This poster is for the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. An image of Marilyn Monroe with a birthday cake was selected to help mark the festival’s 65th birthday.

Cannes released a statement about the choice: ”Fifty years after her death, Marilyn is still a major figure in world cinema, an eternal icon, whose grace, mystery and power of seduction remain resolutely contemporary.

“The Festival poster captures Marilyn by surprise in an intimate moment where myth meets reality — a moving tribute to the anniversary of her passing, which coincides with the Festival anniversary.

“She enchants us with this promising gesture: a seductively blown kiss. The Festival is a temple of glamour and Marilyn is its perfect incarnation. Their coming together symbolizes the ideal of simplicity and elegance.”

But don’t believe all quotes attributed to Monroe herself.

“Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”

This is a widely circulated quote, supposedly by Monroe, but the webpage Janie’s take on Marilyn Monroe – part of the Immortal Marilyn site - says “There are five quotes assigned to Marilyn that are exceedingly popular… However,  not one of them has a discernible source. There are no records, (whether in interviews, writings, or press conferences) of Marilyn ever saying any of these, and when explored most of them seem highly unlikely.”

The very popular quote above, the writer continues, “once it’s parsed it does not sound like Marilyn at all. ‘Imperfection is beauty’? Marilyn was well known as being an absolute perfectionist, asking for take after take on the movie set until she felt she got her scene just right. She refused to give moviegoers anything less than what she felt was her absolute best.

“She would apply her makeup only to wash it all off and do it over again, taking hours to prepare so that she presented herself to the public as nothing short of absolutely perfect. After a photo shoot she would pore over contact sheets, destroying any images that she didn’t approve of.

“In a 1960 interview, she did say: ‘My one desire is to do my best, the best that I can from the moment the camera starts until it stops. That moment I want to be perfect, as perfect as I can make it.’ Hardly seems that someone so hard wired to perfectionism would say ‘Imperfection is beauty.’.

“As to the second part, “Madness is genius”, this seems even more unlikely. Marilyn’s mother suffered from severe mental illness that traumatized the actress when she was a child. As an adult, Marilyn’s biggest fear was inherited madness like her mother’s. Considering her first hand account with what madness truly was, and her deep rooted fear of it, how likely is it that she would declare it ‘genius’? Not very.”

Perfectionism

Monroe commented about her occasional infamous delays in coming to a set to start shooting: “I believe you shouldn’t do anything in life until you’re ready.”

Director George Cukor said “Marilyn’s delays are neither irresponsible not careless. She doesn’t want to do a scene until she is ready for it and can give it her best.”

[Daytona Beach Morning Journal - Jul 17, 1960.]

This reminds me of another of my favorite actors: Nicole Kidman. In working with her on their film “Portrait of a Lady,” director Jane Campion was quoted: “She can be quite murderously challenging in her perfectionism.

“Take Twenty: ‘Are you sure that’s good enough?’ [she says]. We’re going, wearily ‘Yeah.’”

From my article Perfectionism.

Also see posts on my High Ability site on Perfectionism.

[Photo: "Marilyn Workin' It" - available from Art.com and Amazon.com]

Another source book of quotes is “My Story” by Marilyn Monroe with Ben Hecht [see link at bottom, in the list of books].

The author of the webpage Janie’s take on Marilyn Monroe [mentioned above] notes, “While there has been heated discourse on just how much Marilyn contributed to it and how much was ghostwriter Ben Hecht, Marilyn did sit for interviews for the book, and did approve the final writing before abandoning the project over printing issues.

“Also giving it some credibility is that the anecdotes presented in My Story are echoed in Marilyn’s own voice in her 1960 interview with Georges Belmont.  These are some quotes found in My Story that we can safely attribute to Marilyn:

“Hollywood’s a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.”

“I knew I belonged to the Public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anyone or anything else.”

Another quote:

“When you’re famous, you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way.”

Ayn Rand wrote a commentary in the Los Angeles Times, two weeks after Marilyn Monroe’s death on August 5, 1962.

