Marilyn Monroe died 61 years ago; after passing into eternal rest, her body was found in the early hours of August 5th, 1962. This ‘moment in time’ is noted in the latest issue of the British nostalgia magazine, Yours Retro. A special edition dedicated to MM – with text by biographer Michelle Morgan – was also published recently (see here.)
If last year’s 60th anniversary was tarnished by Kim Kardashian and Blonde, today offers a chance for personal reflection: beyond the glitter and gossip, what does Marilyn mean to you? Her artistry is key for me, and her inner life still resonates with many of us.
Today, the LA-based fan club Marilyn Remembered will host (and livestream) a service of remembrance at Westwood Memorial Park.
In the UK, meanwhile, the BBC recently aired Reframed: Marilyn Monroe, a CNN docuseries with a feminist focus (see trailer here.)
A major retrospective for photographer Eve Arnold is underway in Sussex, and an Elliott Erwitt exhibition runs at the Musée Maillol in Paris until August 15th; while The Misfits by Magnum Photographers stops in Italy through mid-September, and Philippe Halsman: Flash of Genius is in Rome; and across the Atlantic, Richard Avedon’s centenary and Jean Howard’s Hollywood are being celebrated.
The writer, filmmaker and musician Chris Wade – author of Marilyn Monroe: The Classic Performances – has now released a DVD documentary, Marilyn Monroe: Portrait of an Actress. I watched this last night, on the eve of her anniversary, and I appreciated the spotlight on her talent. The soundtrack blends classical instrumentals like Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake with folk-tinged recordings from Wade’s music project, Dodson and Fogg (see here.)
The Misfits was the subject of a recent cover story by George Toles for Film International, and is also cited as an influence on Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City; while Kim Morgan has written about ‘Marilyn’s method’ for Criterion’s online journal, Current.
Later this year, Elisa Jordan – author of Rockhaven Sanatorium, and co-host of the All Things Marilyn podcast – will release her second book, Hello, Norma Jeane: The Marilyn Monroe You Didn’t Know. “The concept of this book is to examine her life topic by topic instead of a traditional chronological biography,” Elisa explains on her LA Woman Tours page. “The idea is to better ‘know’ Marilyn, hence the title.”
As always, you can follow all the latest Monroe-related news by subscribing to my sister blog, The Marilyn Report (and for past reference, check The Marilyn Archive.)
But for now, I’ll leave you with some thoughts from another newly published book, Richard Barrios’ On Marilyn Monroe: An Opinionated Guide …
This is the real Marilyn Monroe. Not the person named Norma Jeane who came from a fragmented background, from a family with a lengthy history of mental illness, who struggled against horrific odds and ultimately succumbed to them. It’s Marilyn, or MM, the created and ultimately joyful being forged from great gifts and honest effort … Work of this quality – uneven at times, ultimately transcendent – is not limited to gender or time or even context. To many, when she was alive, it seemed temporal. They were hugely wrong. It’s eternal.