Oh What A Time... - #76 Icons (Part 1)

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

This week we’re discussing 3 absolute icons: the iconic Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe, the incredibly talented JMW Turner and one of Victorian Britain’s most iconic sport stars, Arthur Gould. Elsewhere this week we are bemoaning the fate that has befallen the humble travel book, whilst also speculating on the fate of Horatio Nelson’s arm (which he famously lost on a disastrous lads holiday to Tenerife). If you’ve got something to contribute, why not ping us over an email to: [e-mail] If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - two bonus episodes every month! - ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can also follow us on:  X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time. It's a history podcast and I've got some history for you right now because I've just been on holiday to Tenerife where I read in full the Wikipedia page for Tenerife and then I went off on multiple different directions. Because Tenerife is actually quite interesting. Is it? Yeah, it is quite interesting. Can I ask a quick question? Before you go somewhere, is that what you're doing?

Are you reading the full Wikipedia page on wherever you travel? Is that like your approach or...? No, when I got there, I thought the topology, that is the right word, I think it is, of Tenerife is quite interesting because it's obviously a volcano, a set of volcanoes. When did they turn up? Yeah. Do volcanoes turn up? You open your door one morning.

Yeah. Love, look what's outside. You're never going to believe this. A bloody volcano's turned up out of nowhere. Remember where the pergola used to be? And the garden chairs? You won't believe it, there's a volcano there now. You've never woken up to the smell of sulphur? You thought, what's happened now?

So you're the only man in the world too cheap to buy a Lonely Planet guide, that's what we found out already. You Wikipedia, there you go. I've got a whole bookshelf of Lonely Planets that I have to bin because we have the internet now. I bought those in a pre-internet age. It's one of those industries that has definitely not survived through the internet, isn't it? Yes. And do you know what? Prior to the internet, people writing for Lonely Planet must have thought, this is a job for life. People always love traveling. Traveling is never going to go out

of fashion. People are always going to want to know about where they're travelling to. This is it. Lonely Planet and Rough Guide. Yeah. I was Lonely Planet all day long. I was Lonely Planet as well. It was a bit more laid back and tongue in cheek than Rough Guide. Dare I say cooler, Ellis. The sort of thing you'd love to see someone spotly holding as you're walking around halls of residence or whatever. Oh, if you've got a lonely planet tucked up your jeans pocket, I'm like, okay, this guy is a fuck.

This guy eats where the locals eat. He's that sort of fuck. He's one of us. He's got a lonely planet. I'll tell you another job in that same world that's taken an absolute kicking with the internet, whatever the phrase would be, people who draw maps. Cartographers. There you are.

The proper maps, they've gone. There's not really much of a business for that anymore. Also, everything's been mapped now. We know what's out there. There's nothing, oh, we haven't done this field yet. Draw that, Steve. Everything's been mapped. I'd rather be a cartographer now, now that most of the world has been mapped than going

back to the dawn of the new world and going, here's a huge project that will take up your whole life and you'll never quite be satisfied with the results. The Mappamundi era. Yeah, the Mappi era. No, no, I reckon. Because, of course, you could have blagged it. Have you seen maps of Britain from like five or six hundred years ago? Hilariously inaccurate. You're putting

Leicester there. Come on. It's such a thankless task making the first map because everyone in the future looks at you and goes, what were you thinking? Look at that. Very, very good point. Yeah. That's a lovely old map. We popped that on the fridge. Yeah. Yeah. Well done. It's the kind of job that when you begin your presentation, you begin it with an apology. And you say, listen, I've got to be honest, Shetland and certainly Anglesey on the coast of North Wales, I've definitely got them wrong.

But what I have drawn does look nice. I've just an Orkney as a big circle. Sorry. However, there will be a real opportunity to return from places you claim to be and then you've just scribbled a random map of some island you claim to have been to and you can just sell that as part of a newly mapped world. Because who else would know who's going to go out and check, are they? I think someone did that, didn't they? Did they?

I think it was a two-car photographer who didn't make up stuff. Wow, brilliant. I mean, they're all kind of making it up, aren't they? Those early ones. From what I remember of the Mappamundi, which is the largest medieval map known to exist. And it was in Hereford. We studied this at school. From what I remember about it, the Mappamundi, obviously it's hundreds of years old. They thought that the earth was like 98% land.

I can see how you'd come to that conclusion. I can see that. But they're like, yeah, and then of course you've got sort of England, Scotland to the north, and then Wales to the west, a little bit of sea, then Ireland, and then after Ireland, sea for about, I don't know, 50 metres, and then just sort of ends really, and then whatever comes next. Imagine having like a map of Dubai that's 20 years out of date. You're going, this should just be desert.

