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PAUL: Do you think that Elia Kazan, with all his manipulative director predilections about Monroe and Dean staying under his director’s “patina”, so as to not “stand out like a sore thumb” or a “trombone blast in the middle of a string concerto”, had an ego problem with them, (I realize that Kazan never actually worked with Marilyn on a picture; only said,” Oh, god, no! She’s lost in her own world”), based on his somewhat autocratic stance as a director, not to dissimilar from Dean’s nemesis on GIANT, George Stevens? JOHN: Kazan was born with an ego problem. A great artist, but an asshole who exploited Marilyn for what he could sexually get out of her. He had no interest in her talents or the dreams she shared with him. Kazan did not like Jimmy. He detested him personally, though Jimmy thought Kazan would really like him because he wanted to be so much like Marlon. But Jimmy was not like Marlon. He only identified with the Brando he saw on screen and read about. Kazan knew far better and used Jimmy to his personal advantages, getting what he was after artistically while Jimmy became a star from the encounter with Kazan. PAUL: The memories of Kim Stanley, your friend Clint Kimbrough and others, in the memoir, paint a picture of Marilyn moving through life as two separate people: one being the glamorous, funny, sexy movie star, the other was the conflicted and desperate actress riddled with contradiction, fears and a frantic quest for intellectual and artistic fulfillment. She was held captive by not only deep seeded personal demons and physical pain, but also by the image she helped create, partly out of a morbid fear of letting her inner self out. Do you believe Marilyn was permanently sealed off from her real-life emotional history, as related to her tragically fragmented and abusive upbringing, making it impossible even to remotely draw upon it to substantiate her art? JOHN:
PAUL: Did Marilyn actually confide to you personally about Joe DiMaggio beating her and treating her abusively, or did you learn of that from Natasha Lytess and others? JOHN: Marilyn told me she disliked aggressive men because “they always wind up hurting you because they can’t get their own way all the time” ( her exact words to me). Lytess disliked him because Marilyn was taking herself out of Lytess’ hands and placing her life in Joe’s. Lytess felt she was getting burned by Joe, he was taking Marilyn away from her and Lytess was losing her intensely personal hold or grip she covertly applied to Marilyn’s will. Joe saw through it and so both he and Lytess were at loggerheads over possessing Marilyn. When you have someone really special like Marilyn, or like Jimmy, you have people struggling in a battle to win them for their own. So much becomes invested in that special person, that to pull them away is tantamount to losing limbs. Introduction
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about the book :: about the author :: Official John Gilmore Site |
She
did not seal herself off; being a movie star is just that – you
work your ass off making movies. The image that gets out there in the
world has nothing to do with your personal life (which here in Hollywood
we all live with day-in-day-out, beneath the glass dome of the concept of
Hollywood – an abstract wonder like the Hollywood sign, a mystic,
glamorous, universal symbol abstracted from a once very industrious real
estate venture). There isn’t really the screen image and the person. The
screen image doesn’t exist except on screen, and if it becomes very real
for the person projecting it, then you’ve got a serious head case on
your hands.
