In her heyday, Marilyn Monroe was a tantalising dream — her talent extended far beyond just acting and her persona being equal parts mystique and enigma. And those who have researched her well and who have spoken to her associates and acquaintances say that from the very start of her career, she worked really hard with acting coaches and was determined to become a good actress.

Marilyn even today, half a century after her tragic demise, lives on in the image she so effortlessly created for herself. She is also the unofficial benchmark for beauty, sexuality, vulnerability and stardom, all at the same time.
A wave of Marilyn nostalgia is set to be triggered now by the television series Smash that is to be aired by NBC from February 6. The series centres on the process of creating a Broadway musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, who history records as one of the greatest smash hits.
As an actor, Marilyn is said to have had her faults but none so overwhelming as to take away anything from the wave she created with her fantastic presence on the silver screen. “From the start, she was good at associating and sometimes having intimate relationships with the kind of people who could further her career, including top Hollywood agent Johnny Hyde (who secured her first important film roles) and 20th Century Fox president Joseph Schenck, which was why, even as an unknown starlet, she was able to show up late for filming, much to the amazement of established stars, establishing a habit that would become much more problematic in later years,” says Richard Buskin, the author of Blonde Heat.
Richard goes on to throw light on her downside thus, “She created the sexy, breathy-voiced Marilyn persona which was very different to the more natural person who we saw and heard in interviews and she could turn it on and off at will. Despite all the hard work and the extent to which she took control of her own career, on the film set she often forgot her lines, appeared to have no idea where to stand with regard to the lighting, often required multiple (sometimes more than 50) takes to get a scene right, and then had no clue as to which was the best take.”
Even so, in today’s fast paced world inundated with pop icons, socialites, fashionistas, cinema stars and red-carpet divas, it is still fascinating how Marilyn who died five decades ago retains her appeal to represent timeless icons of style, fashion and sexuality. Richard explains, “Women admire women like Marilyn for being strong and independent. Marilyn took charge of her own career and refused to be bullied by men at the big studios. Men desired her for obvious reasons, and many men also fantasise that, had they had the chance to befriend or have a relationship with Marilyn, they somehow could have saved her and she would still be alive today,” explains Richard.
Scott Fortner, one of the largest collectors of Marilyn Memorabilia and who runs a website says, “People are able to relate to Marilyn in very private, intimate and personal ways. For example, Marilyn had a troubled childhood, never knowing who her father was. Her mother was institutionalised for mental health issues. Marilyn was married three times, and she had challenging relationships with her husbands and other men. She had weight problems in the late 1950s. She had addictions to alcohol and medications. She struggled to be taken seriously as an actress and as a woman, and she also struggled to be respected. She was painfully shy, afraid and insecure. These are all aspects of Marilyn’s life in which many people around the world feel a connection because they experience one or more of these same issues.”
Despite everything, she remains a sex symbol with an aura that never fades. “For millions of people around the world, Marilyn Monroe is an iconic film star. At the same time she was also someone who struggled through life with many personal problems, and people can relate to that because they experience these same problems today personally,” says Fortner.
Similar thoughts are echoed by Nancy Miracle, the only next-of-kin and daughter of Marilyn. “She was a joyful person who was crushed by tragic instances in her life.” But is her mother etched in people’s minds for all the wrong reasons? “My mother symbolised sexual freedom, and along with it a certain innocence. She was a forerunner of the sexual revolution and the feminist revolution. Obviously people can perceive this as good or bad choices but her immense talent and warmth appealed to the good,” says Nancy, who is now an actor and director. “I am her daughter out of wedlock with Vincent Bruno, a New York attorney. She was in reality married twice, once to Di Maggio and once to Miller. She did at my birth put her thumbprints on my hospital birth certificate next to mother’s prints, and those prints are the same as the prints on the coroner’s report in 1962, 50 years ago, in Los Angeles at her death,” she states.
There are other women like Silk Smitha who in a much lesser way ended up somewhat like Marilyn, remembered for a while for the oozing sex symbols they were in modern cinema despite their own flawed personalities. Having been steeped in sensuality, their lives intertwined with scandals and talk of casting couches, these women clearly were no role models in their time. But today a sizeable number of young women salute their spirit.
Is it just their raw sex appeal and the ability to bare it all at a time when it was considered taboo that made them so desirable? “Slander has always been a kind of frill in any actor’s life, especially those who chose to be item girls or vamps,” says Dr Priya Selvaraj, a celebrity gynaecologist who is actor Gemini Ganesan’s granddaughter. She adds, “We are attracted to Marilyn or even a Silk Smitha or a Jaya Malini because they simply dared to celebrate themselves, respect their sexuality and chose to live life on their own terms. These by themselves are very appealing qualities.”
Like the tendrils of a beautiful dream which linger when we wake up, Marilyn Monroe remains in our minds as a person of ethereal beauty and a sex appeal far beyond the real.