ABOUT THE PROJECT

Actress. Enigma. Icon.

Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson) is one of the few actresses whose star status has withstood the test of time. There have been countless official and unofficial biographies, biopics and miniseries about her, but they've all fallen short of painting her as a complete human being.
The shortcoming-in essence- is that they present her as a tragedy; made all-the-more-tragic by her tremendous beauty. They paint her as a sex symbol with a sad past, and that barely scrapes the surface of the truth. She was a genius (in both artistic and intellectual capacities) in the ceaseless pursuit of self-improvement. She was self-assured and in total control of her own sexuality in an age where few women were. She was hyper-aware of her own self--both her assets and her shortcomings--and she was a legend in her own time.

The mission of this short (non-profit) film is to emphasize her humanity in a brutally honest way. The script is adapted from excerpts from her own journals, so there's very little artistic embellishment or manipulation--the bulk of my edits have been for the sake of brevity and to eliminate redundancies in her own writing.

Norma Before Monroe puts the truth of the woman before the glamour of the star. Set between November of 1954 and June of 1955, it offers an introspective look inside her head following her divorce from Joe DiMaggio, her enrollment in the Actor's Studio under Lee Strasburg, and a glimpse at her hope for her future and struggles with her past.

Once funded, the film will be bound for a (tentative) January 2021 release.