Remembering Marilyn Monroe on her 100th birthday: ‘She was just Norma Jeane’

Honoring Marilyn’s big 100

Today would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday. Before The New York Post, I wrote such books as the as-told-to-me autobio of Lee Strasberg, who created the Actors Studio. His pupil and friend: Marilyn. So I knew her. So did her friend James Haspiel, who has written several books about her.

James Haspiel: “Here to film ‘The Seven Year Itch,’ she was at the St. Regis. Hundreds waited to see her. Outside, in front of me, signing autographs, posing for pictures, she got herself toward a taxi cab. At 9, back at the hotel. So was this young fan — me — who, throughout her success, became her go-to, close, devoted friend.

“She got to know me. One day, she opened the taxi door and said, ‘Jimmy, like to drive with me?’ That began our eight years. I discovered Marilyn Monroe didn’t exist. Like a costume on Halloween, it was turn it on, turn it off. Basically she was just Norma Jeane.”

‘Itch’ to leave

Cindy: Did she ever talk to you, which, I mean, in my view it’s not possible, but did she ever talk about wanting a different kind of life away from Hollywood?

“She was aware of how famous she was. She used that in fights with the studio. Determined to get what she wanted, she would not give in, and so she spent a year in New York.”

Cindy: What was her house like? I know she lived on 57th Street.

“Everything was white. It was one of those living rooms where you stepped down three steps, and everything, the rug, the furniture, everything was white. Small. Living room, tiny kitchenette, bedroom, and a bathroom, of course. In those years, if a repairman came into your house, they could take your number off the telephone ’cause it was right on the surface of the phone. So she put a number on hers so that if they took it and called it, it was the city morgue. And an Abraham Lincoln painting was over her bed.

“One night, flat shoes, a neighbor stopped, then somebody else stopped. Within minutes, there were four. Suddenly her upward smile became downward, eyes lidded, voice changed, and she transformed into Marilyn Monroe. She became that person for them.”

Political put-down

Cindy: What about the Bobby Kennedy story?

“I do not believe she had an affair with Robert Kennedy. She told Ralph Roberts, her masseur, that not only was Robert Kennedy not her type, she called him puny. She actually said, ‘I would never be involved with him.’ ”

Ready to take flight

Lee Strasberg said: “She lacked stability. Success took a toll. ‘I’m nervous,’ she’d whisper constantly. Marilyn went for psychiatric treatments five days a week. The anxiety tormented her. A long struggle for too long. The maligning, denigrating left an instability to cope. Her films grossed $200 million yet she stayed scared. Petrified.”

Haspiel: “There was a tiny park. She stood there as two boys with long poles, netting on the end, were catching flying pigeons. Then put them in a cage. They explained a butcher paid 25 cents for each and those pigeons became food. So, she said, ‘Will you sell me the pigeons? I’ll pay for them and free them.’ She paid for them. Flooded with tears, she sat, sobbed and set them free.”

LISTEN, nobody is Marilyn, OK? But all who achieve a small amount of success get tired periodically a little bit, and we’d like, once in a while, one day every six months, to not be bothered. She never had that.

Only in New York, kids, only in New York.