I don't understand, why is there 500 eye-rises here? The Dubai Lonely Planet 2002 is five pages long. This coastline was shaped like a palm tree. Going back to Tenerife, there's something I wanted to tell you about Tenerife. Someone very famous in British history went to Tenerife and lost an arm. Ooh, Guy Lineker's brother. No. I'll give you the year, 1797. Nelson.

Rear Admiral Horatio Nelson on the 22nd of July, 1797. It's where he lost his arm. Lost an arm on a lads holiday. Hey, we've all gone on lads holidays, got a bit out of control. Andy lost an arm. I bet you a pint I can beat you in an arm wrestle. Five minutes later his arms come off. The British tried to seize Tenerife in 1797. I was sat on Tenerife thinking of all the British Imperial conquests that

happened around this time, Tenerife would have been quite handy from a British holiday perspective. It feels like something we should have gone for. So then when I was reading it, I said, oh, we did try. We did try to take it. Get the fry-up culture in there early. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 200 years early would have been ideal. Yeah, so Horatio Nelson tried to take it in the Battle of Santa Cruz to Tenerife. I was reading about this battle and I mean, this is an episode probably in future, but it was a terrible amphibious assault. They tried to take the island, but everything went wrong. It was something like 4,000 British soldiers trying to take it, but only like 2,000 Spanish defenders. But the Spanish defenders were running around

and the British had no idea how many there were and they thought they were completely outnumbered. But the Spanish did such a good job of defending the island. And Nelson was shot with grapeshot. Was he? No, those little balls they were loaded into a cannon shot and his arm was just torn up. And they sawed it off and they threw it in the sea, which was what they used to do back then. They just threw it in the sea? They threw it in the sea. Can I just check who threw it in the sea? Did he go, I've no need for this anymore,

I'm going to lob it in the sea, or did the person who blew it off throw it in the sea? That's a genuine question. There's actually a great quote on that subject. He said, when it was clear his arm was completely compromised, he said, doctor, I want to get rid of this useless piece of flesh here. And then they just quickly like sawed it off and they threw it overboard. Really common practice, but the admiral wanted to keep it. Like Nelson wanted the arm, but they were like, no, no, no, we're chucking that overboard. The idea of having your arm sawn off, just mid voyage with no painkillers of such. It'll

just be probably laudanum or drink. That's basically what you've got. Yeah, it had been riddled with grapeshorts, so I imagine it was really painful. So get me wrong, I'm not saying it's in immaculate harm when it's being removed, but I think we can agree having it hacked off the body is going to hurt. Do you know what it is? It is a bad day all round. Thank you, Elvis. If he kept a diary, his entry for that day would be, I would imagine,

fairly negative. And also if he's left-handed, badly written, struggling to use the other arm. I don't normally drive with my right, but you know, I've got the option. I love the idea that his diary gets far messier the day after that happens. Yeah. That's genuinely fascinating, Chris. Before we move on some history on this wonderful show, this is going to be a fun one, I think, actually. Today, should we talk about what we're talking about? You've mentioned Nelson there, which is quite

fitting because today we are talking about icons. Icons from history. Later, just so you know what's coming up, I'm going to be talking about one of Britain's greatest artists. You'll find out who later. And I'll be talking about an iconic early rugby player, Arthur Monkey Gould. And I'll be telling you all about Mary Monroe, but should we start with just a little bit of correspondence? Oh, yes, please. Yes, let's start with a little bit of correspondence. This one, I really like this. It's eccentric. What can I say? It's the sort of eccentric listener we have correspondence. This one, I really like this. It's eccentric, what can I say? It's the sort of eccentric listener we have.

Now listeners, I'm sure you'll remember, a couple of weeks ago, El was telling us about his very bleak little Christmas tree, which is in the corner of his office. Yes. Do you want to quickly describe it for anyone who may have missed that episode, El? Hasn't got a top, decorated very badly.

It's up all year round, because I can't be bothered to do anything else with it, or put it back. It's got a top, decorated very badly. It's up all year round because I can't be bothered to do anything else with it or put it back. It's got a very... He's literally looking at it now, by the way, he is just craning around his desk. On November 7th, he's looking around his desk to look at the tree. Hang on, I think just then you observed a change in it. Yeah, well, I can't, the Father Christmas in a ceramic car seems to have disappeared. Driven off?

