained a close friendship with her, was touched by her intelligence and sensitivity.
"If they ever asked you what I was like, what Marilyn Monroe was really like, what would you answer?" She asked him one afternoon when they were walking through New York Harbor together. "I bet you would say I was a fool."
They were leaning against a mooring post. The wind blew his hair waved Marilyn, while Capote watched: "He turned his head toward me with ethereal grace, as if it did turn the breeze he wrote in a tribute text dedicated to her friend and integrates his work
Music chameleons
. "The light was already going out. She seemed to fade with the clarity, blend in with the sky and clouds, recede and hide behind. I wanted to raise my voice above the cries of the seagulls and ask her:" Marilyn, Marilyn, Why did it all have to turn out like this? Why is this life shit? "But instead I replied,
" You are a beautiful girl. "
In several of the photos that accompany that last interview, she is seen laughing, but in others it is guessed that sadness weighs on her, in her gestures.
Although
her beauty remains intact
, even in distress.
Icon.
Monroe embodied the glamor of Hollywood like no other and her beauty fell in love with the world.
On August 5, 1962, Marilyn was found dead by an employee.
He was at his home in Los Angeles.
The police report described the event as "probable suicide", but due to lack of evidence, investigators left open the possibility that she had been murdered.
Lying on her bed, she looked like a sleeping angel.
That was the beginning of an even greater legend, which does not lose its validity.
In 1995 she was voted by the readers of the English magazine
Empire
as the most desired woman on the big screen;
the same magazine, in 1997, ranked her eighth among the most important movie stars in history and, in 1999,
People
magazine
considered her
the sexiest woman of the century.
On August 5, 1962, Marilyn was found dead by an employee.
He was at his home in Los Angeles.
Like no other, she embodied the glamor of Hollywood and her beauty fell in love with the world.
But it was more than that.
She is buried in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
GOES
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