“I shall never forget the almost overpowering feeling of unconquerable strength and sweetness which she conveyed…” Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen

Monroe

I think Marilyn is bound to make an almost overwhelming impression on the people who meet her for the first time. It is not that she is pretty, although she is of course almost incredibly pretty, but she radiates, at the same time, unbounded vitality and a kind of unbelievable innocence. I have met the same in a lion-cub, which my native servants in Africa brought me. I would not keep her, since I felt that it would in some way be wrong…I shall never forget the almost overpowering feeling of unconquerable strength and sweetness which she conveyed. I had all the wild nature of Africa amicably gazing at me with mighty playfulness.

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5 Comments

  1. July 8, 2014

    A lion cub! Quite possibly.

    • July 9, 2014

      I’ve never encountered a lion cub…but beyond the cuteness, I have to wonder about their claws!

  2. George Kaplan
    July 8, 2014

    The quotation from Karen Blixen is beautiful as is that photograph of Ms Monroe. It is almost impossible not to feel a powerful protective sympathy for her. (Coincidentally I read recently of Joe DiMaggio’s apparently retrograde attitude toward her in their marriage – criticizing her dress and wanting her to conform to “convention” – and of Martin Landau’s doubts over her “suicide”/”accidental overdose”.

    • July 9, 2014

      It doesn’t sound like any of her marriages were satisfactory, which is sad—she seemed like such a phenomenal person—although everyone was aware of her alcohol/pill problems. Which is not to say she wasn’t on the road to recovery when she died…

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