Elia Kazan on Marilyn Monroe: Her Highest Currency

Interview with Elia Kazan

Conducted by James Grissom

NYC

1993

Her highest currency was sex. The years of abuse and the years of fame and power had taught her that her sexual attraction and her sexual favors were all that mattered. Every day with Marilyn was a classroom in which she sought to be educated, trained, improved, and this was valiant, and she was smart, but she only knew how to repay kindness or generosity with sex, and so everything was geared toward what came to be known as 'the act.' Her beauty and her vulnerability left her perpetually open to abuse. The patterns from the foster homes remained imprinted in her daily life.

© 2014 James Grissom