***SPOILERS*** Paddy Chayefsky's thinly disguised biography of Hollywood sex symbol Marilyn Monroe and what fame did to her and those close to her. Kim Stanly plays the part of Emily Ann Faulkner a local girl, from rural Maryland, who made it big in tinsel town and in the end paid for it. Working her way up in mostly non speaking parts in mostly B-movies Emily got her big brake after she married former light heavyweight champion of the world Dutch Seynour, Llyod Bridges, who in fact saw more of Emily Ann then anyone in the movie. This was after a failed marriage with son of major movie star John Towers, Steven Hill, whom she had a daughter with and who deserted them both to go overseas to fight fascism in Nazi occupied Europe wishing that he'll never come back alive. It's much later that a sober and reformed Towers does come back to Emily Ann together with the couples 14 year old daughter, Gial Haworth, but by then Emily Ann is so out of it she's in no condition to see her.
The film mirrors Marilyn Monroe's career in Hollywood where she became the biggest star in films but paid dearly in the lifestyle she lead off the screen that in the end, that's 4 years after the movie was released, ended up losing her life at the young age of 36. It's the death of Emily Ann's bible thumping mom Laureen, Betty Lou Holland, that really pushed her over the edge. We see Emily Ann slowly self destructs and become addicted to pills and booze to the point where the only thing left in life to her is the movies that she stars in that make money for the studios. We get to see Emily Ann go from a beautiful and talented actress to a bed ridden pill popping wino in less then ten years, 1947-1957, not at all caring what will happen to her in the future.
***SPOILERS*** It's a true story in many ways of how fame can destroy the person who has it and Kim Stanley does an amazing job of acting to make that point on the screen. We've seen so many similar cases in and out of Hollywood of people who seem to have the world in their hands and at their feet and then end up dead or institutionalized because of the pressure it, fame, demands of them which they can't handle.
The film mirrors Marilyn Monroe's career in Hollywood where she became the biggest star in films but paid dearly in the lifestyle she lead off the screen that in the end, that's 4 years after the movie was released, ended up losing her life at the young age of 36. It's the death of Emily Ann's bible thumping mom Laureen, Betty Lou Holland, that really pushed her over the edge. We see Emily Ann slowly self destructs and become addicted to pills and booze to the point where the only thing left in life to her is the movies that she stars in that make money for the studios. We get to see Emily Ann go from a beautiful and talented actress to a bed ridden pill popping wino in less then ten years, 1947-1957, not at all caring what will happen to her in the future.
***SPOILERS*** It's a true story in many ways of how fame can destroy the person who has it and Kim Stanley does an amazing job of acting to make that point on the screen. We've seen so many similar cases in and out of Hollywood of people who seem to have the world in their hands and at their feet and then end up dead or institutionalized because of the pressure it, fame, demands of them which they can't handle.