A long-lost Marilyn Monroe nude scene has been discovered
A nude scene of Marilyn Monroe in John Huston’s The Misfits that was believed to be lost has been discovered, reports the Daily Mail and Deadline.
In 1961 Monroe dropped a bed sheet and exposed her body while filming a love scene with Clark Gable, which would have become one of the first nude scenes by an American actress in a major motion picture.
But the scene, deemed “unnecessary” by the director, was cut from the film and believed to be destroyed — until now.
More than half-a-century later, author Charles Casillo discovered the footage still exists while working on his book, Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life Of A Public Icon.
Casillo interviewed Curtice Taylor, the son of Misfits producer Frank Taylor, who revealed that the archived footage has been locked away in a safe since his father passed away in 1999.
The film footage was saved because Taylor “believed that it was so important and so ground-breaking that he saved it”, Casillo told the Daily Mail.
The nude scene was not originally written into the script, Casillo said, but Monroe improvised when her character was redressing. “If you read ( The Misfits) script, it doesn’t say anything about nudity. When she did the scene, everyone was shocked on the set,” he said.
The Misfits was written by Monroe’s then-husband Arthur Miller, telling the story of three cowboys competing for a beautiful divorcee’s attention.
It was the last completed film for Monroe, who died from an overdose at 36 the following year, and her co-star Gable, who died from a heart attack a month after finishing the shoot at age 59.
Taylor’s son hasn’t decided what to do with Monroe’s nude scene yet, according to Casillo.