Marilyn Monroe: Obsession overload for sex symbol even 50 years after her death
Marilyn Monroe is 36. Forever.
But beyond her eternal age-capture -- killer sexy meets electro-platinum meets playful sparkle meets insecure sadness meets lonely pill-popping death -- is the limitless fascination with Marilyn the person and Marilyn the myth. And, really, nearly 50 years after her death (she died on Aug. 5, 1962, in Brentwood, Calif.) myth replaces about 90 percent of the reality. Your soul is not allowed to take deep breaths once you've been dubbed an "American Icon." Legend is what sells once you've become, like Elvis, a permanent fixture in the pop-culture pantheon.
Marilyn mugs, Marilyn posters, Marilyn paintings, Marilyn calendars, Marilyn dolls, Marilyn statues, Marilyn songs, Marilyn books, Marilyn movies.
Sunday night, Michelle Williams could win the Academy Award for best actress for portraying the bombshell in "My Week With Marilyn," the story behind the making of "The Prince and the Showgirl" in 1956. Williams, a terrific actress, smartly played the inner Marilyn -- troubled, confused, scared, unsure of her acting.
Monday night, the latest episode of "Smash" airs on NBC, charting the quest of two Broadway strivers, played by K! atharine McPhee and Megan Hilty, who are competing for the role of the legend in "Marilyn the Musical."
"Sometimes I feel like Marilyn Monroe/Insecure, yeah I make mistakes," sings rapper Nicki Minaj on her new single, "Marilyn Monroe."
No matter how much has already been written and revisited, she never goes away. Any new MM project -- book, film, TV show, magazine spread, museum exhibit, website, auction -- seems plausible, peeking just over the edge of the horizon.
The why is clear. We are eternally obsessed with dead movie stars. There are dedicated devotees of Judy Garland, Clark Gable, Rita Hayworth, Rock Hudson, Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne. But Monroe reached beyond the limitations of film stardom by injecting herself into the social zeitgeist.
In 1954, she married Joe DiMaggio, then one of America's most famous and beloved athletes. In 1956, she married Arthur Miller, then one of America's most famous and beloved playwrights. She supposedly dallied with all manner of other famous men. Depending on whom you believe, she also had extended affairs, or at least sexual encounters, with John F. Kennedy, during or after -- or during and after -- his successful run for the presidency in 1960, and his brother Robert F. Kennedy, during that same campaign (or once he became U.S. attorney general in 1961).
Baseball god. Broadway lion. President. Maybe. Like Monroe, JFK never had a chance to grow old. He is forever 46.
Once your pop-culture legacy has cross-pollinated with the Kennedys, you're branded forever. You become inescapably embroiled in too-many-to-count conspiracy theories, sordid memoirs and bad TV movies. Monroe has been played on the small screen by Catherine Hicks, Mira Sorvino, Ashley Judd, Charlotte Sullivan and Poppy Montgomery, among many others, in films about her or about her and the Kennedys.
Monroe's own film work was spotty. The camera absolutely adored her, of course, and although she reached for deeper roles in films such as "Bus Stop" and "The Misfits," she was much more successful in comedies. She was brilliant as Sugar Kane in Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot" opposite Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, and with Tom Ewell in Wilder's "The Seven Year Itch," which included her famous white-dress-billowing-up-over-a-subway-grate moment (the iconic pose within the icon). She also shined in Howard Hawks' fun musical "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" (imitated 30 years later by Madonna in her "Material Girl" video).
There are dozens of tales of Monroe being late to the set, not knowing her lines, stumbling, fumbling, or not showing up at all (events encapsulated in "My Week With Marilyn"). Curtis famously said he hated working with the actress who mangled hundreds of takes. But some directors were willing to wait her out. They knew the magic that would be delivered on the other side. The effervescence. The unhinged electricity.
Monroe's great trump card for her professional shortcomings was her fiery sexuality. At the turn of the millennium, People magazine crowned her the "Sexiest Woman of the Century," while Playboy placed her above thousands of naked women as the "Number One Sex Star of the 20th Century." She was the magazine's first cover girl in 1953.
What's most astonishing is not the obsession with Monroe, it's the fact that no one has replaced her in that No. 1 slot.
Elizabeth Taylor probably came closest. Huge movie star. Popular with critics. Big at the box office. Mad-crazy and very public multiple marriages and divorces. Of course, Taylor, who died last March, was allowed to grow much older, and stranger. Her zenith of fame was more a phenomenon of the 1960s, and even though she was seductively smoky and sultry, and a wonderful actress,! her pop -culture shelf life has not been as sustained as Monroe's.
Grace Kelly certainly had the stunning classic looks and megawatt public presence, but she lacked the saucy sexiness. Doris Day was a major box-office draw who could handle comedy, drama and musicals, but she was more the girl next door. Farrah Fawcett's status as the sexiest woman alive was limited to the 1970s. Diana Ross had the potential, but she has faded from the limelight in recent decades.
Princess Diana captivated the world, but she was, above all, guarded. (Strange that Elton John turned his sorrowful Marilyn Monroe song, "Candle in the Wind," into a funeral farewell for Diana, another forever-36 woman).
Today we have . . . who? Sports Illustrated swimsuit models?
New York magazine dressed up Lindsay Lohan as Monroe last year for a cover spread. Angelina Jolie tried on a Marilyn-like platinum wig for a photo shoot. Nicole Kidman tried Marilynizing herself for the magazines. So did Jessica Simpson, Anna Nicole Smith and Scarlett Johansson.
Poseurs.
They are simply, to paraphrase Mark Twain, lightning bugs to the lightning.