By John Gilmore
Actor, producer, and TV host Harrison Held has helmed a trilogy entitled 
"The Ultimate Marilyn" dealing with the unique aspects of the star’s life and career. This unique offering features panelists who personally knew Marilyn. Harrison says, "There are not many left…" Those featured on The Ultimate Marilyn, including myself, are Stanley Rubin who produced Marilyn’s picture, River of No Return, also starring an ex-friend of mine, Rory Calhoun. Hair stylist Sylvia Barnhart has the unique fame of "making Marilyn blonde," and remained Marilyn’s hair stylist and close associate for a number of years. Diana Herbert, movie actress and Broadway star, is the daughter of the late F. Hugh Herbert, who wrote and directed Marilyn’s first picture, Scudda Hoo, Scudda Hay! for 20th Century Fox. Diana had been associated with the Fox stable while her father was under contract to the studio, and she became a friend and confident to Marilyn, then later befriended Marilyn in New York. I met Marilyn in 1953 through actor John Hodiak while Marilyn had an apartment on Doheny. Both native Angelenos from L. A. General Hospital, both raised in Hollywood and hungering for starhood, Marilyn and I would sustain an acquaintanceship for almost a decade, our friendship intensifying in New York, both of us associated with the original Actor Studio-as well as both knowing Diana Herbert. Beautiful Kathleen Hughes had been under contract to Fox during the early days, and once surrendered a role in a picture to Marilyn. I had the opportunity of first meeting Kathleen in 1957, while she starred in Cult of the Cobra at Universal Studios. She later married Stanly Rubin, and together they have shared a rewarding, rich life in Hollywood. Greg Schreiner, president of Marilyn Remembered, keeps the candle burning in the window. A dedicated Marilyn fan since an early age, Greg (as well as associate producer and actress Jill Ann Adams, president of ForeverMarilyn.com), are two of the most vital and influential Marilyn devotees in the world-kindling that magical influence that was Marilyn’s, and which has brought her to spearhead of popular American culture.
A fourth episode produced and hosted by Harrison Held, Inside Marilyn Monroe (from the title of my most recent book), focuses on a discussion between ‘interviewer’ Harrison and myself, delving into Marilyn’s personal life, while I was an actor-from childhood radio bits to feature films and leading roles in early television. My relationship with Marilyn unfolded to the point of almost starring in a picture together-one to be produced by Jerry Wald (who had two pictures with Marilyn to his credit-Clash by Night and Let’s Make Love), of Peyton Place fame. The chaos with Fox during the filming of Marilyn’s last (and unfinished picture), Something’s Got to Give, pulled the carpet from beneath the Wald picture which then went before the camera as The Stripper, with Joanne Woodward, until Jerry Wald died in July 1962, leaving the picture to be completed by his associate, Curtis Harrington, with neither Marilyn or myself involved. Marilyn passed away less than a month after Wald’s death. He was 51 years old. Marilyn was only 36 when we lost her.
The shows will be online soon as www.HarrisonHeldStarMedia.com. The Ultimate Marilyn Volume 3" hosted by Harrison Held re-airs due to popular demand in the City of Angels on TimeWarner Cable Saturday August 18th at 5:30 & 7 pm – Check local listings. Co-producer is Michael Montroy and associate producers are Kat Kramer, Jill Ann Adams and Tanya Sumova, once a housemate of Marilyn’s at Hollywood’s famed Studio Club.
