The Backstory: Marilyn Monroe: Genius IQ?

Marilyn Monroe was the ultimate bombshell. This week she would have turned 100 years old, but she’s still the iconic sex symbol of mid 20th century Hollywood. Despite her carefully crafted dumb blonde persona, she was also wildly intelligent. She had a library filled with books by authors like James Joyce and Dostoevsky. So . . how did she use that intelligence and what was her Achilles heel?

Feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover . . on Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right. When you think of the all time iconic
blonde bombshell, it's got to be Marilyn Monroe. Her magnetism
goes beyond sex appeal. Men and women are drawn to her, and,
believe it or not, that's still the case. Almost sixty
five years after her death. This week, Marilyn would have
turned one hundred years old. What still makes her so

(00:22):
intriguing is her complexity. I'm Patty Steele. What did Marilyn
Monroe and Einstein have in common? That's next on the backstory.
The backstory is back. She was born one hundred years
ago this week. The vast majority of us weren't even

(00:43):
alive when she died sixty four years ago. Yet Marilyn
Monroe has never left our consciousness. Even the most recent
polls always place her at number one when people are
asked who they think was the most iconic blonde bombshell ever,
no contest. That plat and blonde hair, that killer body,
those shiny red lips, and that voice that sounded like

(01:06):
a delicate purr. All of that is what most people
in vision when they think of Marylynd. But wait a minute,
there's more. There have been a lot of killer blondes
in the one hundred plus years that Hollywood has been around.
What made Maryland different so incredibly iconic. It goes a
whole lot deeper than the facade. It was her complexity

(01:27):
as a human being that made her irresistible. What most
people don't realize about her was how carefully she crafted
her image. Born in nineteen twenty six, she was named
Norma Jean Mortensen on her birth certificate, later changed to
Norma Jean Baker. After a childhood mostly spent in a
dozen foster homes, she started her career in the late

(01:49):
nineteen forties, a time when Hollywood wanted a new, hot,
young actress that would, as they put it, feed the
male gaze. She got to work creating the character. Always
a brunette, she started having her hair bleached to an
almost white blonde. She was manic about her makeup looking perfect,
taking hours to put it on. Her lipstick was actually

(02:12):
applied in five different layers to make them look full,
pillowy and inviting. As far as the on screen personality
she cultivated, she, as her agent suggested, wanted to come
across as a little bit dumb, naive and sexually available,
but also with a sweetness that made her less threatening.

(02:33):
Marilyn worked on every little aspect of that persona As
a kid, she had a stutter, so she worked with
a voice coach to smooth that out, and also to
take on a sort of childish voice. Her coaches said
she should give the impression of someone totally innocent and uncalculated,
both on film and even during her interviews. But one

(02:55):
of the biggest misconceptions about her is that she was
just like that character, very smart. In fact, she pushed
that image out there herself. She joked that she had
told Albert Einstein, we should have a baby together. It
would be beautiful like me and smart like you, and
that he'd said to her, yes, but what if it

(03:15):
has my looks in your brains? Likely that actually never happened,
but she loved to tell that story. In reality, Marilyn
was an avid reader, and she wasn't reading romance novels.
She owned as many as a thousand books in her
personal library, which included works by highbrow authors like James Joyce, Dostayevski,

(03:35):
and Walt Whitman. She was constantly seen on movie sets
taking a break with those kinds of books. So the
dumb blonde image that made her famous was just a
character she created and played, not who she really was.
While she never took an IQ test, people who really
knew her said she was absolutely brilliant. Some suspected her

(03:57):
IQ matched Einstein's, and that intelligence gave depth to her performances.
She studied with the foremost acting teacher of those days,
Lee Strasberg, at the Actors Studio. She totally immersed herself
in method acting and in her characters, and she worked
hard to always get better. And when it came to
the business of Hollywood, she made inroads that were brand new,

(04:21):
especially for females. During Hollywood's studio systems era, actors had
almost no control over their careers or what movies they made.
Marylyn got really frustrated with being cast in the same dumb,
sexy roles. So in nineteen fifty five she did something
really unusual for a female star. She formed her own

(04:41):
production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions. That move challenged the powerful
studio executives and helped pave the way for future actors
looking for more creative control. Who was basically an end
to that studio system. Now, what's really hard to imagine
is that she had a terrible time believing in herself.

(05:02):
She would often get physically ill before going on camera.
It didn't matter that millions worshiped her. She was battling
the impostor syndrome. It all goes back to one thing.
Despite becoming one of the most famous and admired women
on earth, she never completely escaped the pain of her
early years and all of those foster homes. She spent

(05:25):
so much of her childhood looking for stability, family, and acceptance.
People who really knew her said that beneath the glamour
with somebody still trying to feel like she belonged. It's
kind of a dichotomy her huge public success and her
private struggles with insecurity. That was part of what gave
depth though to her as an actress, and one of

(05:47):
the reasons her story continues to resonate all these years later.
Marilyn Monroe's life lasted only thirty six years, yet her
impact on pop culture is still extraordinary. She was a
lot more worth than a movie star. She was ambitious, intelligent, vulnerable, determined,
and often misunderstood, and she was sadly used by people

(06:09):
who just wanted the person that was her image. She
challenged Hollywood's expectations and fought for greater control over her career,
benefiting so many that followed her. Her legacy continues to
fascinate historians and fans alike. So the next time you
look at a photograph of Marilyn Monroe smiling at the camera,

(06:31):
remember that you're looking at more than a Hollywood icon.
You're looking at Norma Jean, a woman whose real story
was every bit as compelling as the myths she created.
I hope you're enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele. Please
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(06:53):
me if you have a story you'd like me to cover.
On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia,
Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durant Group, and Steel Trap Productions.

(07:17):
Our producer is Mike Pieseglia. Our writer is Jake Kushner.
New episodes are out every Tuesday and Friday, and feel
free to reach out to me with comments and story
suggestions on Instagram at reel Patty Steele and on Facebook
at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with
Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't know you

(07:37):
needed to know.