Remembering Marilyn Monroe on her 100th birthday: She was just Norma Jeane

Today would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday.Before The New York Post, I wrote such books as the as-told-to-me autobio of Lee Strasberg, who created the Actors Studio.

His pupil and friend: Marilyn.So I knew her.

So did her friend James Haspiel, who has written several books about her.James Haspiel: “Here to film ‘The Seven Year Itch,’ she was at the St.Regis.

Hundreds waited to see her.Outside, in front of me, signing autographs, posing for pictures, she got herself toward a taxi cab.

At 9, back at the hotel.So was this young fan — me — who, throughout her success, became her go-to, close, devoted friend.“She got to know me.

One day, she opened the taxi door and said, ‘Jimmy, like to drive with me?’ That began our eight years.I discovered Marilyn Monroe didn’t exist.

Like a costume on Halloween, it was turn it on, turn it off.Basically she was just Norma Jeane.”Cindy: Did she ever talk to you, which, I mean, in my view it’s not possible, but did she ever talk about wanting a different kind of life away from Hollywood?“She was aware of how famous she was.

She used that in fights with the studio.Determined to get what she wanted, she would not give in, and so she spent a year in New York.”Cindy: What was her house like? I know she lived on 57th Street.“Everything was white.

It was one of those living rooms where you stepped down three steps, and everything, the rug, the furniture, everything was white.Small.

Living room, tiny kitchenette, bedroom, and a bathroom, of course.In those years, if a repairman came into your house, they could take your number off the telephone ’cause it was right on the surface of the phone.

So she put a number on hers so that if they took it and called it, it was the city morgue.And an Abraham Lincoln painting was over her bed.“One night, flat shoes, a neighbor stopped, then somebody else stopped.

Within minutes, there were four.Suddenly her upward smile became downward, eyes lidded, v...