Empire film magazine recently crowned Marilyn Monroe the ‘Sexiest Female Movie Star of all Time’, Playboy hailed her the ‘Number One Sex Star of the 20th Century’, while People magazine voted her the ‘Sexiest Woman of the Century’. Now the life of the troubled screen goddess, one of Hollywood’s most beautiful icons from the golden age of movies, is coming to the West End in Marilyn, a dance musical that celebrates her all-too-brief life.
With original music from Marilyn’s movies and performances as diverse as “Happy Birthday, Mr President” and “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”, and a company of 15 dancers, choreographed and directed by Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award-winning Peter Schaufuss, Marilyn will play a strictly limited season of just 11 performances at the Apollo Theatre from Wednesday June 3 – Saturday June 13. The press performance is Wednesday June 3 at 8.00pm.
Marilyn is the story of a childhood without a father and love; a schizophrenic mother who doesn’t want her child to exist and even tries to strangle her as an infant; and an abused young girl who marries at 16 to avoid being sent to an orphanage. Marilyn’s career as an actress was to span just 16 years but featured starring roles in such classics as “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”,”How to Marry a Millionaire”, “The Seven Year Itch” and “Some Like It Hot”. She made a total of 29 films – 24 of them in the first 8 years of her career. However, the typecasting of her “dumb blonde” persona limited her career prospects, and she made more headlines for her private life, including marriages to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller. The final years of her life were marked by illness, personal problems, and a reputation for being unreliable and difficult to work with. The circumstances of her death, from an overdose of barbiturates, have ever since been the subject of conjecture and wild conspiracy theories. In 1999, Marilyn was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.
Marilyn stars British ballerina Zara Deakin in the title role. Deakin trained at The Royal Ballet School. Sir Frederick Ashton created the ballet “Nursery Suite” for her in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s Birthday. She danced with the English National Ballet and Deutsche Oper Berlin before joining The Peter Schaufuss Company as a founding member, appearing in leading roles in all the companies’ 19 productions. In “Divas”, which had its West End premiere in 2008, Zara created the role of Marlene Dietrich. In the acclaimed production “Diana – The Princess”, she portrayed Diana. Zara has performed all over the world, including at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and Royal Opera House.
Marilyn is her third appearance starring in a West End production. Peter Schaufuss was an international ballet star in the 1970s and 1980s on a par with Baryshnikov and Nureyev. More recently he has become a modernising choreographic force as a company director, winning both the Olivier and Evening Standard awards. He was named artistic director of the London Festival Ballet (now called the English National Ballet) in 1984; was the artistic director of the Deutsch Oper Ballet in Berlin from 1990 to 1994, when he became the artistic director of his native Royal Danish Ballet. In 1997 he formed his own company. Today, he is probably best known in the UK for his controversial dance work, “Diana – The Princess”, a tribute to his friend, pupil and ENB patron, which premiered in Manchester in 2005. His most recent West End productions were “Divas” in 2008 and “Satisfaction”, in 2007, choreographed to the music of the Rolling Stones.
