Photos

Polls

Merchandise

Links

Various

Sponsors

NEWS

How Michelle Williams Channeled Marilyn Monroe at Bedtime

But Williams, 31, says she wasn't the only one immersed in the world of the iconic actress during the production of My Week with Marilyn – especially around nighttime.

While accepting best-performance honors for her role in the movie at Sunday night's Golden Globe Awards (live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel), Williams singled out her daughter from her relationship with Heath Ledger, 6-year-old Matilda Rose, whom she praised for "suffering through six months of bedtime stories, where all the princesses were read aloud in a Marilyn Monroe-[sounding] voice."

On a more serious note, she said in her speech that her daughter's "bravery and exuberance is the example that I take with me in my work and in my life."

"I consider myself a mother first and an actress second," she said. "I want to say thank you [to Matilda] for sending me off to this job every day with a hug and a kiss."

Oscar buzz for 'Marilyn'

Monroe memorabilia wows at auction

The Profiles in History Icons of Hollywood sale produced many big surprises as items went for much more than their expected price and Monroe's booty was a prize pick-up.

Camera negatives from the film Some Like It Hot sold for $1,500 - five times their expected sales price - and rare shots of Monroe and Clark Gable on the set of The Misfits went under the hammer for $2,000 - over three times what they were expected to fetch.

Highlights of the Monroe lots also included an autographed letter signed by the 18-year-old 'Norma Jeane' ($52,500); a personal Monroe photograph signed by Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper ($60,000; a portrait of a young Marilyn wearing a sheer lace trim, signed ($37,500), and Monroe's invitation to a John F. Kennedy birthday celebration ($40,000).

Other big items going under the hammer during Friday afternoon's auction session included the screen-used prop vellum treasure map from 1934 film Treasure Island ($60,000); the Mattel hoverboard from Back to the Future II ($22,500); Michael J. Fox's Marty McFly Clint Eastwood hat from Back to the Future III ($19,000), Anthony Quinn's Auda Abu Tayi costume from Lawrence of Arabia ($22,500); Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher’s marriage license from their Las Vegas wedding ($7,000), and the Roman costume worn by Christopher Plummer as Commodus in The Fall of the Roman Empire ($15,000).

Early Monroe photos sell for over $300K at auction

Julien's Auctions spokeswoman Caroline Galloway told The Associated Press on Sunday that the Monroe photos — taken in 1946 when she was still Norma Jeane Dougherty — were the highlight of the Beverly Hills auction known as "Icons & Idols."

The photos come with negatives and the rare right to sell and distribute them. A judge in September ruled they must be auctioned to settle debts of photographer Joseph Jasgur.

A Lady Gaga dress sold for $31,250, and the prop gun used in her video for "Born This Way" went for $7,680.

A 1969 caricature John Lennon drew of himself and Yoko Ono went for $90,000.

Curtis fell hard for 'Marilyn'

'This story' is My Week With Marilyn, a memoir by Colin Clark about his relationship with Marilyn Monroe in London, in 1956. Clark worked on The Prince and the Showgirl, a comedy directed by Laurence Olivier and starring Olivier and Monroe. The vulnerable Miss Monroe, lonely, far from home and striving to be taken seriously as an actress, befriended Clark and eventually spent a week in his company.

Curtis has directed a film version of Colin Clark's story.

"This is a young man who had a hunger to work in film, and got the golden ticket to work on this particular film," says Curtis. "And then he got the super golden ticket to befriend Marilyn."

Curtis, 51, has been producing and directing big cheese films and programs for British television for 20 years -- titles like David Copperfield, Twelfth Night, The Virgin Queen and the brilliant mini-series Cranford among them. My Week With Marilyn is his feature debut.

The film is about infatuation, filmmaking, celebrity and the endless pursuit of youth, and it's a film very much about the new England after the Second World War.

Making it, says Curtis, "does feel a dream come true. Audiences are laughing even more than I hoped they would, and yet, there's a poignancy there, isn't there?"

The director was in Toronto last week to promote his movie and says the city has a lot of history for him. "My parents met in this city," he says, explaining his mother was here as her father had brought the family to Canada to launch Penguin books in the late '50s; his father was a Penguin junior executive, over from England.

"Toronto was considered glamourous. This was around the same time the film was made, when England was still very much drowning in the legacy of the Second World War. Rationing had just ended. So this was the exotic land of plenty. And that's in my family's DNA. Toronto, Toronto! I'd hear that all the time."

Continues Curtis, cheerfully, "My father was a publisher, my mother a psychoanalyst. That's pretty good for a director to have the two of those influences."

Curtis, who is married to the American actress Elizabeth McGovern, says researching for My Week With Marilyn was fascinating work.

