"I loved Marilyn, and she had cellulite, and then I ran away"

The Italian newspaper La Reppublica published an interview with the Neapolitan veteran actor Carlo Croccolo a few days ago. What makes this particular piece apparently so interesting to many, is the fact that he revealed a purported affair with Marilyn Monroe, back in 1961. And that she had cellulite.

We had actually something else in mind for today, but we decided to heed the mounting pressure of those poor souls who are willing to stoop as low as to engage the services of Babel Fish (!!!) in order to decrypt the rather paltry offering. So, here is an almost-exclusive translation for your reading pleasure.

"I loved Marilyn and then ran away"

(Doesn't that qualify as "Hit and Run"...?)

»Yes, unfortunately it's true. Marilyn and I had a love affair. ['Storia d'amore' in this context doesn't really translate to 'love story' - unless you insist...] It lasted only three months, but I was madly in love with her. Only, being with her was hell, so in the end I ran away.«

This revelation comes from Carlo Croccolo, 81, a veteran with a very long film and stage career behind him.

[SNIP: information of secondary interest for this story.]

»I met Norma [...] in what was the worst period of her life; she died about a year later, in 1962. She had just come out of a sanatorium and was fighting a bad depression that she had been suffering ever since the end of her affair with Yves Montand. He had been beastly to her and she had suffered a lot, just as it happened with Arthur Miller, her third husband, a bastard who treated her badly and beat her. I met her at a party in LA, through Sammy Davis and President JFK's entourage. We started to talk and... That's how it started, like so many stories do.« 

The actor has also revealed a detail that may dent [MM's] image:  

»Marilyn was gorgeous, even though she had a bit of cellulite. When we started [going out together], Norma was already taking 'uppers' and drinking. And her body had started to show it. All the time we were together I did everything I could to make her stop. Unfortunately, I didn't succeed. Certainly, it wasn't easy to be the ever-obliging knight, not even with a woman as extraordinary as she, but there was no other way of being around Norma. You had to take anything, accept anything she did, even if, drunk, she met somebody else and took off with him for a few days. I accepted it, until one day I could take it no more and ran away.«

There.
Happy now?




FURTHER READING:

MM: the Self-Perpetuating Machine (with a link to Clive James's brilliant essay).

CAVEAT: If you're a die-hard MM fan, your're unlikely to like either one.