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Posted: 10-10-2003 12:37 Post subject:

A question for the more, erm, life-experienced members of the board: was MM as famous when still alive, or was she just considered another two-bit actress who only became an icon after her death?

It seems to me that she was a very unhappy woman who was ruthlessly exploited by rich and famous men (I'll never understand the media's love affair with the Kennedys).

Jane.

Posted: 10-10-2003 12:46 Post subject:

MM was huge before she died. I mean HUGE.

I mean she sang "Happy Birthday To You" to JFK before he had his wicked way with her...

roll eyes (sarcastic)

She was probably the most famous actress of her generation. IMHO.

Posted: 10-10-2003 12:53 Post subject:

I think her dying in such a romantic and tragic way has made her immortal. She was an OK actress but used by her studio to sell sex. They had no interest in her acting ability. What was going to sell? MM's legs on a subway grille or MM doing Checkov?

Her dying created rose-tinted specs of the highest degree. Ironically it never did her fame any harm!

Look at Bridget Bardot. She tried to kill herself god knows how many times and had she succeeded would have probably been viewed in the same way as MM. Now she's just seen as a batty old woman who smells of cat wee.

James Dean, in the harsh light of day was, lefts face it, crap! In Giant he had to have his lines over dubbed because he mumbled so much.

Death definately brings immortality.

I agree Jane, there's something about the Kennedys and their whole persona which makes my skin crawl.

Posted: 10-10-2003 13:08 Post subject:

Posted: 10-10-2003 15:08 Post subject: Live One

It is standard, although hidden, practice among undertakers to let their interested colleagues know when a "live one" -- a good-looking corpse -- comes into their possession, so they can gather for what amounts to a necrophile's orgy.

Lesson? Die ugly.

In Ancient Rome it was standard practice to let the body of a good-looking person, particularly women, ferment for three or four days before allowing the undertakers to cart them off, to discourage such activity.

Given this, I'd guess it's likely that Norma Jean suffered even this posthumous indignity.

As for the barbituates, yes, Noguchi mentioned that he failed to find the stain he should have, had she, a habitual user, ingested enough pills to have killed her so quickly. The suppository method is also one she employed, though, according to her servant I believe.

You're quite right, though, she may very well have been so intoxicated that she could be overcome without much struggle. Given the passage of time, the lack of extent evidence, and the considerable obfuscation and deliberate confusion that's been sowed over the years since her death, I'd say it would require entirely new evidence to surface for this case ever to be resolved in any convincing way.

Posted: 10-10-2003 15:20 Post subject:

Posted: 10-10-2003 16:09 Post subject:

I totally agree Marilyn was an absolute icon and completely oozed something not many stars have today. She was adored during her day but retrospect and her circumstances make her a bigger star than she would have been had she lived.

Take Bardot. How many airbrushed Athena style pictures on teenage girls bedroom walls as she hung on? Not as many as Marilyn due to the fact she didn't cop it in her prime.

Their studio bosses didn't care for talent. The fact that both of them could act was just an added bonus. Their talent, like you say, was their mesmerising beauty seduction of the audience.

Posted: 10-10-2003 16:13 Post subject: Me?

I've never found either MM or that whole type particularly interesting, or attractive, and have never really fathomed what people saw in her, but in Normal Mailer's warped personal biography of her -- and I do keep in mind Mr. Mailer's strange Harvard-educated idiocy -- he says it was her fuckability. "You can fuck me if you're lucky," was what she supposedly oozed, according to Mailer -- the message that she was open to the advances of even the panting, pimply onanists in the dark theaters.

He may be right, I don't know, having never been that desperate. lol

Posted: 10-10-2003 16:32 Post subject: So Did

Yes, so did Bernie Taupin, apparently. He was the young man in the 22nd row, it seems.

Posted: 10-10-2003 16:36 Post subject: Still Appearing

Marilyn is apparently still peforming. To wit --

Subject: Ghost Photographer Shares Secrets

NCBuy: Weird And Offbeat News Stories
October 9, 2003 - Wireless Flash
Ghost Photographer Shares Secrets

RENO, Nev. (Wireless Flash) -- A woman who claims she's taken pictures
of more than 100 ghosts is sharing a secret to snapping spirits: Try
going to a celebrity cemetery.
Shannon Roberts says she's gotten some of her best shots at Los
Angeles-area graveyards which cater to the stars.

She thinks the ghosts of entertainers are more likely to mug for the
camera because they're "hammier" than ordinary Joes.
Some of the stars whose spirits she's snapped at graveyards include
Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball and Alfred Hitchcock.
Roberts also makes a habit of taking pictures of TV coverage whenever a
celebrity dies, and says she just got a great shot of an angel waving
"hello" over Johnny Cash's shoulder in an interview he did with Larry
King just before he passed away.

One other tip for wannabe ghost photographers: Don't expect to get any
shots worthy of "Playboy."
Roberts says spirits are very modest and in all her years of taking
pictures, she's only caught two in the nude: Rudolph Valentino and a
voluptuous woman, who were in an intimate embrace.

Posted: 10-10-2003 16:42 Post subject:

Posted: 10-10-2003 16:44 Post subject: Not Even...?

"I cannot think of anybody on the public eye today who has the sex appeal of MM or BB."

You mean, not even Dick Cheney or Tony Blair?

Posted: 10-10-2003 16:45 Post subject:

I stand corrected Wink

Posted: 12-10-2003 20:22 Post subject:

No, it's true. IMO, the stars today are two-dimensional compared to the likes of MM. And I say it again, MM was supposedly a dress size 16 - the shape of a real female, not the dress size 2 stick insects that are around today.

Like the hoo-ha about Renee Zellwieger putting on loads of weight for her latest Bridget Jones movie she had to go from a size six to - SHOCK! HORROR!! Eek Eek

a size fourteen! Imagine how that must make many of the femal hoi-polloi feel . . .

Carole

Posted: 12-10-2003 20:24 Post subject: Re: Still Appearing