"What was really thrilling, when we all started researching around the story, was that it was clear it was a really specific turning point in everyone's lives in this film. And the things it was saying about England -- 1956 was the end of old England, in a way. It was just before rock 'n' roll and Look Back in Anger and commercial television. The more we researched, the richer it got."

Curtis talks about getting a copy of the still photo of the day Laurence Olivier and his wife, Vivien Leigh, met Marilyn Monroe and her husband, playwright Arthur Miller. "They went to the house where Marilyn was staying in England. We got the same location and we were at the same house, and were recreating the body language of the four of them, with us standing on the same porch the way of the four of them had.

"And obviously, at Pinewood Studios, Michelle was given Marilyn's old dressing room. And she'd walk along the same corridors."

On the subject of art imitating life and vice-versa, Curtis then adds, "Don Murray, Marilyn's last living co-star from Bus Stop, has seen My Week With Marilyn three times and just loves what Michelle has done."

Well, that's acting, we suggest.

"That's great acting, actually," says Curtis.

Michelle Williams goes beyond the Marilyn Monroe mystique

Williams may not be a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe/Norma Jean Baker but she superbly embodies the legendary sex symbol in My Week with Marilyn.

Disappearing into the role of the troubled actress, Williams' portrayal captures the star's breathy voice and distinctive mannerisms, while delving a few notches deeper. Ever a chameleon, Williams conveys Monroe's vulnerability and peels back the sexpot image to reveal a woman who is alternately wistful, childlike, funny, needy and wise.

Williams is bound to get an Oscar nomination, along with Kenneth Branagh who plays Sir Laurence Olivier. But their talents outshine the gossamer-thin story, based on a memoir by Colin Clark about Monroe while she was in England in 1956 filming The Prince and the Showgirl, directed by and starring Olivier.

It's hard to buy the contours of the friendship between 30-year-old Monroe, at that time the biggest star in the world, and Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a film-production go-fer and 23-year-old Oxford grad from an aristocratic family.

Redmayne is convincing in the role, nailing the character's infatuation. When Monroe first directs her gaze upon Clark, he blinks furiously, his awkward fascination set in motion. Far less believable are the off-set romps the besotted Clark purports to have taken with the actress, which come across as schoolboy fantasies.

The atmosphere during the shoot was rocky. Monroe's new marriage to Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) was already fraying and her insecurities loomed large. She often arrived on set two hours late and doped up, inciting Olivier's ire.

Perhaps to distract herself from the tension of working with Olivier, Monroe takes a shine to the innocent Clark. That's plausible enough, until she decides to run away with him on a week-long idyll where they skinny-dip, kiss and visit his alma mater. At this point Clark's story beings to feel more like wishful thinking than real-life memories.

Branagh is excellent as the blustery, preening Olivier, a classically trained stage actor torn between his admiration for Monroe's innate talent and scorn for her sycophantic entourage and reliance on Method acting. Julia Ormond plays Vivien Leigh, Olivier's wife and a worthy subject for her own film. But she's reduced to a simplistic role, blandly worrying about encroaching middle age and her husband's roving eye.

At its best, the film is about perception and manipulation — how Monroe is perceived by her fellow actors and manipulated by her director; how Clark perceives her with dewy-eyed wonder; how negatively she perceives herself, but cleverly manipulates her image. She wants to be taken seriously as an actress and yet can't stop perpetuating her bombshell persona.

While My Week with Marilyn is more an awestruck reverie than a revelatory bio-pic, it's worth seeing for Williams' bravura performance.

My Week with Marilyn
*** out of four
Stars: Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh, Julia Ormond, Dougray Scott, Judi Dench
Director: Simon Curtis
Distributor: The Weinstein Co.
Rating: R for some language
Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes
Opens Wednesday in select cities

Review: Williams gives it her all as 'Marilyn'

But as good as Williams is — as good as she always is — and as devoted as she clearly was to embodying this woman fully, you never truly forget that you're watching an extended impression of the pop culture icon. A lot of that has to do with the fact that this is indeed a legend she's playing, and it's difficult to take mythology and turn it into something tangible and true. But the script from Adrian Hodges, based on memoirs by Colin Clark, doesn't offer Williams much substance or subtlety with which to work.

The Monroe she's given functions in only two gears: Either she's the dazzling, charismatic sex symbol of lore, or she's stoned, insecure and in constant need of coddling. Surely there was more complexity to this woman who continues to fascinate us nearly four decades after her untimely death, but you won't find it here.

That kind of reductive approach unfortunately prevails throughout from director Simon Curtis, a British television veteran making his feature filmmaking debut. Laurence Olivier comes off as cartoonishly arrogant and vain, despite being played by Kenneth Branagh, an actor of great depth (who happens to share Olivier's affinity for Shakespeare). The Method acting technique that Monroe applied is a repeated target of jokes, as if it were some sort of flimsy, fringy philosophy (and Zoe Wanamaker, as acting coach Paula Strasberg, comes off as a caricature of a yenta).

