Marilyn Monroe Legend Lives On

THE FOLLOWING IS AN UPDATED ENCORE TIM MOORE BLOG.

What is it about Marilyn Monroe that still enthralls us? Certainly her beauty was a factor, but there have been many beautiful starlets who haven’t come close to the near idolization that Monroe commanded-and still does.

It was on this date in 1954 that Monroe married Yankees slugging superstar Joe DiMaggio. It was a marriage that would end less than 300 days later. The writing was on the wall as early as the honeymoon itself, when Marilyn agreed to leave her unhappy new husband in Japan to go perform for U.S. servicemen. In fact, DiMaggio was never comfortable with Monroe’s sexy image—and that tension eventually turned the cracks in their relationship into a gaping hole.

A subsequent marriage to playwright Arthur Miller also resulted in divorce—leaving Marilyn an emotional mess.

She was found dead in August of 1962. Nearly fifty years later, her death (and life) is still shrouded in mystery. Although her demise was ruled a “probable suicide”, the fact that she was nude, with a telephone is one hand when found seems to lend more intrigue to the case.

Perhaps the fact that she was a tragic figure made her interesting to America. A decent actress perhaps, but not critically acclaimed, her marriages to Miller and DiMaggio gave her a “bigger than life” persona that never translated to personal happiness.

By 1961, she was under the constant care of a psychiatrist for depression. In recent decades, there have been several conspiracy theories about her death. One contends that she was murdered by John and/or Robert Kennedy, with both of whom she allegedly had love affairs.

Check out this three-part video on the death of Marilyn Monroe from the Leonard Nimoy series “In Search Of…”:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayHRGXeSfq0



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgDhf4gIGjs&feature=related




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxfQUUCw8p4&feature=related

The bottom line is that we will probably never REALLY know what happened. The tragedy is that a young and beautiful woman who seemingly had everything a person could want: looks, fame, fortune and more—could be so unhappy.

Perhaps there is a lesson for all of us “regular people”-that striving to achieve these empty goals won’t fulfill us-that our sense of self-worth and contribution need to come from within-and not the external symbols that we tend to associate with “success”.

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