The magic of Marilyn

She grew up pleasantly surprised and puzzled by men’s attention in the end, it probably killed her.

Marilyn Monroe, as a young girl, was used to the milkman and postman chatting to her more than her pals, and local workmen were giving her wolf whistles before she was out of school.

It’s said she was so innocent, Marilyn just assumed life was like that for all young ladies, and this was years before she had a team of experts making her look glamorous!

She’d later claim: “Nobody told me I was pretty when I was little,” but her memory must have played tricks on her.

Even at the peak of her fame, when the whole world seemed to fancy her, many who knew her say Marilyn still didn’t appreciate the power of her looks.

Of course, she wasn’t stupid, and understood that film bosses made her look as sexy and seductive as possible but deep down, she was still quite an innocent.

“She was sexy, beautiful and funny,” says Bert Stern, who took over 2,500 photos of Monroe in her heyday, catching her in good and bad moods, but always looking great.

“I loved her and we made a connection.”

Bert, like many snappers who got close to the blonde bombshell, pinches himself that his photos are still requested from auctioneers everywhere.

All these years after her death, nobody would be more bewildered than Marilyn herself to see how her fame has spread and grown.

At an auction earlier this year, Andy Warhol’s famous painting of her sold for an astonishing 40 times the anticipated price.

In a British beauty poll, the same week, she was up at the top with Michelle Keegan, current star of Coronation Street, and other living actresses.

Macy’s, the American clothing giants, have just put out their latest range, based on how Marilyn looked the legend doesn’t just live on, it is positively thriving!

We’ve seen many a Raquel Welch, Bo Derek or Keira Knightley come and go, seeming to rival Marilyn at their peaks, but it is the unique Monroe who lives on.

Like James Dean or Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon or John F Kennedy, part of that is down to dying while she still had the world in her hands.

But what else did Marilyn have, apart from being blessed with good looks and having her life cruelly taken away so prematurely?

Well, she had a naughty sense of humour given a pet Maltese terrier by Frank Sinatra, she mischievously named it Maf after his alleged Mob connections!

Billy Wilder, who directed Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch, said she was the Meanest Woman In Hollywood, so we can assume she didn’t throw her dollars around.

Amongst the letters and notes found after her death, reports claim there were reams of stunningly good poetry. Not the sign of a typical “dumb blonde”.

When she married intellectual playwright Arthur Miller, some assumed it was a case of “brainy boffin somehow gets gorgeous airhead”.

In fact, when she spoke about her interest in Italian Renaissance art, Miller said she knew more than he did.

From the minute they split up, it’s said Miller never got over his time with Monroe.

In and out of the American courts over his political beliefs, and having written Death Of A Salesman and The Crucible, the bespectacled Arthur was an absent-minded brainbox.

He’d marry again, and stay married through 40 years and two children. But they say he never stopped longing for Marilyn.

The fact she also married a man so different from Miller, Joe Di Maggio, just shows what a puzzling woman she was.

A brilliant baseball player, some of Joe’s records still stand, 72 years after he achieved them.

Almost as popular among America’s menfolk as Marilyn, albeit in a different way, Joe was very attracted to her but she didn’t want to meet him at first, fearing he’d be “the typical arrogant sportsman”.

It was like Cheryl marrying Ashley Cole, multiplied a few thousand times over and, like them, the marriage did not work.

She drove him nuts by attracting glances from every man on the block, and she accused Joe of regular mental cruelty. His jealousy almost drove him mad.

Just hours after her sensational skirt-blowing scene for The Seven Year Itch, they fell out in front of everyone at a hotel. It wasn’t long before she filed for divorce, which was granted just months after their wedding.

Joe, like Arthur, would remain in love with her forever, sending half a dozen red roses to her grave for 20 years, and her name was the last thing he said before dying, 45 years after they divorced. He’d actually got back together with her, following the divorce from Miller. Joe proposed they get married a second time, but she was dead four days later.

How she died, of course, has always been controversial.

Papers linking her death to President Kennedy were shown to be fake. However, Judith Exner, another woman believed to have had a dalliance with JFK, insisted he’d also been involved with Marilyn at the same time.

Officially, an overdose of barbiturates killed Monroe, whose body was found by her regular psychoanalyst, Ralph S Greenson.

The pressure of being constantly gorgeous, and having millions of obsessive male fans, was just too much. He was a man who had no reason to cover anything up, and spoke about Marilyn’s life. So we have to assume the overdose was the truth. A few weeks younger than Elizabeth II, the girl born Norma Jeane Mortenson should have been celebrating another birthday this year.

Instead, millions of fans live off memories of her, and the catalogue of bewitching movies she turned out.

And every time we see that fabulous smile again, and the wiggle that made jaws drop and tea cups clatter, we feel sad that Marilyn was only with us for such a short time.