Was John Steinbeck's letter to Marilyn Monroe real or fake?

A John Steinbeck letter to Marilyn Monroe (sold for $3,520 at Julien’s Auctions in 2016) has been widely circulating the internet since 2019. In this great letter Steinbeck asked Marilyn for a signed photograph, not for himself but for his then 17-year-old nephew-in-law Jon Atkinson. For those who haven't read it yet, here is the famous letter:

Source: Julien's Auctions

It wasn't until this year that someone actually tracked down Jon Atkinson to see whether he had received Marilyn's photograph, as requested for him by Steinbeck. Michael Alberty was the investigative journalist and wrote about his findings in The Oregonian on 21 June: 

I’m happy to report that Atkinson is alive and well, living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with Joan, his wife of 57 years. He’s a retired minister, and this commotion about his teenage preoccupation with Marilyn Monroe comes as a bit of a surprise.

Atkinson vaguely remembers hearing about his famous in-law’s letter, but he’s not sure when. Amazingly, my phone call was the first time a newspaper or magazine has reached out to ask him if he received the Monroe photograph.

Joan Atkinson says she first found out about the Steinbeck letter a few weeks ago. That’s when a former student from her days teaching in the library school at the University of Alabama called to ask, “Have you seen this letter?”

As you may have guessed by now, Atkinson never received a photograph or anything else from Marilyn Monroe.

After the call from the former student, Jon Atkinson asked his wife if she thought the letter was a fake.

“It was a good question because it’s definitely not his signature. It even has the typist’s little initials, ‘mf’ underneath the signature,” Joan Atkinson said. This is where the mystery deepens.

Joan Atkinson points out that Steinbeck almost exclusively wrote his letters in longhand with a pencil. “I could not imagine that John Steinbeck would have had a typist or secretary from the office sign a letter like that for him. As personal as this subject was, it seems strange,” she said.

Did Steinbeck write the letter for an assistant to type? All we can say with any degree of confidence is the letter was in Marilyn Monroe’s possession. Unless the typist “mf” can be located, this piece of the mystery may never be solved.

We do know young Jon Atkinson never received a photograph inscribed with a personal message from Marilyn Monroe. “That sure would have been nice, right?” Atkinson said.

[source]

Whether the letter was indeed written by Steinbeck or if it came from someone else we may never know for sure. As Alberty mentioned, the only thing we can be certain of is that the letter was owned by Marilyn, having been auctioned as part of The Estate of Lee Strasberg in 2016 (Strasberg being Marilyn's acting coach and mentor to whom she left most of her possessions). While I'd like to believe the letter was Steinbeck's, it seems odd indeed why the author had a secretary sign it for him, considering its contents and Marilyn being the addressee. (To compare signatures, check out Steinbeck's signature here.) But then again, Steinbeck had written thousands of letters in his lifetime and perhaps his letter to Marilyn just wasn't a priority, seeing that he didn't know her well. At any rate, I tried to find answers online —looking for the mysterious secretary "mf"— but, not surprisingly, I found nothing. 

Incidentally, I don't know if Marilyn was a Steinbeck fan but three of his books could be found in her personal library, i.e. The Short Reign of Pippin IV, Once There Was a War, and Tortilla Flat (source).

I keep your face and figure in mind as I write it

Nearly twenty years after the release of John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940), John Steinbeck, author of the novel on which the film was based, sat down and played a 16 mm print of the film on his home projector. Reluctant to watch the film again for fear it would be dated, Steinbeck was immediately hooked at the sight of Henry Fonda: "Then a lean stringy dark-faced piece of electricity walked out on the screen, and he had me. I believed my own story again". Producer Darryl Zanuck had initially wanted to cast Tyrone Power but Fonda was Steinbeck's first choice from the start, his portrayal of Tom Joad being everything the author had hoped for.

At the time of his rewatching The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck was working on what may have been a modern version of the famous Don Quixote story, which he titled Don Keehan, The Marshal of Manchon. The author had high hopes for the project and thought of Henry Fonda as the lead in a possible film version with Elia Kazan directing. In the following letter to Fonda, written on 20 November 1958, Steinbeck told the actor he was writing the book with him in mind. In the end, however, the project was abandoned and Fonda never played a Steinbeck character again.