Referring to the “sordid and horrifying childhood of Monroe, Rand wrote: “To survive it and to preserve the kind of spirit she projected on the screen – the radiantly benevolent sense of life, which cannot be faked – was an almost inconceivable psychological achievement that required a heroism of the highest order.”

From my Inner Actor site post Actor’s Privacy and The Dark Side of Fame.

A final quote from “My Story”:

“I knew how third rate I was. I could actually feel my lack of talent, as if it were cheap clothes I was wearing inside. But, my God, how I wanted to learn! To change, to improve! I didn’t want anything else. Not men, not money, not love, but the ability to act.”

Her statement of “a lack of talent” is more about her insecurity, rather than an objective evaluation of her abilities.

In Part 1 of this article, I quoted acting teacher Lee Strasberg :

“In her eyes and mine, her career was just beginning. The dream of her talent, which she had nurtured as a child, was not a mirage.”

Here are a couple of my posts on this topic, which impacts so many high ability people:
‘I’m a Fraud’: Gifted and talented with insecurity
Artistic confidence – Insecurity and acting

~~

Books

Marilyn & Me: A Photographer’s Memories, by Lawrence Schiller.

Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters – by Marilyn Monroe, edited by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment.

The photo above is used for the cover of that book.

“The library of Marilyn Monroe contained over 400 books on a variety of subjects, reflecting both her intelligence and her wide-ranging interests.  No surprise to those familiar with Monroe, they were the books of a well-read and inquiring mind.  Works of Literature, Art, Drama, Biography, Poetry, Politics, History, Theology, Philosophy, and Psychology covered the walls in her library.” From website: “Man’s Supreme Inheritance” – A Book from Marilyn Monroe’s Personal Library.

Marilyn Monroe, by Eve Arnold. – “Following a 1952 photo shoot for Esquire magazine, Monroe and Arnold forged a wonderful friendship. Marilyn Monroe chronicles the six photography sessions that took place over the course of their 10-year bond, including a two-month-long session while Monroe was shooting The Misfits.” [Amazon.com summary]

Blonde: A Novel – “Joyce Carol Oates boldly reimagines the inner, poetic, and spiritual life of Norma Jeane Baker — the child, the woman, the fated celebrity and idolized blonde the world came to know as Marilyn Monroe.”

My Story – by Marilyn Monroe, with Ben Hecht.

Video – Marilyn Monroe – The Final Days, Narrated By James Coburn

~~

“I never wanted to be Marilyn – it just happened. Marilyn’s like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.”

“I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, ‘There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me dreaming of being a movie star.’ But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.”

In many biographies, interviews and her own writings, Marilyn Monroe expressed a wide range of feelings and insights on being an actor that can still be meaningful for performers and other artists.

[Photo: Portrait of Actress Marilyn Monroe on Patio of Her Home, by Alfred Eisenstaedt.]

That first quote, about ‘Marilyn’ being a ‘veil’ she wore over her earlier identity, comes from a Vanity Fair article: The Lost Marilyn Monroe Nudes: Outtakes from Her Last On-Set Shoot Revealed in June’s V.F. (May 1 2012), which includes excerpts from Lawrence Schiller’s memoir Marilyn & Me: A Photographer’s Memories.

Acclaimed for her portrayal of Monroe in “My Week With Marilyn,” based on extensive research, Michelle Williams commented: “The biggest discovery I made was that Marilyn Monroe was a character she played.”

[From my post Michelle Williams on Interpreting Marilyn Monroe.]

Also see quotes by other actors in my related post Actors on building identity.

During a photography session, Marilyn Monroe told writer Schiller, “I always have a full-length mirror next to the camera when I’m doing publicity stills. That way, I know how I look.”

Schiller asked, “So, do you pose for the photographer or for the mirror?” “The mirror,” she replied without hesitating. “I can always find Marilyn in the mirror.”

But, the article continues, “Marilyn’s attitude about her sex-symbol status fluctuated wildly. While she was at times boastful of her looks and what they procured for her, she was also by turns insecure and angry.

