Sunday, May 30, 2021

Beauty and the Bumpkin - May 30, 2008


We've talked before about the odd juxtapositions that fate sometimes brings, but in researching topics for today's post, we came across one that struck us as so odd that we were compelled to note it: On June 1, 1926, both Marilyn Monroe and Andy Griffith were born.

The two would seem to have
little in common, but both were born into poverty (Monroe was a ward of the state, and Griffith slept in dresser drawers until his parents were able to afford a bed for him). And after a period of struggle, each achieved show business immortality -- she as a sex symbol and he as a down-home sheriff/philosopher.

Obviously, Monroe had the tougher time. She battled personal
demons while juggling three marriages (and who knows how many affairs) with an acting career that pigeonholed her as an empty-headed blonde bombshell

Griffith's career had its own bumps. Despite his dramatic performance in A Face in the Crowd, he was typecast as the folksy Andy Taylor, and his film career never really took off. He failed in four other television series before hitting big in Matlock -- as, yes, a folksy lawyer.

While there's no indication that the two ever met, there are enough intersections in their lives -- two examples: composer
Earle Hagen wrote the whistling theme to The Andy Griffith Show and was also nominated for an Oscar on one of Monroe's last films, and Monroe had an affair with Elia Kazan, who directed Griffith in Crowd -- to make the idea of a meeting of these two icons of the 1950s just plausible enough. 

One can only speculate what their conversation might have consisted of, but we'd bet it wouldn't have been about football.

Suggested Sites...

No comments:

Post a Comment