‘The Hook’: Marilyn and Arthur Miller’s Lost Screenplay

First posted here on June 10, 2015 The Hook, Arthur Miller’s long-buried screenplay about a bitter conflict between workers on the Brooklyn docks – a district still known as Red Hook – is finally being staged at the Royal and Derngate Theatre in Northampton after more than sixty years on the shelf, as Matt Trueman...

Remembering ‘Marilyn! The Musical’

First posted here on December 28, 2017 Must Close Saturday: The Decline and Fall Of The British Musical Flop, a new book by Adrian Wright, covers Mort Garson's short-lived 1983 show, Marilyn! The Musical. Despite winning an endorsement from Anna Strasberg, the executor of Marilyn’s estate, the show failed to win over critics and closed...

When ‘Sugar’ Came to Broadway

First posted here on April 11, 2018 Ron Fassler, author of Up in the Cheap Seats: A Historical Memoir of Broadway, has written an article, ‘A Sprinkling of Sugar‘, about the musical theatre adaptation of Some Like It Hot. Written by Peter Stone, with music by Gentlemen Prefer Blondes composer Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Merrill, Sugar was first...

Richard C. Miller and the Story of Marilyn’s Audition

First posted here on September 19, 2019 Richard C. Miller first photographed Norma Jeane Dougherty as a young model in 1946. By 1950, she was an aspiring actress and he photographed her again at an audition for Street Scene, an upcoming production at the Players Ring Theatre in Los Angeles. She didn’t get the part, and...

Remembering Marilyn at the White Barn Theatre

First posted here on January 14, 2015 According to New Canaan Advertiser, the site of the former White Barn Theatre in Norwalk, Connecticut is being eyed by a housing development firm. The Save Cranbury Association opposes the plans to build on the two-acre site. "This is one of the last pieces of open space," said local...

Cameron Mitchell: Marilyn’s ‘Millionaire’ Co-Star

First posted here on September 16, 2014 Actor Cameron Mitchell (1921-1994), who played Lauren Bacall's beau Tom Brookman in How to Marry a Millionaire, will be honoured in Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, beginning with a screening of the 1953 comedy on September 27 at the Zion Church, Glen Rock, the York Daily Record reports. The event will...

Remembering Elaine Stritch and Marilyn

First posted here on July 18, 2014 American actress Elaine Stritch, whose remarkable career spanned eight decades, has died aged 89, a sad event commemorated by her longtime friend, columnist Liz Smith, in today’s Boston Herald. Stritch made her Broadway debut in 1944, and went on to appear in plays by Tennessee Williams, Noel Coward, Stephen...

Anita Loos: From Lorelei to Marilyn

First posted here on March 14, 2019 In an article for Silent London, Pamela Hutchinson traces the career of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes author Anita Loos. “In 1925, Loos published her masterpiece, first as short stories in Harper’s Weekly and then as a full-length novel. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a comic tour de force, and no less than Edith Wharton called...

Before the Fall: Marilyn and Elia Kazan

First posted here on April 10, 2014 The Selected Letters of Elia Kazan, due to be published on April 22, 2014, has been excerpted in the Hollywood Reporter. One of the letters, written to wife Molly in 1955, is a confession of his affair with Marilyn four years earlier, while she was filming As Young As...

Remembering Marilyn and Colin Wilson

First posted here on December 13, 2013 Colin Wilson, the British author whose first novel, The Outsider, was published to acclaim in 1956, has died aged 82, reports The Guardian. Initially feted as a major literary discovery, Wilson failed to repeat his early success, but published over a hundred books. He also met Marilyn Monroe in London...