Marilyn, John Huston and ‘Freud’

First posted here on November 2, 2014

This letter from Marilyn Monroe to John Huston, in which she rejects a part in the director’s planned film on Sigmund Freud (from the Margaret Herrick Library of AMPAS), was posted today by James Grissom on the Follies of God Facebook page. The letter was also discussed recently on the Stars and Letters blog.

Marilyn was advised against this project by her psychiatrist, Dr Ralph Greenson, who had just begun treating her and would do so until her death, less than 2 years later. He was in contact with Anna Freud, who objected to the film being made. Marilyn had seen her as a patient a couple of times, and would leave part of her estate to the Anna Freud Children’s Clinic in London.

Monroe wrote to Huston on November 5, 1960 – a day after The Misfits wrapped – from her suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She had separated from husband Arthur Miller, and would learn of co-star Clark Gable’s heart attack the next day.

Although I strongly believe Marilyn had the capacity for more serious work, I suspect this role would have been traumatic for her personally. It certainly was for Montgomery Clift, as he clashed with Huston many times during filming.

The English actress Suzannah York replaced Marilyn as ‘Cecily’, a character loosely based on Freud’s patient Bertha Pappenheim, aka ‘Anna O.‘, opposite Clift in Freud: The Secret Passion (released four months after Marilyn’s death, in December 1962.) Huston and York did not get along, and the production seems to have been even more fraught than The Misfits.

Transcript:

“November 5, 1960

Dear John,

I have it on good authority that the Freud family does not approve of anyone making a picture of the life of Freud– so I wouldn’t want to be a part of it, first because of his great contribution to humanity and secondly, my personal regard for his work. Thank you for offering me the part of ‘Annie O’ and I wish you the best in this and all other endeavors.

Yours

Marilyn”