Marilyn Monroe’s Siddur aims for £5,000 at auction
AS NORMA Jeane Baker she may never have heard of a Siddur, but as Marilyn Monroe she spent the last years of her life as a Jew.
Now her prayer book, complete with notations believed to be in her own handwriting, is going under the hammer next month for an estimated £5,000 when it is put up for auction at J. Greenstein & Co in Cedarhurst, New York, on November 12.
The Siddur, being sold on behalf of an Israel-based American who bought it directly from the star’s estate in 1999, bears the imprint of the Avenue N Jewish Center in Brooklyn.
This was the shul of playwright Arthur Miller, Monroe’s third husband, and Jonathan Greenstein, New York’s prime auctioneer of Judaica, says a current member of the congregation has ambitions to return it to the synagogue: “He will be bidding on it himself, as he says it is known that Marilyn and Arthur Miller attended services there.”
It was not where the star studied for her conversion. Her mentor was Connecticut-based Rabbi Robert Goldburg, who married the couple in 1956 and later presided over Seders they attended.
He recalled in a letter written after her death: “Marilyn was not an intellectual person, but she was sincere in her desire to learn.
“She indicated that she was impressed with the rationalism of Judaism, its ethical and prophetic ideals and its concept of close family life.”
History suggests she was driven to convert not only by her love for Miller but rejection of the Christian fundamentalism practised by her foster parents.
Monroe continued to embrace her Jewishness after her divorce from Miller, displaying the musical menorah his mother gave her as a conversion present on her mantlepiece.
She had surprised Miller, who was not religious, with her fervent desire to join a tribe whose family values had attracted her since she started studying with Lee Strasberg at New York’s Actor’s Studio.
Strasberg and his wife Paula opened their Jewish home to her and considered her their third child. The drama coach gave her away at her marriage to Miller, and Monroe confided to his daughter Susan: “I can identify with the Jews. Everybody’s always out to get them, no matter what they do, like me.”
But despite keeping her Siddur close, playing the Hatikvah from time to time and maintaining a mezuzah on her doorpost, Monroe did not get a Jewish burial.
Instead, her previous ex-husband Joe Di Maggio arranged for a Lutheran minister to preside over the funeral. But perhaps Strasberg, who delivered the eulogy, did get to whisper Yizkor for the blonde bombshell who dreamed of becoming a balabusta.