Candle burned out long before legend ever did: Six decades since Marilyn Monroe…
This August marked the 61st death anniversary of Marilyn Monroe. Every time there is a mention of her, Elton John’s “Candle in the wind” meanders in
I was 17 years old when I stumbled upon a recorded interview on YouTube where I heard her voice for the first time. The interviewer had asked her, "What have you got to be so proud of?" And she'd answered, "Everything, everything!"
The joy and zeal in that ethereal voice, I had yet to learn the entirety of whom it belonged to, echoes in my ears to this day because it made me wonder how happy and satisfied one must be to say that.
Upon getting to know her, to the point where I began to address her as Norma, I learned that she was a personality far more beautiful than how the media had presented her.
To me, she was not a victim. To me, Marilyn Monroe or Norma Jeane Mortenson, was a loss the world can never make up for. I feel, she lucked out and is, very well, better off. Every time there is a mention of her, Elton John's "Candle in the wind" meanders in.
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"Your candle burned out long before your legend ever did"
I am speaking to the generation that learned of Marilyn through makeup artists and fashionistas who wear that bold red lipped look with dreamy eyes lined in a black wing, rocking that dazzling platinum blonde hair in a mini white sundress. You only met the version of Marilyn whom the world so bluntly refers to as a sex symbol.
But that was never the version that appealed to me.
On her childhood being referred to as 'the perfect Cinderella story', she said during an interview in 1956, "I don't know where they got that. I haven't ended up with a prince, and I've never had even one fairy godmother…I was told that my father was killed in an automobile accident before I was born, so that is what I've always told people. There was no way I could check on that because my mother was put into a mental institution when I was little, and I was brought up as an orphan. I have had eleven or twelve sets of foster parents…It depresses me."
The darker truths of her life – from growing up in an orphanage and foster homes, to becoming someone whose multi-million dollar estate pays people's bills to this day – and the journey in between was exceptionally powerful.
Even now, six decades after her death, Marilyn Monroe's net worth makes her among the highest-paid celebrities ever, even the top-earning deceased celebrities.
Some of Monroe's most famous works feature her as a "blonde bombshell" character with a penchant for the finer things in life; movies like "How to Marry a Millionaire", "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", and songs like "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend".
But she was never blind to the repugnant idiosyncrasies of the industry.
"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and 50 cents for your soul," she once said.
Marilyn Monroe passed away in 1962 at the age of 36, leaving behind a net worth of $800,000, which would be worth $7 million today, bequeathed to her mother, relevant people in her life, including her acting coach Lee Strasberg.
The Estate of Marilyn Monroe, LLC continues to generate significant earnings and there are others using the windfall to strike various licensing deals for publicity rights and products bearing Monroe's image turning the icon into everything from t-shirts to bobble heads to books, movies and TV shows, like 2022's "Blonde."
Monroe's personal belongings – such as, a handwritten poem that read, "I'm lucky to be alive" – were auctioned off, earning millions.
Of Monroe's many iconic looks, the dress she wore to President John F Kennedy's 1962 birthday party was sold for over $1.2 million in 1999. In 2022, it reappeared on the Met Gala red carpet donned by Kim Kardashian.
Did Monroe intend to make people into multimillionaires?
Has she been "used" as a commodity or has her image been promoted as a gift to past, present and generations to come?
Do we thank these leeches or do we shame them?
"Hollywood created a superstar…And pain was the price you paid"
In 2022, CNN's docuseries "Reframed: Marilyn Monroe" aimed to rewrite Monroe's legacy, recasting her as a figure who wasn't a victim, but a feminist trailblazer who stood up to a misogynistic, paternalistic culture.
Monroe would have been on the frontlines of today's activists and a big voice in the #MeToo movement.
Her story always makes you wonder, was she an exploited young starlet chewed up and spat out by Hollywood? Or was she an intellectual, a woman ahead of her time, a pioneering power broker when female stars had little power to barter with?
"Loneliness was tough…The toughest role you ever played"
But this is how I'll always remember her. A simple girl with big dreams and a heart that craved love.
She was not born with the gifts and fortunes like many others. She was just someone whose heart was broken by all those she ever dared loved. And she must have been angry, with her mom and the dad she never had. She must have tried till her dying breath to find love and build a family of her own. The media tells us only of her failed marriages and numerous miscarriages like there's something wrong with her. But she was human. Not a product dropped at the world's alter for generating maximum profits.
"Even when you died
Oh, the press still hounded you
All the papers had to say
Was that Marilyn was found in the nude"
When I first saw that picture of her in a body bag, carried out of her Brentwood home, the first home she must have ever decorated as her own, I couldn't help but imagine how spiralling and diminishing her final hours must have been. All those she loved, where were they when she needed them the most?
There are speculations as to whether she was killed or had done it herself. Pointing fingers, or trying to make sense of it is of no use. We lost her. But every year on 1 June, we'll sing her a Happy Birthday song for a change.
