It’s the last day of 2018 and most of us are busy making new year resolutions- giving a hard look at ourselves and deciding what to do to improve our lives (or let’s be honest, just improve a few months). Back in the year 1955, Marilyn Monroe, who was already a rising star, wrote a detailed new year resolution to improve her life and craft. Monroe, who was a 29-year-old start at the time, had performed in the movies like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire.
Monroe was just considered as a Hollywood sex symbol at that time. But as Vanity Fair worded it, Marilyn Monroe’s resolutions from 1955 will put yours to shame. In the same year, she was accepted into Lee Strasberg’s prestigious acting studio.
Here is a transcription of the resolutions Monroe wrote herself that year:
Must make effort to do. Must have the discipline to do the following:
z – go to class – my own always – without fail
x – go as often as possible to observe Strassberg’s other private classes
g – never miss actor’s studio sessions
v – work whenever possible – on class assignments – and alwayskeep working on the acting exercises
u – start attending Clurman lectures – also Lee Strassberg’s directors lectures at theater wing – enquire about both
l – keep looking around me – only much more so – observing – but not only myself but others and everything – take things (it) for what they (it’s) are worth
y – must make strong effort to work on current problems and phobias that out of my past has arisen – making much much much more more more more more effort in my analisis. And be there always on time – no excuses for being ever late.
w – if possible – take at least one class at university – in literature –
o – follow RCA thing through.
p – try to find someone to take dancing from – body work (creative)
t – take care of my instrument – personally & bodily (exercise)
try to enjoy myself when I can – I’ll be miserable enough as it is.
Monroe’s resolutions are not just mere set of words but the truth that we often don’t accept. The final “I’ll be miserable enough as it is” seems sad but it is the truth that we have to accept as humans that we all are miserable and vulnerable at times and it is completely fine to be.
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