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Show Family Weekly j September 30,1962 nni t yr Aboil jl By BEN HECHT reporter, dramatist, novelist, screen writer, biographer, critic over the past 50 years Ben Hecht has displayed his ,' versatile writing talent as each of these. His works include "The Front Page," "Twenheth Century," "A Child of the Century," "Perfidy" and "Charlie." His many notable screenplays include "The Scoundrel," 4,Wuthering Heights," "Viva Villa," "Scarf ace," "Gunga Diri' "Notorious," dnd "Spellbound." Often an outspoken critic of Hollywood, Hecht here presents a surprising appraisal of the) movie industry and the part it played in the tragic life and death of Marilyn O Newspaper best-remember- In ed -- ' Monroe. HE- - legend of Marilyn Monroe will T keep growing for many years. It will end up as legends usually do, with all "the facts upside down. Just weeks after her death, eager tales of Marilyn's life already are filled Miffi'm6pnyrmin" ceptions arid these from people who knew her well. Wait till the historians take over her yn because a man she loved abandoned her. "That wasn't really the reason for view, and the book never was finished! Marilyn told me hundreds of stories of her first 28 years, stories that will never be part of the growing Monroe, legends because they revealed that Marilyn had been wrecked by the circumstances of her life since the age of five; by the disturbed character she had inherited; by a string of evil events that would have' n crushed a "ordinary" girls. Twice in her prefame days she had tried suicide, each time half-doze- . love. After her return from her Korean honeymoon with Joe DiMaggio, I asked her, "What's the happiest time you've ever had ?" "It was the time last month when I sang to the soldiers in Korea," she answered. "There were thousands of them. It was a very cold afternoon,, and it was snowing. All the soldiers sat in their winter uniforms. I appeared in a decollete evening gown, bare back, bare arms. And I was so happy and so excited that I didn't know, it was cold or snowing. In fact, the snow never fell on me. It melted away almost before it touched my skin. That was my happiest time when the thousands of soldiers all yelled my name over and over." - , - ' '"' " ' . Reign of the Sex Goddess legend-buildin- g. The legend basis, already solidly laid down, is that Marilyn Monroe was a movie star "wrecked" by Hollywood, driven to despair by the obliterating glare of fame, and by fear that this glare was v&nisftingT&nd who was further stricken by ithe failure of her last4wo marriages. It wasn't that way. I spent 10 days in 1954 interviewing Miss "HorWlnn5a"irPrancisco. K publishing house had asked me to write a book about the new glamour girl ablaze on the cinema horizon. Her marriage to Joe DiMaggio interrupted the inter- my trying to kill myself," Marilyn told me. "The full reason was that I didn't want to live. There was too much pain in living." There's the truth about Marilyn Monroe she was saved by Hollywood. Fame saved her. The spotlight beating on her 24 hours a day made the" world seem livable to her. And her last two marriages gave her years of important human relationships which she had never known in her days of prefame vagabonding. Marilyn embraced her fame as her greatest ' The. reprieve of fanie had begun before Korea. Marilyn continued to enjoy the "snowfall that never touched her," the huzzahs that sounded for, the world's No. 1 Sex Goddess. It was all more or less unreal. Marilyn told me before her second marriage: "I've never liked sex. I don't think I ever will. It seems just the opposite of love." Disliki ng sexdrdhrinTeffef eithMarlly n's emergence as a world sex symbol. In fact, her dislike of it helped. It added a note of childlike innocence to her siren face. The "truth about Marilyn was. that she was a sort of evangelist. She peddled a dream to a preoccupied atom age. Her fervor was that of the missionary with Jhappy tidings. Her happy tidings were her luscious figure, her inviting mouth. She looked for ho romance for herself. Her happiness lay in her missionary work for others. She lived in the midst of her fame as if she were more a poster than a woman. pole-to-po- le ; The unreality never hurt Marilyn. Unreality Legend already claims that Hollywood killed writer; the extraordinary stories she once . Family Weekly, September 30, 1962 |