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"Well, she was not the sex symbol that everyone thought she was," ... American theatre and film director, screenwriter and writer of Greek origin Elia Kazan wrote in a letter to his wife, when he decided to admit his extramarital affair with Marilyn Monroe. The letter will come to light in April, in a book entitled "The Selected Letters of Elia Kazan", published by "Alfred Nopf" publishing house, along with another 299 letters of the famous director, who was born in Istanbul. (He was accused of telling the Commission for anti-American activities, during McCarthyism, that Jules Dassen and others were communists).

The director of the films "A Streetcar Named 'Desire'", "On the Waterfront" and "East of Eden" was born with the name Elias Kazandzhioglou and in 1947 he co-founded the famous "Actors Studio" in New York, where the greatest Hollywood stars started their path. In 1955, in a letter to his wife Molly, who knew very well that he was a woman chaser, he told her that the night spent with Marilyn Monroe "is not a threat to our relationship because you know how much I love you."

He also revealed that Marilyn drove him mad with details about how her husband at the time Joe DiMaggio was harassing her, especially after the filming of the famous scene with the white dress over a grille, on the New York underground, for the film "The Seven Years Itch".

"I regret that I was with her and hurt you. I am not ashamed that she attracted me but she is not the sex symbol they advertise." The director naturally found other fascinating features in Marilyn Monroe, "You cannot remain indifferent to her. She is talented, funny, helpless, vulnerable..."

In another letter from 1953 to Frank Sinatra’s agent, Elia Kazan wanted to find a compromise because in the end he decided to give the role of boxer Terry Malloy in the film "On the Waterfront" to Marlon Brando instead of to Frank. "I am very sorry that I will hurt Frank, and his career will suffer", wrote the director. "Wouldn’t the shock be lighter if Frank himself said that he could not take the role because of his busy schedule?"

Many of Kazan’s letters were addressed to Marlon Brando who starred in the films "On the Waterfront" and "A Streetcar Named 'Desire'", roles that are believed to have built his career. In a letter sent to the 43-year-old and already quite heavy Brando, Kazan wrote that "Warner Bros bosses think you're a very heavy", explaining that they had not offered him a role in his next film because of this, rather than because of a lack of talent. "I do not know if you want to regain your previous weight. I know that after 40 this is already difficult," adds the director.