One of the least developed characters of all is the one who is central to this story and serves as our conduit. He's Colin Clark himself (Eddie Redmayne), a young, star-struck and personality-free assistant on "The Prince and the Showgirl," which Monroe was shooting in England in 1956. Colin comes from money but wants to prove himself by working his way up from the bottom in the film world.

Monroe, by contrast, is the most famous person on the planet at this point. But despite her celebrity and new marriage to Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), she desperately wants to be taken seriously. Even though this picture is a light romantic comedy, it gives her a chance to work with Olivier as both her director and co-star. She is, of course, paralyzed with fear. Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh (played with grace and candor by Julia Ormond) tries to encourage her. Another of Monroe's co-stars, the far more seasoned and distinguished Dame Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench), reaches out to her with patience and kindness.

But for some reason, Monroe also seeks comfort in Colin, of all people — according to him, at least. This is, after all, his story. She keeps drawing him closer, which becomes easier when Miller returns to the United States, even as all her various hangers-on view him as a threat and try to push him away.

Prior to the development of this relationship, though, "My Week With Marilyn" offers an amusing (though not exactly novel) peek at the stir Monroe's presence caused in the rural area surrounding Pinewood Studios west of London. The actual filmmaking process, especially with the involvement of such esteemed figures, is always fascinating to watch. Or at least it should be. Like the depiction of Monroe herself, the film as a whole rings hollow with a kind of airy, unsatisfying emptiness.

"My Week With Marilyn," a Weinstein Co. release, is rated R for language. Running time: 101 minutes. Two stars out of four.

Michelle Williams channels Marilyn Monroe in new film

"Much more comfortable," she said, crossing her legs and unwrapping a granola bar.

The night before, Williams, 31, had flown into Los Angeles for 48 hours from shooting "Oz: The Great and Powerful" playing Glinda the good witch.

At that moment, however, Williams was out of that head space and focusing on another enchanting woman who weaved her magic on American cinema: Marilyn Monroe.

Williams stars as the iconic starlet in the indie film "My Week with Marilyn," based on Colin Clark's book of the same name and opening in U.S. theaters on November 23.

It chronicles the author's experience of spending a week with Monroe in 1956 while she was in England shooting the romantic comedy "The Prince and the Showgirl" opposite Sir Laurence Olivier.

"This isn't the Marilyn Monroe story, so the movie is not a tragedy," Williams said. "It's a movie that Marilyn Monroe happens to be a character in."

It's also the type of movie that may resonate with Oscar voters. Williams has been Oscar-nominated twice, as best supporting actress for "Brokeback Mountain" and best actress for 2010 drama "Blue Valentine."

Now, as she embodies one of Hollywood's own, Williams may find herself on a winning streak. Between 2000 and 2010, seven of the best actress Oscar wins were for roles depicting real people including Sandra Bullock ("The Blind Side"), Marion Cotillard ("La Vie en Rose") and Helen Mirren ("The Queen").

Williams laughed off the thought.

"I try not to live in the future because it's crazy!" she said with a blush. "I'm just relieved that I paid a proper homage, because I didn't want to let her down."

She was referring to Monroe and the research and physical transformation it took to embody the legendary actress.

"I watched every movie countless times," Williams explained. "The Internet became a great research tool. There were a few fronts that were up and running simultaneously -- the physical, the facade, and her essence."

MOVING LIKE MONROE

One of those was the way Monroe moved. Williams described it as "a series of continuous poses, completely fluid, but at any point if you stopped, you could take a picture and it would be a perfectly set up pose."

Gesturing with her hands, she continued: "It looked like she loved her body, loved touching her body, loved referencing it, loved being able to guide people's attention to where she wanted them to look."

Though in person the waif-like Williams bears little physical resemblance to Monroe, in the film, she is as voluptuous as Monroe.

Were those her real hips? Or padding? Can she talk about which body parts were hers and which weren't?

"Apparently not," she demurred. "Apparently my director had some other ideas about it."

"I was definitely heavier than I am now, but I really don't know how much," she added. "But there are ways that she and I will never meet physically. For certain things, no matter what I do, I won't be able to achieve that sameness...I was never going to get a body like hers!"

What Williams does have is a singing voice and coordinated feet. The actress does all the singing and dancing in the film, despite her only previous such experience being as a child doing children's theater.

"Who knew I would actually sing and dance in the movie? I had a blast!" said Williams.

Despite the fun, Williams was keenly aware of Monroe's tragic side -- the pills, the alcohol, the marriages and her co-dependency on other people.

"Something about her said, 'Love me, protect me,' and a lot of people took that on and felt a kind of devotion to her," mused Williams.

