Marilyn Monroe smokes pot? As everyone’s pot-smoking grandmother used to say, “Some like pot, some like it not.” Marilyn Monroe may have been among the “some” who did like it, as seen in a home movie shot around the time she was working on (or was seen in) Billy Wilder’s 1959 classic comedy Some Like It Hot. Monroe, who die at age 36 in August 1962, would complete only two more movies: George Cukor’s Let’s Make Love (1960) and John Huston’s The Misfits (1961).
Home movie of Marilyn Monroe smoking pot?
According to reports, a home movie showing Marilyn Monroe supposedly smoking pot at a friend’s house in New Jersey in the late 1950s will shortly be up for sale on eBay.
The 8mm film, which has no sound, was shot by a friend – who has chosen to remain anonymous – and is supposed to have been gathering dust in an attic for years.
New York-based collector Keya Morgan has told the media that he bought the film for $275,000 and will now resell it to the highest bidder.
In the pot-smoking Marilyn Monroe movie, the actress, accompanied by a couple of friends, takes several puffs from a (marijuana?) cigarette, inhales a little, giggles a lot, and seems to blow a couple of kisses at the camera. All in glorious Homemoviecolor. See below.
Marilyn Monroe smoking pot (?) in home movie from the late 1950s. One of the great film icons of the 20th century, Marilyn Monroe starred in only about a dozen films, notably Niagara, How to Marry a Millionaire, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Bus Stop, Some Like It Hot, and The Misfits.
Some Like It Hot
Marilyn Monroe, who died from a barbiturates overdose in August 1962, was already a major Hollywood name at the time the pot-smoking home movie was shot.
By then, she had already starred in classics and near-classics such as How to Marry a Millionaire, The Seven Year Itch, and Bus Stop – not to mention notable supporting roles in All About Eve, The Asphalt Jungle, and Monkey Business. (See list of Marilyn Monroe’s 1950s star vehicles further below.)
At the time of her on-camera pot-smoking fun (assumed to be 1958/1959), Monroe was married to playwright Arthur Miller. The couple, together since 1956, would divorce in 1961.
Her movie (project?) then was Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959), co-starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. The classic comedy featuring gangsters, musicians, and cross-dressing, turned out to be one of her biggest hits.
Only two more Marilyn Monroe movies
Marilyn Monroe would complete only two more movies before her death: George Cukor’s Let’s Make Love (1960), opposite Yves Montand and Tony Randall, and John Huston’s troubled The Misfits (1961), with Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift.
In June 1962, Monroe was fired from Cukor’s Something’s Got to Give. A new contract was later negotiated, but she died before production could resume.
The old footage was scrapped, and the love quadrangle comedy – a remake of Garson Kanin’s My Favorite Wife (1940) – was reshot with Doris Day as the female lead. Under the direction of Michael Gordon, it came out in 1963 as Move Over Darling, also featuring James Garner, Polly Bergen, and Chuck Connors.
The 1940 original, inspired by Alfred Tennyson’s 1864 poem “Enoch Arden,” starred Cary Grant, Irene Dunne (in the Enoch Arden role), Randolph Scott, and Gail Patrick.
Marilyn Monroe movies
And these were Marilyn Monroe’s star vehicles of the 1950s:
- Roy Ward Baker’s Don’t Bother to Knock (1952).
Cast: Richard Widmark. Anne Bancroft. Donna Corcoran. Elisha Cook Jr. Lurene Tuttle. Jeanne Cagney. - Henry Hathaway’s Niagara (1953).
Cast: Joseph Cotten. Jean Peters. Max Showalter (billed as Casey Adams). - Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).
Cast: Jane Russell. Elliott Reid. Charles Coburn. Tommy Noonan. - Jean Negulesco’s How to Marry a Millionaire (1953).
Cast: Betty Grable. Lauren Bacall. William Powell. Rory Calhoun. David Wayne. Cameron Mitchell. Alex D’Arcy. - Walter Lang’s There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954).
Cast: Dan Dailey. Ethel Merman. Donald O’Connor. Mitzi Gaynor. Johnnie Ray. - Otto Preminger’s River of No Return (1954).
Cast: Robert Mitchum. Rory Calhoun. - Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch (1955).
Cast: Tom Ewell. Evelyn Keyes. Sonny Tufts. - Joshua Logan’s Bus Stop (1956).
Cast: Don Murray. Hope Lange. Arthur O’Connell. Betty Field. - Laurence Olivier’s The Prince and the Showgirl (1957).
Cast: Laurence Olivier. Jean Kent. Sybil Thorndike.
See also: “Packard Movies: Douglas Fairbanks Jr. & Monty Woolley + Christmas Cheer & Horror Mix.”
“Marilyn Monroe Smokes Pot on Film?” last updated in August 2018.