Marilyn Monroe impersonator explains what's special about Zelienople Xmas show

ZELIENOPLE – Millions of people saw her in "Pulp Fiction" and nightly on Elton John's massive farewell tour.

You can catch Susan Griffiths in person, in Zelienople, doing her world-renowned Marilyn Monroe impersonation.

She co-stars in "Baby It’s Cold Outside: A Christmas Toast to Dean Martin & Marilyn Monroe" giving two performances, at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 26, at The Strand Theater.

Griffiths and the Dean Martin impersonator, Andy DiMino, bring natural chemistry together.

"He's been my boyfriend for 18 years," Griffiths said. "He lives in Vegas, I live in California. I don't recommend that."

As with their previous Strand performances, Susan's "Marilyn" and Andy's "Dean" will perform signature songs like "That’s Amore," "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime," and "Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend," though these upcoming shows also are Christmas themed.

So, audiences can expect Dino TO dig into "Winter Wonderland," "I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm"and "Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer" and Marilyn cooing favorites like "Santa Baby" and "What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve," plus the well-known duet, "Baby, It’s Cold Outside."

"Andy works effortlessly and fabulously as Dean Martin," Griffiths said. "He opens the show singing songs. And he tells the jokes. He's very funny. People love to hear him. Then he introduces me on stage, and I do my solo bit. Then we sing together. It's a throwback show that's a lot of fun.

"A lot of people don't know this, but Marilyn's last movie was with Dean Martin, called 'Something's Gotta Give.' It was never finished."

Griffiths extensively studied Monroe's life and career in preparation for her starring role in 1991's TV movie "Marilyn & Me." While making a guest appearance as Monroe for the original NBC sci-fi drama "Quantum Leap," her agent notified her of an up-and-coming director needing a Monroe look-alike.

"Full disclosure: I had never heard of Quentin Tarantino, but my agent said 'You've got to do his movie. He's going to be a big deal. He's on track.'"

So, Griffiths accepted a meet-up with the famously energetic Tarantino.

"He was like bouncing off the walls. So, I auditioned and a couple days later I got a call back from him personally, which doesn't ever happen in Hollywood, but that's how hands-on he is. He said, 'Look, I think you're great, but I think this is too small a role for you. You're doing big things now. But let's talk again in a couple of days.'

"I remember thinking, 'well, that stinks' because I wanted the role. But when he called back, he said he talked to (film star) Harvey Keitel who told him, 'Look, if she's the best person for the role, then hire her.' So, Quentin asked: 'Will you do it?'"

Griffiths said yes, taking on the "Pulp Fiction" role of a Marilyn impersonator at a retro '50s diner, Jackrabbit Slim's, in a vastly iconic scene where the John Travolta and Uma Thurman characters go out for a night on the town.

"Quentin said, 'Susie, people are going to make these diners everywhere,'" Griffiths said. "It was one of my smallest parts but an amazing experience. Quentin is such an actor's director. He truly cares about the actors. He sent me the script, but I never read it. I figured I'm only in one scene."

Like everyone, Griffiths' jaw dropped when she saw "Pulp Fiction" for the first time.

(Spoiler alert) "When John Travolta stabs Uma in the heart, I had no idea. I remember thinking, 'Oh, God this is so intense.' But it's been ranked as the seventh-greatest movie of all time. When Quentin brought John Travolta back, that was considered so cutting edge."

During post-editing, Tarantino did Griffiths a solid favor by calling her back in to read the line "Would you like some more coffee?" which appears in the film.

Having a line in the film bumped up her residual revenue.

Griffiths also appeared in her Monroe, blonde bombshell persona in the TV series' "Nip/Tuck" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" during which in her backstage trailer, guest star Dustin Hoffman regaled her with stories from Hollywood.

Most recently and perhaps notably, Griffiths appeared on a huge video screen during Elton John's farewell tour, including its three Pittsburgh appearances, for the Monroe homage "Candle in The Wind."

Her "Candle in The Wind" role initially appeared during Sir Elton's Red Piano concert residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The pop superstar originally had planned to use stock footage of Monroe, until renowned photographer David LaChapelle, familiar with Griffiths, told him, "No, I got someone for you. She's fabulous."