Oh God. One of the cats has knocked it off or something. So it gets a little bit worse every day as the cat sort of knock bits off it. It is rubbish. It's about as magical, I would say, as peanut butter. It's just rubbish. Mary Bleakmas. Exactly.

Yeah. Well, Laz Alicia Fionn-Rimmer has got in contact with the show to say, Hi guys, I'm hoping to make Ellis feel better. Oh, yes. Because I thought I'd share my own tree saga. Here we are. a bit of solidarity. Around five years ago, I moved into a flat without much storage and no loft. Around February, my friends and I are staring at this tree, which we found up there and wondering what to do.

And suddenly, the all-seasons tree was born. I'm assuming from this that they found a tree up in the loft and they don't know what to do with it, okay, in this new place they've moved into. Around February, my friends and I are staring at this tree wondering what to do with it when suddenly the all-season tree was born. Over that year, I purchased Easter, Valentine's, Summer, Birthday, Halloween, and being Scottish, Burns Night St Andrew's Day decorations. Throughout the year, my tree had its decoration changed, including a full beach scene for summer, much to the joy and amusement of my friends and family. And the tree's

only five foot tall, it's worth mentioning. Keep up the good work, Laz Rimmer." So Laz Rimmer, El, has a tree in her flat, which she keeps up throughout the year and she decorates according to the seasons. That is great. I actually quite like that. That should become a tradition. I love that. I think that is absolutely fantastic. And it's another thing that I could bleak up and spoil. Take us through your year then, Al.

It's spring. What are you hanging on your all year Christmas tree? Or all year tree? Well, autumn it would be some dying leaves. Yeah, that's nice. Spring, it's some new leaves. Yeah. Some better leaves.

And swimwear. And a goggles, a pair of goggles. Yeah, that's nice. Christmas, obviously, that's, winter's Christmas. So you take it down for Christmas. Take it down for Christmas. You can't be up all year, can you? Around February Valentine's of sexual implements. Very handsome. Really, really handsome, is

it? When you think about it, it is mad to bring a tree into your house. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Imagine when those first Victorians, this came from Norway, did it? Norwegians did this. And they brought the tree into the house and then they kind of took over the Victorian era in Europe. It is mad. Yeah, it is.

It is odd. If you went around someone's house, for the first time you saw they brought a tree into the house, you'd think these people are mad. I think the difference is the tradition has been established. If I put up my sex implement tree in February, people will come round and say, we need to talk about Alice. Also, his dildo, his February dildo tree.

What sort of dinner party is this? I'm sorry, I think I've misread what's happening. Darling, we're leaving. Put your car keys away. I've got a question, Al, actually. We talk about the fact that you, this is a fantastic idea. I agree with that. I'm a big fan of a Christmas tree. I love a Christmas tree. I do. I can't believe I didn't really ask you about this. For me, Chris, the real joy in a Christmas tree is the smell of a Christmas tree. I love that smell. It absolutely drops me back into childhood and a sort of feeling of safety and all that sort of war. I just love it. It has such a sort of feeling for me. There's no smell from your tree, Ellis. It's a plastic tree, which the smell is just sort of dust for me. There's no smell from your tree, Ellis. It's a plastic tree,

which the smell is just sort of dust that's gathered over the last year in the room. Smells as the exhaust fumes from Santa's motorcycle. Exactly. Yeah. How are you happy to forego the best bit of a tree, which is the smell? Because I just cannot be bothered. Can I add one more thing? The act of buying the tree itself is another special moment. Another great point. Another great point. The of buying the tree itself is another great point. The kids pick the tree and then you have... And I did it. I did it in Poundstretcher about eight years ago. Cannot be asked to do it

again. I've got so much on. So I've got a further question, Al. So Chris and I are walking out with our families and maybe there's a little bit of smattering of snow. Oh, I might get that one. Maybe that, oh, there's the one. It's a bit wonky. I know. But maybe that's our tree. We carry it home. Maybe we pop and have a drink on the way home. There it is in the front room. Take us through the magic of you going to get your tree on December the 20th, if ever it is. Okay. All right. It's December the 17th. My kids are hassling me. Dad, can you put up the tree? I do this. Yes. I go up to the attic. I fetch it. I broke it down. I go, there you go. Ta-da.

