Blonde 

A fictional biography of Marilyn Monroe mixed with series of real events in her life.

Stars:

Titus Welliver, Eric Bogosian, Niklaus Lange

1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Series cast summary:
Titus Welliver	...	The Baseball Player 2 episodes, 2001
Eric Bogosian	...	Otto Ose 2 episodes, 2001
Niklaus Lange	...	Bucky Glazer 2 episodes, 2001
Richard Roxburgh	...	Mr. R 2 episodes, 2001
Jensen Ackles	...	Eddie G 2 episodes, 2001
Skye McCole Bartusiak	...	Young Norma Jean 2 episodes, 2001
Ann-Margret	...	Della Monroe 2 episodes, 2001
Kirstie Alley	...	Elsie 2 episodes, 2001
Tony Harvey	...	Mr. Pearce 2 episodes, 2001
Trisha Noble	...	Dr. Mittelstadt 2 episodes, 2001
John Lee	...	Director J. 2 episodes, 2001
Matthew O'Sullivan	...	Lee Strasberg 2 episodes, 2001
Andrew Clarke	...	Laurence Olivier 2 episodes, 2001
Warwick Rimmer	...	Agent 2 episodes, 2001
Steven Vidler	...	Warren 2 episodes, 2001
Emily Browning	...	Fleece 2 episodes, 2001
Don Halbert	...	Max Lurie 2 episodes, 2001
Robin Cuming	...	Director B. 2 episodes, 2001
Gary Lantzsch	...	Mr. Haring 2 episodes, 2001
Michael Carman	...	Director H. 2 episodes, 2001
Colin MacPherson	...	Whitey 2 episodes, 2001
Mark Lee	...	Porn Dealer 2 episodes, 2001
Jennifer Congram	...	Yvet 2 episodes, 2001
Lisa Heenan	...	Mrs. Mount 2 episodes, 2001
Richard Neal	...	Mr. Mount 2 episodes, 2001
Mark Mitchell	...	Texas Oilman 2 episodes, 2001
Alan Lock	...	Doctor Bob 2 episodes, 2001
Craig McDonald	...	Casting Director 2 episodes, 2001
Bruce Hughes	...	Clark Gable 2 episodes, 2001
Ben Anderson	...	Drama Teacher 2 episodes, 2001
Marita Wilcox	...	Bess Glazer 2 episodes, 2001
Glenn Morshower	...	Officer 2 episodes, 2001
Angela Stapleton	...	Delivery Nurse 2 episodes, 2001
Erik Donnison	...	Gynecologist 2 episodes, 2001
Greg Parker	...	Doctor Bender 2 episodes, 2001
Soula Alexander	...	Dee Dee 2 episodes, 2001
Hamish Hughes	...	Louis Calhern 2 episodes, 2001
Donna Ponterotto	...	Neighbor Woman 2 episodes, 2001
Megan Will	...	Pier Little Girl 2 episodes, 2001
James Bridekirk	...	British Reporter 2 episodes, 2001
Brett Tucker	...	Actor at White Party 2 episodes, 2001
Phillip Lowe	...	Buddy 1 2 episodes, 2001
Richard Morgan	...	Buddy 2 2 episodes, 2001
Renee Henderson	...	Jane Russell 2 episodes, 2001
Vonnie Pilgrim	...	Old Woman 2 episodes, 2001
Kim Knuckey	...	Rastaurant Owner 2 episodes, 2001
Jim Daly	...	Plane Supervisor 2 episodes, 2001
Constance Lansberg	...	Sanitarium Nurse 2 episodes, 2001
Keir Saltmarsh	...	Radio Reporter 2 episodes, 2001
Alistair Reid	...	Actor 2 episodes, 2001
Bernard Curry	...	Assistant to Director J. 2 episodes, 2001
Lew Luton	...	Doctor #2 2 episodes, 2001
Simone Oliver	...	Fair Princess 2 episodes, 2001
Stuart Halusz	...	Dark Prince 2 episodes, 2001
Bev Killick	...	Ladies Room Attendant 2 episodes, 2001
Chris Fortuna	...	Guy in the Liberty 2 episodes, 2001
Mark Guerin	...	Director HH 2 episodes, 2001
Cathy Godbold	...	Assistant #2 2 episodes, 2001
Roxanne Baker	...	Little Girl 2 episodes, 2001
Craig Blumeris	...	Man 2 episodes, 2001
Jonathan Newton	...	Boy who tries to kiss NJ 2 episodes, 2001
Zenith Ander	...	Press 2 episodes, 2001
Patrick Dempsey	...	Cass 2 episodes, 2001
Liza Dennis	...	Marylin's wardrobe assistant 2 episodes, 2001
Griffin Dunne	...	The Playwright 2 episodes, 2001
Kim Gelvin	...	Paula Strasburg 2 episodes, 2001
Poppy Montgomery	...	Marilyn Monroe / ... 2 episodes, 2001
Patricia Richardson	...	Gladys Baker 2 episodes, 2001
Wallace Shawn	...	I.E. Shinn 2 episodes, 2001

