"You heard that there was some actor who said kissing me was like kissing Hitler? Well, I think that’s his problem!" So said Marilyn Monroe, weeks before her death, to writer Richard Meryman, in what would be her last interview for Life magazine.

Monroe continued: "If I have to do intimate love scenes with a person who really has these kind of negative feelings about me, then my fantasy comes into play. It’s like, out with him, in with my fantasy. He was never there!"

The unnamed "actor" was, of course, Tony Curtis, the same Tony who now claims that not only did he have an affair with Monroe during the filming of "Some Like It Hot," but that she was pregnant with his child! (Monroe was married to Arthur Miller at the time, and her pregnancy was obvious in some scenes in the film. She later miscarried.)

All who could refute Tony are dead. But Miss Monroe’s words on the subject live on. And she wouldn’t even say his name.

***

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion," said the one and only George Washington.

I guess our first president would be shocked to find USA Today with a headline reading "Why Obama’s Church Choice Matters: There are political and spiritual implications."

And then there is the governor of Texas who recently said, "The idea that laws shouldn’t be informed by religion is an extreme position. Freedom of religion is not to be confused with freedom from religion."

Of course, Gov. Rick Perry is the same dingdong who wants Texas to secede from the union, so where does he get off telling the rest of us anything.

***

Who, among current celebrities, has the best upper arms? I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that the winners are Michelle Obama, Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Lopez. Madonna seems not to qualify.


Aniston, Lopez, Obama © Getty Images
If you don’t come by excellent upper limbs and glutes, you can have excess skin and fat taken away in what is known as axilloplasty. (I suppose this means you can have your axillos plasticized.)

***

Wandered into Orsos after theater and ran right into Ali MacGraw who is still beautiful and now lives quietly in Sante Fe, NM. The star of the classic movie "Love Story" doesn’t always get the credit she deserves. As a matter of fact, later in life she made one of my all-time favorite movies with, of all people, the comic Alan King. "Just Tell Me What You Want" is partly the story of a tempestuous couple who stage a fight in Bergdorf Goodman. It is simply terrific as directed by Sidney Lumet and you should look for it on DVD.

I told Ali I had just been thinking of her because I had read that very day the details of her late love Steve McQueen’s unhappy death from cancer. It’s all in the coming new book Morbid Curiosity: The Disturbing Demises of the Famous and Infamous.

Ali mused for a moment: "Yeah, yeah, you know Liz, all these rumors and feelers that they are looking to film the Steve McQueen story. Where in the world do you think they’ll ever come up with anyone who looks and acts like Steve!?"

***

Let’s see now – the popular, young actor Jude Law has three children with his ex-wife Sadie Frost. And now he is expecting one more by somebody named Samantha Burke, who seemed to fall into the category of one-night-extended stands.

One has to admire Jude’s exemplary attitude after finding out Samantha was pregnant and settling things for the coming baby via lawyers. Jude seems like an intelligent and talented person.

But one has to wonder that so many young men have never heard of birth control.