HV_VLFC_011 EL MOROCCO _ MARILYN AND TRUMAN 1955 / VILLY AND TOMMY 2025

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Kürbla Moepiltide ja -filmide Festival / Meestemoemuuseum / Tom of Kürbla by ELFH

MEEZ _092025

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Remnants of Bygone Worlds

1 h

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In the glittering world of mid-century Manhattan nightlife, El Morocco reigned supreme. The club, with its zebra-striped banquettes and aura of exclusivity, was the haunt of celebrities, tycoons, and socialites throughout the 1940s and 1950s. On one unforgettable evening in the spring of 1955, a young Truman Capote, already celebrated for his breakout novel Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), found himself twirling across the dance floor with none other than Marilyn Monroe. Monroe, then at the height of her Hollywood fame following The Seven Year Itch (1955), brought an incandescent presence to the New York social scene, while Capote, small in stature but immense in wit, charmed with his flamboyance. To many, the pairing seemed improbable, yet it captured the essence of El Morocco, where unexpected encounters defined the mythology of postwar glamour.

Phyllis Cerf, wife of publisher Bennett Cerf, recorded the incident with affectionate skepticism in her “What’s New” column for Newsday on May 5, 1955. She admitted doubting Capote’s tale of dancing with Monroe until photographic proof appeared in Time magazine—Marilyn, radiant and laughing, hand-in-hand with Truman, whose sharp features and mischievous grin told the story better than words. This fleeting moment, crystallized in a magazine spread, symbolized the convergence of literature and cinema, gossip and history, in a city that thrived on spectacle. El Morocco itself, located on East 54th Street, had become the stage where personalities like Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor mingled, but the Monroe-Capote snapshot epitomized its legend.

For Capote, the encounter was more than a glamorous anecdote—it foreshadowed his lifelong fascination with women he deemed “swans,” from Babe Paley to Slim Keith, figures who inspired his later works and friendships. For Monroe, the dance was a rare moment of levity, just before her career entered turbulent new chapters with Bus Stop (1956) and her New York studio training with Lee Strasberg. That single evening at El Morocco remains emblematic of 1950s New York, where chance meetings, immortalized by photographers, became part of the city’s cultural folklore. Kuva vähem