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Preserving the Memory of Marilyn Monroe with Dignity and Grace

Posts Tagged with Remembering

REMEMBERING SANDRA WARNER
Published October 26, 2023

REMEMBERING SANDRA WARNER

❤ Sandra Warner, “Some Like It Hot’ Cast Member passed away ❤

Tonight, my heart is broken 💔 I have just found out that Sandra Warner passed away. Not only that, but she passed away 13th March 2022 age 87.

Looking through the archives, it wasn’t posted here at the time and I’m just so sorry for her friends and family that this news didn’t reach the Marilyn community sooner, as I’m sure we would have all showered her memory with love.

Sandra Warner was one of the last remaining “Sweet Sue And Her Society Syncopators” from “Some Like It Hot.” She played Emily and most famously chirps “Toodle-ooh!” to Jack Lemmon’s character Daphne in the train sequence of the film… “How about that “Toodle-Oooh?!” Jerry/Daphne excitedly responds!

Not only that, but she was Marilyn’s body double for all the promotional shots made for the movie after filming wrapped.

Speaking in 2001, Warner said:

“Marilyn and I were very round. I was a little taller than her, but I fit into her wardrobe.. and because she was pregnant, I was asked to do her publicity stills. Most of the albums, or wherever you see marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, they would use my body and Marilyn’s face… and it worked out perfectly, it couldn’t have been better and I enjoyed doing it.

Sandra Warner stands in for actress Marilyn Monroe in a publicity shot for ‘Some Like It Hot’, directed by Billy Wilder, 1959. With her are co-stars Jack Lemmon (1925 – 2001) and Tony Curtis. (Photo via John Kobal Foundation/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

And of course, spending the whole day with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis doing stills like this one…. a laugh a minute!… it’s a wonder we got anything accomplished!

We kept listening to the playback while we did these photographs… to keep in the mood…”

Sandra Warner also said of the iconic 1959 Billy Wilder comedy:

“Some Like It Hot” was like the greatest souffle ever made. It had the perfect ingredients, it had the greatest script, a great director, a great cast… of course the greatest Chef was Billy Wilder, but it really was like the greatest souffle ever made in history…… I was very happy to be a part of it.”

Sandra Warner stands in for actress Marilyn Monroe in a publicity shot for ‘Some Like It Hot’, directed by Billy Wilder, 1959. With her are co-stars Jack Lemmon (1925 – 2001) and Tony Curtis. (Photo via John Kobal Foundation/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Sandra Warner stands in for actress Marilyn Monroe in a publicity shot for ‘Some Like It Hot’, directed by Billy Wilder, 1959. With her are co-stars Jack Lemmon (1925 – 2001) and Tony Curtis. (Photo via John Kobal Foundation/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
I am genuinely heartbroken tonight, as the “Some Like It Hot” star twinkles that little less brightly tonight.

Rest in Peace Sandra.

Words: Lorraine Nicol

FAREWELL GEORGE S. ZIMBEL
Published January 28, 2023

FAREWELL GEORGE S. ZIMBEL

Photo of George taken from www.georgezimbel.com

 

Today we are mourning the passing of American-Canadian esteemed documentary photographer: George S. Zimbel, who died on 9th January 2023 at age 93.

Zimbel had an incredible career and captured some amazing photographs of iconic figures around the world including our girl Marilyn Monroe.
George was in attendance the night of the famous “upskirt” scene from “The Seven Year Itch” which was being filmed on the streets of New York in September 1954.  It is claimed thousands of fans turned up to witness Monroe repeatedly walk over a subway grate whilst it blew cool air up her skirt, blowing it way over her head and creating one of the most iconic moments in cinema history.

George was lucky enough to be one of the photographers in attendance and was able to capture some of these iconic shots:

 

George said of this one specific shot:

“Finally when they started filming, DiMaggio walked right off the set, right in the middle of the film shoot, right in front of the camera, everything stopped… And that’s where I had my favourite photograph of serious Marilyn, she just stopped.. and the light is just coming down, light, light, light, light right on top of her head and it’s all black except for her. It was a heavy moment.”

