Marilyn Monroe Page 2

It's the 90th birthday of Marilyn Monroe today; a Hollywood icon who remains a legend of showbusiness despite her flaws and her controversial life. This is an actress who has inspired and influenced so many, that multiple films have been produced depicting her life and career.

Here are just five of the best depictions of Marilyn in movies:

'The Secret Life Of Marilyn Monroe' starred Kelli Garner

Continue reading: Five Great Movie Depictions Of Marilyn Monroe

Miley's Homecoming: Miley Cyrus made her triumphant return to Saturday Night Live on Sunday and, hey, what do you know, the reviews were actually pretty good. She clearly had plenty of material to work with, though it seems like the Wrecking Ball star did a pretty good job. Check out the reaction here.

Gravity's Pull: Alfonso Cuaron's sci-fi thriller Gravity exceeded expectations at the box office during its opening weekend, pulling in a massive $50 million despite modest promotion. Of course, it was the unanimously positive reviews that drove movie fans to the theaters, leaving Gravity as a very credible Oscar contender indeed. Read our roundup here.

Continue reading: A Week In News: Miley On SNL, Gravity Storms Box-Office And Tom Hanks's Diabetes

A set of physician's notes on the Hollywood starlet Marilyn Monroe that appear to indicate she underwent cosmetic surgery will go up for auction next month along with a set of her X-rays, Reuters reports.

Marilyn Monroe Apparently Underwent Cosmetic Surgery On Her Chin

Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills announced the news on Tuesday, saying a set of six X-rays and a file of doctor's notes that offer a medical history for the actress between 1950 and 1962 are expected to fetch between $15,000 and $30,000 when they go under the hammer on November 9-10.

Continue reading: Hey, Maybe Marilyn Monroe Wasn't THAT Beautiful

A letter from Marilyn Monroe to her acting mentor, presumably written in the actress’s final days, is going up for auction. The undated letter, written on stationary from the Bell Air Hotel, details Monroe’s struggles and her suicidal thoughts. She eventually died from an overdose of barbiturates, but her psychological issues before the event are laid out in painful clarity in the document.

She wrote: 'My will is weak but I can't stand anything. I sound crazy but I think I'm going crazy. It's just that I get before a camera and my concentration and everything I'm trying to learn leaves me. Then I feel like I'm not existing in the human race at all.'

The letter is expected to sell for up to £33,000. It is only one of the historical documents that will be offered up for auction by the anonymous collector. This part of his collection also includes a number of letters from Dwight D. Eisenhower to his wife, in which the president shared news of the war and expressed his devotion to Mamie. There is also a typed letter from John Lennon to Paul McCartney.

Continue reading: Heartfelt Letter From Marilyn Monroe To Go On Auction

While Marilyn Monroe will always be an iconic Hollywood legend, there's a part of her history hidden below the glamorous exterior. This is something that Megan Fox - who has recently been removing a tattoo of the Some Like It Hot star - has come to realise. 

She's ridding herself of the ink as she doesn't want to be associated with the star's negativity, and has even been moved to compare her former so-star, Linsday Lohan to the mercurial Monroe. She tells Esquire magazine, "I started reading about her and realized that her (Monroe's) life was incredibly difficult. It's like when you visualize something for your future. I didn't want to visualize something so negative... She wasn't powerful at the time. She was sort of like Lindsay. She was an actress who wasn't reliable, who almost wasn't insurable... She had all the potential in the world, and it was squandered. I'm not interested in following in those footsteps."

Troublemaker supremo Lohan has a bit of a Monroe obsession too, with plenty of her quotes tattooed all over her body. She doesn't quite have the same iconic grace as her idol though, and tends to get in trouble for fights and car crashes in her spare time, which she has a lot of. 

Marilyn Monroe’s name is one you don’t get to read in headlines too often these days, but the Some Like It Hot actress continues to make news to this day, most recently with the surfacing of her alleged ties to communism.

The FBI has recently released files, which prove that classic Hollywood actress was under surveillance for “drifting into the area of communist influence” from the mid-1950s to just a few months before her death. The files, a highly edited version of which had been released previously, do show that the FBI was monitoring the actress for quite some time, but her death under suspicious circumstances was not investigated. Instead, the FBI put it down to suicide. The files show that part of the profits from Monroe’s production company were being siphoned into communist activities, according to The Daily Mail.

