PARIS, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- The beautiful Marilyn Monroe, then very young and still not famous, was very direct about that nude calendar photograph that was to propel her to success -- and eventually death.
I interviewed Marilyn about a gossip column item that said "some Fox (20th Century Fox) starlet posed in the nude for a calendar."
Marilyn giggled and then in her breathy, little girl's voice that became so well known, said "I did it because I needed the money."
But she hastened to make that I knew that the photographer's wife was present for propriety's sake.
When she saw the nude photo on barbershop calendars Marilyn said it amused her.
Good For Career
On another occasion, harking back to the undraped picture, Marilyn was still candid.
"It was good for my career," she admitted.
But even before the calendar fame Marilyn showed the fear that was inside her. It was my first interview with the beautiful blonde and what I learned then and later caused me to have no surprise when I learned she was dead.
The pretty young Marilyn just aroused attention when she played one of her first big parts, the cuddly girlfriend in "The Asphalt Jungle."
I interviewed her on an empty sound stage at the RKO Studio Hollywood. The only light was near her chair and I was leaning on a ladder in the darkness.
"Sometimes." said Marilyn, "I fell all wobbly inside, like jelly. I have to reach down inside myself -- and try to pull myself up."
At this moment she held her clenched fist against her bosom.
Always Insecure
That moment on the dark stage epitomized the way Marilyn really was. And later on, when she became one of the most famous stars in Hollywood history and the sex symbol of America there was still a frightened, insecure and lonely girl under the gloss.
Director Jean Cocteau charged Marilyn was a victim of the "prying" press.
Actually, like most actresses, she sought publicity. She would make up her own quips to tell journalists such as, "When I posed for that calendar all I had on was the radio."