Many people felt a similar protectiveness toward Williams when in 2008, her former boyfriend and "Brokeback Mountain" co-star Heath Ledger died of an accidental drug overdose, making the actress a single mother to their child, Matilda, who is now 6 years-old.

Though Williams declined to drudge up that past, she did say that unlike Marilyn, "I'm not in as needy of a place, although I think I was when I played the (Marilyn) role. I found myself becoming far more dependent and clingy in a way that I had never done before.

"Luckily, I have a stabilizing force, which is my daughter," she continued. "I often think, if Marilyn had a kid, she would have pulled through, I really do."

For Williams, a release in playing Marilyn Monroe

Making last year's "Blue Valentine," which painfully and intimately depicted the collapse of a young marriage, occasionally seems so intense of a memory to Williams as to be a true one.

"When I look back on my life and I sort of reflect on relationships or anything, my mind folds that one into the mix of the real relationships that I've had in my life," says the actress. "And I have to stop myself and say, 'Oh, no, you did not marry and divorce Ryan Gosling.'"

While delusions of wedding Ryan Gosling aren't necessarily uncommon to moviegoers, for Williams they exemplify the intensely introspective approach she takes to her work.

Going by her latest film, "My Week With Marilyn," it's clear Williams has undergone a shift. After years of predominantly raw, naturalistic films like "Wendy and Lucy" and "Blue Valentine," in "My Week With Marilyn," she's glamorous and radiant. That, too, is telling of an interior change in Williams.

"One thing that I've struggled with, been interested in just as a person, a girl-slash-woman, whatever I am at 31 in this world, is being comfortable with myself," Williams says. "I've just spent a lot of time getting to know that person and getting to like that person, so I haven't wanted to lose touch with that person through lenses like hair and make-up and clothes."

Yet "Marilyn," which opens Nov. 23, is drawing Williams some of the best reviews of her career, and has put her squarely in the running for a best actress Academy Award. Williams' performance somehow manages to evoke a fully-fleshed person, well beyond mere caricature. It's a layered rendering of Monroe: a public, glorious Marilyn; a private and vulnerable actress; and the song-and-dance showgirl of "The Prince and the Showgirl."

The film chronicles the production of that 1957 film, which Laurence Olivier directed and co-starred in with Monroe. The two clashed: an oil and water mix of classical British theater and American movie stardom.

"There's technically an enormous challenge, which (Williams) meets lightly, effortlessly," says Kenneth Branagh, who plays Olivier. "Then she puts that all away to one side, doesn't show off to the audience about it. ... She doesn't indulge in playing Marilyn, she just is. It required her to work enormously hard and then hide all the work."

In a recent interview over afternoon tea at a Manhattan hotel, Williams is refreshingly candid. She's dressed elegantly but simply in a black and white dress and wearing a short, blonde pixie haircut that she has said is a tribute to Heath Ledger — her former partner and father to her 6-year-old daughter, Matilda — who liked cropped hair.

Williams would have more reason than most to be guarded, but she answers questions warmly and pensively. When Ledger died in 2008 (a few months after he and Williams separated), an onslaught of media attention landed on Williams, who has since often been hounded by paparazzi. It's an experience that frequently hovers just outside Williams' words, an unspoken tumult.

Williams was born in a small town in northwest Montana. Though her family moved to San Diego when she was 9, Williams believes Montana "formed me in some fundamental way" and that, although she lives in a townhouse in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn, she "will always feel most at home in nature."

In California, Williams became interested in acting after she and her sister performed in community plays. In a nice touch of foreshadowing, she kept a poster of Monroe on her bedroom wall. As Williams' young acting career grew in TV and movies, she emancipated from her parents at age 15. Two years later, she was cast in "Dawson's Creek," the WB teen drama that ran for six seasons and catapulted Williams' fame.

Williams' film career took off with 2005's "Brokeback Mountain." She received her first Oscar nomination (a second would come for "Blue Valentine") for her performance as the rejected wife of Ledger's cowboy.

She's since drawn the interest of directors like Martin Scorsese ("Shutter Island") and Wim Wenders ("Land of Plenty"), but perhaps been most comfortable in independent films ("Synecdoche, New York," ''I'm Not There").

She's twice worked with filmmaker Kelly Reichardt in low-budget films notable for their realism: 2008's "Wendy and Lucy," a film about a woman living in poverty with just her dog and a beat-up car, and this year's "Meek's Cutoff," a gritty depiction of life on the Oregon Trail in 1845. Williams slept in her character's car for "Wendy and Lucy," and learned how to drive oxen for "Meek's Cutoff."

"She really likes the chance to hide and just be able to be a person," says Reichardt. "These films have sort of offered her a chance to work while just being able to blend into the world in a way that becomes probably more difficult."

