Good-Bye Norma Jeane

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius
 & it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring."

50 years after her death, Marilyn Monroe lives on as an enchanting enigma. She was the most famous woman in the world, & maybe the greatest movie star we'll ever know, but her true nature will be forever out of reach. The most endlessly talked about & mythologized figure in Hollywood history, Monroe remains the ultimate superstar, her rise & fall the stuff that both dreams & nightmares are made of.

I thought that Michele Williams came close to getting it right in the charming- My Week With Marilyn.  Williams accomplishes the near impossible, portraying Marilyn Monroe as an actual person, not just an easily caricatured icon. The films centers around the production of Laurence Olivier's film The Prince & The Showgirl. Based on a pair memoirs by Colin Clark, played in the film by adorable Eddie Redmayne,  who worked as an assistant on Olivier’s film, My Week With Marilyn shows Monroe’s numerous clashes with her imperious, classically trained director, played with great relish by Kenneth Branagh, maddened by his star’s method acting & her ever-present drama coach, Paula Strasberg (Zoë Wanamaker). Williams captures not only Monroe’s notorious fragility, both on-screen & off, but also her magical, unclassifiable charisma. My Weekend With Marilyn entertained & touched me. I recommend the film.

Marilyn Monroe, star of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, How to Marry a Millionaire & Bus Stop, was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on this day- June 1, in 1926, appropriately, in LA.

She signed her first studio contract with 20th Century Fox in 1946 for $125 a week, Norma Jeane dyed her hair blonde & changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.

Monroe was divine & profane, & she soon became myth & metaphor as Hollywood’s most famous martyred saint. At the height of her fame, she had received 5,000 fan letters a week. Many were from men, but women who wrote about the sadness in her eyes, her vulnerability, & how they identified with her.

From Monroe’s first film, Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!, in 1948, to her last, The Misfits, in 1962, she went from studio created blonde bimbo to a trained, heartbreaking actress of depth & soul. She is beyond camp, making different than Jayne Mansfield & Mamie Van Doren, who Hollywood used to replace her. She was irreplaceable.

Amazingly, Monroe still sells magazines & the May 2012 issue of Vanity Fair arrived in my mailbox with MM on the cover & featured even more "just discovered" photos of her by Lawrence Schiller. Never think you have seen the last of something.

On an early morning in the summer of 1962, Marilyn died in her sleep at her Brentwood, California home. Suicide, accident or murder? She was 36 years old. Marilyn remains a most important Gay Icon. She would have been 85 years old today.