(Incidentally, Steinbeck and Fonda were good friends. At the author's funeral in 1968, Fonda read Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem Ulysses.)

New York

November 20, 1958

Dear Hank,

It is strange but perhaps explainable that I find myself very often with a picture of you in front of my mind, when I am working on a book. I think I know the reason for this. Recently I ran a 16 mm print of The Grapes of Wrath that Kazan had stolen from Twentieth Century Fox. It's a wonderful picture, just as good as it ever was. It doesn't look dated, and very few people have ever made a better one — and I think that's where you put your mark on me. You will remember also that when I was writing Sweet Thursday* I had you always in mind as the prototype of Doc. And I think that one of my sharp bitternesses is that due to circumstances personality-wise and otherwise beyond our control you did not play it when it finally came up. I think it might have been a different story if you had.

Now I am working on another story, and again I find that you are the prototype. I think it might interest you. It will be a short novel and then possibly a motion picture, possibly a play — I don't know. But it's just the character and the story that remind me so much of you that I keep your face and figure in mind as I write it. I don't know whether you're in town or not — but if you are I wish you'd come over some evening, and maybe we can talk. I'd like that very much. And you might be very much interested in the story I am writing. It seems made for you. In fact it's being made for you — let's put it that way.

Yours,

John

Note*
Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday was a short novel which was made into the musical Pipe Dream, written by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein. The musical premiered on Broadway in November 1955. Steinbeck discussed the part of Doc with Fonda who was interested to play it. As Fonda couldn't sing, he took singing lessons but after six months he said he "still couldn't sing for shit". Richard Rogers thought so too and the role eventually went to William Johnson, a regular Broadway actor/singer. Pipe Dream became a flop as well as a financial debacle for Rogers and Hammerstein.

Source of Steinbeck's letter: Steinbeck: A Life in Letters (1975), edited by Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten

I know it's a hell of a gamble

After reading John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden (1952), director Elia Kazan immediately wanted to turn it into a film. Admittedly, Kazan didn't like the first part of the book and was only interested in filming the latter section which deals with the conflict between Cal, his father Adam and brother Aron. To write the screenplay, Kazan didn't choose Steinbeck --Steinbeck did write the screenplay for Kazan's Viva Zapata! (1952)-- but he chose screenwriter Paul Osborn instead. Kazan felt that East of Eden was the toughest dramatisation job he had ever seen and wanted a professional screenwriter to handle it. While Steinbeck (a good friend of Kazan) was not happy with Kazan's decision, he was busy writing a Broadway musical* so he agreed to Osborn doing the screenplay.

For the principal role of Cal Trask, Kazan briefly considered Marlon Brando with whom he had worked on A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954). Brando, however, was 30 at the time and Kazan thought him too old for the role. Paul Osborn then suggested 23-year-old James Dean for the part. (Osborn had seen Dean on Broadway doing a bit part in the play The Immoralist.) While Kazan didn't think much of Dean personally, he felt Dean did have that special quality which made him Cal. Later Dean was introduced to Steinbeck and, despite finding Dean a "snotty kid", Steinbeck also thought Dean wás Cal. 

When it came to the casting of Abra (Aron's girlfriend who later falls for Cal), Kazan chose experienced stage actress Julie Harris, 28 years old at the time. Jack Warner, studio head at Warner Bros, wanted someone younger and prettier than Harris but Kazan insisted on her being cast. Kazan never regretted his decision and later said that on the set Harris had been more important to Dean than he, the director, had been: "I doubt that Jimmy would ever have got through East of Eden except for an angel on our set. Her name was Julie Harris and she was goodness itself with Dean, kind and patient and everlastingly sympathetic. She helped Jimmy more than I did with any direction I gave him."

Other important roles went to Raymond Massey (Adam Trask), unknown actor Richard Davolos (Aron) and Jo Van Fleet (Kate, mother of Cal and Aron).