Reichardt said Williams has been sending her iPhone photos of the craft service table from her current film — Sam Raimi's "Wizard of Oz" prequel, "Oz: The Great and Powerful," in which Williams plays Glinda the Good Witch — exclaiming, "We could make a whole movie with this!"

Williams says she's long had an interest "in naturalism, in no shine on anything, no polish, no veneer.."

"What I've hoped for is to have as little separation between the character that I'm playing and the people in the audience — nothing that made the character feel out of reach," the actress says. "'Wendy and Lucy' was, I don't know if it was the culmination, but definitely that was what I was ultimately aiming for."

Whereas she rolled out of bed for "Wendy and Lucy," ''My Week With Marilyn" required three hours of hair and makeup every morning.

"In the film, there's a sort of contrast between the American interior, psychological way of working, and the English external, theatrical way of working," says director Simon Curtis. "But in fact, Michelle came at the character of Marilyn in both directions."

Asked when it was that she realized she wanted to act, Williams says, "That's a decision that I make again and again and again." She lists a series of "mile-marker moments": doing her first English accent, finding camaraderie on the set of "Station Agent," making "Wendy and Lucy," working with Gosling.

Of the less certain times, she says, biting her lip, "Some of them I would hate to bring up." The first Oscar nomination, she acknowledges, "stymied me somehow ... I felt like people were watching. I felt like there was pressure where there used to be none."

People are still watching Williams, but it doesn't seem to bother her much anymore.

"I've noticed that now, at 31, my ideas about scenes or dialogue or moments, they come faster," she says. "And I find that I'm enjoying it and that that's not hampering my work, so maybe it doesn't have to be as hard as I was making it out to be for so many years."

Michelle Williams meets Marilyn Monroe, and maybe Oscar, too

"Want to get under the covers with me?" she purrs, raising her eyebrows and wrapping a fuzzy blanket around her bare legs as she snuggles on a couch.

How very Marilyn Monroe of her. And Williams, with a wink and a grin, knows it. If early word of mouth is any indication, the actress will be sashaying her way to an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Hollywood's platinum-haired stunner in My Week with Marilyn, opening Nov. 23. In the film, about the making of Monroe's 1957 romp The Prince and the Showgirl, Williams plays three characters: the privately neurotic, strung-out Monroe; the delightful, lighthearted, sexpot persona the actress adopted in public; and the adorkable character Monroe plays in the movie.

Embodying three versions of one indelibly iconic woman was, says Williams, "the hardest thing I've ever done. Most days it was an act of courage to stay on set, stay in the chair, and not flee."

Unlike Monroe, Williams, 31, isn't anxious or insecure about her work. Nor is she a tortured artiste who agonizes over every nuance. Yet she doesn't go easy on herself either. When told of the early accolades her performance is getting, Williams scrunches up her face. "So, what do you think?" she asks. "What doesn't work? I keep thinking about the bad things."

Williams left little to chance when prepping to play Monroe, a woman who appeared in some 30 films yet whose allure far outlasted her short career and lived on after her mysterious 1962 death. Williams watched Monroe's films. She listened to her sing. She began quietly, tentatively adopting the breathy voice, the specific hand movements, the come-hither walk.

"I just tried to make her presence gradually and unobtrusively fill my life and my house. I tried to build it, so it didn't feel like work or study that I had to do, just a slow seeping in. I started to try and mimic what I saw and what I heard privately in my house, and I started to take that a little bit out in the world, try something in the post office or the grocery store," she says.

Her methods worked, reports Kenneth Branagh. He plays Laurence Olivier, the prince to Monroe's showgirl. "The one way Michelle Williams did not embody Marilyn Monroe was that she showed up on time. Everything else, she seemed to get Marilyn," he says.

Indeed, early on, Williams shot the scene in which Monroe arrives at Pinewood Studios in London and meets her somewhat aloof British co-stars. As Williams plays her, the real Monroe was terrified and overcome with insecurity and fear of imminent failure, and raced out of the room. Williams, on the other hand, "was poised," says Branagh. " Michelle came up and said hello to everybody. She was neither overconfident nor overawed. She was somehow real. You were immediately aware that there was a genuine and true quality to her. Simplicity is a very hard thing to achieve in life or in art, and she has it."

Why Monroe?

Williams still isn't sure, despite her research, what exactly made Monroe such a monumental, mythical, eternally glamorous presence. Today, thanks to the advent of camera phones and the Internet, you'd likely have photos of Monroe drunkenly exiting a bar. Instead, she lives on as an embodiment of timeless, bleached, curvy perfection.

"When I first started researching it, I kind of naively assumed that that was Marilyn Monroe. It was a very carefully constructed persona that she put on. It was an absolute fabrication. Everyone said she had quite an average walk and quite an average voice. It was something she turned on at will. I still wonder about it. What captures people's interest about her?"