“It’s still about nudity. Is that all I’m good for?” she demanded of Schiller. “I’d like to show that I can get publicity without using my ass or getting fired from a picture,” she continued.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

[Photo from webpage: Norma Jean Dougherty before Marilyn Monroe [has quotes with multiple photos - some nudes].

An earlier article, Marilyn and Her Monsters, by Sam Kashner (Vanity Fair, Nov 2010) includes many quotes from the book Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters – by Marilyn Monroe, edited by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment.

Kashner writes about her shyness or insecurity as an acting student.

“She was always late for class, usually arriving just before they closed the doors. The teacher was strict about not entering in the middle of an exercise or, God forbid, in the middle of a scene. Slipping in without makeup, her luminous hair hidden under a scarf, she tried to make herself inconspicuous.

“She usually took a seat in the back of one of the dingy rooms in the Malin Studios, on 46th Street, smack in the middle of the theater district. When she raised her hand to speak, it was in a tiny wisp of a voice. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, but it was hard for the other students not to know that the most famous movie star in the world was in their acting class.

“A few blocks away, above Loew’s State Theater, at 45th and Broadway, there was the other Marilyn—the one everyone knew—52 feet tall, in that infamous billboard advertising Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch, a hot blast from the subway grating causing her white dress to billow up around her thighs, her face an explosion of joy.”

Monroe “began working with Lee Strasberg and embarked upon the psychoanalysis that was de rigueur for taking classes at the Actors Studio.”

Mental health and challenging relationships

Her mother, Gladys Monroe Baker, “was a schizophrenic who spent years in and out of psychiatric hospitals… Marilyn was virtually abandoned, raised by various foster families and by Grace Goddard, a close friend of her mother’s.”

When she was just 16, the article notes, she married James Dougherty.

“My relationship with him was basically insecure from the first night I spent alone with him,” she wrote in a long, undated, somewhat rambling memoir of that marriage, probably written by hand after undergoing analysis…”

She wrote, “I was greatly attracted to him as one of the [“only” is crossed out] few young men I had no sexual repulsion for besides which it gave me a false sense of security to feel that he was endowed with more overwelming qualities which I did not possess—on paper it all begins to sound terribly logical but the secret midnight meetings the fugetive glance stolen in others company the sharing of the ocean, moon & stars and air aloneness made it a romantic adventure which a young, rather shy girl who didn’t always give that impression because of her desire to belong & develope can thrive on—I had always felt a need to live up to that expectation of my elders.”

In one of her notebooks, the article notes, Monroe wrote about being punished by her great-aunt Ida Martin, a strict, evangelical Christian paid by Grace Goddard to look after Norma Jeane for several months from 1937 to 1938.

Marilyn wrote,

Ida—I have still
been obeying her—
it’s not only harmful
for me to do so
but unrealality because
life starts from Now

And later:

working (doing my tasks that I
have set for myself)
On the stage—I will
not be punished for it
or be whipped
or be threatened
or not be loved
or sent to hell to burn with bad people
feeling that I am also bad.
or be afraid of my [genitals] being
or ashamed
exposed known and seen—?so what
or ashamed of my
sensitive feelings—

~ ~

Do you relate to some of Marilyn Monroe’s struggles with identity and esteem?

I certainly do. One of the challenges many of us share is in developing healthy self concept and esteem.

I am not a clinical psychologist or analyst, and am not attempting here to “explain” her complex inner life.

The majority of actors and other artists may not have had a schizophrenic parent and the level of abusive, traumatic childhood Monroe had, but many of the talented actors and other artists I have researched (over the past 15 years and more) talk about at least some of the same kinds of feelings, personality traits and mental health challenges.

Even highly talented and accomplished people have insecurities around self esteem issues, and sometimes difficult experiences dealing with parents, caregivers and other authority figures – like movie directors.

Here are a couple of my related posts:
‘I’m a Fraud’: Gifted and talented with insecurity
Artistic confidence – Insecurity and acting

Most of us have felt insecure to some degree, and have developed beliefs about our worth based on our early lives.

