Marilyn Monroe published an article in 1953 called “Wolves I Have Known”, detailing the creepy harassment she received from photographers, producers and screen writers who tried to take advantage of new and aspiring actresses.
“A director famous for his roving eye picked on me one night at a party and he couldn’t believe I was in earnest when I gave him the brush. He followed me upstairs when I went to get my wrap and trapped me when he pulled the door shut on my foot. I managed to get loose and ran into another room. Shut out, he pounded on the door and pleaded that he just wanted to talk with me. I found a magazine and sat quietly reading while he roared. After a while he left.”
“I had an experience with the fatherly type too. This man was an actor’s agent and he wanted to protect me from wolves by giving me $50 a week to live on until I could get established. I was pretty broke at the time and a steady income like that was tempting. However, I didn’t want to be under too much obligation so I told him I would borrow the money. He said okay. I insisted on signing promissory notes for the first two instalments and he took it as a great big joke. He put the notes in a frame and hung them on the wall in his office. I told him I didn’t appreciate him letting everyone know I was in debt to him. “I want all the guys around town to know you belong to me.” he said with a suggestive smile. This didn’t seem to me to be a true fatherly interest, so I didn’t borrow any more from him. As soon as I could, I paid him back. I had quite an argument getting the notes and had to threaten to see a lawyer.”
“While we were sitting around on the sand this fellow I was with kept poking his finger into the flesh on my leg and telling me how he liked girls on whom you could feel the bone. This was a strange approach and it made me uneasy. I finally told him if he liked my bones so much, I’d have an X-ray picture made for him, but he didn’t think that was funny and moved away from me. He told me just before I left that he didn’t like girls with brains, and I told him that was the finest compliment I ever had.”
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.