I just don't get it. It seems like her FAKE name will always be known while others with talent and many who died because of OLD AGE will fade until nobody living knows who they are. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of classic actors who deserve to have the popularity that Marilyn Monroe does. Hell, the store I work at sells a line of Marilyn Monroe jewelry and some other stuff. WTF?! She is DEAD!!!!!
share___If you don't get it, you probably never will. Don't agonnize over it. The one thing you can't do is stop what others like myself do feel for her. She is the quintessential Hollywood story.
shareOh, Dorian! I was hoping nobody would answer, because it all comes down to what you like and what you don't. How can you explain Garbo or Katharine Hepburn or Bette Davis or Meryl Streep to people who don't "get it?" I wonder why people bother? If you don't, you don't. No big deal.
Monroe was so much more than her image, and that was recognized in her lifetime. The immediate, exquisite eulogies after her death confirmed that she had reached some other level of fame and affection, beyond the standard sex-symbol. On the other hand, had she lived, we simply wouldn't speak of her as we do now. Even if she'd had a successful career in her middle and late years. She died young and that's that. But no other star who died young has ever maintained such a hold on the public imagination.
There was an openness and vulnerability that transcends her work. Even during her lifetime, Louella Parsons very astutely noted (in 1961) that MM was a far greater star in print, as an object and subject of speculation, than she was as a movie star. Louella felt Monroe had not yet reached her peak, but that her image was more valuable than her work.
And so she died, rather unfulfilled in so many ways--but her striving, for those who truly know her story--is one of the many aspects of her life that continue to fascinate.
Denis,
___Well, you've explained the unexplainable to the unconvinced of those who are seemingly annoyed at her very presence. To say there are thousands who deserve her spot is really ludicrous. You know I never really got Elvis, but I never put down those that did, nor did I think him undeserving of his ever present status. Luckily my mother did get it, he brought her lot of pleasure, so that was just fine.
___I love Parsons, one of the two of the darkest witches of Hollywood. But, she was wonderful to Marilyn, and yes, she still believed Marilyn's true greatness was ahead of her, God Bless Her!
Dorian