As everyone on Planet Earth knows, Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson (immediately changed to Baker) to a mentally unstable mother and an absent father, had a chaotic upbringing in a series of foster homes, achieved iconic stardom via an early modeling career, married three times (including Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller), suffered miscarriages, was rumored to have had liaisons with the Kennedy brothers (for once Ted is innocent), was insecure, longed to be taken seriously, committed herself to a psychiatric hospital, became dangerously dependent on drugs and died of a fatal overdose, which was ultimately ruled a “probable suicideâ€. All in 36 years! What no one on aforementioned planet knows is the mystery of just how this woman managed to come into our consciousness, blaze for a magic moment, and just as suddenly leave. In the fifty years since her death, she has achieved the kind of celebrity that is almost immeasurable; her face is instantly and universally recognized, frozen as it is in an indelible image of almost innocent sexiness and childlike vulnerability. Our culture has forever imprinted on its collective mind that sassy, joyful picture of a beautiful, laughing Marilyn standing over a city grate while the steam blows her dress up. How, then, could we reconcile that Marilyn with a woman in her mid-eighties? Impossible. So perhaps that is why she left us so soon – rather like JFK, she is so fixed in the national psyche that we must keep her in that time capsule. Nonetheless, if there is an afterlife, and we sincerely hope there is, the first question we’re going to ask is: “What really happened to Marilyn Monroe?â€