Another concern to federal agents were Monroe’s friends with ties to the communist agenda, most notably Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who was disinherited by his family because of his left-leaning beliefs. The friendship reportedly got started during Monroe’s 1962 trip to Mexico, while Field was living there in self-imposed exile, along with his family, The Associated Press reports. The release of the non-redacted files was expected to shed some light on the troubled actress life and death, but it looks like exactly half a century later, Marilyn remains as big a mystery as ever.

Marilyn Monroe's death, 50 years on, still sparks notes of controversy with some die-hard fans who don't think her death was suicide. That's why the FBI files that had gone missing - that have now been found - are so important. In fact, however, they reveal very little about her death, but plenty about her life - notably her involvement and friendship with lefties and communists, reports the Telegraph.

Monroe's views were "very positively and concisely leftist. However, if she is being actively used by the Communist Party is it not general knowledge among those working with the movement in Los Angeles," the files state. The most prominent relationship with a 'communist' that's known about was with "Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who was disinherited from his wealthy family over his leftist views"- although he always denied being a member of the communist party.

His autobiography devotes an entire chapter to a visit Monroe made to him and his wife. The paper quotes the book: "She told us about her strong feelings for civil rights, for black equality, as well as her admiration for what was being done in China, her anger at red-baiting and McCarthyism and her hatred of (FBI director) J. Edgar Hoover."

Continue reading: Marilyn Monroe Befriended Communists States FBI

The iconic dress worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz has been sold at auction for $480,000. The auction house Julien’s Auctions have revealed that the blue and white gingham pinafore fetched the staggering sum during a two-day auction of Hollywood memorabilia. It was the highest priced item in the auction, which attracted bids from across the globe. The auction ended on Saturday (November 10, 2012).

Other memorable items to have sold included Steve McQueen’s racing jacket, which went for $50,000. The purple skirt worn by Marilyn Monroe in River of No Return sold for a similar amount and the dress worn by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music brought in $38,400. All unarguably impressive figures, but not a patch on Judy Garland’s ‘Dorothy’ dress. Sunglasses were another popular item, fetching relatively high sums The shades worn by Jean Reno in Leon sold $8,320, whilst Johnny Depp’s glasses went for $3,250.

There’s no news on who’s purchased the items or what use they’re intended for. We think anyone walking down the street wearing Dorothy’s dress would look a little incongruous in this day and age. Though, if you had the sparkly red shoes to match and a tin man, a lion and scarecrow in your entourage, you could at least convince people that you were off to a fancy dress party. Steve McQueen’s biker jacket though? Well, on the right person, there will most likely never be a time when that just doesn’t look insanely cool.

Kenneth Branagh has received his knighthood from the Queen at Buckingham Palace for services to drama and the community of Northern Ireland. The Oscar-nominated actor, director and screenwriter, is best known for his Shakespearean works though most recently played Swedish detective Wallander in the BBC series of the same name.

Sir Kenneth joins the likes of Sir Michael Caine, Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Ben Kingsley and Sir Laurence Olivier in becoming a thespian knight. Branagh - who recently starred in the Marilyn Monroe movie My Week With Marilyn - told Sky News that he felt "humble, elated and incredibly lucky," to have received the award, adding, "When I was a kid I dreamed of pulling on a shirt for the Northern Ireland football team. I could only imagine how proud you might feel. Today it feels like they just gave me the shirt and my heart's fit to burst." Branagh spent his early years in Northern Ireland though moved to Reading with his family at the age of nine. 

In today's ceremony, two British servicemen were awarded the Military Cross for bravery. Corporal Carl Taylor from Birmingham ran 80 feet across open ground under Taliban fire to rescue three young Afghan children. Bombardier Mark Carpenter of the Royal Artillery was also honoured, as were four fire-fighters from Nottinghamshire who received the Queen's Gallantry Medal for acts of bravery. 

Continue reading: Kenneth Branagh? That's Sir Kenneth Branagh To You!

After her death last year aged 79, just two years after her great friend Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor has become the world's highest grossing dead celebrity, according to Forbes. This result sees the growth of her estate beat MJ, as that was his title in 2011. 