Many psychologists and others provide at least some helpful explanations for how these self perceptions and feelings develop, and what to do about changing them.

George Pratt, PhD and Peter Lambrou, PhD developed an approach called Emotional Self-Management for overcoming limiting feelings and beliefs. In their book “Code to Joy” they provide insights on their contributions to the new field of energy psychology, and provide strategies.

The book notes: “There’s hardly a child alive who hasn’t been told that he or she has been ‘bad’ by someone he or she trusts and respects. For a young child, still struggling to carve a sense of identity out of the welter of everyday experiences, simply being told ‘No!’ or ‘Don’t do that!’ can be received as the message, ‘You are wrong!’ ‘You are bad!’ That’s normal; it happens to all of us. For some, though, the accusation sticks.”

[Photo: Emily Browning, Jim Carrey, Liam Aiken in "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" (2004) - from article Why Does The World Suffer From An Epidemic Of Low Self-Esteem? by Morty Lefkoe.]

In another article of his, How To Change “Human Nature, Lefkoe describes some of the common sources of negative self-esteem beliefs of the kind Marilyn Monroe expressed, that grow out of relationships with parents or caregivers.

Maybe you can relate to some of these ideas on how we can develop self esteem issues:

If I trust my parents and they must know what they are doing, and if they are angry with me, it must be my fault. I’m not good enough.

If I can’t get them to spend the time with me that I want or if they are physically around but not paying attention to me, it must be my fault. I’m not important.

If I can’t get them to give me what I want most of the time, it must be my fault. I’m not worthy or deserving.

Morty Lefkoe is president and founder of the Lefkoe Institute, which teaches and publishes methods to “help people free themselves from their self-imposed limitations” and self-limiting beliefs.

You can try the Lefkoe Method free at ReCreateYourLife.

~ ~

At her death at age 36, acting teacher Lee Strasberg noted in his eloquent eulogy:

“In her eyes and mine, her career was just beginning. The dream of her talent, which she had nurtured as a child, was not a mirage.”

A Wikipedia page states: “In 1999, Monroe was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. In the years and decades following her death, Monroe has often been cited as both a pop and a cultural icon as well as the quintessential American sex symbol.”

The Wikipedia article also says: “The circumstances of her death, from an overdose of barbiturates, have been the subject of conjecture. Though officially classified as a “probable suicide”, the possibility of an accidental overdose, as well as of homicide, have not been ruled out.”

