Will 1961 Marilyn Monroe nude footage be released?
The footage would have been historic. It would have marked the first nude scene ever by an American actress, but instead it ended up the stuff of Hollywood legend, partly because it involved Marilyn Monroe and partly because it was long thought destroyed.
But Monroe biographer Charles Casillo says the short, unused take from Monroe’s film “The Misfits” is intact, and has been locked away in a cabinet for decades, according to the Daily Mail.
“The Misfits” producer Frank Taylor, knowing the significance of the 45-second clip, saved it, according to Casillo’s interview of the producer’s son, Curtice Taylor. “A lot of times, unused takes were destroyed. But Frank Taylor believed that it was so important and so groundbreaking that he saved it,” Curtice Taylor told Casillo, whose biography, “Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon,” was released Tuesday.
The nude scene was strictly Monroe’s idea, according to Casillo. Screenwriter Arthur Miller, who was Monroe’s husband at the time, didn’t write it into his script. The film’s co-star Clark Gable and crew members were surprised by it.
And director John Huston repeatedly reminded Monroe to mind the bedsheet that was the only thing between her and the camera. Instead, Monroe let the sheet drop. “Huston sighed and said, ‘Honey, I’ve seen them before,’ ” according to Casillo. Huston chose not to use the footage, feeling it was gratuitous.
But Curtice Taylor theorizes that it made absolute sense to method actress Monroe. In the clip, Gable’s character had just exited the room, leaving Monroe’s character in bed by herself. “Why would a woman sitting up in bed, with nobody in the room, pull the sheet up and then try to put a blouse on at the same time? It makes no sense,” Curtice Taylor said. “So she just drops the sheet. I think it’s one of the reasons she did this.”
Gable was in favor of keeping the nude scene, but in the end Huston got his way.
Curtice Taylor did not say what he planned to do with Monroe’s nude clip. “The Misfits” marked the end of the movie careers for both Gable and Monroe.