The most endlessly talked about and mythologized figure in Hollywood history, Marilyn Monroe remains the ultimate superstar, her rise and fall the stuff that both dreams and nightmares are made of unfortunately there was rise to fame combined with so much more which never really surfaced till the late 80's and 90's.
Yet still the truth of what happened to her seemingly is a mystery. Regardless she was one that raised so fast and so much unravelled.
Innocent, vulnerable, and impossibly alluring, she defined the very essence of screen sexuality. She rose up from a poster pin up star to being a movie star. The cameras adored magnetic persona. She had it all until her life came to a tragic halt. A Cinderella story that went terribly wrong and much before her time - with no doubts. I often wonder if the appropriate people surrounded her. Yes, Norma Jean Mortensen seemed prone to the life and times of so many superstars. Yet to define her is or as we know as Marilyn Monroe. Born Norma Jean Mortensen (later named Baker) on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, she was seemingly destined for a life of tragedy: Her mother spent the majority of her life institutionalized. Marilyn was raised in an endless amount of orphanages and foster homes. Coupled with the fact that she had been raped at the early age of eight years of age. By 1942, she was married to one Jim Dougherty, subsequently dropping out of school to work in an aircraft production plant; within a year, she attempted suicide. Before Dougherty entered the military, Baker bleached her hair and thereafter she began modeling.
In 1946, the year of the couple's divorce, she was accredited to a top agency, and her image regularly appeared in national publications. Her photos piqued the interest of the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, who scheduled her for a screen test and 20th Century Fox beat him to the punch, and soon she was on their payroll at a mere $125.00 dollars a week.
She began studying at the Actors' Lab in Hollywood; however, when virtually nothing but a bit role in the juvenile delinquent picture The Dangerous Years came of her Fox contract, she signed to Columbia in 1948, where drama coach Natasha Lytess tutored her. There she starred in Ladies of the Chorus before they too dropped her. After briefly appearing in the 1949 Marx Brothers comedy Love Happy, she earned her first real recognition for her turn as a crooked lawyer's mistress in the 1950 John Huston thriller The Asphalt Jungle. Good notices helped Monroe win a small role in the classic All About Eve, but she otherwise continued to languish relatively unnoticed in bit parts. While she was now back in the Fox stable, yet studio Chief Darryl F. Zanuck failed to recognize her abilities and talent and merely placed her within pictures of a sexy dumb blond. I suppose although until years later there was still that male dominance combined with many things, which no one ever heard of until later years.
Out of all my readings of this star, I do think that Joe DiMaggio, the famous baseball player was her true love. Perhaps he loved her much more that she did herself. Although they had broke up. Joe stayed with her the hardest times and was the one that financed her burial.
To this very day, we never shall really know what really happened with this claim to fame in an era where there was not as much paparazzi, nor the times of which there were probably more that took place. Yet for myself, I see her as one that had a certain look that more than likely rendered more by way of her image than any other did within the era.
Elton John did a tremendous song on Marilyn back within the 90’s. There are several pictures, which still to this day are adorned with beauty of Marilyn Monroe, and if I can find it, I shall place it on. It was a black and white of Marilyn Monroe. As of yesterday, she would have been 57 years old.
If she had the appropriate help, I ponder where she would be now. It would have been nice to know her as Elton John wrote, "but I was just a kid". Seemingly that was remastered for another as well. But there is no doubt that Maryilyn was an icon and here flame burned out much too early.
She maybe gone but her legend does live on...
http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=Marilyn+Monroe
She was one of grace and if only she was alive, but that was not within those times nor within her flame.
ReplyDeleteI guess.
LOVw that girl
ReplyDeleteshe would be one of the new 57 yr olds..looking maybe like in her 30'sand too hot lol
ReplyDeleteYeah she was and still to this day I don't think anyone compares to her.
ReplyDeleteShe was one of a kind, but maybe too kind within that time. But adorable.
ReplyDeleteActually, she would've been 85. She was born in 1926. Truth be told, to me she's ageless :-).
ReplyDeleteThis is new to me as I knew for years she was born on June 1st but regardless for years this picture on here still stand within my brothers
ReplyDeleteentertainment room. I always wished to buy it from him but he would never let it go.
Seemingly she was not well scoped but within the eyes and within the smile.
ReplyDeleteStill today there has nor is another Marilyn Monroe. She was adorable, fresh,
non chalante, as well perhaps not as matured within all that she was within.
But millions loved her this Norma Jean aka Marilyn Monroe. Yet vanity
didnt seem to be within her way...
Your right! she would have been 85 years of age Sue.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize but Marilyn Monroe would have been the same age as my mother.
ReplyDeleteShe has been immortalized as a sex goddess. She is ageless now.
Well the beauty of dying young. People will remembered the fresh looks insgead of the other way.
ReplyDelete... gosh, i love her face. Looks familiar eh! :)
Nor did I but she was an icon which I was thinking of writing on. Seemingly she is ageless.
ReplyDeleteHey Maritess, she was within her time one that still to this day had a certain look that yet
ReplyDeleteI have seen the likes of. Yes some do die young, the likes of James Dean, Princess Diana and many others.
Yet within a sense they remain ageless...