Written for Monroe by then husband Arthur Miller, the role of Roslyn is contradictory and complex

What else can you call it but star quality? It was that – that ineffable, incalculable thing that makes certain actors on film seem almost holy – which made Marilyn Monroe one of the icons of cinema, perhaps the icon. That, coupled with her untimely death, which meant Monroe never grew any older on screen, is surely why she endures even now, 100 years after her birth. Whether performing Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, vamping in Niagara or throwing off sparkling dialogue in Some Like It Hot, Monroe seems to belong up there on the big screen – so much so that you might believe she never actually existed down here with us.

It’s Monroe’s last picture, 1961’s The Misfits, that shows the star was mortal after all. It begins in Reno, where Monroe’s out-of-towner Roslyn gets a quickie divorce from her absentee husband (Kevin McCarthy) before falling in with a group of local oddballs, among them an ageing cowpoke, Gay Langland (Clark Gable), and a buck-drunk bronco rider, Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift).

Exclusive: Taped conversations also cover playwright’s relationship with fame, self-doubt and communism

He was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century and she was one of the greatest actors. In newly unearthed recordings made over a period of nearly three decades, Arthur Miller opened up about his short-lived marriage to Marilyn Monroe, saying she wanted a husband who was a “father, lover, friend and agent,” and the child she longed for would have been an “additional problem”.

In taped conversations with his friend and biographer Prof Christopher Bigsby, Miller said he had felt “death was always on her [Monroe’s] shoulder – always”. He had believed that if he did not “take care of her life” she would come to a “catastrophic end”.

West End spectacular about beloved bear wins seven prizes, while Rachel Zegler, Rosamund Pike and Paapa Essiedu all recognised

• Olivier awards 2026: full list of winners

It was a night of sweet victory for Michael Bond’s marmalade-loving bear as Paddington: The Musical dominated the Olivier awards on Sunday. Amid the tuxes and gowns of a glittering ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the duffle coat-wearing bear got his sticky paws all over seven prizes including best new musical.

The award for best actor in a musical went to the duo who play Paddington: James Hameed provides the lovable hero’s voice and is the remote puppeteer, while Arti Shah performs in the furry costume. The show’s baddies, Tom Edden (as the busybody Mr Curry) and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (as Millicent Clyde, who wants Paddington to literally get stuffed), won best supporting actor and best supporting actress in a musical respectively. Luke Sheppard was named best director for the production, which also picked up awards for costume design (Gabriella Slade and Tahra Zafar) and set design (Tom Pye and Ash J Woodward).

The brassy actor’s performance in Death of a Salesman is the crown jewel in a life spent on stage. He says it could be his last Broadway role

“It’s, like, 10 minutes. I pee, I have a cup of tea, I put the jacket back on and I go out and fight my way to the death.”

The way Nathan Lane describes spending the intermission of Death of a Salesman – the nearly three-hour play in which his character flails and ultimately fails through an epic depression – reflects the actor’s own spirit: practical, lightly fatalistic, artfully hyperbolic and very, very funny. Today he is in fine form, nestled into a corner table in New York’s classic Upper West Side haunt Cafe Luxembourg. When I ask him if Salesman marks his first time performing at the Winter Garden Theatre, he responds without missing a beat: “Yes, except when I took over in Mame.”

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