Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I was always one step behind Marilyn. She made all the right moves, hung out with the right people who could advance her career. I was just the opposite. I was always breaking dates with moguls and running off with guys younger than myself.
I wrote a novel called 'Blonde,' which is about Norma Jean Baker, who becomes Marilyn Monroe, which I called a fictitious biography. That uses the material as if it were myth - that Marilyn Monroe is like this mythical figure in our culture.
Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy. Marilyn Monroe, because she was a curvy woman. I'm drawn to things that have the same kind of silhouettes as what she wore because our bodies are similar.
I was standing right behind Marilyn, completely invisible, when she sang 'Happy birthday, Mr. President.' And indeed, the corny thing happened: Her dress split for my benefit, and there was Marilyn, and yes, indeed, she didn't wear any underwear.
Madonna is a creation, so perhaps we should give her and the factory that created her a little credit, but I think that she should quietly disappear now. Poor Madge seems unable to decide whether she wants to look like Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich.
I was always obsessed with being famous. I had Marilyn Monroe paper dolls as a child, and I was always obsessed with her. I've just been really driven in that direction, and none of my friends were. So, I don't know what put that bug in me at a young age.
When I think about old Hollywood and the glamour of those days, women like Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, and Audrey Hepburn were not dressing the way some girls dress today. There was a certain mystery about them, and I feel like that's gone in our industry.
I don't want to be Marilyn Monroe. In many ways, that's a good comparison. Because Marilyn Monroe was a sexpot, all that stuff that I have no interest in. For me, it's much easier to just try to make people laugh than to try to be the hottest thing in the world.
Vivien Leigh was a phenomenal actress, a very complicated woman, living on the edge of mental problems, haunted by demons and angels. And though I've never thought of myself like Marilyn Monroe, I was inspired by the tremendous risk she took - of being vulnerable.
I love Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain. I really do. It doesn't matter what style they had - whether it was pin-up or whatever - it just worked for them, and it looked effortless even though it was fabulous. I like anything that just looks effortless.
The difference between Marilyn Monroe and the early Pamela Anderson is not that great. What's amazing is that the taste of American men and international tastes in terms of beauty have essentially stayed the same. Styles change, but our view of beauty stays the same.
Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and I were so different from each other. I was doing very young movies, and Marilyn, who was ahead of me, was doing a lot of homogenized movies that weren't quite as wild as the ones I was doing. Jayne was more of a character of herself.
But what was interesting about what the Who did is that we took things which were happening in the pop genre and represent them to people so that they see them in a new way. I think the best example is Andy Warhol's work, the image of Marilyn Monroe or the Campbell's soup can.
I've always had a thing for old movies, old Hollywood. I've always just loved watching Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo. In all of those old movies from the '40s and '50s, women put themselves together so well, with a little bit of drama and elegance. That was fascinating to me growing up.
I collect art. I just recently bought two gorgeous photographs of Marilyn Monroe by international photographer Eve Arnold and I know it sounds horrible but when she dies all her pictures are going to be worth triple. But I won't tell you how much I got them for - let's just say it was a lot.
I loved all the other movies, and I loved all the other movie stars, but I was very aware of the fact that I didn't look like Marilyn Monroe - although I still wanted to be Marilyn Monroe. Then Josephine Baker popped up, and she wasn't the maid - she was the star of the show. To me, it was mind-blowing.
The word 'success' - who's defining it? It's about whether or not it makes me feel good. Four billion people don't have to see or hear it. If I've enjoyed the process of creation and I'm at peace, then what happens next is just entertainment. If mass appeal were actually something, Marilyn Monroe wouldn't be dead.
The religious imagery and fairytales that formed our shared cultural references have been replaced by the cult of celebrity. Marilyn is the sex goddess, Camilla Parker Bowles is cast as the wicked witch, Che Guevara is the revolutionary. Celebrities have become visual shorthand for narratives that shape our lives.
In the middle of my sophomore year, I was sent to boarding school, at the Cranbrook School for boys, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where I fell in love with Marilyn Monroe. I knew that she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and yet she was in pain, in need. She was unhappy. I believed that I could help her.
My mother loaned me $1000. The first issue came out at the end of 1953. I knew I needed something original. I had a photographer shoot a 3D feature for the first issue and learned it would cost too much money. When the 3D thing turned out to be too expensive, at that same moment I came across the photos of Marilyn Monroe.
I'm a compulsive reader of fiction. I fell in love with novels when I was a teenager. My wife Marilyn and I... our initial friendship began because we are both readers. I've gone to sleep almost every night of my life after having read in a novel for 30 or 40 minutes. I'm a great reader of fiction and much less so of non-fiction.
I was groomed as a so-called sex symbol, a rival to Marilyn Monroe, and from then on, whenever my picture appeared in paper, it was 'sex kitten,' 'sex symbol,' 'sex goddess,' 'sex pot.' I've accepted it, and I'm flattered, but in some ways, it's been a hindrance to me because I haven't been able to be taken seriously as an actress.
As for Aliki - if you were to stand in the middle of Rome and say the name Sophia Loren, or Paris and say the name Catherine Deneuve or Brigitte Bardot, or L.A. and the name Marilyn Monroe, it's like standing in Athens, or anywhere in wide-flung Greece, and saying Aliki Vougiouklaki. A huge star - and so little known elsewhere in the world.