Storyline

A fictional biography of Marilyn Monroe mixed with series of real events in her life: childhood years, first marriage to James Dougherty, meeting with the photographer Otto Ose, career with XX Century Fox, relationship with her mother, foster parents, life wasters Charles Chaplin Jr. (Cass) and Edward G. Robinson Jr. (Eddie G), baseball player Joe DiMaggio, playwright Arthur Miller and many other people.

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Plot Keywords:

baseball player | playwright | marriage | photographer | watching a movie | 

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Taglines:

Imagine if Marilyn Monroe could tell you her secrets... tonight she will.

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Genres:

Biography | Drama

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Details

Country:

Australia Canada USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

13 May 2001 (USA)

Also Known As:

Blonde

Filming Locations:

Collingwood, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fireworks Entertainment, Robert Greenwald Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

165 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

The dress worn by Poppy Montgomery in the 'Gentleman Prefer Blondes' scene is the same replica dress worn by Madonna in her Marilyn inspired 'Material Girl' video.

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Quotes

Norma Jean Baker: I'm the President's personal wind-up sex toy.

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Connections

References Niagara (1953)

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Soundtracks

Happy Birthday
(uncredited)
Written by Mildred J. Hill and Patty S. Hill

User Reviews

Liked It Very Much

I understand the frustration and confusion of people watching this version of Marilyn's life,especially those who didn't read the book or understand that this was a piece of fiction. Joyce Carol Oates took a lot of liberties IMAGINING what Marilyn went through and felt at various points in her life and came up with this amazing empathic story. She tried to fill in the flesh and blood around the bones of the fascinating, complicated and controversial story of the life of Marilyn Monroe. As people have said, she is commenting on how women are used, how in particular sexy women are used or abused in our society, and how a beautiful, resourceful, and creative but damaged woman tried to battle the men, the system,and her demons to survive.

I had never seen Ms. Montgomery or Ms. Richardson's work but watched this a long time ago with two friends who are psychologists. We were all very impressed with both performances. My friends said that Ms. Richardson's performance was a perfect depiction of a bipolar and borderline personality. I started watching her later on re-runs of Home Improvement and can only think that the people who don't like her performance were shocked by the difference in the characters. We found her work chilling in this , she was very scary and sad as well, as my friends say these people are. I think this actress is superb. They thought Marilyn appeared to be more full of personality defects and the possible victim of childhood sexual abuse, not psychotic like her mother. They said that everything these days has to do with attachment disorder, it's not so Freudian. Since she was abandoned by her father, and also by her mother when her mother was so sick, she would have had these attachment and abandonment issues as well as the sexual abuse issues, as she was reputedly raped or attacked at one of her foster homes. I believe that was in the book but I'm not sure that is fact.

One of the interesting things they told me was that it tends to be the brilliant people who survive and prevail when they have had this kind of terrible childhood and it is clear in Ms. Oates book that Marilyn was very bright and creative. She knew what her weaknesses were, and what her strengths were and she knew how to survive. Having suffered through out of control people, ( her mother ), she wouldn't have been able to put up with the temper that Joe Dimaggio supposedly had or his controlling nature . She wouldn't put herself in the position her mother had been in,get married and be a traditional wife with a baby and risk being left behind. This would explain her leaving the first two marriages. Then she sought a father figure in Arthur Miller who was yet another controlling figure. It's hard to have a good sexual relationship with a father figure. Also, did she know he was writing about her?

I thought Poppy Montgomery was surprisingly good and gave a very intelligent and moving performance. She gave the essence of the character which is what you want to see. There was real hunger and hurt in her eyes that was startling. There were TV movie like aspects to this film because various characters would pop up and then disappear again and few characters were realized as fully as the title star, but I liked the first three women, Ann Margeret and Ms. Richardson and Ms. Montgomery quite a bit. And I and my friends enjoyed and found the movie to be very interesting and visually beautiful . We also liked the soundtrack, the music very much.