Pud Whacker's Madonna Scrapbook: marilyn monroe

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Happy 85th Birthday Marilyn Monroe!

Oh Marilyn, Happy Birthday! Our Madonna has referenced and paid homage to Marilyn many times in her career and rightfully so. When asked by Regis Philbin in 1991 during her promotion for Truth or Dare why the references to Monroe, Madonna said something along the lines that she identified with how everyone always focused on and obsessed over each others sexuality.

@ 2:46

For me, Madonna always gave Marilyn a much needed shot of adrenaline. Twisting that vulnerability and drug addiction into strength. I think public opinion is different today on Monroe than it was 25 years ago. We look at her more as a strong figure rather than weak.

I always loved this SNL sketch of Madonna as Marilyn Monroe from 1985 when she hosted the show. We have one of my favorites, the fantastic Joan Cusack as the maid and Randy Quaid as Jack Kennedy. A young Robert Downey, Jr. plays Elvis Presley. Madonna would work later with Quaid in Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989) and John Lovitz in A League of Their Own (1992). And Robert Downey, Jr., of course, went on to star in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes (2009).

Miss Monroe, Miss Monroe, I can't figure out your new vacuum cleaner....

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Bill O'Reilly: Whoopie and Joy walk off The View

Forget Whoopie and Joy walking off over the muslim shyt...They should have bytch slapped Bill O'Reilly when he tried to let Madonna have it while promoting his new book, Pinheads and Patriots. After Joy and Whoopie returned, Bill goes on about his book and touches on Madonna, her Detroit roots and the tired, over used public opinion on her British accent and labels her a Pinhead because of it. On and on and on the sheep go. Then he blubbers on about Marilyn Monroe being a Patriot.

Love Barbara Walters sliding in her dry, "that's your description of a patriot? Haha! Nothing against our gorgeous Marilyn, of course.

Let us not forget Bill O'Nothing's constant admiration for Madonna while anchoring Inside Edition in the early 90's. Oh, uh huh, right.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Madonna, Clara Bow, Elinor Glyn, Gloria Swanson, Marilyn Monroe, and 'It'.

Being obsessed with the 1920's, 50's and the 80's with the spillover into each new decade...usually the first 2 to 3 years, as a teenager, I thoroughly investigated the first two decades of the aforementioned. Around 1986, I discovered Clara Bow and 'It' - I've been enamored ever since. As I was writing this post, I was listening to my 1920's Radio Network. Coincidentally, Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians Memory Lane (1924) played.

Novelist and scriptwriter Elinor Glyn, who was born and died while the sun was in Libra, wrote a novel called "It" in 1927. She coined the term It and gave many confusing and sometimes contradictory explanations for what "It" meant, but she always said that "It" did not mean "sex appeal" and anyone who said it did was vulgarizing her concept. Nonetheless, it was as a euphemism for "sex appeal" that "It" entered the language in the 1920s. From this we get the concept of Clara Bow's film It.

Screen Cap from the film It:

In David Stenn's Clara Bow biography Running Wild (1988), he spoke of Madonna's continuing interest in playing silent film star Clara Bow on the big screen. Unfortunately, this never happened.