"Elton said 'I trust you.'" Griffiths recalls. "So, we spent two days of shooting. The first day was the fun scenes. The second day, the entire crew and I cried the whole way through it. It was very emotional. Of course, there's nudity throughout it. But everything we did was tasteful. It was very comfortable to lay there in just sheets, let me tell you. Normally, I'm in a bustier and high heels.

"Elton was very pleased," Griffiths said. "And the icing on the cake was he took me with him on his farewell tour."

Growing up in California and Utah, Griffiths heard people compare her looks to Monroe's "the blonder I got."

A brunette as a teen, "I didn't respect (Monroe) at the time. I wasn't a fan. I didn't watch her movies," Griffiths said. "Though for Halloween, I wore a blonde wig and the reactions were ... oh my god, it was kind of interesting."

Still, she didn't foresee that resemblance leading to a career.

"At that time, I thought I'd be a cosmetics rep and in the business world. People said, 'You should be a model,' but I didn't think I was tall enough," Griffiths said.

Though Playboy magazine magnate Hugh Hefner gave her a modeling job after she turned down his initial offer to pose nude for a Monroe tribute.

"I didn't think I had the right to pose nude as Marilyn. So, I turned that down, but he had a legitimate modeling agency job for me."

Then came commercials in Japan.

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Circa 1983, celebrity impersonation wasn't an industry.

"There were Elvis lookalikes, but no such thing as a tribute show," Griffiths said. "There were drag shows."

Griffiths helped pioneer impersonation, starting humbly in a Vegas show where she was a sidelight amid lasers and other celebrity lookalikes.

"It's been a lifelong gift. I've done this all the time, since I was 21," she said.

"Though, by a certain point, Hollywood was changing. There was a lot of travel, and I couldn't do it. So, I gave up my acting career and just took on certain projects."

Like a Rat Pack tribute show at Lake Tahoe, where after meeting the Dean Martin impersonator, "I said to myself, 'I think I'm going to be OK.' I mean, he's 6-foot-three and Italian. We both just kind of liked each other right away."

DiMino studied Martin like she had studied Monroe.

"I've tried to put her in my subconscious, so I wasn't consciously impersonating her. And he did the same thing," Griffiths said. "If it isn't done that way, I think it sounds contrived. It might not go so well. Otherwise, it's cheesy," she said, (briefly dropping her voice into a breathy, bubble blonde stereotype to prove the point).

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"I want to be channeling her."

But if she thinks too much about technique, "you get into your own head too much.

"I tell this to men, too: There's a little bit of Marilyn in all of us."

Monroe embodied the part of the American Dream that says anyone can achieve success with hard work.

Monroe was born in 1926 to a mother later diagnosed with schizophrenia, "So she had to overcome illegitimacy, foster homes where there reportedly was some level of abuse and great insecurity mostly because her childhood had no foundation," Griffiths said.

But Monroe studied what would get a reaction, and methodically changed her image from Norma Jeane to icon Marilyn Monroe, who starred in such famed films as "Some Like It Hot," "The Seven Year Itch" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."

"People think she was just a bubbleheaded blonde but she was far beyond that," Griffiths said. "She was the first woman to create her own production company. That wasn't Katharine Hepburn. That wasn't Lauren Bacall."

Griffiths has no plans to watch the new Netflix special "The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes," focusing on the sex symbol's troubles and death at age 36. In its analysis of the movie's accuracy, Slate said it's "not so much a biopic based on the facts (but) a speculative dive into her psyche," while AARP used a 1-10 scale on seven scenes, giving the film an accuracy grade of 15 out of 70.

"There's misinformation. The opinions I've read about it say it's very salacious and sad. It doesn't show too much wonderfulness," Griffiths said.

Her depiction in Zelienople will be of the beloved entertainer whose beauty, charm and persona captivated the world. She and DiMino have teamed up at The Strand before, but never for a Christmas-themed show, which has her extra excited.

"The Northeast does Christmas so differently. Of course, in California, there's no snow," she said. "And we really love (theater founder) Ron Carter and The Strand."

Advance tickets are $22-$28 at web.ovationtix.com or thestrandtheater.org

Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and easy to reach at stady@timesonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Marilyn Monroe & Dean Martin tribute plays Strand Theater, Zelienople