~ ~

Article continued: Marilyn Monroe: Her complex Inner Life – Part 2

~~~

Claudia Puig writes in USA TODAY about Williams’ “bravura performance.”

Roger Ebert thinks “What happens during the famous week [in the movie] hardly matters. What matters is the performance by Michelle Williams.”

A number of those reviewers refer to her exceptional performance as “channeling Marilyn Monroe.”

But I think that idea discounts Williams’ intense emotional and intellectual work in realizing such a complex and powerful performance; Williams is not a passive “channel” – she is a very actively engaged artist.

Continued (with trailer video):

Michelle Williams on Interpreting Marilyn Monroe

~ ~

She also develops her awareness through reading, such as the book The Four Agreements.

Hudgens sometimes visits Venice Beach: “I love going to the drum circle down there. Every now and then someone will let me join in and bang on their drums, and I just love people who are completely free. Even if they’re drug addicts, who sometimes freak me out.

“I’m figuring out how to be a better person while observing other people.”

She is striving to be more aware and “present-oriented” – and strong – and has been studying the book The Four Agreements, by don Miguel Ruiz.

“It has honestly changed me, almost. You really have to stay strong, because times get tough. Especially in this business. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. There’s so many amazing actresses who got taken advantage of.”

Continued: Vanessa Hudgens on striving to be strong and aware.

Both Helena Bonham Carter and Colin Firth of “The King’s Speech” have talked about suffering from it (see the article Celebrities with anxiety and panic attacks for their quotes).

Barbra Streisand also used to experience performance anxiety.

After forgetting the lyrics to a song in 1967, she was unable to perform in public for about three decades, according to an article, which also quotes her more recently:

“During my last tour, when I kicked off my shoes and said whatever I wanted, I actually enjoyed myself. Performing is not about perfection. I could never perform live if it were. For me, it’s about raising the money to do good in the world. It’s about self-acceptance. It’s about believing that I am enough.”

Those quotes are ones I added to an article on the topic by Jon Hershfield of the OCD Center of Los Angeles) – who explains that Social Anxiety and Social Phobia are “terms used to describe a cluster of symptoms that center around the fear of being negatively evaluated by others.

“This is often confused with being shy or introverted, or even schizoid.  An introvert may genuinely prefer the quiet solitude of turning inwards to the self rather than outwards to other people, while someone with schizoid personality disorder may simply not find the presence of other people to be pleasing.

“In other words, those who are truly introverted or schizoid genuinely prefer to be alone.”

But, in contrast, he says, “A person suffering from Social Anxiety is burdened by unwanted intrusive thoughts about being judged, rejected, and/or and humiliated by others.”

Continued in his article Social Anxiety: Alone With Witnesses.

The OCD Center uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as a treatment for Social Anxiety. This is a powerful approach for many other mood disorders such as depression.

In my grad program in counseling psychology, I worked as a counselor in a psych hospital program for depression treatment using CBT, and took a course from The Center for Cognitive Therapy, with Christine Padesky, author of Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think.

Morty Lefkoe has a series of programs using a related approach (The Lefkoe Method) for overcoming self-limiting beliefs, as a way to enhance health and personal development. His programs include these:

Undo Public Speaking Fear
Natural Confidence Program [see testimonial by Jack Canfield]

Also see more articles on Social Anxiety

“But I was a highly sensitive child, and the last thing my parents wanted was for their child to go in and get hurt…

“Most actors are highly sensitive people, but you have this incredible scrutiny. You have to develop a thick skin, but you can’t have a thick skin in your work. So it’s that constant push-pull…”

Continued in Inner Actor post Nicole Kidman on fame and actors as highly sensitive people

By Janet Esposito, MSW

It seems like quite a stretch to think that our fear of public speaking and performing can actually be a blessing in our lives.

That sounds like a big dose of positive thinking—an attempt to be the eternal optimist trying to find the silver lining in a difficult and often painful experience of personal suffering.

I am the last person to deny how challenging and agonizing this fear can be for those who suffer from it, having been there myself and having heard the stories of hundreds of fellow sufferers over the years.

At the same time, there is a hidden side to this fear, which you can only discover when you stop running from it and finally face the “monster in the closet.”

Continued in article Getting Over Stage Fright: Introduction.

“You can turn me into a woman, give me some heels, I can do that. I can find the voice, etc.

“But just sit me on the sofa? If I’m acting at all in those scenes, it unravels the movie that she wants to make. So it was trying to find this unconscious quality.”

[About working in Sofia Coppola's movie "Somewhere."]

Continued in The Inner Actor post Stephen Dorff on working with less “cheats” and more raw

