Many faces of Marilyn
QUESTION How many actresses have played Marilyn Monroe on film?
MORE than 20 actresses have played Marilyn Monroe on film, in a mix of cinema features and television movies.
Fourteen years after Monroe’s death, she was portrayed by former beauty queen Misty rowe (Miss Mini Skirt 1971) in Goodbye Norma Jean (1976), which concentrated on the star’s rise to fame.
The Californian actress reprised the role in Goodnight Sweet Marilyn (1989), about the events leading up to Monroe’s death. Neither film was a box‑office success.
Catherine Hicks, best known for the cult horror film Child’s Play (1988), starred in the U.S. television movie Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980) and was rewarded with an emmy nomination.
Also in 1980, the second part of the TV trilogy Moviola (1980), entitled This Year’s Blonde, told the story of Monroe and her agent/lover Johnny Hyde, with the couple being played by Constance Forslund and Lloyd Bridges.
In the 1990s the portrayals multiplied; Susan Griffiths was Monroe in TV’s Marilyn And Me (1991).
Stephanie Anderson, who arguably bears the closest resemblance to Monroe, played her three times: a brief nonspeaking appearance in Death Becomes Her (1992), a small speaking part in teen comedy Calendar Girl (1993) and with more screen time in the drama Marilyn My Love (1994).
Melody Anderson, best known as Dale Arden in Flash Gordon (1980), was the star in U.S. television’s Marilyn and Bobby: Her Final Affair (1993), with James F. Kelly as Senator robert Kennedy.
In the TV movie Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996), Ashley Judd, daughter of the late country singer Naomi Judd, played the actress before she became a star.
Another unremarkable TV movie, Blonde (2001), starred Poppy Montgomery, with Ann‑Margret as Marilyn’s grandmother Della Monroe, from whom
she took her surname. London‑born Monroe impersonator Suzie Kennedy played the star as an apparition in Me and Marilyn (2009).
Michelle Williams received an oscar nomination and several best actress awards, including a Golden Globe, for My Week With Marilyn (2011). This told the story of Marilyn’s 1956 visit to england to make The Prince And The Showgirl (1957) with Sir Laurence olivier.
The latest portrayal of Marilyn Monroe, by the Cuban actress Ana de Armas in the Netflix drama Blonde (2022), is the most controversial to date, concentrating on Monroe’s alleged sexual exploitation by the men in her life.
Although some of the above named actresses came close, none of them could quite capture the essence of Marilyn Monroe, who had a screen presence like no other female film star, which has kept her memory alive for 60 years.
John Rutherford, Sevenoaks, Kent.
QUESTION Was Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita named after a horse?
NABOKOV is thought to have taken ‘Lolita’ from a horse in Mayne reid’s romance novel The War Trail or The Hunt of The Wild Horse (London, 1857).
In Nabokov’s notorious novel, Lolita is the pet name given by the narrator, a middle‑aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert, to his victim: a 12‑year‑old young girl called Dolores. Lolita is a common nickname for Dolores, although her mother calls her Lola or Lo in the book.
Nabokov was influenced by Irish‑ American novelist Thomas Mayne reid (1818‑1883, the author of tremendously popular adventure fiction), as noted by him in his autobiography Speak, Memory: ‘The Wild West fiction of Captain Mayne reid, translated and simplified, was tremendously popular with russian children at the beginning of this century, long after his American fame had faded.
‘Knowing english, I could savour his Headless Horseman in the unabridged original. Two friends swap clothes, hats, mounts, and the wrong man gets murdered — this is the main whorl of the intricate plot.’
The reference in The War Trail is to a dying mustang (horse): ‘“Pohre Lolita” she continued, “I have good cause to grieve; I had reason to love you well. More than once you saved me from the fierce Lipan and the brutal Comanche.” ’
Hugh Raymonde, Birmingham.
QUESTION Do we perceive time passing slower during an accident?
THERE is anecdotal evidence that we do. This change in time perception is called tachypsychia, meaning ‘ rapid mind’, from tachos (swiftness) and psyche (spirit/soul/mind).
The main cause is a rapid dump of stress‑related catecholamine hormones, especially adrenaline, into the blood system. This is a stimulant, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, and so increasing alertness as well as strength and pain thresholds.
It has often been reported that time slows down for the witness, such as those involved in an accident, violent attack or fight. In rare cases, events speed up and appear blurred.
other symptoms can include the loss of fine motor skills, tunnel vision, colour sensitivity, memory loss and auditory exclusion.
Tachypsychia is not a medically recognised word and is based on a great deal of circumstantial evidence. It is difficult to test under experimental conditions. But that has not stopped the term being used in the military, law enforcement and emergency services.
Tachypsychia is widely accepted in the martial arts world, where it is usually pronounced in separate words as ‘tacky psyche’.
Fighters are warned to prepare their minds against fast adrenaline dumps, as these can lead to rapid exhaustion and quick defeat.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.
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