“My home?” asked Marilyn Monroe. “It will be a place for any friends of mine who are in some kind of trouble. As for me, I just want to be an artist and an actress with integrity.” Throughout her life, Monroe occupied a series of residences, owned no jewelry and counted books, records and a picture of legendary actress Eleonora Duse among her most cherished possessions. Even after attention-getting roles in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve (both 1950), she still kept a modest, one-room apartment at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in Beverly Hills. “I’m not interested in money,” she once said. “I just want to be wonderful.”
I love this photograph, I love the idea of this photograph. I lived in a studio apartment for years and even after moving into a very large apartment, I ignored a large portion of it and treated it as a studio apartment. I loved the coziness, the comfort, and the economy that the size restrictions created. I am not a hoarder by nature, and I guess I accumulate things to accommodate my surroundings, like a goldfish growing to the size of his bowl, so when I got more space, I got more furniture. It just turned out that I rarely used it. I guess what I am drawn to about this photograph is that James Dean could have had a photo spread taken at a borrowed Hollywood Hills house, sipping orange juice outside next to the pool, sweater tied around the neck. He could have borrowed a huge Upper East Side apartment for a similar styled photo shoot. Whether he crafted the artist bohemian Upper West Sideefficiency apartment (with shared bath) the same way, I do not know, but it speaks to my aesthetic, especially my aesthetic for who I thought he was.
Despite being just steps from a glamorous stretch of Central Park, James Dean’s studio apartment on West 68th Street in New York City was decidedly collegiate. The actor lived in the rented space, off and on, from 1953 until his death in a car crash two years later. (The photograph here was published in Life magazine, six months before Dean was killed.) On the top floor of a five-story, 19th-century redbrick townhouse, Dean’s New York City home was furnished with bohemian casualness. Outfitted with indifferent, seemingly secondhand furniture and knotty-pine shelves, the small, round-windowed interior had abstract art tacked to the walls and a matador’s cape hanging above the bed—the latter possession echoed in one of the books above the built-in desk: Volume 5 of Los Toros, a 1943 encyclopedia of bullfighting by José María Cossío. The bath, shared with other tenants, was located down the hall.
Andy Warhol died my junior year of high school. Shortly after that, I became obsessed with him, his life, Interview magazine, but more specifically, his collections. I read every article I could find about the lists of belongings found in his house at the time of his death, the cookie jars, the stacks and stacks of contemporary art by his peers, the art deco furniture, the endless lists. He would go to flea markets every day and collect everything that interested him with very few criteria. Sotheby’s produced a staggering list of objects cataloged from his cram-packed six story Upper East Side townhouse when they were getting ready for the ten day auction: 1,659 pieces of Russel Wright pottery, 267 watches, 72 Navajo blankets and rugs, 61 lots of early 19th-Century American furniture, 37 Art Deco cigarette cases, 33 works by Man Ray, 18 by Marcel Duchamp, 12 Rauschenbergs.
Andy was a hoarder, but when it is a dozen Rauschenbergs, it is a collection. Hoarders have a dozen cats, Andy had rooms so full of Duchamps, he just closed the doors to avoid tripping on them. By the way, that townhouse sold for $35M (and his Montauk house for $50M) recently. He collected all the right things, he pushed the prices and demand of early 20th century utilitarian kitsch items through the roof. Ladies and gentlemen, Andy Warhol. Style Icon.
BEST KNOWN FOR: Andy Warhol is famous for his “pop” paintings of everyday consumer goods, like Campbell soup cans, as well as screen-printing portraits of celebrities, like Marilyn Monroe.
Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author, and member of highly diverse social circles that included Bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons.
Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression “15 minutes of fame.” In his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Andy Warhol Museum exists in memory of his life and artwork.
The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$100 million for a 1963 canvas titled Eight Elvises. The private transaction was reported in a 2009 article in The Economist, which described Warhol as the “bellwether of the art market.” $100 million is a benchmark price that only Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-August Renoir, Gustav Klimt and Willem de Kooning have achieved.
Do yourself a favor and watch the 1967 version of “Thoroughly Modern Milly” sometime, it is brilliant and Carol rips through every scene she has. Ladies and gentlemen, Seattle’s own Carol Channing. Style Icon.