See the post Kristen Stewart and shyness and sensitivity for one example.

In her article Jesse Eisenberg on playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The Social Network’ (Los Angeles Times, Sept 27, 2010), Amy Kaufman described the actor as showing up for the interview irritated from accidentally seeing the last 30 seconds of the movie, that he had been avoiding it because he doesn’t like to watch his own performances.

“I’ve been so furious this whole morning about what I did in that scene,” Eisenberg said. “It’s just uncomfortable to watch me. Not in the same way that it’s uncomfortable to listen to your voice on an answering machine. I just felt that I didn’t get the scene right.”

Kaufman adds, “Given that the 26-year-old’s portrayal of an aloof, socially awkward Zuckerberg during the founding years of Facebook has already sparked some award buzz, Eisenberg’s self-critique may sound like typical false Hollywood modesty. Yet Eisenberg genuinely seems more panicked than excited by any acclaim.

“It feels like — and again, this is just the way my mind works, which is why I go to therapy twice a week — I immediately think that there could be nothing worse than getting that kind of attention,” he said.

“Because, how can you maintain that kind of level of interest and attention? And I really have worked hard and done well in other things that have gotten no attention. So it makes you feel like those kind of things are inconsistent.”

“It wasn’t important to us that Jesse do an impersonation of Mark Zuckerberg,” [screenwriter Aaron] Sorkin said in an e-mail. “Jesse came to work knowing the scene he had to do that day, and how he prepared — whether it was listening to Mark’s voice, fencing or standing on his head — was entirely up to him.”

But Eisenberg was exacting. During one scene in which his character is being deposed and has a notepad, he jotted down which takes he considered best.

For the 18 days of rehearsals and 72 days of shooting, [director David] Fincher said, Eisenberg was hyper-aware of his performance.

“He kept asking me, ‘Am I doing OK? Am I doing OK?’ And I was like, ‘Dude, ask anybody, if you’re not doing OK, I will let you know,’” Fincher said, laughing.

“I think he wouldn’t be as good as he is if he wasn’t hard on himself. But I hope he’ll get to enjoy it…. He got the very thing that we discussed time and time again about the film, which is: I want you to figure out a way to remain an enigma, and that’s a really hard thing.”

For more on the psychology and personality of acting and actors, see The Inner Actor.

Or you don’t even attempt something like introducing a speaker at a business event, or auditioning for a community theater role – both of which could not only be downright fun, but enhance your confidence.

Even talented and accomplished performers sometimes feel disrupting or disabling anxiety.

Laurence Olivier – “The man often considered the greatest actor of the 20th century didn’t face the dreaded affliction until late middle age, but then it hit him hard. In one run at London’s National Theatre, Olivier had to have the stage manager push him onstage every night.” [From Even stars get stage fright, Patrick Enright, msnbc.]

Emma Roberts, besides acting, also expresses herself creatively through painting, collage, writing and singing (she released an album in 2005), but a news article reported she’s uncomfortable performing in public.

“And doing a music video is so embarrassing,” Roberts said. “I don’t think I’ll be doing [another] album unless I write it for someone else. I have stage fright. I can’t ever do theater because I would pee my pants,” she says, laughing.

“It’s way too nerve-racking. There’s a comfort in being able to mess up when you’re on a movie set.”

In a 2005 interview, at age 14, she talked about part of what caused her anxiety: “Singing, I’m still getting used to, and it’s kind of embarrassing just because everyone’s watching, either going, I love you or I hate you.”

Another dynamic may be perfectionism

Cherry Jones earned a Tony nomination for her acting in a play, but said she was “nearly paralyzed by a profound case of stage fright” from trying to live up to the “greatest performance” she had ever seen in the role, that of Colleen Dewhurst.

That sort of perfectionism can drive anxiety and insecurity. Trying to be “perfect” can be energizing and inspiring up to a point, but too much concern can lead to a drop in performance.

[From my post Actors and Anxiety – Get Help For Your Stage Fright.]

Managing stage fright or fear of public speaking

Also in that post is a mention of energy psychiatrist Judith Orloff, M.D., who works with many actors and says she sometimes prescribes a beta blocker such as Inderal, a medication to reduce the fight or flight sensations of anxiety such as muscle tension and increased heart rate.

But in her book “Emotional Freedom” she details what she says is a better way than drugs – a three minute mini-meditation that includes learning how to breathe, center and let thoughts flow by.

A program is available from CTRN – a company serving clients “with Public Speaking, Flying and many other fears & phobias” – see the article How to Conquer America’s Greatest Fear: The Fear of Public Speaking.

Morty Lefkoe has developed a method to deal with performance anxiety – see a video with Paul Scheele of Learning Strategies describing how the program helped him on the page: Undo Public Speaking Fear – The Lefkoe Method

- or go directly to the Undo Public Speaking Fear site.

dealing with stage fright, performance anxiety, help for audition anxiety, relieving fear of public speaking