Marilyn Monroe would be 82 today. Of course she didn't live to see her 37th birthday so she will forever be frozen perfectly in time. No botox or facelifts for Marilyn. No Garboesque slink into seclusion. Just a cold, naked, perfect body slung out on her bed, phone in hand, in her house at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood. Years later, when the new owners were remodeling the house in the '70s they would discover a complicated phone tapping and bugging system rigged up throughout the entire place. Who was involved? FBI? The mafia? I don't think we'll ever know quite what happened to Marilyn, but that just makes it more exciting I suppose.
A famous quote of hers goes: "I used to think as I looked at the Hollywood night, 'There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest'." This is achingly romantic and it sounds great, but how much of Marilyn's magic had to do with wishing and how much was just bound up in her being? No one before or since has quite recreated the onscreen magnetism she conveyed, and I'm sure a truckload of actresses have been wishing REALLY hard Marilyn. Really, really fucking hard.
I remember the first time I saw her face, in a bookstore window, selling one of the more than 600 books that have been written about her. This was in the '80s, I had no idea who she was, but I marched right into that store, scraped together the money I was going to use to buy a Smith's tape, and bought that book. I would flip through it over and over, poring over every picture, then starting at the beginning again. I was just agog at her unworldly face on top of her completely worldly body. Surely no one this gorgeous was ever really alive, right? I found it hard to believe and went back to the bookstore in search of more Marilyn books. This was before Tivo and the Internet so I had to be satisfied with bookstores, libraries, and the American Movie Classics channel.
I became a compulsive Marilynoholic and took to styling my hair in platinum curls, scouring thrift stores for vintage '50s dresses and heels, and wearing red lipstick. People began to refer to me as 'that girl who dresses like Madonna.' Fucking idiots. Madonna?! Then the lecture would start, and after they had been thoroughly schooled in which one was a sellout shill wannabe and which one was the Most Glamorous Movie Star Of All Time, Period, I would huff off, leaving them in stunned silence.
The first time I got to see Marilyn as she was meant to be enjoyed, on a giant movie screen, I was at a complete loss for words. It was Gentleman Prefer Blondes and something about the Technicolor and the musical numbers and Marilyn shining like an ethereal alien, just blew my mind. I wondered how everyone else could just go about their day-to-day life without becoming obsessed. My mom, who had been around in the '50s, just thought she was a tramp. I didn't know anyone else who was a rabid fan (no Internet, remember). I thought maybe I had lost my mind. It didn't lessen my fascination , just added an alienating component to it. But I was a teenager so it kinda worked for me.
I don't know how I snapped out of my Marilyn coma. I spent my entire teendom worshipping at her shrine, then one day I just decided I wanted to be a normal modern girl. I never stopped loving Marilyn, I just stopped trying to replicate her, it was exhausting and pointless. First I let go of the dresses and the hair, then eventually the posters came down and the movies weren't on an endless loop in my VCR anymore.
To this day, I still admire Dita von Teese and other hardworking ladies who chose to live a retro lifestyle. I just saw these pictures of Dita at Coachella and all I could think of was 'this was totally me as a teenager, dressed to the nines amidst a throng of slackers who don't get it.' She pulls it off beautifully and it is a lot of work to look that packaged up every single day. Seeing her trudging through Coachella like this just brought it all back.
So happy birthday Marilyn. I'll have to dig out a Marilyn DVD and watch it in your honor. Even 50 years later, no one else even comes close.
4 comments:
I was a Monty Clift fan when I was a kid. I know I should've been about Dean, but Clift was just as good an actor and self-destructive mess. I didn't dress like him, but I drank too much and ate slabs of raw meat in his honor.
Ever see The Misfits w/ your idol and mine?
Hi!
Speaking of Teese (OK, you were actually speaking about Marilyn, but since you threw a little Teese out there...) I bumped into this recipe and thought it looked interesting. If you're willing to splurge $8 or so on Monin's Voilet syrup, I'd love to hear about this on your Toasted blog sometime!
Cointreau Teese
Discover Cointreau Teese, the cocktail created by Dita Von Teese for Cointreau.
1 1/2 oz. Cointreau
3/4 oz. Apple juice
1/2 oz. Monin Violet
1/2 oz. Fresh lemon juice
Huge Monty Clift fan here, he was so raw it was almost painful to watch. Top Misfits moments are 1) MM cradling MC's head in her lap by that broke-ass car, 2) her playing paddleball like a madwoman, 3) her losing it on CG about killing the horses.
Hey Angie, I will definitely try that out if I can find that dang violet syrup, sounds hard-to-find. Did I ever tell you Pete and I got married by the same lady that married Dita and Manson? She was like a proud mama showing off those pics in her office. They made her dress up like the Pope.
Marilyn was definitely a unique person. I'm a bit of a fan actually too.
The Misfits is probably one of my favorite movies of hers (even though it is pretty well known she hated it because she felt hubby Arthur made her out to be something she didn't like, maybe hitting a little too close to home?) at any rate I think that was her best acting next to Niagara or River of No Return.
Happy Belated B-day Norma Jean!
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