For more information on George and his career, head to his website at:
http://www.georgezimbel.com

Published January 16, 2023

REMEMBERING GINA LOLLOBRIGIDA

Remembering Gina Lolobrigida  (4th July 1927 – 16th January 2023)

“Italy’s Marilyn Monroe,” as she had been billed, was in New York in 1954, when Marilyn was in town shooting on location for “The Seven Year Itch.” The two met at the Trans Lux Theatre on Lexington Avenue and 5rd Street hours before the filming of the infamous billowing skirt scene.
They also met at a party thrown in honour of “La Lollo” by press agent Rupert Allan.
Lollobrigida’s film career spanned many international productions. Among her best English-language works are “Bread, Love and Dream” and “Beat The Devil.” In the 1980’s, she was a regular on TV Soap “Falcon Crest.”
. At the time of her death, Lollobrigida was among the last living, high-profile international actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.

Source: “The Marilyn Encyclopedia” by Adam Victor

Published January 14, 2022

REMEMBERING BERNICE BAKER MIRACLE

“My sister was a very hard working person.  She was very beautiful.. sweet and wonderful to everybody.  She loved people, she loved animals and she was very serious about her work.”
~ Berniece Baker Miracle, speaking about her sister Marilyn.

Marilyn Remembered is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Bernice Baker Miracle, Marilyn’s sister, back in 2014.  Although it was believed that Miracle was alive and well, news spread through the Marilyn fan community on January 14th 2022 that she had indeed passed away on May 25th 2014, aged 94.  She now rests eternally beside her husband Paris in Pineville Cemetery Kentucky.
Our love and thoughts are with the family and we shall forever more ‘hold a good thought’ for Bernice.  Rest in peace.

 

Photo taken from ‘Find A Grave’ uploaded by “Jc-roadrunner.’

 

 

“The Marilyn Encyclopedia”:

Bernice Inez Gladys Baker was born to Jack and Gladys Baker on July 30th 1919 — seven years before the birth of Norma Jeane Mortenson.  Father Jack Baker took Berniece and her brother Jack to Kentucky with him in 1923 after divorcing Marilyn’s mother.

Accounts conflict about how much contact there was between the half sisters over the years.  During Norma Jeane’s upbringing, Berniece lived with her father in Kentucky.  Marilyn told earlier biographer Maurice Zolotow, “I have never seen my half sister.  We have nothing in common.  She is married to an airplane engineer.  I am not sure where he lives.  It’s in Florida, Clearwater or St Petersburg.”  Biographer Donald Spoto mentions Norma Jeane briefly visiting her half sister in Tennessee in the summer of 1944.  Fred Lawrence Guiles writes that the half sisters met up several times during the fifties and Marilyn had occassion to introduce Mrs Miracle to Joe DiMaggio.

In 1961 Bernice accompanied Marilyn to Arthur Miller’s country home in Roxbury, where Marilyn had lived to pick up the last of her things.  They were in touch with some regularity in the last years of Marilyn’s life and Marilyn visited her sister then living in Gainesville, during her 1961 trip to Florida.

Berniece was contacted following Marilyn’s death and with Joe DiMaggio she helped arrange her funeral.  Marilyn left $10,000 to her half sister in her final will.  In 1967 Bernice took over the care of their mother Gladys Baker, who went to live with her.

Bernice’s 1994 book “My Sister Marilyn” sheds light on Marilyn’s early life and last years.  It includes rare family photographs and a number of previously published letters and anecdotes of some of their times spent together such as this:

“One night Marilyn was exhausted and said “Do you want to roll up my hair for me?” She showed me how, but I didn’t get it quite right. The rolls I made were smaller than her own usual ones.

We loved to talk about hair and clothes and makeup. Marilyn got a kick out of making up my face for me and showed me how to play down darker shade to make cheeks look more hollow, or a lighter shade on a thin lip to make it look fuller. She was an artist with colours on her own face. She told me to be sure to make myself some little eyebrows — drawn on a little feather line down each temple where my eyebrows are sparce. She drew those on me, and then did my eyes and my rouge and my lips, and after she finished we went to the mirror and cracked up laughing at the stranger she had turned me into.”

To pick up your copy of “My Sister Marilyn” head here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Sister-Marilyn-Memoir-Monroe/dp/0595276717

 

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