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IN A LENGTHY, SINGLE-SPACED, TWO-AND-A-HALF-PAGE TYPEWRITTEN CRITIQUE of the Actor's Studio production of Strawhead, Norman Mailer's fifth wife, Carol, tasks him with the above observation about this third appropriation of Marilyn Monroe as a focus for his creative endeavors. It is a salient question, something mentioned not only by someone who knew him intimately, but also by critics of the relevant works, Marilyn, Of Women and Their Elegance, and Strawhead. Mailer's biographers have also noted how beguiled he was with the topic. Robert Merrill calls it "a continuing obsession". Barry Leeds introduces his book-length study, The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer, with a chapter on Mailer and Marilyn, observing in his first sentence that for decades Mailer had been "fascinated with the life and death of Marilyn Monroe", introducing the similarities between them, and concluding that they were both prisoners of sex. The issue calls for further exploration of both its enduring allure for Mailer and the unsavory aspects of his handling of his Marilyn mania.

It is hard to know exactly when this "obsession" began. Mailer claimed on a number of occasions that he had never met Marilyn Monroe. Not so, according to Shelley Winters, quoted in the "Hollywood Politics" chapter of Peter Manso's biography. She contradicts Mailer's claim that he never met Monroe. According to Winters, they met at a rally for Henry Wallace in

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Hollywood in 1948. Both may be right according to their memories. It is possible that in 1948, the woman who would become Marilyn Monroe was still Norma Jeane and displayed little of that incandescent ability to exude sexuality as she projected herself to camera and fans. The as-yet-unknown Norma Jeane may not have made enough of an impression on Mailer for him to remember it. Years later, once he began writing about her, the official story from him and a number of his biographers is that the only place they ever met was in his imagination. Regardless of whether or not they met briefly in the forties or never met, once Mailer had fastened onto Monroe as a topic for his literary delectation, he had a hard time letting go. In addition, his fervor sometimes led to "piling on" and on occasion "late hits" or "low blows," to use football and boxing metaphors for Mailer's literary excesses.

Oddly enough for what became such an enduring interest, the initial impetus to write about Monroe was not Mailer's. It came as part of a book project for a compilation of photographs of Monroe by famous photographers, principle among them Larry Schiller who had taken nude photographs of the actress in the last days of her life. Others included Milton Greene, Bert Stern, Eve Arnold, and Richard Avedon. Mailer was a big name writer, whom they contacted to quickly deliver a ten-thousand-word preface for this photography book. However, as is often the case with addictions and/or obsessions, once started, they are difficult to abandon. The Preface was like an aphrodisiac appetizer for Mailer and once begun, the subject so enflamed his phallic pen, that eventually it produced more than ninety thousand words and, in the opinion of the New York Times reviewer, the "100 photographs...[were] reduced to serving the relatively minor function of illustrating his text". And while Marilyn was to serve as Mailer's muse on three separate occasions, it was this initial foray into the world of America's legendary sex goddess that first demonstrated Marilyn's variety of uses for Mailer. In this case, the publication of Marilyn was professionally valuable in the development of Mailer's career. Middle-aged, with his career in a "holding pattern," according to Mary Dearborn, "Marilyn put Norman's name before the public, where it had not been" for some years.

Another possible source for Mailer's obsession with Monroe could be Mailer's competitive nature. A number of writers have suggested that has legendary ego might have been wounded by his lack of access to the era's

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consummate sex goddess, as he considered himself the epitome of the macho man. The main men in her life were such that Mailer would want to measure himself against them. Husband number one was not a consideration. Mailer interviewed James Dougherty, but the man and his remembrances are summarily dismissed as possibly unreliable since they are those of a narcotics cop. For Mailer, in terms of possible competition, Dougherty qualifies at best as a neophyte, ignorant of the finer points of the contest. Husbands two and three are another matter. They were both significant figures in their different professions. Mailer, for whom boxing was an actual hobby and metaphorical trope, may have consciously or subconsciously regretted that he never even got the chance to get in the ring with either of these champions. It was about this time in Mailer's life that Jose Torres began giving him boxing lessons in exchange for editorial assistance with the book Torres was writing about Muhammed Ali. In a contest with Monroe's second husband, Mailer is out of his class, division, or league, whichever metaphor works. Joe DiMaggio was a legendary sports hero, an icon of the masculine arena. DiMaggio had reached such mythic status that he was referenced in popular music and Hemingway's admired novella, The Old Man and The Sea. Bouts are not scheduled between boxers who fall in different weight classes and, in the sports league, Mailer would not even try to get in the ring with DiMaggio. Instead, Mailer presents him in an almost complimentary manner, writing, that during the years that Monroe was married to DiMaggio, she looked like she was fed on sexual candy. In his need to find sufficiently lusty language, Mailer invents the term "funky" to describe how Monroe looked during the DiMaggio period. He also pays DiMaggio the high compliment of comparing him to Hemingway in terms of eminence in his art, pointing out the "consistent courage" it took to face thousands of fast balls, any which could kill or cripple him. If there is a hero in this "novel," it would have to be "Jolting Joe." Mailer credits him with always being there for Marilyn "when she needs him, and is probably her closest friend in the months before she dies." A photograph of DiMaggio at Monroe's funeral is one of the last images in the book and Mailer's last line reads, "Let us then take our estimate of her worth by the grief on Joe DiMaggio's face the day of that dread funeral in Westwood west of Hollywood.".

The competition begins in earnest when Mailer turns to Monroe's last husband, Arthur Miller. Miller is definitely in Mailer's class, division, and Template:MIMI REISEL GLADSTEIN * league: both are literary heavy-weights. Miller was a dominant figure in the intellectual and arts arena. Both Death of a Salesman and The Crucible were prominent theatrical vehicles, winning a number of drama awards and becoming mainstays of university and community theatres all over the country. Mailer takes a number of jabs at Miller, labeling him a "failure" as Monroe's champion in her battles with Olivier in England and a "traitor" because he had written a note about how she embarrassed him, a note that devastated her when she read it. As if taking on the role of Marilyn's champion, Mailer pelts Miller with numerous pejoratives. Among them are "tight," "tied up" and "abstemious". In addition, Mailer tries to land a knockout blow by characterizing Miller in the the sexual arena as "an inhibited householder from Brooklyn." In this metaphorically sexual bout, in addition to his below-the-belt punches, Mailer hits Miller with a glancing blow to the head with the assessment that he had "limited lyrical gifts, no capacity for intellectual shock." Mailer is sure he could have beat Miller but he never did get in the ring with him because, as he complains, when they lived in close proximity he "waited for the call to visit, which of course never came." He admits that a reason for the cut may have been the very fact of his competitive nature and the fact that stealing Marilyn had been his secret ambition. Convinced of his prowess in this arena, he suggests that Miller may have feared creating the opportunity. Of course that meeting with Marilyn never occurred, and as Mailer could not compete with either of these men in a real life mano a mano, he resorted to his most effective weapon. He created his own access--with his pen.

Works Cited

• Dearborn, Marilyn V. (1999). Mailer: A Biography (Print). New York: Houghton Mifflin.
• Leeds, Barry H. (2002). The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer (Print). Bainbridge Island, WA: Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press.
• Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (16 July 1973). "Aquarius ON Gemini - I". New York Times (Print). 27.
• Mailer, Norman (1973). Marilyn (Print). New York: Galahad Books.
• Manso, Peter (1985). Mailer (Print). New York: Simon & Schuster.
• Merrill, Robert (1992). Norman Mailer Revisited (Print). New York: Twayne Publishers.