"When Miller left out his journal open to a page saying that she had embarrassed him in front of his intellectual peers and Marilyn read it, she wrote, 'I guess I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone’s wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really.' Like everyone else, Miller was mesmerized by his wife’s power of enchantment. 'Glamour is a bird that for dark and largely unknowable reasons decides to light on this branch rather than another,' he once wrote...."
From Maureen Dowd's new column,
"Norma Jeane’s Still Got It!" (NYT).
You know what's embarrassing? 1. Writing down that your wife is embarrassing — can't you just remember it and squirm silently in your dark and unknowable mind? — and leaving your journal open to the page where she'll see it, 2. Writing "Glamour is a bird that for dark and largely unknowable reasons decides to light on this branch rather than another." Birds don't have dark reasons.
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38 comments:
I think birds have nothing but dark reasons. Kind of like the insect politics thing. CC, JSM
If he thinks she was bad, just imagine being married to a pterodactyl.
Arthur Miller was in many ways a preening fraud with a modicum of literary talent, and terrible moral values.
Bird's goal in life is to poop all over everything.
They're pretty good at it.
Best part is that she didn't embarrass him in front of his friends. His male friends were thinking, "Geezus, he gets to boink that amazing creature every night. I'd give 30 IQ points to do it once." And his female friends were thinking, "Damn, I hate her."
If he was saying she acted dumb and embarrassed him that is one thing.
If he said she emasculated him in front of his friends and embarrassed him that is another.
I am not clear on which one that is from this context and if it was the second it might explain the page left open.
Thats probably closer to the truth
She waa a luminous beauty (maybe miller missed the point)
IIRC, Miller locked up his mentally-deficient son in a facility and never visited. He's something of an icon of cold intellectuality, ambition, and unquestioning self-righteousness. The Death of a Salesman was a great play, but The Crucible, which became a staple of high school drama programs, seems to me to reflect those characteristics. Maybe I'm too harsh: After the Fall was supposed to be a deep, self-questioning examination of the Miller-like protagonist and what one critic called the great issues of the day: Communism, the Bomb, and Marilyn Monroe.
The Price, a lesser-known work, was produced for television in the 70s with George C. Scott in the lead role and made a big impression on me.
Playwrights in the great age of American drama were plagued by critics pointing out that they weren't Sophocles or Shakespeare, but then, who was?
I did not know that about him
So he was more like willy loman then he would admit
Why do intellectuals disdain salesmen its not easy work
Arrogant writers were always a dime a dozen, but inflation has had some impact.
Yes communist dont exist but if thry did they are victims
She definitely wasn't an Arthur Miller character. She should have married William Inge. She was great in Bus Stop and--no disrespect to Kim Novak--she would have been memorable in Picnic.....Truman Capote had her in mind for Breakfast at Tiffany's. It would have been a different picture, but she would have been great......She also attracted attention from Joyce Carol Oates and Norman Mailer. I don't think they were ever on the same page as her.....Her greatest creation was "Marilyn", but it was a corporate enterprise. Whatever her gaps and deficits, we filled them in. Nonetheless, she found a way to seductively package tragedy, myth and history in a way equaled only by Cleopatra.
I read a bio of Joe DiMaggio. He hit her a few times. She cheated on him during their honeymoon......I wish God existed so that on Judgement Day, we could see who was right and who was wrong.
That would have been interesting
There was also the one she did with gable
Kind of like rita hayworth and her complicated relationshipd with welles and other characters
The freak party goes on.
Why did someone who called himself "the Great American Brain" need his wife to make him look smart in front of his peers? I'm sure Marylin's female friends weren't exactly impressed with his looks either. Truth is she did make him look good in front of everybody.
Miller wrote one good play. Dude thought he was Eugene O’Neill.
Arthur Miller in toto: A showoff with a trophy wife.
Poppy montgomery played her in the oates teleplay
He was a jerk—put his son in an institution.
Marilyn Monroe in Breakfast at Tiffanies. What a great movie that might have been. Not a reprise of Loreli but a small-town con artist. Maybe Steve McQueen instead of George Peppard. Different director too. I bet we're only months away from seeing the AI version. I’ll pay to see that.
We read some of his plays in hs in the 60s including Death of Salesman" the only thing that stayed with me was the line about a shoeshime and a smile.
"He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine."
Perhaps because for 22 years I was an independent sales rep that line always sang to me. More consulting since 07 but still selling. Just selling myself instead of machinery now. Much harder.
John Henry
yikes, Tiffany’s. (bad spellcheck)
I'm sure men were shitty to her. She was a victim of all of that. But for the men that married her (first boyfriend, DiMaggio, Miller) it must have been like trying to catch the wind.
Sad the Kennedy bros killed her.
Birds don't have dark reasons.
You're so naive.
"A showoff with a trophy wife."
I was going to write the same thing, but I doubt I could have been as pithy.
Just selling myself instead of machinery now. Much harder.
Throw in a free hat.
Apparently Keynes's Bloomsbury Group pals found Lydia Lopokova hard to swallow. But Keynes himself wasn't embarrassed at all. Suggests he had a bit more self confidence than Miller. Indeed excessive self confidence was probably the root of his more obvious flaws. Like being horribly wrong about economics- but tragically persuasive.
It reminds of that Woody Allen movie where the Sydney Pollack character yells at his girlfriend " You embarrassed me in front my friends". Y'see she's a Yoga instructor and starts talking to the super-smarties about Astrology or something. So, of course Pollack goes back to his middle-aged smarty-wife.
Birds put up a good front, but they're quite evil.
Anyway, thanks for reminding me of why I always disliked Arthur Miller. i don't think any major author made so much $$$ off his ex-wife.
It also reminds me of Miller's biggest flaw. He was always trying to be poetic - and failing.
Monroe's mother was crazy and had to be committed. As she got older Marilyn started "hearing voices" and got lots of pyschriatric care. Unfortunately, psychiatric care was still in the dark ages compared to the 21st century.
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