So they're not even coming up to help you bring it down? No, because I don't like them on these steps. Because the attic was converted years ago, and regs have changed since then. And final question, how are you carrying the treat by the tip, which is now admittedly gone, and are you taking the things off? I would probably, because I'm a great dad, take the baubles off and then I immediately put them back on again and say, there you go. I genuinely hope, El, that on Christmas Eve you are visited by three spirits who teach you about the value of Christmas, the wonder of the season. And you wake up on Christmas

Day morning and go, we need to get a proper tree. The value of Christmas is having access to an Amazon Prime account and doing all your shopping there and then go, there you go, deal with it. That's what was available at 24 hours notice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I needed a better list. Not on me. Because I'm not going to go off piste. Well, there we go. Thank you very much for that email. I absolutely love that, Laz Rimmer.

If any of the rest of you have any weird eccentric things you want to get off your chest that you do in your house, you need towards Christmas. Tell us about your Christmas eccentricity. That feels like a fun thing. Email us in with any strange thing you or your family do. It might be tradition, might be something you've come up with yourself. I'd love to hear about them. We all would. Will Barron We should do one on festivals because we've just had Halloween. When I was a kid, we barely, barely celebrated Halloween. I didn't know anyone who did. Exactly the same for me. And bonfire night was huge. Fireworks night, Guy Fawkes, that was the big one. My birthday is on

November the 3rd, so I would always have a fireworks party. Going to the bonfire celebrations in town was a really big thing. That now seems to have been really relegated into second place. Absolutely. Whereas Halloween is now huge. And Halloween has become far more commercialised as well. Every shop you go into, every supermarket has Halloween outfit, in a way that I don't remember that when I was younger either. We went trick or treating. The effort some people go to is astonishing, but that seems

to be a very recent change. That's a really good idea. So I think we need one more festival we should do festivals. Absolutely. And as I say, if you have any Christmas weirdness you want to send him, here's how. All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at earlwattertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Earl What A Time pod. Now clear off. Right, shall we crack into our history? As I say later in today's show I'm going to be

talking about one of Britain's greatest artists. Al, you're going to be talking about? One of Wears His Greatest Drug Pre-Players. And I'm going to tell you right now about Marilyn Monroe. Oh, fantastic. Now, she was easily, I think, the most ill-fated Hollywood movie star of the 20th century. Just the golden age of cinema, I think, is synonymous with Marilyn Monroe. Born on the 1st of June 1926 and died of a drug overdose on the 4th of August 1962 when she was just 36 years old, packed loads in. Wow.

Famously married to the playwright Arthur Miller. She was also married to baseball star Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees. They're two big names. Come on. Wow. That's incredible. I will give you a million pounds if you know the third husband, who was actually the first husband she married when she was 16, literally got married something like 18 days after her,

or 17 days after her 16th birthday. Any idea? I only knew about Dimash. Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller and... Was it... Jim Doherty, police officer. Just a police officer. What, really?

Oh, just like a local copper. Just a copper, just a police officer. Really? Just like a local copper. Just a copper, just a normal copper when she was 16. Was that her first marriage, I'm guessing? First marriage. Yeah, yeah. Okay. You'd hope it was her first marriage when she's getting married 17 days after her 16th

birthday. Oh, is that what it was? Wow. I didn't catch that bit. Sorry. Monroe's big break came in April 1944. She was talent spotted and hired as a pinup model for Yank magazine. Once I was on a train and a really unique looking girl.

I wouldn't even say she was beautiful. She had a very unique look, like really angular face, not necessarily one I would associate with beauty. I was on the train and I was staring at it like that is what an interesting face she's got. And while I was staring at this girl, another guy got off from the train, walked up to her and said, hello, I'm a model talent spotter. I'd be interested in representing you.

And I was like, wow, that was a mad conversation I'm witnessing here. And then she went, oh no, I'm already signed up, I'm already a model. And I was like, what? And you were like, I'm sat right here, look at my face. How are you passing up on the good stuff? Excuse me, mate. You interested in a male model with a head shaped like a potato? No?

I'm not currently represented by anyone. Up to this point, I've been representing myself. How would you feel if someone gave you their card? It would be the highest high I'd ever have. I just wouldn't believe it. No. If someone came up to me and said I'd love to represent you as a model, I'd go, come on mate, don't say the fucking this. I was right. I've always suspected it.

Mam was right as well, she was always saying this. Although I was DJing, right, I DJed at a night called Scared to Dance and Paul, the promoter, his flatmate works for Louis Vuitton. And we were talking about coats and I named three coat brands. And she said, wow, you know a lot about fashion. And because she works for Louis Vuitton, I must have told 200 people that. I texted people, I was calling people up. I would say, go on, I texted people, I was calling people up. I would say, go on, can you just leave a voice note for my friend? Just say your name, say what your job is and then say that I know a lot about fashion. Actually, I'll do a voice note on my phone and then I'll send it to everyone so we don't have to text everyone individually.

