By Jason Kennedy
Promoting the new HBO documentary film, “Love, Marilyn” which debuts on Monday, June 17, Amy Greene doubles down with an age-old proven Hollywood marketing tactic: sex sells.
Her famous husband Milton Greene (now deceased) photographed Marilyn Monroe extensively during the 1950’s. In a recent interview, Amy Greene stated about Monroe’s relationship with Joe DiMaggio, a New York Yankees Major League Baseball legend:
“As I say in the film, ‘Why did you marry him?’ And she said, ‘He was great in bed!’ So that was the only thing those two human beings had together. And everything else was made up.”
Now that certainly is a juicy recollection indeed. However, what may be more scandalous is everything “made up” on Amy Greene’s end.
Soon after Marilyn Monroe passed away on August 6, 1962, an unsent love letter was found in her bedroom. It was written to ex-husband Joe DiMaggio:
“Dear Joe,
If I can only succeed in making you happy-- I will have succeeded in the bigest (sic) and most difficult thing there is—that is to make one person completely happy [Marilyn added the underlines for emphasis]. Your happiness means my happiness.”
With this one letter, proof that Marilyn’s and Joe’s relationship was much deeper than just sex, should come as no surprise.
But let’s take a closer look.
In 1961, George Carpozi, a respected journalist who interviewed and knew Marilyn, stated:
“Of all the men in Marilyn’s life, I don’t think any has held the warm, affectionate and loving place in her heart that Joe DiMaggio has. Joe, first and foremost, is all man-and I believe that at this stage of her life, at the beginning of her thirty-fifth year of life, Marilyn needs a man, virile, strong, athletic, masculine, handsome, and tough. Joe’s the only man Marilyn has ever known who can rock her in her place-and I think that, above all else, would be her salvation.”
George Carpozi further evidenced an analysis by Dr. Joyce Brothers, a renowned psychologist and columnist who commented about Marilyn in the “Journal-American:”
“And whom does she [Marilyn Monroe] seek out in her need for security in her hunt for someone who sees her as more than just a sex object?
Dr. Brothers says it’s Joe DiMaggio. It was Joe DiMaggio who returned to comfort Marilyn after her return from Hollywood and the announcement that she was breaking with Miller (ex husband Arthur Miller). It was Joe who took Marilyn out during the pre-divorce and post-divorce days. It was DiMag who took Marilyn to Payne Whitney*, and took a room near hers to be close by. And it was Joe waiting for Marilyn in Florida.”
While Amy Greene clings to her narrative of sex to sell her cameo appearance in the documentary film “Love, Marilyn,” it was a normally reticent Joe DiMaggio that bent over Marilyn’s coffin at the Westwood Memorial Park and wept on that fateful day. Speaking to Marilyn, he cried:
“I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Afterward, Joe DiMaggio would place two red roses, three times a week for the next twenty years on Marilyn’s crypt.
 |
| Joe DiMaggio's last words, "I don’t feel bad about dying. At least, I’ll be with Marilyn again.” |
Amy Greene’s obviously distorted recollection seems to have left out these important details to fit her agenda of selling Marilyn Monroe as only a “sex object.”
Claiming to be one of Marilyn’s closest friends, Amy Greene does a disservice to Marilyn by attempting to spark a sexual fantasy in her interview to promote “Love, Marilyn,” rather than truth.
Can she still call herself a “close friend?”
Promoting Marilyn’s “sex object” theme is common for those who seek to profit off of Marilyn Monroe’s name and image; even at the expense of truth. In fact, it was Marilyn’s third ex-husband and playwright Arthur Miller who recognized this as early as May 25, 1956, even before they married. Shockingly, it was none other than Milton Greene (Amy Greene’s famous photographer husband) who came up in a letter he wrote to Marilyn.
In 1955, Marilyn and Milton Greene formed Marilyn Monroe Productions, a partnership which would later dissolve because of Milton Greene’s mismanagement.
Arthur wrote to Marilyn:
“Dearest Poo:
Your report of the fight last night both depressed and encouraged me. But the main thing is that you are insisting on yourself, and so long as you do that you must always win.
I just want to make one thing clear. I really don’t know Milton. Truly, I have nothing against him and there need be no conflict whatever between him and me. You ought to have a manager-partner, or whatever you want to call him, and obviously he is an able guy.
My sole irritation with him is what is yours—that he seems to have assumed some kind of proprietary function over you in his mind. It seems to me sometimes that he conceives of you as something he almost created himself. And now that you have grown into a human being, as opposed to a commodity—(something that is traded for money), his security is threatened.
I do think, though, that underlying these two fights, the one about Paula [Paula Strasberg-wife of acting theorist Lee Strasberg] and the one last night about money, it is very possible he [Milton] is trying to settle what my role is going to be. From the kinds of friends he has, including my dear friend Henry, and all the Marvins, as well as from his generally narrow idea of what you are and ought to be, it seems clear that he would regard me as dangerous. I am not “show business”, either to his nor any of those who share his values; I write and believe in gloomy things, not Pink Tights, etc… Further, there is my radicalism.
All this, I think, would make him feel that you are about to be led out of the circle of glamour and into the circle of what you and I call art, and what he thinks of as dreariness, longhairism, and irresponsibility about money-making.
What is at stake here my Darling, are two viewpoints about work and life. One is the majority viewpoint, the other is that of the artist. He is with the majority and I doubt strongly whether he can be changed, excepting for one eventuality.
As I said, he [Milton] is tuned-in very sharply to his own advantage and to money-making.”
Arthur continues to further drive home his point to Marilyn by stating:
“…He [Milton] is marshalling all his allies in the hope of coercing you back into the cage he found you in.”
Clearly, Arthur Miller witnessed and reported the behind-the-scenes scandal that played out beyond the public veil. It is no wonder that Amy Greene recently stated, “Arthur was a bore…son-of-a-bitch…creep. I saw through him the first time I met him.”
When asked why Marilyn Monroe Productions broke up, Amy Greene said, “Because of Arthur. Not only was he jealous of Milton, but he was jealous of the time that they spent together…Arthur said, ‘It’s either him or me.’”
Was Arthur jealous of Milton or did Arthur recognize a power struggle to control Marilyn? The latter seems supported by the evidence.
Arthur Miller certainly called out Milton Greene in 1956 for treating Marilyn like a “object” to be bought and sold. And it seems fitting that Arthur Miller calls out Amy Greene in 2013.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the proverbial tree.
Unfortunately, those that have profited off of Marilyn Monroe for the last 58 years still treat her only as a “sex object.” They claim that they were Marilyn’s closest friend. They claim that Marilyn had no family except for themselves. And they cornered her into a cage so they could further their own financial advantage.
Today, Marilyn Monroe is still “owned” by the estates of Lee Strasberg and Milton Greene, and Authentic Brands Group.
Sex Sells and Lies are still Lies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Editor’s note: In Carpozi’s book he inadvertently notes that Joe DiMaggio took Marilyn Monroe to Payne Whitney. However, this is most definitely a typo, because earlier in the chapter, Carpozi notes that DiMaggio coordinated Monroe’s stay at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Sentence should probably have read, “It was DiMag who took Marilyn to Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center…”
About the writer: Jason Kennedy is Marilyn Monroe’s cousin on the Hogan side of the family. Norma Jeane certainly had family. But those that have control over Marilyn used the media and their professional positions to keep Norma caged. It still continues today.