BEST KNOWN FOR: Carol Channing starred as Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on Broadway in 1949. She received a Tony lifetime achievement award in 1995.
Born January 31, 1921 in Seattle, Washington. The daughter of a prominent newspaper editor who was very active in the Christian Science movement, Channing attended high school in San Francisco before enrolling at Bennington College in Vermont. She majored in drama and dance for one year before dropping out to try her luck as an actress in New York.
Channing made her Broadway debut in 1941′s Never Take No for an Answer. With her megawatt wide-eyed grin and raspy voice, Channing made a name for herself in 1949 when she starred as Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It was in this role that she immortalized the anthem Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. Though she lost the Lorelei Lee role to Marilyn Monroe in the 1952 film version, she remained active in nightclub and review appearances throughout the 1950s and early 1960s.
Her next Broadway hit did not arrive until 1963, when she landed the role of Dolly Gallegher Levi in the blockbuster musical Hello, Dolly!. She won a Tony Award for her performance, but again forfeited the on-screen role to a young Barbra Streisand. In 1966, Channing was awarded an Emmy for the 1966 TV specialAn Evening With Carol Channing, and received an Oscar nod for her supporting performance in Thoroughly Modern Millie in 1967.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Channing has lent her signature voice to animated films, including Shinbone Alley, Happily Ever After and Thumbelina. She has also supplied voices for the animated television series Where’s Waldo?, The Addams Family and The Magic School Bus. In 1995, Channing was honored at the Tony Awards with a lifetime achievement award.
Channing was married to Charles Lowe from 1956 until his death in 1999. She married her junior high school sweetheart, Harry Kullijian, at the age of 82 in 2003.
We all make lists, written or mental, we all make promises, resolutions, and deals with ourselves. Sometimes, we keep them, sometimes, they fall away. We all want to be better in whatever ways we value. We all will keep trying.
From one of Marilyn Monroe‘s address books comes a list of resolutions written, it’s believed, in 1955. Monroe was approximately 29-years-old at the time and had already filmed an impressive number of movies including The Seven Year Itch, released that year. Just recently she had been accepted as a student at the Actors Studio, by Lee Strasberg, and judging by this list she was determined to make the most of her opportunities.
Transcript
Must make effort to do
Must have the discipline to do the following –
z – go to class – my own always – without fail
x – go as often as possible to observe Strassberg’s other private classes
g – never miss actor’s studio sessions
v – work whenever possible – on class assignments – and always keep working on the acting exercises
u – start attending Clurman lectures – also Lee Strassberg’s directors lectures at theater wing – enquire about both
l – keep looking around me – only much more so – observing – but not only myself but others and everything – take things (it) for what they (it’s) are worth
y – must make strong effort to work on current problems and phobias that out of my past has arisen – making much much much more more more more more effort in my analysis. And be there always on time – no excuses for being ever late.
w – if possible – take at least one class at university – in literature –
NAME: Marilyn Monroe OCCUPATION: Film Actress, Pin-up BIRTH DATE: June 01, 1926 DEATH DATE: August 05, 1962 PLACE OF BIRTH: Los Angeles, California PLACE OF DEATH: Los Angeles, California ORIGINALLY: Norma Jeane Mortensen
BEST KNOWN FOR: Actress Marilyn Monroe overcame a difficult childhood to become of the world’s biggest and most enduring sex symbols. She died of a drug overdose in 1962.
Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson but baptized and raised as Norma Jeane Baker; June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962) was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s.
After spending much of her childhood in foster homes, Monroe began a career as a model, which led to a film contract in 1946. Her early film appearances were minor, but her performances in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve (both 1950) drew attention to her—by now her hair was dyed blonde. By 1953, Monroe had progressed to a leading role in Niagara (1953), a melodramatic film noir that dwelled on her seductiveness. Her “dumb blonde” persona was used to comic effect in subsequent films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and The Seven Year Itch (1955). Limited by typecasting, Monroe studied at the Actors Studio to broaden her range. Her dramatic performance in Bus Stop (1956) was hailed by critics, and she received a Golden Globe nomination. Her production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, released The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), for which she received a BAFTA Award nomination and won a David di Donatello award. She received a Golden Globe Award for her performance in Some Like It Hot (1959). Monroe’s final completed film was The Misfits, co-starring Clark Gable with the screenplay written by her then-husband, Arthur Miller.
