The other day I spotted a young girl, maybe 10 or 11, walking through the supermarket with her mom. Nothing out of the ordinary there, of course. What got my attention, though, was the fact that this cute little kid was wearing a Marilyn Monroe T-shirt. And that brought to mind a whole slew of things.
We Americans are often bombarded with the daily highs and lows of the hip, hot celebrity or celebutante of the moment. That’s an undeniable part of the entertainment media machine that’s been sewn into the fabric of our modern lives. But every so often someone like Marilyn Monroe comes along with just the right combination of ingredients—looks, talent, vulnerability and, sadly, youthful mysterious death—that takes things to a whole new level of interest and, dare I say it, obsession.
We just passed the 50-year anniversary of Marilyn’s death (on Aug. 5, 1962) at age 36. Yet five decades later, there are kids—who likely have never even seen a Marilyn Monroe movie— wearing her image around or mimicking her iconic pursed-lipped poses on their Facebook pages. And she’s certainly not limited to just a couple old photos. Marilyn’s still in the movies (My Week With Marilyn) and on TV (Smash). She still smiles at us from magazines (three covers for Vanity Fair in the past four years alone) and there are new photo albums and books analyzing her life or exploring her death (was it a drug overdose, a politically-motivated assassination, a mob hit?) that are filling the store shelves all the time.
Of course, advertisers are always ready to use the bombshell for their products, from bathing suits to hair dye. MAC Cosmetics, for instance, will launch a limited-edition Marilyn Monroe makeup collection of 30 products this October. There are Marilyn tours that explore everything from Marilyn’s orphanage beginnings to the restaurant where she met Joe DiMaggio to her gravesite. Oh, and the Web? There are Web sites set up just to list all the Web sites about Marilyn and point you to the best ones.
And, trust me, all the things I just rambled off are simply the tip of the Marilyn-mania iceberg.
There’s no question that Norma Jean Baker, the sweet-looking 19-year-old who became a platinum blonde enigma with the stage name Marilyn Monroe, certainly had something special about her. One of my first memories of the actress was running across a photo of her in a book at the library when I was a kid. I was probably only 10 or so myself, but I remember spotting a certain fragileness, a vulnerability in Marilyn’s eyes that—based on one picture—caused me to become invested. Strangely enough, I suddenly felt a desire to protect this pretty, sad woman. And yet when a Marilyn Monroe movie showed up on TV—I think it was the Billy Wilder-directed pic, Some Like it Hot —I also remember my mother demanding that the channel be quickly changed lest I see something I shouldn’t.
That, of course, is just one of the odd dichotomies that makes up what we know as Marilyn Monroe. Was she a pretty girl-next-door or a Playboy centerfold? A vulnerable lost soul or a wanton temptress? A manipulating puppeteer or a put-upon victim? A natural star or a manufactured Hollywood system product? Legend would say the answer is … yes. Yes, to all of the above. That keeps the legend alive. It stokes the fires of our interest. And, of course, it sells T-shirts.
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