Photo by Fraser Penney

Michelle Morgan’s truly definitive, fully updated Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed is officially published in the UK today (though it entered the Top 20 at WH Smith two weeks ago.) Michelle writes about the experience in her column for the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, while an interview with John Griff on BBC Radio Northampton is available on i-Player for 6 more days. (Michelle’s spot is 15 minutes in.)

Saturday, May 19, marks the 50th anniversary of Marilyn’s sultry performance of ‘Happy Birthday’ to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden. And what better way to celebrate than by tasting the new ‘Presidential Bombshell’ ice cream from L.A. Creamery, reports the Contra Costa Times.

‘”We all know and love Marilyn Monroe,’ explained Stephen Bikoff, L.A. Creamery’s co-founder and chief creative officer. ’We thought, this was one of her last public appearances, and it was an interesting thing; Hollywood and politics converges into this night. We just picked a fun flavor for it, vanilla ice cream, which was Marilyn’s favorite, mixed with a truffle fudgecake because it was JFK’s birthday.’”

P.S. The Biography Channel website has also paid tribute to that historic evening…

British actress Shirley Anne Field starred alongside Sir Laurence Olivier in The Entertainer (1960), and it seems her experience of working with the great actor was no happier than Marilyn’s in The Prince and the Showgirl, four years earlier.

“I wasn’t impressed. I’m in bed with him, filming in a caravan. And he starts talking. ‘Now who’s your favourite actor or actress, dear?’ I said: ‘Marilyn Monroe,’  and he went off into a fit (saying): ‘Dreadful girl! Never shows up on time!’ Two days later he tries again, very patronising. ‘Who else do you admire?’ So I said: ‘I love Vivien Leigh,’ (Olivier’s ex-wife) and he went into a fury. He was horrible. I got out of his bed and said: ‘I’m not staying here with you.’”

Daily Mail

Gossip singer Beth Ditto performed Elton John’s tribute to Marilyn, ‘Candle in the Wind’, at last night’s opening ceremony for the Cannes Film Festival.

Beth’s cream ruched dress is similar to the one worn by Marilyn in her 1952 photo session with Philippe Halsman.

Watch video here

More photos of Beth here

Nora Schweihs – currently starring in TV’s Chicago Mob Wives - is the daughter of Frank Schweihs, who was alleged to have been involved in bringing about Marilyn’s untimely death by authors Milo Speriglio and Adela Gregory, in their 1993 book, Crypt 33: The Saga of Marilyn Monroe – The Final Word.

Here’s what Nora has to say about those rumours:

“They say he was a hit man and committed murders. My dad was never convicted of the things they accuse him of doing. The whole Marilyn Monroe story is just hearsay. My father taught me ‘never believe anything you don’t hear or see yourself.’ I live by that.”

Read this article in full at Starcasm

And here’s an extract from a review of Crypt 33 by MM expert David Marshall, author of The DD Group:

“Here’s the deal. While the book does not supply any final answers, it is a good primer on Marilyn’s death and the various theories as well as the various suspects. Reading it as a novice, I would imagine that it would be quite a revelation. Reading it after immersing myself in everything I could find regarding the night of August 4, 1962, I see nothing new here at all…Who these two detectives interviewed or saw or investigated in their five years remains as mysterious as the events of August 4. The bottom line to this or any Monroe book is simple: Can we trust any author to tell us Marilyn’s thoughts or present a full conversation with no source notes?”

You can read David’s review in full here

Dr Lois Banner - author of MM-Personal and the forthcoming Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox – has written an article for the Huffington Post exploring MM’s enduring fascination.

“As time goes by and thousands of photographs of her surface, taken by amateurs as well as esteemed professionals, we realize that Marilyn was indeed the major photographic model of the 20th century. Her nude photographs are unsurpassed in the genre of aesthetic nudes. She became dramatic and comic in turn in representations of her as a sad ballerina by Milton Greene, as an innocent geisha girl by Cecil Beaton, or as an Eve coming to life as a ‘leopard in the bulrushes’ by Eve Arnold. Above all, she lived a life beyond measure…

Marilyn created an image for the ages, in one of the great personal transformations of the American experience…The greatest screen personality since Greta Garbo, she could, like Garbo, project happiness and sadness in her eyes at the same time. Those eyes were mesmerizing; even today we easily fall under her spell. She is the child that is in all of us, the person we want to protect, as well as the sex goddess we want to possess.”

According to PR Newswire, files from Emmeline Sniveley’s Blue Book Agency – where the young Marilyn worked as a model – have been recovered, in the Hague, Netherlands.

“Miss Emmeline Snively, founder of the agency in 1939, discovered Marilyn Monroe (then Norma Jean Dougherty) in 1945 as a model. The files go all the way back from 1945 until 1969, the year that, as Miss Snively mentioned in a interview, she ‘put it away forever.’

The contents are many photographs, negatives, letters, telegrams, personal notes, autographs and even a script… Most of this material has never been published.

Miss Snively introduced Marilyn to the movie world and always followed her career. From all the available information it appears that Miss Snively tried for years after Marilyn’s death to sell this box with the files to writers, editors and film producers like Darryl F. Zanuck from 20th Century Fox, without any luck. Who could have known at that time that Marilyn would still be such a legend even 50 years after her death? These files will be a unique start to make a great movie, book or documentary.”

A 100-page special edition of France’s Telerama magazine, dedicated to Marilyn, has just been published.

“With this anniversary issue, we go behind-the-scenes with the last of the great witnesses, photographer Lawrence Schiller. A long report leads us to Los Angeles, the sprawling city that gave birth to and engulfed the star. Filmmakers and writers finally pay homage to her. Original texts by Virginia Despentes, Baya Kasmi and Celine Sciamma.

230 x 300 mm. 100 pages.”

The season finale of Smash has now aired in the US…

“Hilty is the real genius in the Marilyn role — even Anjelica Huston knows that, even if she couldn’t sway Derek — and if I were here, I would be contemplating the fistful of pills as well. The show wants us to care about Karen and to despise Ivy, who sleeps with other people’s boyfriends and tries to sabotage everything. But the best person in real life is not always the best person for the job, especially when it comes to show business. I hope that next season they let Ivy redeem herself and take her place. Bernadette Peters needs something else to do besides look devastated.” – Los Angeles Times

“There’s no denying that some people have that essence that just makes them watchable — Monroe, maybe more than any other actress, had it, was luminous on screen for reasons beyond just looks. But in trying to tell a story about that ‘it’ factor, ‘Smash’ actually ends up being about another aspect of stardom entirely, one that’s about the people dictating it rather than about who’s on screen…foisting a character on the viewers and insisting that despite how they might actually feel, that she’s the one to love.” – IndieWire

When Hollywood Landed at Chicago’s Midway Airport: The Photos and Stories of Mike Rotunno, a new book by Christopher Lynch, features Marilyn passing through Chicago on her way to Bement, Illinois, in 1955.

“The flash of his camera sent Al Capone diving to the floor. He was asked to escort Bob Hope’s wife to church and to hide John Barrymore from his mistress. Cary Grant demanded a shoeshine, Eleanor Roosevelt demanded an apology and Harry Truman demanded a bourbon. Photographer Mike Rotunno was the man on the scene when Chicago’s Midway Airport was the crossroads of the world and people walked its concourses just to catch a glimpse of Hollywood’s brightest stars. Bump into Bud Abbott, John Wayne, Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe as Christopher Lynch pieces together the amazing story left behind in fifty years of photographs and journals.”

Thanks to Fraser Penney