What I Saw In Marilyn Monroe’s Palm

Amagansett’s a small seaside town on Long Island, only three hours away from New York; and its most popular summer citizen is Marilyn Monroe. This spring I had the special pleasure of meeting her. Marilyn and her husband, Broadway playwright Arthur Miller, were in Amagansett for the week end, freshening their summer cottage for the season ahead. I was visiting theatrical friends, and we all met at a Sunday afternoon cocktail party honoring Shakespeare’s birthday. Marilyn was helping the hostess.

Marilyn was a living doll. She passed trays and trays of fancy hors d’oeuvres—caviar, sturgeon and rolled anchovies—to the guests. I heard her ask the hostess several times, “Is there anything else I can do for you, honey?” When she bounced over to me with a canape tray, her long, fluffy blonde a aw hair shimmering like white gold, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was wearing a pink gauzy dress that made her complexion look all the more lovable. “Hey,” she said, holding the tray with one hand, “I’ve heard all about you.” She giggled and tossed her head back, and with her free hand she twirled the flapperish rope of pearls around her neck. “You’re the palm reader! Everyone in Hollywood says you’re fantastic.” Then she smiled and closed her eyes for a second. “What’s . . . . what’s your price?”

I told her my price was the pleasure a palm-reading would bring her. She smiled again. She said she’d heard about all the palms I’d read—Kim Novak’s, Tab Hunter’s, Olivia de Havilland’s, so many others. “What,” she said, looking deep into my eyes, “is palmistry?”

I explained that palmistry, the ancient art of reading the lines in the palm, revealed character—primarily; and no sooner did I finish my sentence than she thrust her palm out in front of me and said, “Wanna see if I’ve got any?”

I began studying her soft, pink palm in the roomful of chattering people,. but she said, “Listen! Don’t you think we ought to have a little atmosphere?” And she led me, her palm in mine, to the breezy porch where she lighted a candle in a hurricane lamp since it was dusk. The two of us sat across a glass-topped wrought-iron table, our reflections flickering in the sparkling table-top, and I commenced to read her palm.

While it wouldn’t be fair to reveal everything about Marilyn’s palm, nonetheless here are the penetrating highlights of our session together.

First: her love line. It’s fantastic. It screams, cries, begs for love. Never in my life have I seen such a deeply embedded curve. Marilyn simply couldn’t exist without a man’s strong, powerful passion almost suffocating her.

Yet her love line, while deep and demanding, is fickle. Tiny, straw-thin lines grow out of it, and obviously this has been a problem. Now, don’t misunderstand me. This doesn’t mean Marilyn is untrue to her husband. But it does tell us that Marilyn’s capacity for love is untiring, and, should Marilyn ever be on her own again, she’d turn the world upside down to find the man of her needs. She’d let many suitors court her, and probably play one suitor against the other to see who would tantalize her the most. This is how fickleness can bedevil her.

Now much has been written about Marilyn’s being a quiet, home-loving girl. No doubt she is—when she’s happy in love. But all this talk about Marilyn’s sitting home by the hearthside when she’s on her own runs against the formation of her love line. Marilyn is a love goddess, and she makes unending demands on love!

She isn’t happy without the security of a man’s daily adoration. The side of her palm reveals a love-ridge so deeply rooted in her skin it’s almost a scar. This tells us Marilyn suffered considerably before she found the love she craved in Arthur Miller; and from all indications in her palm at this time, Arthur is the love of her life. Remember, however, that the lines of a person’s palm change with his character, and palms should be read yearly for growth, development and insight into the change of a personality.

Evidence of Marilyn’s roaring passion lies in the peaked bulge of her Mount of Venus. While this reveals Marilyn’s powerful passion in love, it also lets us know Marilyn has a wild passion for life. Marilyn thinks nothing of staying up half the night if she’s absorbed by a book or a conversation; she enjoys gorging herself intellectually and emotionally in order to satisfy her gargantuan appetite for living.

Silken sheets and heady perfume

Marilyn is also a sensualist. When she’s lingering in a hot bath or sleeping between silken sheets or sniffing the heady scent of perfume, she’s as content as a purring kitten. She basks in sensual delight.

