Quando ti tocca ti tocca e quando non ti tocca no

Quando ti tocca ti tocca e quando non ti tocca no is an expression Marilyn Monroe repeats to those around her, framing luck as something that arrives—or does not—regardless of effort. The phrase gains particular force in Reno, Nevada, where gambling makes chance a visible part of daily life, and returns in a dice game that turns its fatalism into a question of whether to stop while ahead or keep playing.

Meaning and Use

The expression becomes familiar to the people working with Marilyn Monroe because she says it so often. In Reno, Nevada, they find it especially apt: the city’s association with gambling gives her phrase the shape of a compact wager on fortune. It suggests that a person cannot command the outcome, only face the moment when it arrives.

The saying also accompanies a contrast between Monroe’s conduct off camera and her work in front of it. On the set of The Misfits, she could arrive hours late, dazed or distressed, yet emerge from her dressing room costumed and made up, fully transformed into Roslyn. The observers who had been frustrated with Monroe found themselves watching Roslyn instead, unable or unwilling to hold the character responsible for the actor’s earlier behavior. During screenings of the daily footage, that transformation could make her seem like a stranger even to those watching her closely. The phrase’s acceptance of chance thus sits beside a startling capacity for change: whatever happened before the camera, the performance could still arrive in full.

The Dice Game at the Horseshoe Casino

Near the end of filming, Monroe went out alone with the others among Reno’s bars and casinos. At the Horseshoe Casino, they found John Huston playing dice. He was drunk, rueful about the shoot, and anxious that The Misfits might become either a masterpiece or a complete disaster. Although he and Monroe fought so often on set that neither could reliably recall who owed the other an apology, he beckoned her over and kissed her hand.

Huston, ahead by several hundred dollars, gave Monroe fifty dollars to bet. She said she did not want to play because she was sure to lose; when he brusquely urged her to roll, she laughed nervously and threw. She won, and the group had to explain the complicated game and why the throw counted as a victory. Monroe thanked the people applauding and then wanted to stop while she was ahead, certain another attempt would end in a loss. Her caution makes the expression’s fatalism practical: a lucky turn is not a guarantee that fortune will continue.

A Chance She Does Not Control

Huston was surprised that Monroe wanted to quit and urged her to be sporting, insisting that they had only just begun. The distinction between them is sharp: she treats the win as a moment to leave the table; he treats it as a reason to continue. His final insistence that the game should go on until nothing remains to lose turns the casino encounter into a darker counterpoint to her familiar saying. Chance may decide whether a player wins, but the choice to keep playing can determine what is left afterward.

The crowd and the people taking photographs did not frighten Monroe in that moment. Being watched and hearing people recognize her as Marilyn Monroe made her feel protected and safe. The scene therefore complicates the phrase’s apparent resignation: luck is not the only force shaping her response. She wants to withdraw from the dice, yet the public gaze offers a kind of security, while Huston presses her back into the game.