Metaphorical Forte

László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946) Yellow Circle 1921

Oil on canvas 135 x 114.3 cm

Marilyn Monroe in a deleted scene for THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955). The idea was to have her play a sassy, Mae West-like character, but director Billy Wilder didn’t think she was convincing and cut the sequence.

Many of the fake quotes attributed to her paint her as just that: a Mae West. “Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world,” stuff like that. Marilyn Monroe never said that. She wasn’t bawdy, or cheeky, she didn’t pretend to know her way around in the world, cocky rudeness wasn’t part of her make-up. She wanted to please: photographers, fans, director, co-stars, friends, movie audiences, foster parents. (There are no cases of her badmouthing people.)