Pictured above: Marlon Brando visiting Elia Kazan, Julie Harris and James Dean on the set of East of Eden (1955); below: Dean and Kazan talking to some children on the set.

And now to the letter!

In March 1954, Elia Kazan wrote to his friend John Steinbeck, talking about the progress he and Osborn had just made with the script and about his wish to cast Jimmy Dean and Julie Harris in the roles of Cal and Abra. Kazan admits to it being "a hell of a gamble", seeing that Jack Warner was hoping for stars, but he was willing to take the risk. Well, as we know, Kazan's gamble paid off eventually. East of Eden was not only the start of what would later become a James Dean cult, but at the time it was also a huge success. The film received four Oscar nominations, i.e. for Kazan (Best Director), Dean (Best Actor), Osborn (Best Adapted Screenplay) and Van Fleet (Best Supporting Actress), with Van Fleet being the only one who took home the Oscar.

*Incidentally, the last paragraph of the letter concerns the Broadway musical which Steinbeck was working on with Rogers and Hammerstein ("R&H"); read more here. And at the bottom of the post I've also included a note from James Dean to a fan regarding East of Eden. 

Elia Kazan (pictured right) and John Steinbeck (left) were very close friends. In 1952 after Kazan had given his HUAC testimony, Steinbeck was one of the few people who stood by him. Steinbeck trusted Kazan implicitly and in the end was very happy with the way Kazan's East of Eden (1955) had turned out.

[Sandy Hook, Connecticut] 

[March 1954]

Dear John: 

Give our love to Elaine first of all. We had a hell of a time down there. A lot of new stuff like goggle swimming and all kinds of fishing esp. bone fishing. And esp real hot weather. I liked that. That was very welcome.

Now I'm back, feeling very different. I'm up in the country and Paul and I worked all day yesterday and today on the second draft. Yesterday was bewildering, but today was the day. Today we got somewhere.

We're reconstructing the first forty five odd pages pretty thoroughly. We feel it goes pretty well after that, but the first forty five were very bad. We're finally on a line for Aron. I hope you don't mind: we made him a Wilson (Woodrow, that is) enthusiast. We took out the two historical montages. We had Europe in the war at the beginning. And Aron convinced that we'd never get in, that Wilson would keep us out. Then, the night of the birthday party, Wilson lets him down. And a lot more. The script we had, it turns out, was simply what it was, a first draft. I kept saying that, but it was nevertheless a bit of a shock when it turned out to be what I had been saying: a first draft. We'll be working all this week up here, and then a couple of days in New York. Then I'll go to Salinas and look at your back streets (The ones you told me about). Then I'll go down to Burbank FUCK IT and make the film. I hate to leave N.Y.C. And maybe this will be the last picture I make in Cal. But this one belongs out there, so.  

I looked thru a lot of kids before settling on this Jimmy Dean. He hasn't Brando's stature, but he's a good deal younger and is very interesting, has balls and eccentricity and a "real problem" somewhere in his guts, I don't know what or where. He's a little bit of a bum, but he's a real good actor and I think he's the best of a poor field. Most kids who become actors at nineteen or twenty or twenty-one are very callow and strictly from N.Y. Professional school. Dean has got a real mean streak and a real sweet streak. 

I had an awful time with the girl. Terrible. The young girls are worse than the young boys. My god, they are nothing. Nothing has happened to them or else they're bums. Abra is a great part. I hope you don't die now. I want to use Julie Harris. Do you think I'm nuts? The screen play depends so on her last scene with Adam and on her strength, that I have to have a real, real actress. I couldn't find one aged twenty. They're nothing. Proms, dresses, beaus and all that, but nothing for my last scene. Finally I made a photographic test of Julie and she looks twenty when her face is in movement, I think. I'll just have to keep her face in movement. She's a marvelous actress. She is not Abra the way we saw her, but jeezuz I was stuck. 

One pro thing. She and Jimmy Dean look fine together. They look like People, not actors. I'm real pleased with that part of it. Two people. Dean has the advantage of never having been seen on the screen. Harris, practically.