The final years of Monroe’s life were marked by illness, personal problems, and a reputation for being unreliable and difficult to work with. The circumstances of her death, from an overdose of barbiturates, have been the subject of conjecture. Though officially classified as a “probable suicide”, the possibility of an accidental overdose, as well as the possibility of homicide, have not been ruled out. In 1999, Monroe was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. In the years and decades following her death, Monroe has often been cited as both a pop and a cultural icon as well as the quintessential American female sex symbol.
On August 8, 1962, Monroe was interred in a crypt at Corridor of Memories #24, at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Lee Strasberg delivered the eulogy. Joe DiMaggio took control of the funeral arrangements which consisted of only 31 close family and friends. Police were also present to keep the press away. Her casket was solid bronze and was lined with champagne colored silk. Allan “Whitey” Snyder did her make-up which was supposedly a promise made in earlier years if she were to die before him. She was wearing her favorite green Emilio Pucci dress. In her hands was a small bouquet of pink teacup roses.[142] For the next 20 years, red roses were placed in a vase attached to the crypt, courtesy of DiMaggio.
On April 28th of 1952, medical staff at the Cedars of Lebanon hospital in L.A. wheeled an extremely nervous Marilyn Monroe to surgery where she was to have her appendix removed. Some time later, with Monroe unconscious and the procedure about to begin, doctors pulled back her gown to find the following note taped to her stomach. It was addressed to her surgeon, Dr. Marcus Rabwin.
Transcript follows.
(Source: MM-Personal: From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe; Image of Monroe in 1952, post-appendectomy, via.)
Transcript
Dear Dr. Rabwin,
cut as little as possible I know it seems vain but that doesn’t really enter in to it. The fact I’m a woman is important and means much to me.
Save please (I can’t ask enough) what you can – I’m in your hands. You have children and you must know what it means – please Dr Rabwin – I know somehow you will!
thank you – thank you – thank you – For God‘s sakes Dear Doctor no ovaries removed – please again do whatever you can to prevent large scars.
BEST KNOWN FOR: Arthur Miller was an American playwright who combined social awareness with a concern for his characters’ inner lives, such as in his Death of a Salesman.
Today is his birthday, born in New York City (1915). His father was the wealthy owner of a coat factory, and the family had a large Manhattan apartment, a chauffeur, and a summer home at the beach. But the family lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929.
The family had to move to a poor section of Brooklyn called Gravesend, where few of the streets had been paved, and much of the neighborhood was full of vacant lots. They had been living on the sixth floor of a building on Central Park North, but they now moved into a six-room clapboard house, where Miller had to share a bedroom with his grandfather.
The neighborhood was also home to Arthur Miller’s uncle on his mother’s side, Manny Newman, who would captivate Miller’s imagination for years. Uncle Manny was a salesman, and he was a big talker, full of schemes and hope for the future, even though he struggled to make ends meet.
Miller got involved in drama as a college student when he decided to enter a playwriting contest and managed to win the first prize with the first play he’d ever written. His first big success was his play All My Sons (1947), and just before the Broadway premiere, Miller went to an advance performance of the play in Boston. He was standing outside the theater when he looked up and saw that one of the people leaving the auditorium was his uncle Manny, whom he hadn’t seen in years. He realized right away that Manny must have been on a business trip to Boston and had come to the play on a whim. Miller said, “I could see his grim hotel room behind him, the long trip up from New York in his little car, the hopeless hope of the day’s business.” They only spoke briefly, and all Manny had to say was that his son Buddy was doing well. A year later, Miller learned that his uncle Manny had committed suicide.
He decided that he had to write a play, based loosely on his uncle’s life. He tracked down Manny’s two sons, Buddy and Abby, and interviewed them about their father. Soon after those interviews, Miller set out to write his play in a tiny cabin in Connecticut.
The result was Death of a Salesman (1949). It’s the story of a salesman named Willy Loman and the last 24 hours of his life with his wife, Linda, and his sons, Biff and Happy. He comes home from a business trip, carrying a case of samples, and tells his wife that he decided to cut the trip short because he’s not feeling well. He spends the next day trying to figure out how to pay off his debts. In the end, he decides to kill himself in a car accident, in the hopes getting his family the insurance money.