One point must be made clear about Marilyn’s love line. She doesn’t only ache for love; she gives love. But when she doesn’t receive—look out for trouble.

Her earlier love-ridge, right alongside the one she’s so involved with now, shows us the shallowness of her previous marriage to baseball player Joe DiMaggio. But out of her love line are two offshoots into two interesting areas: the Mounts of Apollo and Saturn. From this we learn Marilyn is in love with Apollo, god of the Sun, representing the world of art and success.

Marilyn worships art and beauty—more than most people think—and she’s in love with her success. She may give the impression that success is difficult and unnerving, but I’d swear, from what I see in her palm, that if Marilyn lost her millions of fans and admirers, she’d be beside herself. For she adores being acclaimed; she is thrilled by the love currents of her mass worship.

If Marilyn allows this important Apollonian love line to develop, she’ll surprise herself. She will unquestionably become an outstanding artist in our century.

Now, about her career line which figures impressively in her palm. It is like a wound, and it pains her. She adores her success, yes; but her career is an enigma to her. Her international fame skyrocketed overnight; and she cannot understand all that she wants to know about her career.

Her star of success

Marilyn is blessed with a dazzling Star of Success in the center of her career line; and I hope she will accept the success of her career and not worry so much about her capabilities. She is always the perfectionist, leaving no stone unturned to find the answer to a problem in her acting. Oftentimes, this persistent questioning creates tremendous anxiety within her. Marilyn is a brilliant instinctive actress; she has an innate understanding of the art of acting. If she questions her art too much, she belabors it and loses the spontaneity so refreshing in her performance. But Marilyn need never worry about her career. If she chooses, she will have it until her very old age.

It’s her life line that worries me. It snaps in a number of places. Accidents, illnesses and critical dangers cut through it. The life line tells us Marilyn is frail. She must always carefully guard her health. She will always be in need of a doctor’s constant care.

Now, below the second finger of Marilyn’s palm is her Mount of Saturn which represents wisdom. Remember I pointed out earlier how an off-shoot from her love line was wending its way toward Saturn? Well, Marilyn is wooing wisdom and she is winning! Her palm reveals that Marilyn’s wisdom comes from her insistence upon honesty and a native perception.

But I wish Marilyn weren’t so hypersensitive. There are simply too many hair-thin lines in one area of her palm, all of them representing minute hurts. If only she would begin building bridges across these tiny sensitivities—because, as she grows older, she’ll pay much too much attention to them and, with time, they’ll cause her unfair anguish and concern. If she were told by a friend, for instance, that she looked rather tired, she’d worry about it for days.

Something Marilyn must be on guard about is morbidity. No one can get into so grim a depression. Usually her black moods last for days. But if she allows her imagination to soar during these dark moments, she’ll find she can balance the disturbing morbidity with her fanciful dreams.

About babies . . .

The subject, of course, that concerns Marilyn the most (as it does with most women) is the future—and children! While I don’t believe it’s fair to predict events in the palm (the lines in the palm only indicate character), there is a way of checking for intended offspring by the bands in the wrist.

Two of Marilyn’s bands are broken, but there is a third band working its way across the wrist. It’s much stronger than the other two—and more deeply embedded. I like to believe this is the child Marilyn prays and dreams of having, but the band requires additional strengthening all the way across the wrist if the child is to survive.

One other thing about Marilyn: she hates being alone. She just can’t stand it. Her independence opening is so tightly near the life line that there’s no possible room for escape.

When I told her this, she seemed rather pleased. “Why not?” she said. “I’m a woman, and God made woman to depend on man!”

Then, as our palm-reading session ended, she broke into a wide, heart-warming smile and said, “Hey, let’s make an appointment for next year, okay?”

I nodded yes, and we wandered into the roomful of chattering guests at the cocktail party in the small seaside town of Amagansett that April Sunday afternoon.

THE END

—BY STEPHANOS, PALMIST TO THE STARS

Marilyn is in SOME LIKE IT HOT for United Artists and will appear in TIME AND TIDE for 20th-Fox.

 

It is a quote. MODERN SCREEN MAGAZINE JULY 1959