Nearly sixty years after her passing, Marilyn Monroe remains an enduring icon of glamour and vulnerability. Yet newly uncovered pages from one of her private journals, written between 1955 and 1956, reveal a side of Monroe rarely seen: anxious, cornered, and at one point, contemplating leaving Hollywood altogether.
The entries, penned while Monroe was filming Bus Stop and establishing her own production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, shed light on the emotional toll of navigating an industry that often treated her as a commodity rather than a person.
“I am supposed to smile and be grateful,” she wrote. “But sometimes I feel like a bird in a cage full of hands reaching in — some gentle, some cruel.”
Monroe referenced three influential studio executives only by initials — “M.R.,” “J.Z.,” and “H.G.” — men she claimed “held too much of me in their hands.” Historians familiar with her professional circle suggest these initials likely refer to top executives at Fox and MGM, who controlled her contracts and, as Monroe noted, her personal safety.
“They were men who smiled in public but spoke in threats behind closed doors,” she recorded. “When I refused to do as they wanted, I was told I was ungrateful, that my career would vanish overnight. I believed them.”
In a particularly revealing passage, Monroe described a night she nearly left Los Angeles, feeling estranged from her own identity. “I looked at my reflection and saw someone I didn’t know — a woman they made, not one I made. I thought, maybe if I go, I can find her again.”
Instead of walking away, Monroe took a decisive step toward autonomy. With the support of photographer and friend Milton Greene, she moved to New York and launched Marilyn Monroe Productions — one of the first female-led companies in Hollywood. “I will no longer be their blonde puppet,” she wrote. “I will be an actress, not a decoration.”
This bold move allowed Monroe creative control over films such as Bus Stop and The Prince and the Showgirl. “I wanted to prove I could act,” she reflected. “Not because they said I couldn’t, but because I knew I could.”
Even with this newfound independence, the journal reveals that fear lingered. “Powerful men don’t forget when you say no,” she wrote. “They wait, and they whisper.”
Film scholar Dr. Elaine Cooper, who studied the recovered journals, described them as “the most human portrait of Marilyn yet. She wasn’t naïve; she understood exactly the cost of defiance in that era — and she paid it with her peace of mind.”
A final 1956 entry captures both Monroe’s vulnerability and courage:
“If I must be afraid, I will at least be afraid as myself. I won’t let them write my ending.”
Though Monroe’s life would tragically end just six years later, the journal offers a glimpse of extraordinary bravery — when a woman the world saw as a fantasy reclaimed her own story. Marilyn Monroe didn’t flee Hollywood. She stood her ground, leaving a legacy of resilience that continues to inspire.
If you want, I can also create a short, attention-grabbing version suitable for online publication that highlights the tension and her courageous move. Do you want me to do that?