Monroe's voice..


I absolutely love Marilyn and I thought she was great in this, but I can't help but be slightly annoyed at her voice in this film. It's too...light and sweet. I'm not that familiar with her other films so I am not sure if she actually speaks this way or if it was just intended for the movie. Anyone?

~~~~~~
*Twilight~Original*
<3

reply

[deleted]

Lee Strasberg had said that Monroe's voice "needed training badly. She did sound stupid."
Personally, I found her breathy, "little girl" vocal inflections to be quite irritating, especially as she grew older.

reply

[deleted]

Yes, in all of her movies that I've seen (which is almost all of them) she talks in that same dumb way. It was interesting that in one scene in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" she affects a low voice, trying to sound hoarse, and seems to gain about 30 IQ points for those few seconds when she sounds different than she usually does.

reply

Lorelei was supposed to sound like that.


reply

she always sounded like that in her films. and it gets really annoying the more you watch her which is a shame

reply

The part of the "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" production number where Marilyn is singing "No No No" (before the song actually starts) is actually dubbed by "voice of the stars" Marni Nixon.

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/497401/Gentlemen-Prefer-Blondes-Mov ie-Clip-Diamonds-Are-A-Girls-s-Best-Friend.html

If you watch the clip all the way through, you can hear Marni Nixon's voice again to close out the song as she hits the high notes that Marilyn can't really reach.

reply


I heard it dfferently: Monroe, however, did most of her own singing, with the exception of a few high notes at the beginning of the song that were sung by Gloria Wood.
The Divine Genealogy Goddess

reply

[deleted]

Its her "movie" voice. It's actually slightly different in each film. The closest you'll get to her true-life voice are some interviews, and "The Prince and the Showgirl." Those who knew her, said her actual voice was girlish but not at all "breathless." And when she was angry, not at all soft.

reply

It took me years to tolerate Marilyn's voice. I truly love her as well but that affected baby voice....ugh! I don't know how she maintained that for so long. Even when it wasn't babyish or truly breathy, it seems like she enunciated too hard. A lot of actors and upper class people had affected voices back then so much so that it's actually funny to hear them today. I remember reading something about Jacqueline Kennedy's friends and family being surprised when they heard her "public" voice when she filmed the tour of the White House that was televised. Evidently the voice she used when she was First Lady wasn't her real voice.

Anyhow, Marilyn did use her real voice in a few of her early films before the Marilyn persona was fully cultivated. She sounds "normal" in Ladies of the Chorus and Clash By Night for the most part. Her voice isn't too bad in Don't Bother to Knock or Niagara either. It was still babyish in Niagara but you could tell she tried to sound less affected and dropped it a register. She did have a soft feminine voice but I don't think any real person has that kind of breathy baby voice. I think towards the end of her life/career she began using her natural voice as films were leaning more towards natural acting.

reply

No, she actually spoke a little deeper in her normal tone. But she nearly always had the act on, so after a while it became her "real voice" so to speak.

reply

She sounds completely different in The Ladies of the Chorus.

reply

I'm guessing she had elocution lessons under Natasha Lytess's instruction, who was not a native English speaker. The way she said (for example) "go-eeng too" rather than "going to" (goin' tah') was very mannered.

reply

i am sure you mean Marni Nixon's voice

reply

It was a reference to Marilyn's speaking voice. As for the singing, only the opening soprano notes of "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" were sung by Marni Nixon; the rest was Marilyn.

reply