As for the fawning, unhinged hysteria that accompanied Monroe when she was out in public? Williams, who lives in Brooklyn with daughter Matilda, 6, can't even begin to relate, or understand, what Monroe's life must have been like.

"I don't think I have that problem. I don't know what you'd call it. She was beloved. That's unlike anything I'll ever know," says Williams with a laugh.

She got an unwelcome taste of it three years ago following the January 2008 overdose death of her former boyfriend, and Matilda's father, Heath Ledger. Before, during, and after, Williams mostly kept her head down, making small films and raising her child. Things have settled down, but sometimes, Williams wonders what her life would be had she not become a nomadic actress.

"Do you ever play that game with yourself, 'What if?' What's your parallel life like? I don't really do a lot in my parallel life. I'm not very productive. I mostly just have kids and sew and read books," she says.

There's something charmingly contemplative and honest about Williams. And despite her proclivity for heavy roles in dramas such as Blue Valentine and Wendy and Lucy, there's an ease and lightness to her.

"She's a proper serious artist, but she's naughty and twinkly and giggly. She likes a bit of a laugh," says Branagh. "She is interested in other people. She doesn't make it all about her. She has vitality. She's jolly good company, upbeat and fun. I felt that she put me at my ease."

She likes a low-key life

Williams isn't a workaholic. Nor is she particularly driven. In a perfect world, Williams would shoot one or two films a year, ideally during her daughter's summer vacation, and spend the remainder of the year at home with Matilda

"I'm not an ambitious person, but I do like a challenge. I go back and forth on it a lot, a lot. I think — I could be wrong — that I'd be just as happy being married and having a bunch of kids. I'd love more kids. But that's not what my life is right now," she says with a shrug.

Instead, Williams has found herself ensconced in Detroit for the rest of the year, shooting Sam Raimi's fable Oz: The Great and Powerful. She's Glinda, the good witch, a fact that has impressed her daughter.

"It's a dream come true for both of us. It's a magical world. She comes every day after school. Big beautiful sets. Amazing costumes. Magical apparatus. Apparati? Wands and flying," says Williams.

Raimi says there's a reason why Williams is so bewitching: "I needed a combination of a good soul and a great actress. She's very quick with a smile. It makes you feel special to be with her. She's very warm."

Williams is gamine and slightly ethereal, all wide eyes and blond pixie locks, but there's also a resolve to her. Given that most former Dawson's Creek upstarts don't end up on Oscar shortlists, her success is no accident. And while she's collaborative, she won't let you push her around.

"She is a very wonderful hybrid of a strong human being while also having a fragility that gives her an almost skinless quality and lets audiences see into her thoughts. In life she has that same strength and absolute knowledge of what she wants," says Eddie Redmayne, who plays her young paramour in Marilyn.

And what she doesn't. Her greatest achievement has been giving Matilda a relatively normal childhood. Williams will tell you ample stories, off the record, about Matilda's achievements in school and her little quirks. As long as you promise to keep them private.

"That's where my biggest effort goes — raising her to be a happy kid who's a face among many, who's allowed a right to her face, her individuality, her anonymity," says Williams.

Monroe floundered when it came to negotiating her public and private lives. Williams, too, grapples with fame, though in a far less destructive way.

"I think I'm a pretty transparent person. I don't feel particularly guarded. I want people to have an accurate, honest perception of who I am. I don't know why that matters to me, but it does. But that runs contrary to the fact that people enjoy your work more when they know less. I'm always struggling between those two polarities," she says.

Michelle Williams Jiggles Just Like Marilyn Monroe

"I wasn't watching what I ate, let's put it that way," Williams, 31, told PEOPLE Sunday, at the film's New York premiere, about her physical transformation, which also included some helpful wardrobe tricks that helped her jiggle a bit more.

"The costume designer and Michelle came up with some great stuff," said director Simon Curtis. "But an awful lot is Williams's understanding of the way Marilyn walked, and the way Williams herself took on the wiggle."

"She did all the hard work, knew how to dance, shimmy," added Kenneth Branagh, who plays Sir Laurence Olivier in the film.

Don Murray, who played opposite Monroe in Bus Stop in 1956, said Williams completely captures her likeness. "It's very, very accurate," he told PEOPLE. "Having spent 14 weeks with Marilyn, I know what she was really like. And Michelle really catches it."

What did Williams appreciate about the 1950s Monroe fashion? "I liked her kind of simplicity," she said. "She was so extraordinarily beautiful, but really quite unadorned."

Starring opposite Williams is Eddie Redmayne, 29, who plays Colin Clark, the director of The Prince and the Showgirl, the 1957 film featuring Monroe and Olivier. "I had seen him in Red, the play on Broadway. He won the Tony," Williams said of Redmayne. "And I immediately thought ... 'That's the boy, that's the one.' "

Williams herself has transformed fully back to herself since taking on the Monroe role. On Sunday, her famed pixie haircut appeared even shorter than usual. "I got a little trim about a week ago," she confided.

