What’s on my mind? She died 57 years ago today. What if she’d lived? Imagine her now, at 93! Would she have been a recluse, as Zsa Zsa Gabor was? Would she have been ugly, loud, and xenophobic, like the still-living Brigitte Bardot? Surely not!
There was a sweetness about Marilyn Monroe - a sweetness even her mother’s mental instability and the multiple foster homes of her childhood and all the men she loved couldn’t knock out of her.
There was a sweetness about Marilyn Monroe - a sweetness even her mother’s mental instability and the multiple foster homes of her childhood and all the men she loved couldn’t knock out of her.
Maybe she wasn’t such a stable type. Maybe not. Her first marriage lasted four years. Her second, a year. Her third, five years. One year later, she was dead at 36. Candle in the wind, long gone, yet still a money-maker through the posters, magazines, T-shirts, photos, books, fridge magnets, and movies from which she stares out at the world - in death, larger than life.
The adulation! No one would have thought it possible the glorification of her image would continue to this day. It is the sort of reverence one might bestow upon Nobel prize winners whose actions and words have touched and saved and inspired millions - if only we could remember the Nobel winners’ names.
Everyone remembers her name: “There’s Marilyn!” someone calls. And sure enough, there she is - mouth slightly open, eyes confronting the camera, dyed blond ’50s curls tumbling down, as in the Carole King song:
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, a’tumbling down,
A’tumbling down, a’tumbling down, a’tumbling down, a’tumbling down, tumbling down!
That was Marilyn, for sure. A’tumbling down, whether painted into a skin-tight dress, wiggling and whisper-singing “Happy Birthday, Mister President,” or a’tumbling down that lonely night she died at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood, Los Angeles; naked in bed, one hand on the telephone receiver, an overdose of barbiturates swirling in her system.
.
Google “Marilyn” and the fascination of people around the world is evident: “How much did Marilyn Monroe’s weight?” asks one of many. That single word brings up her quotes, movies, birth date and name, height, age, dress, and ex-husbands’ names. Google her first and last name to access a treasure trove of minutiae.
In the weeks after her death, Andy Warhol completed a famous diptych of her memorable face. I saw it once, in London. Everyone wanted to see it. It was a shine; a way of being in her presence; of feeling close to her. A Warhol painting called “Orange Marilyn” recently fetched more than $17 million. Marilyn Monroe: Our Mona Lisa, but with a definable price tag.
Her movies endure. Of those who saw Some Like It Hot, for instance, it’s a safe bet more movie lovers under 40 have forgotten her co-stars - Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon - than her. No one can forget Marilyn, just as no one can forget Elvis. Had he lived, he would now be 84 - perhaps revered; perhaps a parody of himself.
Marilyn and Elvis inhabit their own Universe. He also died in August, naked, 15 years after she did. In death, he is also larger than life. Each earns more now than during their brief stay on this earth.
Nighty-night, Norma Jeane. Nighty-night, Elvis Aaron.
© Nicole Parton, 2019
