Saturday, June 1, 2013, marks Marilyn Monroe’s 87th birthday. Or rather, it marks the 87th anniversary of her birth. It’s difficult, after all, to envision what an 87th birthday might look and feel like for someone who died more than a half-century ago, when she was just 36 years old.
But then, that’s what icons sometimes demand of us, long after they cease to have any say in the matter: namely, to treat them as if they’re immortal. We mark the birthdays of legends like Marilyn, JFK (dead at 46), Hendrix (dead at 27), Billie Holiday (dead at 44) and countless other larger-than-life figures who were gone too soon not because they’re just like us — or even because, deep down, we truly want to be like them — but precisely because their lives were so unfathomably different than anything we can imagine.
“Godlike” is perhaps too strong a word for their unique allure; but there remains, nevertheless, something near-mythic about the hold our most cherished icons retain on the imaginations of millions decades after they died.
In 1953, her biggest, brightest roles — in Bus Stop, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot — were still ahead of her, as were her unlucky marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller and her increasingly lonely, desperate last years. But it’s worth noting that she really does not resemble a legend or an icon or an idol in these pictures. Instead, she looks like a beautiful young woman evidently, and perhaps momentarily, at peace with herself and with her place in the world.
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