COMEDY. DRAMA. TRAGEDY.
The Price of Celebrity Worship

If celebrities are the new gods, then the story of Marilyn Monroe is one of the essential scriptures. Marilyn Monroe week of November 26.

The tragic arc of her career, from glittering stardom to burnout, addiction and early death, is an archetypal narrative that has played itself out again and again, in the lives of Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Princess Diana, and countless others (with Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan waiting in the wings). Her life is a cautionary tale of celebrity – its temptations, and its corrosive effect upon the soul – that we never tire of hearing.

During the week of Nov. 26, VisionTV offers a unique perspective on the life and legend of Marilyn Monroe, and the spiritual price of celebrity worship. Click here for a video preview.

Canada’s multi-faith network presents two feature films that embody the opposing forces that were in tension throughout Monroe’s career: her popularity as a sex symbol on the one hand, and her desire to be taken seriously as an actor on the other. The documentary Marilyn in Manhattan, meanwhile, reveals what happened when these forces collided and Monroe made a desperate bid to escape her own celebrity.

The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Tuesday. November 27
9 pm & 12 am ET/
6 pm & 9 pm PT

Marilyn Monroe is The Girl: an anonymous blonde beauty who beguiles a mild-mannered married man (Tom Ewell) in director Billy Wilder’s classic New York tale of sex and the city. With his wife and son away on summer holiday, Ewell’s straitlaced publishing drone is driven to distraction by fantasies of his upstairs neighbour, played by Monroe at her most inviting. Will she lead him into temptation? Adapted from George Axelrod’s Broadway hit, The Seven Year Itch gave us that most iconic of all Marilyn images: the famous white dress fluttering upward in the rush of air from a subway grate.

Marilyn in Manhattan (Documentary)
Wednesday. November 28
10 pm ET/ 7 pm PT

By 1954, Marilyn Monroe had reached the pinnacle of Hollywood stardom – yet contentment eluded her. Monroe’s marriage to baseball great Joe DiMaggio was on the rocks, and the 20th Century Fox studio kept her trapped in bankable but unchallenging “dumb blonde” roles. Determined to break free of the celebrity machine and reclaim her soul, Monroe fled to New York with the help of a close friend, photographer Milton Greene. Basking in newfound anonymity, she launched her own production company with Greene, studied her craft at the Actors Studio under “method” guru Lee Strasberg, and successfully reinvented herself as a serious actress. But in the end, she could escape neither the crushing demands of fame nor her own demons. This hour-long documentary chronicles Marilyn Monroe’s flight from Hollywood in search of freedom, with seldom-seen photographs and archival film footage, as well as interviews with the likes of Ellen Burstyn, Ben Gazzara and Susan Strasberg.

Niagara (1953)
Thursday. November 29
9 pm & 12 am ET/ 6 pm & 9 pm PT

Two great natural wonders – Niagara Falls and Marilyn Monroe – are on display in this taut thriller. Monroe enjoys a rare opportunity to showcase her dramatic abilities, starring as a femme fatale who schemes to murder her emotionally unstable husband (Joseph Cotten) during a visit to the Falls, Jean Peters plays a young honeymooner who becomes entangled in her machinations. Max Showalter and Richard Allan also star. Henry Hathaway directed.