Will Barron She would, with a little bit of nudging, found out you know a lot about a subsection of fashion, which is football fashion. Any further inquiry would reveal that actually your knowledge of poke and chur is maybe not quite as... Yeah. God, you know a lot about kits. You know what all the away kits are for the football league clubs. God, you're attractive.

Immediately ringing Louis Vuitton going, I found our guy. This guy really knows about fashion. Yeah. So anyway, Marilyn Monroe spotted by a talent spotter in 1944, became a pinup model for Yank magazine. It was a periodical designed to boost the morale of the troops. Just check that was Yank magazine. Yeah.

Yanking it very good. Yep. Guess what? The photographer for Yank magazine, Yanking it very good. Guess what? The photographer for Yank magazine David Canaver had been given the assignment by a captain in the American Air Force's Motion Pictures Unit by the name of Ronald Reagan. Years later Reagan recalled how Monroe had once met Albert Einstein at dinner. Marilyn grabbed him by the arm and said, let's get married. Einstein looked at her and said, my dear, what if our children had my looks and your brains?

What a needless slam. Brutal. I see that as saying, well, you're actually much more clever than me, but I'm better looking. It's a joke. I see that as a joke. I'm going to leap to Albert Einstein's defense for once. Do you know what, though?

I'm at a dinner party, and I'm a physicist, and I look like Albert Einstein. Marilyn Monroe puts her hand on my arm and says we should get married. I would go, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes into the night go, yes, yes, yes. Dessert course is coming out now. Yes, yes, yes. Can I just say that I'm answering in the affirmative? I am confirming my yes.

Can we get a contract please? Can we get a pen? Can we get a paper please? A paper? Can we get this inked? By the summer of 1945, Marilyn Monroe had signed to the Blue Book Model Agency and they set about reshaping her image. They said get rid of the natural curls, get rid of the brunette, what we're gonna do is straighten out your hair and pop in some platinum blonde dye. Having defined her husband and her mother Monroe threw

herself into work and she was actually quite a hard-working artist. I knew this about her, she did actually graft. A year later in August 1946, she was signed to 20th Century Fox and she took the stage name Marilyn Monroe and landed parts in Dangerous Years, The Ladies of Wyoming, 1948, but she was not a natural actor, took years to kind of get really good at that particular art. That's really interesting.

Yeah. She went to the Actors Laboratory Theatre in Hollywood to gain the necessary skills. And she actually went back to modeling a little bit to make ends meet in 1949, which included shooting an infamous nude calendar. But the deal she signed with 20th Century Fox was actually a very bad deal and that will come up again later on.

In the early 1950s, her career as a film actor was slowly developing and she was gaining quite decent recognition among audiences. Four credits and one as an extra in 1950. Four further credits in 1951 and another four in 1952, which included Monkey Business alongside Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers. And in 1953, she released Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and that turned Marilyn Monroe into a leading lady and femme fatale and amplified her as a sex symbol for the 50s. The advertising for Don't Bother to Knock in 1952 is very racy. That's the classic image of Marilyn Monroe in the kind of lingerie, blonde hair, arms back, armpits exposed.

Rob McClendon Albert Einstein going, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Alistair Duggan If you're Einstein, you see that. You're like, ah, damn, I should have said yes more. Why always with the jokes, Albert? Why not the yes? She was also in 1952, she was the first centerfold and cover star of the newly launched Playboy magazine.

Although she did consent, she didn't consent to be centerfold or the first cover star. And then behind the scenes, and this is interesting in the 50s, but behind the scenes, Marilyn Monroe was starting to attract the wrong kind of attention. She, the FBI opened a file on her in 1955. The first thing in her file recorded that she had requested a visit to the Soviet Union in 1955 and was beginning to be trailed more closely. Yeah. And then she married Arthur Miller, of course, who had attention of his own because of the works he'd created. And so her other friends as well had FBI files of their own, including playwright and novelist Norman Rostin, who later wrote several books about Monroe. He was watched as well. It's amazing when already with this knowledge that we know she died

at 36, all these films, all this stuff, like what a life. Will Barron Yeah, we haven't got to something like it hardly. Will Barron Exactly, yeah. What a packed life. Will Barron So was she sort of involved in McCarthyism and all that kind of stuff and caught up in that? Will Barron I think the people in the arts were under suspicion for being left-leaning generally, I think.

