The beginning of a new year brings with it the quest for self-improvement – from giving up smoking to better financial security, the dark days of January usher in a new dawn for attempts at personal satisfaction.

And for Marilyn Monroe, 1955 was the year she determined to turn it all around.

The then 29-year-old star had already starred in movies like All About Eve and The Seven-Year Itch, but 1955 saw the model turned actress accepted into Lee Strasberg’s prestigious Actors’ Studio. Writing her new year’s resolutions in her diary, the troubled Monroe was determined to seize the opportunity to be a better version of herself - though the personal demons that plagued her are clear to see:

[Image: Farrar, Straus and Giroux]

Transcript: 

Must make effort to do
Must have the dicipline to do the following –

z – go to class – my own always – without fail

x – go as often as possible to observe Strassberg’s other private classes

g – never miss actor’s studio sessions

v – work whenever possible – on class assignments – and always keep working on the acting exercises

u – start attending Clurman lectures – also Lee Strassberg’s directors lectures at theater wing – enquire about both

l – keep looking around me – only much more so – observing – but not only myself but others and everything – take things (it) for what they (it’s) are worth

y – must make strong effort to work on current problems and phobias that out of my past has arisen – making much much much more more more more more effort in my analisis. And be there always on time – no excuses for being ever late.

w – if possible – take at least one class at university – in literature –

o – follow RCA thing through.

p – try to find someone to take dancing from – body work (creative)

t – take care of my instrument – personally & bodily (exercise)

try to enjoy myself when I can – I’ll be miserable enough as it is.

(H/T: Uproxx)