Love, Marilyn - Here’s hoping.

There is a new documentary, Love, Marilyn, about Marilyn Monroe. I know, you say to yourself, why does the world need another documentary about a woman who has been dead for fifty years. It does if the documentary does what this one reportedly does, and I for one want to see it. I have been excited about it since I first heard about it. I am hoping it will make it to the Starz Denver International Film Festival (the line up for the festival has yet to be announced)which opens on November 1, 2012.

The documentary screened this past weekend at the Telluride Film Festival and will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival which begins on Thursday.

Liz Garbus whose The Farm, Angola was nominated for an Academy Award and whose Bobby Fischer Against the World screened at last year’s Sundance Festival used two boxes of previously unknown personal writings by Monroe to craft the documentary. The boxes had only recently been found in the home of Marilyn’s acting teacher, Lee Strasberg.

Marilyn was really part of the Strasberg family – Marilyn famously craved a real family, one she never had as a child. In fact it was often Lee’s wife, Anna who was on the set with Marilyn acting, sometimes problematically, as mother protector.

Lee and Anna’s daughter Susan was also close to Marilyn. Twelve years younger, Susan looked on Marilyn as a sister and wrote about the bittersweet relationship in her book, Marilyn & Me: Sisters, Rivals, Friends. Strasberg, herself died in 1999. I was lucky enough to interview Strasberg on the radio when the book came out in 1993. It is one of my favorite interviews.

Marilyn Monroe remains one of the most iconic women of the 20th century. Fascination with her just never goes away.

I couldn’t go to Telluride and can’t go to Toronto, so I am sending a strong message to the Denver Film Society – bring us Love, Marilyn!