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Carmel Magazine Digital Edition SU16

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140 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R / F A L L 2 0 1 6 $100 per week. Incidentally, Groucho Marx told the story of how the movie's producers asked three actresses vying for a part in that film to walk past the comic icon. The one Groucho decided was the best walker would be awarded the role. The third girl was Marilyn. He said about her : "How could you possibly choose anyone but that last one?" Already established as a big box-office draw, actress Barbara Stanwyck is the star of "Clash by Night," and Marilyn plays the role of Peggy, the girlfriend of Stanwyck's character's brother. We first see Peggy as she awakes for her shift in a cannery—she is luminously beautiful, in the way Hollywood depicts women in the morn- ing—fully made up, every hair in place. The next scene has her sor ting fish, then meeting her boyfriend after work, strolling down what was then Ocean View Boulevard, munching a candy bar. She's dressed in work clothes, jeans and a man's shir t, but somehow she manages to exude simmering sex appeal—even in that drab costume. Marilyn was never what one would call a vir tuoso actress, but here, she is still very green. In commenting on Stanwyck's patience and professionalism, the movie's direc- tor Fritz Lang said: "When Marilyn missed her lines—which she did constantly—Barbara never said a word." In 2010, Vanity Fair published excerpts from the book "Fragments," a compilation of Marilyn's own writings. The book contains reams of let- Top: Monroe filming "Clash by Night" on Cannery Row. Bottom: Perhaps some of her happiest moments came during her five- year marriage to playwright Arthur Miller. Photo: Sam Shaw Inc./Getty Images

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