Sunday 24 January 2010

End Of The Road For Monroe And Miller


On this day in 1961, the Hollywood screen star Marilyn Monroe divorced her husband, playwright Arthur Miller, after less than five years of marriage.
The divorce was granted in Mexico, where a judge signed the decree. The grounds of divorce were listed as "incompatibility".
It had been rumoured that the pair had frequently quarreled over their differing lifestyles.
Mr Miller had recently been working with his wife on her most recent film, The Misfits, based on a short story he wrote, although the pair were reported to have been barely speaking on set.
The film was due to be released that month.
Affair
The divorce was officially announced the previos November, and a spokesman at the time said they had already separated.
Sources close to the couple said Arthur Miller had in fact left Miss Monroe for German-born photographer Inge Morath, whom he met on the set of The Misfits.
The couple married in 1956, five years after they first met. Marilyn Monroe converted to Judaism for her new husband, who rose to prominence with his play "Death of a Salesman" in 1949, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
Soon after they were married, Arthur Miller told journalists: "Marilyn will only make one film in every 18 months or so, which will take her about eight weeks."
When asked what she would do for the rest of the time, he replied, "She will be my wife. That's a full-time job."
Risked career
Marilyn Monroe disagreed, and continued to pursue her film work to the full, travelling to England to shoot "The Prince and the Showgirl" with Laurence Olivier shortly after the wedding. However, she used her influence - and risked her own career - to help her husband after he was found guilty of contempt of Congress by the House Un-American Activities Committee for refusing to reveal the names of a literary group suspected of Communist sympathies.
Marilyn Monroe went with him to Washington to speak in his favour at the contempt hearings, and her intervention is widely thought to have contributed to the overturning of his conviction the following year.
Marilyn Monroe had been married twice before. Her first husband was Jimmy Dougherty, whom she married aged 16. The marriage did not survive her "discovery" and subsequent rise to fame.
In 1954, she met and married baseball star Joe DiMaggio, but it was a tempestuous partnership and ended just nine months later.
Marilyn Monroe's divorce was part of a decline which was marked by her erratic behaviour on set and persistent abuse of alcohol and drugs.
The Misfits was to be her last completed film. Soon after, in 1962, she also made her last major public appearance, singing "Happy Birthday" to President John F Kennedy at a televised party for him.
On 5 August 1962 she was found dead in her Los Angeles home, aged 36. Her death was officially attributed to suicide by drug overdose, but has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories.
She had been due to re-marry her second husband, baseball star Joe DiMaggio, three days later. Arthur Miller married photographer Inge Morath a month after his divorce from Marilyn Monroe.
He later wrote compassionately of Monroe in his autobiography, referring to his marriage to her as "the best of times, the worst of times".
He stayed with Inge Morath until her death in 2002. Arthur Miller died in
2005.

Today's Smile

Pity he didn't use spellchecker!

Psst! Want To Buy An Aeroplane Cheap


For sale: second-hand Airbus A320. Condition: total wreck with possible traces of goose feathers.

The US Airways plane that Captain Chesley Sullenberger landed safely in the Hudson River a year ago after smashing into a flock of geese is on the auction block.
Insurers AIG are hosting online bidding until March 27 for the Airbus A320, which is stored in a shed in New Jersey.
Pictures on the website of the AIG subsidiary handling the sale show the intact fuselage, spooky rows of empty blue seats and the hastily abandoned cockpit.
Engines are not provided and a future owner might want to be handy with the toolbox.
"Aircraft suffered severe bird strike event resulting in water emergency landing," the sales pitch says. "Severe water damage throughout airframe. Impact damage to underside of aircraft."
The Airbus's successful splash landing in the icy river just off Manhattan on January 15 last year was quickly dubbed "Miracle on the Hudson" and turned Sullenberger into a national hero.

Getting It Off Your Chest

Brains aren't everything!

Homer Simpson Wisdom


When will I learn? The answers to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle - they're on TV!
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Bingo! I love that game, but I can't remember what to say when you win.
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Ah, beer. The cause of and the solution to all of life's problems.
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What's the point of going out? We're just going to wind up back here anyway.
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Lisa, vampires are make believe, like elves, gremlins, and Eskimos.
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Facts are meaningless - you could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!
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I'm not impressed easily. Wow! A blue car!
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Well, crying isn't gonna bring him back, unless your tears smell like dog food.
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I don't hate your mother, I just won't be sad when she dies.