Will Barron Yeah. Will Barron Because you have that with John Lennon in the 80s, don't you, where FBI had a file on him. This was going on for 30 years. So I think anyone in Hollywood was kind of under suspicion. But the fact she requested a visa to visit the Soviet Union, of course, brought her right in the bullseye. The 1950s were her golden age. She had hit after hit, was perhaps the most bankable star in all of Hollywood throughout 54, 55, 56. She was the highest earning woman actor in the motion picture industry, beaten in the annual list only by well-established male stars, which included John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Bing Crosby.

But a restrictive contract with 20th Century Fox essentially kept her income quite low and her choices narrowed. Yeah, you read about these terrible deals people did. A tale as old as time. She got fed up with Hollywood in 1955, moved to New York and got in charge and made her own production company, Marilyn Monroe Pictures. She was able to negotiate better terms with Fox and protect her own interests. But this began a really turbulent period in her life, which of course now we're entering towards the end of her life. She had a very turbulent experience working with Laurence Olivier in London, which I've

read about. They didn't get on whatsoever. Then she had a failed pregnancy, which was attributed to endometriosis. And then she had an attempted overdose. Then comes production of Some Like It Hot, which won Monroe a Golden Globe. So the turbulent period has kind of begun. Then Some Like It Hot happens. And the turbulent period has kind of begun. Then some like it hot happens. And then her career started running into difficulty.

There's a moment where Truman Capote wanted her for the film of Breakfast at Tiffany's, but then the producers convinced him to go for a safer choice of Audrey Hepburn. And this decision kind of brought Monroe to a bit of a breaking point. In 1960, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Manhattan for treatment. And in an experience she described as inhumane and her health really, when you

look at her story of her life, it never recovered after that moment. She had drug addiction, alcohol addiction, ongoing complications related to endometriosis, mental ill health, and then her marriage failed to Arthur Miller, very bleak time, made working difficult. And in the wake of her divorce, she briefly dated Frank Sinatra. She sings Happy Birthday to JFK in May 1962 and then on the 4th of August 1962 she spends the day at home most of the day, kept company by a housekeeper, Eunice Murray, for some time between 8.30 and 10.30 with Murray asleep, Monroe locked herself in the bathroom and took an overdose of barbiturates and by the time Monroe was discovered, it was too late. Front page

news all over the world. Outbreaking. Yeah, but well into the 1970s, there was conspiracy theories that death was not self-inflicted, but the result of a murder ordered by Robert F. Kennedy, her spurned former lover. And there was a book in 1973 called Marilyn, a Biography by Norman Mailer, which kind of propagated this idea. But everything I've read, and our Daryl R. Historian agrees with me on this, is no. There's no conspiracy there. She took her own life. Will Barron Also, for someone who was struggling with that, she was so famous.

Toby So mad, isn't it? So famous. Will Barron So that just complicates matters even further. And it still complicates matters for celebrities who are struggling even now. Absolutely, yeah. Showing vulnerability is probably might be seen as weakness, might damage your career, all this sort of stuff. But also she is one of the great icons of the 20th century. Even now, all these years after her death, you show a picture of her to people. She died way before I was born, but I think everyone knows who she is, even now.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So it's an argument she is the Hollywood icon. If you think about it, if you had to pick one person who is the icon for Hollywood and movies past, it has to be Marilyn Monroe, surely. 20th century. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I suppose. Who else is there really?

Well, there are other big names, but I do think Marilyn Monroe is the one that is that step beyond. Yeah, I was going to say like Tom Cruise, but even that doesn't really work, because it's not an iconic image. Like the image of Marilyn Monroe is iconic. But she also speaks to a time and her whole story is, maybe the heartbreak, the way it ended probably also plays into that. Tom, when me and you were at Glastonbury, I think it was the year before last when Elton

John headlined on the Sunday and Elton John begins to play that beautiful song, which is dedicated to the memory of Marilyn Monroe called Candle in the Wind. And he started playing the first at the opening bars and a young girl behind me, probably like 20, I heard her whisper to her friend, this is about Princess Diana. No it's not, Marilyn Monroe is on the screen. Glad to have cleared that up. And then he went to her, do the background reading. If you're going to watch Elton John at Glastonbury, you've got to do the background reading. So that's the end of part one. Thank you for listening. In part two, I'm going to be talking

about one of Britain's greatest ever artists. Ellis, what are you going to be talking about? I'll be talking about one of Wales' greatest ever rugby players. Brilliant. We will see you guys tomorrow. Thank you.