Time report that her estate has made $210m over the past year due to an enormous Christie's auction of her belongings, which made $184m, with this, added to the sales of her perfume White Diamonds, pushed her ahead of the $145m that Jackson's estate earned. According to Dorothy Pomerantz, it's likely that Michael Jackson will hit the top spot again next year, and Taylor's success a one off due to her death. She says this is due to the multiple streams of income to his estate: "Not only does it earn from sales of his own music, Jackson owned a 50% stake in Sony's ATV catalog, which includes artists like the Beatles, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. His estate also collects money from the successful Cirque Du Soleil show The Immortal Tour." 

Other legendary characters that appear on the list include Elvis Presley, Bob Marley, John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, Dr. Seuss, Steve McQueen, and George Harrison. The $145m made by the dead Thriller star is more than any other living artist today, proving that although he's not leading posthumous earning, he's still the King of Pop. Although, with two of the Beatles in this list, perhaps we can award that King-dom jointly. The Liz & Dick biopic about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, starring Lindsay Lohan, will be airing November 25th 2012, and may just top up Liz's account a touch more.

Twenty years' worth of movie costumes amassed by the BFI are going to be left in the care of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). Some of these will be exhibited in the Hollywood Costume Exhibition which opens to the public on October 20th this year.

Around 700 costumes - the entirety of the BFI's costume collection reports the BBC will be given to the museum that has become the home of design history in the UK include a Superman outfit worn by the late Christopher Reeve, as well as a dress worn by Marylin Monroe in the classic comedy 'Some Like It Hot'. The exhibition will not include all 700 donated costumes, rather, the V&A have chosen 130 classic costumes from the ages. These include iconic superhero outfits such as Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman suit and the Spider-Man suit worn by Tobey Maguire. Plus, in an wonderful and special gift to the UK, the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC is letting the British museum Dorothy's red slippers, worn by Judy Garland, in the Wizard of Oz's for four weeks. There was a gala party to celebrate the exhibition, which included guests Simon Pegg and Helena Bonham Carter.

Although not all the generously donated pieces will be seen in the Hollywood Costume Exhibition, highlights of the collection will be included at the V&A's Theatre and Performance galleries. The Telegraph reports that the majority of the generous gift from the BFI will be held at one of the V&A sites in Olympia which is where the new “Clothworkers' Centre for Textile and Fashion Study and Conservation” will open, this time next year.

Lady GaGa’s weight gain became a hot topic of discussion last week (the singer revealed she had gained 25 pounds), though she’s since made sure her fans know that adding a few pounds isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In response to internet rumors that she’s been asked to lose weight by her record label, Gaga tweeted a photograph of the voluptuous beauty Marilyn Monroe with the caption, “To all the girls that think you're ugly because you're not a size 0, you're the beautiful one. It's society who's ugly,” adding, “Thanks to my fans who love me no matter what, and know the meaning of real beauty and compassion. I really love you”. Gaga – who is currently performing on her ‘Born This Way Ball’ tour – said during a recent interview that she had gained weight after eating at the Italian restaurant owned by her father Joe Germanotta. The weight speculation is a little ironic, considering Gaga came under fire from eating disorder groups last year for joking “real pop stars don’t eat.” In February, she revealed she had suffered with eating disorders in the past and overcame bulimia.

Gaga’s tour continues in Switzerland and Belgium this week, before moving on to France, Spain and Italy.

Movie comedian Adam Sandler booked his father's favourite singer, Leon Redbone, to sing at is wedding. Sandler's father, Stan, was dying when he assured him that he would make it to the star's wedding. In order to say 'thank you', Sandler treated his father to a live performance from his favourite musician just for him. He explained the reasoning with: "It was so that my father could have a great night. He was like, 'This is great,' and my mother whispers to him, 'You couldn't say Pavarotti?'"

Related: Adam Sandler Duets With Drew Barrymore In An Ode To Their Many Onscreen Romances

Sadly, Sandler's father died not long after the wedding took place, and was followed by a series of deaths in the family. This ended with the death of the star's bulldog, Meatball, who passed earlier in February, 2004. The '50 First Dates' star noticed that his father had to die before the family pet, saying: When Meatball died we had a big shiva. 100 people came up to our house and we traded Meatball stories. I had a cantor come up and sing prayers for the dog and I know that if my father was alive, he'd be like, 'Just bury him, you moron. It's a dog.'"

Continue reading: Adam Sandler Books His Dying Father's Favourite Singer To Play At The Stars Wedding