Personal Consultation
By Leibish Polnauer, President & FounderIt was 3.30am and I was lying down in bed feeling totally restless. The hot air was standing still in the room and, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sleep. When I am awake at this hour, which happens far too often, I am usually lying there contemplating silly questions in my head.
My mind was soaring, and the question why Arthur Miller married Marilyn Monroe came up. I wasn’t sure what to write my President’s article on this month, and to make things a little bit more pressured, Benji, my editor, was leaving to Las Vegas for a week. I haven’t written on this topic before, and I did wonder about how this unlikely pair came to be.
I tried to picture myself in Arthur Miller’s shoes. She first met both Miller and Elia Kazan in Hollywood, while on the set of As Young as You Feel.
“He [Arthur Miller] wouldn’t have married me if I had been nothing but a dumb blonde,” said Marilyn.
People like to surround themselves with pretty things. For Arthur Miller, Marilyn was a trophy. As we all know, love is insane. The literary genius simply added a goddess to his glory.
My Auntie Lisle from Sziget also had her own opinion on this marriage. She said that she never understood why such a nice, smart, and good looking Jewish boy from New York “Macht chasene Mit so a miesse Shickse” (married such an ugly non Jewish girl).
I tried to protest and defend the couple: “But Lisle, Monroe was far from ugly. In fact, she was gorgeous!”
“Hack nicht the chainik!” – Meaning, discussion is over - don't shake the teapot!
This conversation was over.
Still, I really couldn’t understand how Marilyn Monroe would measure up on Auntie Lisle’s measuring stick. Do you think she had to stand in Arthur Miller’s mother’s kitchen in Brooklyn learning to prepare matzo-ball soup? Arthur Miller didn’t seem to be the type of guy that was all that keen on matzo-ball soup.
It is said that they didn’t have the most stable marriage. He probably had different ideas of a relationship than Marilyn. I figure that Miller was taken over by passion. Contrary to what Auntie Lisle believed, there was more to marital bliss than preparing the world’s best matzo-ball soup.
l was never such a deep thinker, but I wanted to understand the difference between love and passion. I love my wife and I would never marry Marilyn Monroe – but still!
Many people have fantasies. Most leave it at that, a fantasy, and nothing more. But some men have been captured by passion.
These men have given away everything, including their kingdom to reach what they believe to be ‘successes.’ But I have never heard of a woman overpowered by passion. Sure, there are those that have a fling here and there, but we don’t hear of them giving up the throne of the British Empire. Wallis Simpson, even before she was the Duchess of Windsor, never considered proposing the idea to any man ‘if you marry me I will make you the finest jewelry ever made for man.’ It was the other way around, and the man that was to be the King of England abdicated so that he could marry her.
In fact, the future King Edward – in addition to giving up his throne! - made for Mrs Simpson some of the finest jewelry that Cartier has ever produced.
Edward was clearly totally consumed in his passion for Wallis Simpson.
He did not want her only as a mistress, as Pablo Picasso had done, but married her and gave up the British throne for her.
Some turn their passion into art.
The 1932 painting of Picasso’s mistress Marie-Therese Walter titled Le Reve, was sold for $155 million in 2013!
I never understood why diamonds are so cheap
Whatever prices records color diamond reached- they are still greatly undervalued by the world at large.
There is a lot of passion around and when money meets passion, color diamond jewelry is in play in a big way.
Fancy Purplish Pink radiant shaped diamond ring
The beauty of color diamonds is that they don’t lose their fire and color intensity. Even when the original passion is long gone and the players are in the books of history - the jewelry remains eternal. That is the real beauty of the jewelry from Cartier that Edward gave to Wallis Simpson, way beyond the jeweler that he chose or the stones that he used. You can see his passion for her in the designs that they created. It is this passion, excitement, and color that stays in hearts and memories forever.
Best regards,
Leibish Polnauer, President and Founder of LEIBISH Fancy Color Diamonds
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