Arthur Miller On Marilyn Monroe's Sense Of Humor, Etc.

by Stephen J. Gertz

By Richard Avedon, 1958.

 "I am quite conceivably prejudiced, but I think this collection is a wonder of Marilyn’s wittiness. As Lillian Russell, Marilyn sits [on] the solid gold bicycle just inexpertly enough to indicate that she is, after all, a lady… Her hands lace around the bike handles so much more femininely than they grasp the fan as Clara Bow. And here again is the difference between imitation and interpretation, between making an affect and rendering a spirit."

The above quotation was partially cut from Arthur Miller's feature article, My Wife Marilyn, which appeared in Life magazine, December 22, 1958, in its Christmas issue to accompany photographer Richard Avedon's spread, Marilyn Monroe: Fabled Enchantresses. Within, Avedon shot Monroe  as Lillian Russell, Theda Bara, Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich, and Jean Harlow. Miller’s essay describes Monroe’s “miraculous sense of sheer play” in channeling these celebrated sex symbols of the stage and screen and her role as their successor.

Miller's signed typescript draft of the article's final published version, with holograph corrections, revisions, and indicated cuts (almost a third of its final length), has come to market along with a signed typed letter by Miller to Life editor, Ralph Graves, dated October 31, 1958, that the playwright sent along with this final draft. They are being offered for $28,500.

 "Here is the article. The only stuff I have added is at the end, with the exception of one or two words in the body of the text. It reads like a precis of the original, I’m afraid, much of the feeling having been removed. But it will do, I guess. If you’ve got something better to use please do so. I’m sorry, again, that the wires got crossed and I conceived it for a much greater length. In any case, the photos are still miraculous."

The "feeling" remains within pages six through eleven of the eleven recto-only leaves of graph paper, which have been almost entirely struck through by Miller, who, once again, writes about Marilyn's sense of humor as evidenced in the photos. She possessed a keen sense of herself, completely self-aware and not only in on the joke but a collaborator in its creation. Though unschooled, this was a very smart woman; only the highly intelligent can play "dumb" with aplomb.

"As in life so in these pictures --- she salutes fantasy from the shore of the real until there comes a moment when she carries us, reality and all, into the dream with her, and we are grateful. Her wit here consists of her absolute commitment to two ordinarily irreconcilable opposites --- the real feminine and the man's fantasy of femininity. We know she knows the difference in these pictures, but is refusing to concede that there is any contradiction, and it is serious and funny at the same time."

The typescript, with its mounting revisions, examines in detail the nuances behind each pose and each portrait, exploring at length Monroe’s approach to portraying these prior stars and the cultural milieu from which they emerged.

Though a few lines and one longer passage from the original manuscript were salvaged for the published version, most were cut. These excisions, found here, include a comparison of Monroe’s face to “a lake under a changing sky” and Miller’s conviction that she is “the living proof that Boticelli was only painting the literal truth.” Where the published essay is a polished description of the electricity of Avedon’s set and Monroe’s ability to capture the “spirit of an age” and document “a kind of history of our mass fantasy, as far as seductresses are concerned,” this typescript reveals an unedited account of not only an inspired collaboration, but Miller’s beguilement over his wife’s many talents.

In Monroe's last interview before her death, appearing in Life on August 3, 1962, she discussed fame in general and hers in particular and pleaded to writer Richard Meryman, "Please don't make me a joke."

"The often bizarrely explained circumstances of her death and her image as a sex goddess/dumb blonde have at times prevented Monroe from being perceived as more than a caricature. She was, however, much more, and even in those 'dumb' roles she displayed an elegance worthy of respect. Her director in The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder, recognized this quality and called her 'an absolute genius as a comic actress.' Monroe never lost her desire for life or her sense of humor despite her tribulations, and she treated with humor and insight the depersonalization that came with her status and that often tormented her life and career" (American National Biography).

Once, in a throwaway quip employing a homonym to lampoon that dumb blonde sex-goddess image she, perhaps unconsciously, suggested a subtext that seriously addressed the inner conflict between what she represented to others and her true self:

"I thought symbols were something you clash."

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Typescript and letter images courtesy of Royal Books, currently offering these items, with our thanks.

Marilyn Monroe photographs from Avedon's Fabled Enchantresses series can be viewed here.
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Of Related Interest:

Marilyn Monroe: Avid Reader, Writer & Book Collector.

Heartbreaking Marilyn Monroe Letter Estimated at $30,000 - $50,000. 

The Most Significant Marilyn Monroe Autograph Document Comes To Auction.
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William Burroughs' Intro To Naked Lunch At $175,000

by Stephen J. Gertz

Calling Dr. Benway:

The first and final draft corrected typescripts of William S. Burroughs' Introduction to the first American edition (NY: Grove Press, 1962) of Naked Lunch (Paris: Olympia Press, 1959), his seminal, controversial work and one of the landmark publications in the history of American literature, have come to market. The asking price is $175,000.

From the collection of his friend and editor, Alan Ansen, they are being offered by Glenn Horowitz, Bookseller, the New York City dealer who has made a habit of pulling literary rabbits out of his hat. Within that context these typescripts may be fairly ranked as the rabbit who ate Cleveland.

