In 1954, Marilyn Monroe was on the top of the world. Films like Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and How to Marry a Millionaire had made her one of Hollywood’s most popular actresses, and she had sealed her ever growing fame by marrying the legendary baseball player Joe DiMaggio. But that marriage had quickly stopped and it was less than a year before Marilyn filed for divorce citing mental cruelty. Two years later however, she married again, leaking from the physical to desirable by choosing one of America’s most loaded playwrights, Arthur Miller as her next husband.
In 1959, the film “Some Like it Hot” was released, perhaps her greatest legacy. The brilliantly—beauty comedy was directed by Billy Wilder and co-star Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as two musicians forced to drag off and joined an all girl band to escape the clutches of the mob. Marilyn was the band singer. She was delightful and deservedly won a Golden Globe for Best Actress, but while Marilyn’s career was in all time high, her personal life was touched by tragedy. Desperate to have children she discovered she was pregnant when she and Miller returned to the States after their trip to England, unfortunately, she miscarried.
In 1916, Marilyn returned to the screen with the musical comedy, Let’s Make Love in which she costar to the French actor, Yves Montand. The rumors were ripe that Marilyn and Montand had an affair on the set. Marilyn’s marriage to Miller ended in January 1961.
By 1962, Marilyn started to move on a different crowd. She became close friends with the group that included Pat Kennedy, wife of the actor Peter Lawford and subsequently his brothers-in-law, President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. It was widely believed that she had affairs with both of the Kennedy brothers although with JFK to whom she had strongest feelings.
On the 19th of May, 1962 during the shooting of her next project, Something’s Got to Give, Marilyn made headlines and drew attention to her relationship with JFK by singing, Happy Birthday to him at Madison Square Garden. She also whiled up temporarily fired from the film angering the producers by blaming illness for her constant absences from the set but still managing to attend JFK’s party.
On the 5th of August, 1962, the 36-year old star was found dead of a drug overdose in her Brentwood home. The huge funeral procession including former husband Joe DiMaggio escorted her to her final resting place, the Westwood Village Memorial Parks Cemetery. While her death will be forever shrouded in the clouds of conspiracy theories and speculation, her legacy as a performer and monumental style only seems to grow as the decades passed.
At the Paris Museum, an exhibition of photographs taken by fashion photographer Bert Stern from Brooklyn demonstrates that nearly half of century after her death, the Marilyn magic is still alive. The photos were selected by Stern from among the 2,500 he took of Marilyn at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles in June and July 1962.
At that time, Stern was on assignment for Vogue and always hoped to photograph Marilyn nude. So, he brought only some chiffon styles and jewelry as accessories, exceptionally Marilyn authorized Stern to photograph her nude.
One day before the publication of the photos, Marilyn’s death was announced. It is now more than 40 years since that day and still her image is used on the daily basis in advertising, in popular culture and as an eternal reminder of one of the most troubled but enchanting actresses Hollywood has ever produced.
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