So like Marilyn

It's Bieber vs Monroe at Hollywood auction

Memorabilia collectors and fans of the two stars will soon find out in a four-day, December auction of Hollywood memorabilia, called Icons and Idols, from Julien's Auctions.

The images of Bieber behind the scenes of his music video for "One Less Lonely Girl" and Monroe, which vary from items when she was an unknown to those when she was star, are just a few of the 1600 items from film, music and sports figures expected to go under the hammer in a sale that could fetch $2 million to $4 million, auctioneer Darren Julien estimated.

The 14 Polaroid photographs of Bieber, 17, were taken by a crew member on the video set, and are estimated to sell for $1,200. But when his legion of young "Beliebers" catch wind of the sale, that price could skyrocket to somewhere up around $6,000, Julien believes.

"He is highly collectible, and these kind of photographs rarely go on sale. I don't think Justin ever intended them to go on sale," said Julien.

Yet, unlike a known commodity such as Monroe, star of films including "Some Like It Hot" and "The Seven Year Itch," Bieber still might flame out as a pop idol.

"He's young and in some ways he still has to prove himself, but he's got the talent to be like John Lennon or Paul McCartney. He's got that potential, and he can be at that level of collectibility," said Julien.

The Monroe items range from early pictures of her as a 19-year-old and a never before sold letter, expected to fetch $30,000 to $50,000, she sent to her mother while still known as Norma Jeane and married to Jimmie Dougherty in which she talks of her future hopes.

Also up for sale is an image taken by Cecil Beaton after Monroe became a movie star in which the actress is reclining with a rose. The pictures were put in a Cartier triptych frame and said to be her favorite images of herself. It's estimated sale price is $80,000-$100,000.

With prices like that, it's very likely the Bieber photos will fall far short of Monroe's, but his fans can take heart in the title of his own song, "Never Say Never."

Personal items of late singer Michael Jackson also will be up for sale, including rare candid photographs of the King of Pop with actress Elizabeth Taylor and an oil painting of Disney characters Mickey Mouse and Pluto, painted by the singer.

Other items on sale include garments from Lady Gaga, Cher and the Beatles, as well as a signed guitar from U2's Bono.

Sports fans also have their share of historic memorabilia to bid on, including basketball player Michael Jordan's 1984 John Wooden Award and an original stadium locker attributed to famed Yankees baseball player Lou Gehrig.

More information can be found at www.juliensauctions.com

In Monroe's step

Have You Seen Michelle Williams Singing as Marilyn Monroe?

The Oscar-nominated actress is showing off her singing chops in just-released footage from the upcoming My Week With Marilyn, and if we didn't know better, we'd say it was the original blond bombshell herself!

Here's why...

Williams looks stunning while performing "Heat Wave," a song from Monroe's 1954 flick There's No Business Like Show Business.

The 33-year-old is a dead ringer for the late Hollywood icon in a sparkling nude dress with a thigh-high slit and Monroe's signature blond bob and red lips. Williams slinks around stage singing alongside several male dancers before blowing a flirty kiss to the camera.

"It's quite a dress to try to fill out," the pixie-cut beauty recently told us of channeling Monroe's sexy style.

We think you fill it out quite nicely, Ms. Williams: Video.

Michelle Williams: Marilyn Monroe Approves of My Movie

Um, how would she know that?

Monroe has apparently given her stamp of approval from beyond the grave...

"While we were filming, something came out in the National Enquirer that a psychic had spoken to her and that she approved of what we were doing and she thought I was doing a really good job," Williams told us at the Hollywood Film Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. "So maybe she likes it!" (Guess this is one of the rare cases when a celeb actually likes getting some ink in the supermarket tabloid!)

Perhaps Monroe allowed the 31-year-old Oscar nominee to channel her offscreen speaking voice.

"I studied tapes," Williams said. "There's really nothing that exists of her, that I could find anyway, that exists of her having a conversation with a friend...So there wasn't a template that existed for her everyday vocal pattern, so at a certain point you have to make it imaginatively."

Whether it was through research or imagination, Williams obviously nailed the late Hollywood legend's signature style.

"I do remember one moment of being all suited up as Marilyn and walking from my dressing room onto the soundstage practicing my wiggle," Williams recently told Vogue. "There were three or four men gathered around a truck, and I remember seeing that they were watching me come and feeling that they were watching me go...I thought, ‘Oh, maybe Marilyn felt that when she walked down the beach.'"

Michael Jackson top earner among dead celebrities

"Thriller" singer Jackson, who died aged 50 of a drug overdose, is estimated to have earned $170 million in the past year, which also places him as the second highest-earning pop music act this year, dead or alive, Forbes.com said.

