Eternally Marilyn

photo by Milton Greene

Like so many summer days in Los Angeles, this one began as a balmy and sunlit morning. It would grow warmer and sunnier, but the languid summertime mood was shattered by news of a shocking event in one of the city’s most elite enclaves. It was Sunday, August 5, 1962, the day Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her West Los Angeles home, an empty pill bottle nearby. The story broke early and was soon burning up newswires and airwaves across the globe. Frenzied news crews were camped out around her hacienda-style house in Brentwood, a posh neighborhood that, with Beverly Hills and Bel Air, is known as the city's "Platinum Triangle.” It was the first home Marilyn Monroe ever owned on her own and she had moved in just five months earlier.

The details of Marilyn Monroe’s life and death were inspected, dissected and pondered in the media for months, then years, to come. Books about her would begin to fill bookstore shelves. Eleven years on, in 1973, Elton John had a hit record with “Candle in the Wind,” an homage to Marilyn. Addressing her, he sang poignantly  – and more accurately than he could have known then - ‘your candle burned out long before your legend ever did.’ There would be many more biographies and books about Marilyn, hundreds of them, not to mention magazine articles, news stories, TV programs, documentaries, movies and, eventually, podcasts. Now, 62 years after Marilyn Monroe’s passing and 50+ years after Elton John sang of her enduring celebrity, her legend, perhaps the ultimate Hollywood legend, still reverberates in the world.

 During her career she wasn’t treated with much respect. She was a megastar who possessed enough talent and charisma to maintain a position as a top box office draw for ten years, but because her image and most of the characters she portrayed were overtly sensual, she was seen strictly as a “sex symbol.” This label alluded to the obscene and brought with it both spoken and unspoken disapproval. Much to her chagrin and dismay, Marilyn would not be taken seriously, as an actress or a woman, while she was alive.

 On the set, Something's Got to Give, May/June 1962, photos by Lawrence Schiller

The tide of public opinion turned dramatically after her death. What would become a flood of recognition, appreciation and even veneration began to flow her way. Tributes of various sorts came from diverse quarters: from feminists, from the literati, from popular performers and celebrities of much later generations and even from local government.

In 1972, the newly established feminist magazine, Ms., ran a cover story by founder/editor Gloria Steinem on Marilyn Monroe, “The Woman Who Died Too Soon.”  Steinem would report that the response to her article, a revisionist take on the actress, had astounded her. "It was like tapping into an underground river of interest,” she said. In 1988 she expanded on the piece with the book Marilyn: Norma Jean. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning literary lion Norman Mailer, perhaps the macho antithesis of Gloria Steinem, penned a controversial “novel biography” in 1973 called Marilyn: A Biography. Reportedly fascinated with Marilyn, he would go on to write an imagined memoir in her voice in Of Women and Their Elegance (1980), as well as collaborate on a 1986 play titled Strawhead set during Marilyn's last days. In 2000, prolific best-selling author Joyce Carol Oates produced an 800-page account of Marilyn’s life in her novel Blonde. The book, an imaginative, if skewed, fictionalization, was adapted to the screen twice, most recently in 2022 starring Ana de Armas and premiering at the Venice International Film Festival. It later became Netflix's top streaming film.

One of the most heavily aired music videos on MTV in 1985 was “Material Girl," a smash hit from Madonna that helped establish her stardom. The savvy singer cleverly, and to great effect, emulated Marilyn’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” performance in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) in her “Material Girl” video. In 2022, reality TV star Kim Kardashian found herself at the center of a firestorm of criticism when she borrowed a famous dress from the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum and wore it to the Met Gala. It was the “illusion” gown designed by Jean Louis and worn by Marilyn when she sang “Happy Birthday” at the fabled Madison Square Garden birthday celebration for JFK in 1962. Enormous controversy erupted over whether Kardashian had damaged the historic gown (Ripley’s says “no”). The dress, which cost less than $1,500 to make in 1962 and sold at auction in 2016 for just under $5 million is now, according to Ripley's, valued at $10 million. In 2024, following Madonna’s lead of 40 years earlier, Ryan Gosling brought down the house at the 96^th Academy Awards ceremony when he rendered a showstopping nod to Marilyn’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” number with his go-for-it performance of the Oscar-nominated song “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie (2023).

Everlasting inspiration: Marilyn 1953, Madonna 1985, Ryan Gosling 2024

A uniquely official form of recognition was accorded Marilyn Monroe earlier this summer. On June 26, 2024, the Los Angeles City Council voted to designate her home in Brentwood as a cultural landmark, protecting it from being demolished by its current owners. Before the vote, the Brentwood district's city councilwoman argued “We have an opportunity to do something today that should’ve been done 60 years ago. There is no other person or place in the city of Los Angeles as iconic as Marilyn Monroe and her Brentwood home.” The vote in favor of bestowing historic status on the house was unanimous.

Left: Marilyn at home 1962; Brentwood home pool area

 

On August 4, 2012, the 50^th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s passing, I posted my perspective on her life and career titled “Out of a Dream;” you can find it here.

photo by Milton Greene