The final scene of the play takes place at Willy Loman’s funeral, and one of the characters says, “For a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back — that’s an earthquake. … A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.”
NAME: Clark Gable OCCUPATION: Film Actor BIRTH DATE: February 01, 1901 DEATH DATE: November 16, 1960 PLACE OF BIRTH: Cadiz, Ohio PLACE OF DEATH: Hollywood, California
Best Known For: Gone With the Wind star Clark Gable epitomized Hollywood’s Golden Age, so much so that the movie star was often called the “King of Hollywood.”
William Clark Gable, known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh. His performance earned him his third nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor; he won for It Happened One Night (1934) and was also nominated for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). Later movies included Run Silent, Run Deep, a submarine war film, and his final film, The Misfits (1961), which paired Gable with Marilyn Monroe, also in her last screen appearance. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Gable seventh among the greatest male stars of all time.’
Gable appeared opposite some of the most popular actresses of the time. Joan Crawford, who was his favorite actress to work with, was partnered with Gable in eight films, Myrna Loy worked with him seven times, and he was paired with Jean Harlow in six productions. He also starred with Lana Turner in four features, and with Norma Shearer and Ava Gardner in three each. In the mid-1930s, Gable was often named the top male movie star, and second only to the top box-office draw of all, Shirley Temple.
Why He’s A Style Icon
One mention of the name Clark Gable immediately triggers thoughts of a Southern gentleman dressed to the hilt: pristine suit, ascot tie and a waistcoat. You know, the usual mode for men of means during the Civil War era — or at least for the cast of Gone with the Wind. To classify Gable as a one-trick plantation pony would be a mistake worse than the pedophile-like moustache that became one of his trademarks. Indeed, the razor-thin landing strip reads more retro porn star than romancer by today’s standards. However, despite the fact that his facial hair proclivities (yes, he donned the dingy ‘stache off-screen too) were a grooming fail of epic proportions, Gable managed to make his mark on men’s style. It just happened to come from outside the Rhett Butler role for which he is arguably most famous.
In fact, Gable’s first major contribution came five years before his portrayal of the Southern-styled character. In the 1934 romantic comedy It Happened One Night, his unbuttoned dress shirt revealed skin rather than the usual undershirt of the day. The move was bold, brave and as rumor has it, economically devastating for the male undergarment industry. Estimates of sale declines hover in the 75% range, and although there isn’t any hard evidence to back up this dramatic claim, no one can deny that Gable going shirtless gave men everywhere the green light for freedom from an extra (oftentimes unnecessary, sometimes unsightly) layer. Gable’s second influence is one that’s typically overlooked. The 1953 African adventureMogambo features Gable garbed in safari-wear. And although the look is admittedly contrived in a colonial conquistador sort of way (a “tally ho” wouldn’t have been out of line), it was an appropriate attempt at meshing an ensemble with the environment — the true sign of a gentleman — Southern, safari or otherwise.
Dress The Gable Way
Clark Gable became the serendipitous ringleader of the bare-chested brigade, which should serve as a healthy reminder: Undershirts aren’t required. They tend to turn looks from tailored to frump at the speed of white. But if you insist on wearing an undershirt out of habit or to soak up sweat, there are a few rules to abide by: 1) Wear a V-neck with button-downs; 2) Mow the lawn on your chest, and; 3) Replace your assortment frequently. As for Gable’s safari style, saying that anything with epaulets is good to go these days wouldn’t be far from the truth. However, it’s the montage of pockets that makes this look one for the outdoors. Try a belted, longer-length jacket from British outerwear brand Belstaff. After all, who better to ask about safari suiting than the self-proclaimed tamers of the jungle themselves?
BEST KNOWN FOR: Lauren Bacall is an American actress known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks. She is best remembered for portrayals of provocative women.
Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske, September 16, 1924) is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.
She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not (1944) and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in Bogart movies The Big Sleep (1946) and Dark Passage (1947), as well as a comedienne in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck. Bacall has also worked on Broadway in musicals, gaining a Tony Awards for Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981. Her performance in the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.
She campaigned for Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 Presidential election and for Robert Kennedy in his 1964 run for Senate.
In a 2005 interview with Larry King, Bacall described herself as “anti-Republican… A liberal. The L-word.” She went on to say that “being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you’re a liberal. You do not have a small mind.”