Jackson's physician at the time of his death, Dr. Conrad Murray, is currently on trial in Los Angeles, charged with involuntary manslaughter for administering the powerful anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid for the singer in Jackson's home. Murray has pleaded not guilty.

Jackson, whose name has rarely been out of the media headlines due to his sudden death and its cause, has seen sales of albums and memorabilia increase in the past year.

The theater group Cirque Du Soleil has mounted an extravagant show called "Immortal" that is based on the singer's life and music. Earlier this month, a tribute concert in Cardiff, Wales, lured tens of thousands of fans.

The King of Pop is followed closely by the King of Rock 'n' Roll Elvis Presley placed second on the list with earnings of $55 million. Like Jackson, Presley's estate has also benefited from Cirque du Soleil, who produced "Viva Elvis" in tribute to the late singer.

Hollywood's golden age pin-up girl, Marilyn Monroe, who died at age 36 in 1962, earned near $27 million, placing her third on the list.

Sultry screen icon Elizabeth Taylor, who passed away in March 2011 aged 79, was placed fifth after reportedly earning $12 million, with a large portion coming from the sales of her popular fragrance, "White Diamonds."

The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities list by Forbes takes into account any deceased famous figure who has earned at least $6 million between October 2010 and October 2011.

The full list can be viewed on Forbes.com at www.forbes.com/deadcelebs.

More iconic Marilyn Monroe costumes up for auction

The Debbie Reynolds Collection auction in June far exceeded its initial estimates, and earned a place in the Guinness World Records after selling Monroe's iconic white "Subway Dress" for $5.52 million, making it the world's most expensive dress.

Fans and collectors of Monroe will have another chance of owning costumes worn by the late actress, priced between $150,000 and $300,000 at the Debbie Reynolds Collection Part II auction.

Monroe's provocatively sexy costumes were known for pushing the barrier set by strict film censorship codes. The December auction will feature Monroe's saucy showgirl leotard from the Oscar-nominated 1956 film "Bus Stop," designed by William Travilla, auctioneers Profile in History said on Tuesday.

The screen legend's gowns from "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," the 1953 thriller "Niagara," and the 1960 Oscar-nominated comedy "Let's Make Love," will also be up for auction.

Reynolds, 79, began amassing the impressive collection when she was a young actress under contract at MGM. When the studio auctioned off everything except its real estate in 1970, she turned a pastime into what she called an "obsession."

But her dream of displaying her beloved costumes in a museum was dashed several times and she was forced to sell them to pay back creditors.

Monroe's four costumes will be auctioned in Beverly Hills as part of the Debbie Reynolds Collection Part II on December 3.

Early Monroe photos, copyrights to sell at auction

A bankruptcy judge in Florida ruled earlier this week that photos taken in 1946 of Norma Jeane Dougherty — who went on to become the iconic Monroe — will be sold at auction to settle the debts of the photographer.

Joseph Jasgur's photos, negatives and image copyrights will be sold in December by Julien's Auctions. The collection also includes several model-release forms Dougherty signed for Jasgur in Hollywood.

Darren Julien, chief of Julien's Auctions, said the photos have not been widely distributed and the collection has been locked up in court battles for more than two decades. He said the sale is significant because "it's very rare to see something where you can buy a copyrighted image of (Monroe), especially of her first photo shoot."

"It's really hard to put a value on something like this, because it's rare and not just for the collector," he said, noting that the owner of the copyrights will be able to sell and distribute the images. "These are probably the most significant images of Marilyn that are available because they're so early, from the first part of her career, and it's rare to have images like these where you're selling the rights, too."

He declined to estimate how much the images and copyrights will sell for at the company's "Icons & Idols" auction, to be held Dec. 2-4 in Beverly Hills, California.

The photos include a black-and-white headshot of the future Monroe wearing a jaunty beret, another of her in a halter top and a color picture of her smiling in a striped bikini on the sand. Julien said Jasgur was hired by the Blue Book modeling agency to shoot the then-unknown Norma Jeane.

Charlize Theron Costars With Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe in New Dior Ad

As the spokesmodel for Dior, Charlize Theron and her amazingly good looks graced the latest ad for J'Adore perfume. But she wasn't the only memorable face.

The high-fashion company decided to try and use modern-day technology in order to revive some of Hollywood's greatest icons and include them in the campaign.

The spot follows Theron as she rushes to get dressed—swapping her streetwear for a beautiful gold gown, natch—at a fashion show at Versailles' Hall of Mirrors. By splicing footage through CGI, legendary actresses Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich exchange glances and even some conversation with Charlize backstage, making the spot both eerie and fascinating.

"It was incredibly glamorous and fantastic. I don't think I'll experience something like that again in my lifetime," Theron told The Hollywood Reporter.

Enough already! Watch the ad!

News Archive