1959

1959 marks Marilyn Monroe’s return to Hollywood in Some Like It Hot: a year in which the public celebrated her comeback even as the work of performing, being watched, and remembering remained unstable. Sugar Kane’s ukulele and the film’s triumphant reception became emblems of that contrast: a star apparently ready to be loved again, and a woman who could scarcely hold on to the role or the experience of making it.

Return to Hollywood

After three years away from Hollywood, Monroe came back to the studio as a figure already surrounded by a story of tragedy and triumph. The public account of her return joined the film’s Hollywood success to the miscarriage she had suffered in Maine, turning private loss and professional comeback into the two parts of a single headline-ready narrative. When asked how she felt, she answered that she felt fortunate to be alive; the novel identifies that sentiment, also written in Norma Jeane’s diary, as her truest conviction.

Sugar Kane on the Set

The return was not smooth. Monroe had been ill and shut away at home, while rumors circulated about her; on her first full day back, her tall, pale husband watched from the set. She sang “I Wanna Be Loved by You,” playing Sugar Kane, the blonde ukulele player, and the crew applauded. The response might have been genuine, or might have been a way of pleasing the star. Monroe kept her eyes lowered and bit her lip as she tried to tell the difference. Then she asked to do the song again, turning the applause into another take rather than accepting it as proof that the performance had succeeded.

The song’s repeated plea for love becomes, in the novel’s rendering, a trap as well as a role. Sugar Kane’s blonde appearance and comic performance draw the audience toward her, but Monroe experiences the familiar pressure of being adored for a marketable image. The ukulele is made to seem almost like a toy, an apt counterpart to the novel’s image of a toy-like life and a manufactured blonde persona. On set, the wish to win affection and the labor of performing it are difficult to separate.

The Film’s Reception

The Studio lavishly celebrated Some Like It Hot at its Hollywood premiere. The film had surprised industry experts by becoming a success: preview audiences applauded it, critics praised it, and distributors competed to book it. After her return, Monroe was again being presented as a major triumph for the Studio. The acclaim made a sharp counterpoint to the precariousness of the production: the film could be hailed as a victory even though its star’s experience of making it had been marked by illness, rumor, and uncertainty.

The premiere’s brightness is also shadowed by the novel’s imagery of surveillance. Amid the limousines, police barriers, flashbulbs, and spectators’ binoculars, an unseen marksman watches Monroe and her husband through a rifle scope. The public spectacle of the comeback is thus framed not simply as a celebration but as an exposure: the star is surrounded by people looking at her, while the narrative places a hidden watcher beyond the crowd.

A Broken Record of Memory

The film’s success does not translate into a continuous recollection for Monroe. In retrospect, making it survives in her memory like a dream repeatedly interrupted. She cannot remember a single line of Sugar Kane’s dialogue except the phrase “I’m Sugar,” which she had stumbled through across sixty-five celebrated takes, in several rearranged versions. The production’s most famous repetition is therefore also a record of difficulty: the name that identifies the character returns, but the role’s words do not.

That gap between public triumph and private recall gives 1959 its particular significance in the novel. Audiences and critics can recognize a comeback and celebrate a performance, while Monroe’s own account is fragmentary and shadowed by loss. Her return is real in the film’s reception, but it is not a simple restoration: the star is once again ready to be loved, while the woman beneath the image cannot retrieve the experience intact.