Meantime WB? Jack esp. are dying. They hoped for stars. But they didn't come up with any names. And I haven't. I know you must be a little shocked with this casting. And I know its a hell of a gamble and all on my shoulders. But I'm delighted to take it. Its the kind of gamble I like. Write me. c/o Warner Bros. Burbank Cal.

I think R&H did fair on the lead casting. And I think Clurman is one of the three or four best directors in the world today. R&H will do the musical part of it. Lots of love to you and Elaine. Have a BALL!

Source: The Selected Letters of Elia Kazan (2014), edited by Albert J. Devlin.

Below: James Dean's letter to a fan, saying he found playing Cal "gratifying". Image of the letter courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

source

Steinbeck's complaints about Lifeboat

After Ernest Hemingway had turned down Alfred Hitchcock's offer to write the story for Lifeboat (1944), Hitchcock approached another novelist, John Steinbeck. Steinbeck accepted the offer and eventually gave Hitch a novella. Hitchcock then had several writers turn Steinbeck's novella into a workable screenplay, among them MacKinlay Kantor, Ben Hecht, Jo Swerling and Hitchcock's own wife Alma Reville. In the end, Swerling was the only one credited for the screenplay, while Steinbeck was credited for having written the original story.

In January 1944, John Steinbeck saw Lifeboat in its finished form, and he didn't exactly like what he saw. He was especially appalled by the way one of his characters, the African American 'Joe' (played by Canada Lee), had been portrayed. In a letter to 20th Century-Fox, Steinbeck said that he had created a "Negro of dignity, purpose and personality" but that Hitchcock had turned him into a "stock comedy Negro". So appalled was Steinbeck that he wrote to his agent a month later to have 20th Century-Fox remove his name from "any connection with any showing of this film". Despite Steinbeck's protests, his name was not removed.

John Steinbeck (above), and Canada Lee and William Bendix in a scene from Lifeboat (below).

New York 

January 10, 1944 

Dear Sirs: 

I have just seen the film Lifeboat, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and billed as written by me. While in many ways the film is excellent there are one or two complaints I would like to make. While it is certainly true that I wrote a script for Lifeboat, it is not true that in that script as in the film there were any slurs against organized labor nor was there a stock comedy Negro. On the contrary there was an intelligent and thoughtful seaman who knew realistically what he was about. And instead of the usual colored travesty of the half comic and half pathetic Negro there was a Negro of dignity, purpose and personality. Since this film occurs over my name, it is painful to me that these strange, sly obliquities should be ascribed to me. 

John Steinbeck

A month later,  Steinbeck sent a telegram to his agent, Annie Laurie Williams:

MEXICO CITY 

FEBRUARY 19, 1944 

PLEASE CONVEY THE FOLLOWING TO 20TH CENTURY FOX IN VIEW OF THE FACT THAT MY SCRIPT FOR THE PICTURE LIFE BOAT WAS DISTORTED IN PRODUCTION SO THAT ITS LINE AND INTENTION HAS BEEN CHANGED AND BECAUSE THE PICTURE SEEMS TO ME TO BE DANGEROUS TO THE AMERICAN WAR EFFORT I REQUEST MY NAME BE REMOVED FROM ANY CONNECTION WITH ANY SHOWING OF THIS FILM 

JOHN STEINBECK

On 21 February 1944, Steinbeck wrote to his agent again, referring to his telegram sent two days earlier:

It does not seem right that knowing the effect of the picture on many people, the studio still lets it go. As for Hitchcock, I think his reasons were very simple. 1. He has been doing stories of international spies and master minds for so long that it has become a habit. And second, he is one of those incredible English middle class snobs who really and truly despise working people. As you know, there were other things that bothered me-- technical things. I know that one man can't row a boat of that size and in my story, no one touched an oar except to steer.

Source: Steinbeck: A Life in Letters (1975), edited by Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten

Alfred Hitchcock and his leading lady Tallulah Bankhead on the set of Lifeboat.