Marilyn Monroe, or Norma Jean Mortenson as she was once known, was found dead of a drug overdose on this day, August 5, sixty years ago today. Her life and death were well documented, but few, it seems, knew her well. With the passage of so much time, few who knew her at all remain to mark this anniversary, though many will stop to note the occasion.
I was eight years old at the time, but remember hearing the story on the evening news that day, which did, as Elton John wrote, say that she was found in the nude. Since that time, she has become an American cultural icon with perhaps as many impersonators as Elvis Presley. Her face, like his, has appeared on countless stamps around the world. Her image over a subway grate, tantalizingly risqué for the time, has been replicated again and again. Kim Kardashian even recently wore herself the dress Monroe wore to sing to Jack Kennedy.
Though conspiracy theorists claimed otherwise, her death was ruled a suicide, and her last months were sadly troubled enough to warrant such a conclusion. It is hard to imagine how difficult it must have been though be a real person expected by the public to belong to them and to be larger than life. Stronger people than her have tried and failed at living such a dual life.
Joe DiMaggio, once her husband, saw to her funeral, a loving act, and her remains lie next to his now. Elton John described her as a “candle in the wind.” Edna St. Vincent Millay’s lines: “My candle burns at both ends; / It will not last the night; / But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— / It gives a lovely light!” may also ring true. And then Ovid’s tale of Icarus’ flying too close to the sun may be apt. Few knew her well enough to know.
