““I’m gonna be in the goddam movies if I have to f- Bela Lugosi to get there,’’ Norma Jean informs the man who would become her first husband. This long-suffering sap never quite recovers from her first lethal pickup line: ““Don’t you just love being naked?’’ Bigger saps follow: her agent/mentor Johnny Hyde (a terrific Ron Rifkin), Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller. She leaves spiked heel prints on all of them in her benzedrine-fueled rise to the top. ““How can you be so cruel?’’ Hyde beseeches. ““Because you let me,’’ Marilyn coolly explains. She knows only too well the power of what Hyde dubs her ““flesh appeal.''
The ““concept’’ of Jill Isaacs’s script is that plastic surgery and a dye job weren’t enough to make Norma Jean go away. She haunts the older Marilyn, berating her for getting fat and not living up to her potential. The lovely Judd and sexy Sorvino do fine on their own, but their histrionic scenes together have an unintentionally campy ““What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’’ quality to them. Director Tim Fywell lapses into more movie-of-the-week melodrama in the childhood flashbacks. The orphaned Norma Jean is molested by a parade of panting creeps in foster homes. Method guru Lee Strasberg tries to get her to tap this abused inner child. ““You should be grateful for the pain,’’ the old man instructs. ““It’s actors’ gold.’’ Make that ratings gold.
