The Hollywood Misfit: A Centenary Tribute to Marilyn Monroe
What better way to pay tribute to Marilyn Monroe, who would have turned 100 years today (June 1, 2026), than to revisit The Misfits, released in 1961, a year before she passed away at the age of only thirty-six?
The choice of The Misfits is significant because it was written by American playwright Arthur Miller, who married Marilyn after leaving his first wife, Mary Grace Slattery, in 1956. The story was first written by Miller in 1957 and was subsequently directed by John Huston of Chinatown fame.
The film brought together two of America’s great creative collaborators, along with some of Hollywood’s biggest names — Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, and the blonde star Marilyn Monroe.
Monroe acted in several films for which audiences still remember her. Yet this lesser-known film, though not a runaway hit, received critical acclaim. It is a hauntingly beautiful film scripted by Miller with Monroe in mind.
She is the film, though during its making and release, the marriage between Miller and Monroe had already begun to crack. To understand the enigma that Marilyn was, the character of the just-divorced Roslyn, played by the actress, throws light on the vulnerable woman she truly was — extremely soft-hearted, pure of heart, and guileless in a world of tough men.
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It is often said that being a beautiful woman can become a curse, and Marilyn’s life reflected that tragedy. Most men she met wanted to possess her, but did they truly understand her heart? As she herself says during the film, “You may win in life, but your heart loses.”
Marilyn tried hard to make a success of her life with Miller by stepping away from Hollywood for a while, but she was a child-like, free-spirited woman unwilling to be tied down. Apart from the wonderful writing, The Misfits brings forth the complex relationship between men and women in a society that had already become quite liberated.
The film explores her relationship with three men during a road trip through Reno, Nevada, and other parts of the Wild West, including the rounding up of mustangs. Gable plays Gay, the ageing cowboy — hardy but brutal in his treatment of animals — which deeply troubles Roslyn. The other two men are Guido, the truck and plane driver, and Perce, the rodeo rider.
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All three men carry troubled pasts and eventually find themselves trapped in a world where horses are gradually disappearing, acting as a metaphor for a changing society — one in which cowboys themselves were becoming misfits.
Clark Gable died three months before the film was released, at the age of sixty. As for Marilyn Monroe, she died the following year.
With fame and money came increasing turbulence in Monroe’s private life. The alleged connection between John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe remains one of history’s most talked-about affairs. An overdose of barbiturates finally brought an untimely end to one of America’s greatest film legends.
A misfit of another kind, Marilyn was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles. Her life reads like a tragic novel — a childhood spent in foster homes and orphanages before she married James Dougherty, a police officer, at the age of sixteen. Her mother suffered from mental illness.
Her rise to fame began after she was discovered by a studio photographer and started receiving modelling offers. By 1953, she had become a bankable star because of her sex appeal — the platinum blonde hair and the unforgettable smile. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Seven Year Itch established her not merely as a star, but as an actress. She also attended method acting classes under Lee Strasberg.
In The Misfits, Gay tells Roslyn that she always looked happy. But as she quietly replies, “I like to make others happy.” Behind the smile, dark shadows always lingered within her.
As the camera lingered on her in The Misfits, it was Miller’s way of telling us that here was a woman with two selves — one, a kind and gentle soul named Norma Jeane with a deep love for life; the other, Marilyn Monroe, an artificial creation designed to survive the world. She did not know where she was headed. The press would not allow her to be herself, treating her, as she once complained, like “some kind of a dancing bear,” incapable of having interests beyond sex, glamour, or saying foolish things to newspapers.
The famous billowing-skirt scene from The Seven Year Itch was apparently a shooting disaster. Directed by Billy Wilder and filmed with massive blowers simulating a subway updraft on Lexington Avenue, Marilyn was made to pose seductively while crowds gathered in Manhattan cheered every time her skirt flew upward.
A tribute to Monroe was later paid in The Woman in Red starring Gene Wilder, where another actress’s skirt is blown upward. Yet nothing compares to the original image of Marilyn Monroe dressed in white.
The episode reportedly ended her marriage to Joe DiMaggio.
With fame and money came increasing turbulence in Monroe’s private life. The alleged connection between John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe remains one of history’s most talked-about affairs. An overdose of barbiturates finally brought an untimely end to one of America’s greatest film legends.
A tribute to Monroe was later paid in The Woman in Red starring Gene Wilder, where another actress’s skirt is blown upward. Yet nothing compares to the original image of Marilyn Monroe dressed in white.
In The Misfits, Gay tells Roslyn that she always looked happy. But as she quietly replies, “I like to make others happy.” Behind the smile, dark shadows always lingered within her.
Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons, Facebook, Picryl
For a living, Manjira Majumdar has traversed the world of reporting, feature writing and editing. Today an independent journalist, she likes writing essays, fiction and translating from Bengali to English.