The first, titled "Postscript" in Burroughs' penciled holograph, is comprised of five recto-only leaves corrected by Burroughs in black ink, with page numbers in same. It is unknown when, exactly, he wrote it but it appears to be c. 1960.

The heavily corrected typescript is Burroughs' first pass at his extended essay, Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness, that would serve as the introduction to the American edition of Naked Lunch. “Postscript” discursively explores the themes and sentiments which motivated Burroughs to write the introduction; it is the text upon which the polished, buffed, and published version was based. 

Bits and pieces of “Postscript” can be found throughout “Deposition,” as well as in its final post-postscript, and the relationship between “Postscript” and the published introduction is immediately obvious. For example, page one of the “Postscript” typescript includes the following notes:

"Hasheiesh [sic], Mescaline, LSD -- ? under the title what is? Who must have junk to live in the structure? When there are no addicts carriers will disintegrate - virus opium."

"Talk exact manner in which junk virus controls words in monkey considered sacred by those who purpose to keep the virus of numbers or remove the bottom number street to cover basic frequency."

The published introduction directly addresses the points noted above, concerning the difference between hallucinogens - hashish, mescaline, LSD  - and heroin. Burroughs writes in part, “There is no evidence that the use of any hallucinogen results in physical dependence. The action of these drugs is physiologically opposite to the action of junk. A lamentable confusion between the two classes of drugs has arisen owing to the zeal of the U.S. and other Narcotic departments...” The introduction also sets forth upon “the exact manner in which the junk virus operates.” 

Within the five-page “Postscript” is a handful of dialogue and a paragraph referring to “Mr Bradly Mr Martin,” a character appearing in the novels of Burroughs' Nova Trilogy: Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket that Exploded (1962), and Nova Express (1964). In part, they read:

“Light in eyes and I saw the brains...no time to stop and eat switch fuzz behind me...I told him I'd do it I told him if I catch you on the West Side push you on the tracks...hustle your own mooch...”

"And he looked at me over the blade caught the tarnish black and white subway dawn..Old photo..Couldn't reach me with the knife and fell on the tracks I told him he would and he rushed for I – overcoat I held there teaching him the cloth in the turnstile and learned the cloth stuck there like star fish smoking and switch fuzz whistling down the iron stairs and I caught an uptown cold sore…"

"Mr Bradly Mr Martin teaching him the cloth in the junk hold saw the brains fuzz the rail…"

Neither the dialogue nor the narrative made it into the Introduction and appear to be unpublished.

The final draft appears in three typescripts:

• “Deposition. Testimony Concerning a Sickness,” (ca. 1960), a corrected ribbon typescript of thirteen recto-only leaves (including the one-page “PSS or PPS” noted below), with Burroughs’ holograph corrections in blue ink and copy-editing notes in red ink.

•“Deposition. Testimony Concerning a Sickness,” (ca. 1960), a corrected carbon typescript of eleven recto-only leaves (lacking final page) very neatly incorporating in another hand the changes to the ribbon typescript above, either by erasing the type and replacing it with the correct text or interlined with Burroughs’ text.

• “PSS or PPS.” (ca. 1960), a one-leaf corrected ribbon typescript with Burroughs’ holograph corrections in black ink. It is stapled to “Deposition” above. 

These are a ribbon typescript and carbon copy of Burroughs’ introduction, "Deposition,” as published by Grove Press. The thirteen-page typescript is corrected by Burroughs and his changes are incorporated into the carbon copy as well as the final text as published. Burroughs’ holograph annotations include clarifications to language, e.g., “these notes” becomes “the notes which have now been published,” “measurable” becomes “accurately measurable,” etc., and include corrections to spelling and changes in emphasis with the addition of underlining.

The one-page “PSS or PPS” was not included in the book but did appear with “Deposition” in Grove Press' Evergreen Review (Volume 4, Issues 11-12). It was introduced “as a late post-postscript - a newspeak précis.”

Alan Ansen ("Rollo Greb" in Kerouac's On the Road) was a poet, playwright, and close friend of many Beat Generation writers. Living in Tangier, he spent time with Paul Bowles, Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and others. He lived in Greece during the last forty or so years of his life

Considered to be the only man capable of shaping the hundreds of random pages generated by Burroughs into publishable form, Ansen was brought in by Ginsberg to help edit Naked Lunch. He later preserved the Ginsberg-Burroughs correspondence along with many of the photographs from the period.

To have fresh Burroughs autograph/typescript material enter the marketplace (ABPC records no Burroughs typescript/manuscript material coming to auction within the last thirty-six years) at this late date is somewhat miraculous; all that could be found had, it seemed, been unearthed. But that was before The Amazing Horowitz waved his magic wand, said "abracadabra," and conjured this material out of nowhere and into and out of his hat.

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And now, a treat: Burroughs recites passages concerning Dr. Benway - the Marcus Welby, M.D. from Hell who "performs appendectomies with a rusty sardine can" - from Naked Lunch in his deadpan nasal monotone mashed-up with footage from an episode of Dr. Kildare, and behold! Burroughs' voice coming out of Richard Chamberlain's mouth. Oh, to hear Burroughs croon Three Stars Will Shine Tonight, the 1961 TV show's hit theme song.


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All images courtesy of Glenn Horowitz Bookseller with our thanks.

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