Marilyn may represent some unique alchemy of sex, talent and Technicolor. She
is pure movies.
I recently watched her as Lorelei Lee in her musical smash, "Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes." The film is an ideal mating of star and role, as Marilyn deliriously
embodies author Anita Loos' seminal, shame-free gold digger.Lorelei's
honey-voiced, pixilated charm may be best expressed by her line, regarding one
of her sugar daddies, "Sometimes Mr. Esmond finds it very difficult to say no to
me."
Whenever Lorelei appears onscreen, undulating in second-skin, cleavage-proud
knitwear or the sheerest orange chiffon, all heads turn, salivate and explode.
Who but Marilyn could so effortlessly justify such luscious insanity? She is the
absolute triumph of political incorrectness. When she swivels aboard a cruise
ship in clinging jersey and a floor-length leopard-skin scarf and matching muff,
she handily offends feminists, animal-rights activists and good Christians
everywhere, and she wins, because shimmering, jewel-encrusted, heedless movie
stardom defeats all common morality.
Her wit completes her cosmic victory, particularly in her facial expression
of painful, soul-wrenching yearning when gazing upon a diamond tiara, a trinket
she initially attempts to wear around her neck. Discovering the item's true
function, she burbles, "I always love finding new places to wear diamonds!"
Movies can offer a very specific bliss, the gorgeousness of a perfectly lighted
fairy tale. Watching Marilyn operate her lips and eyebrows while breathlessly
seducing an elderly millionaire is like experiencing the invention of ice cream.
Marilyn wasn't quite an actress, in any repertory manner, and she was
reportedly an increasing nightmare to work with, recklessly spoiled and unsure,
barely able to complete even the briefest scene between breakdowns. Only in the
movies can such impossible behavior, and such peculiar, erratic gifts, create
eternal magic — only the camera has the mechanical patience to capture the
maddening glory of a celluloid savant like Monroe. At her best, playing
warmhearted floozies in Some Like It Hot and Bus Stop, she's like a slightly
bruised moonbeam, something fragile and funny and imperiled. I don't think
audiences ever particularly identify with Marilyn. They may love her or fear for
her, but mostly they simply marvel at her existence, at the delicious
unlikeliness of such platinum innocence. She's the bad girl and good girl
combined: she's sharp and sexy yet incapable of meanness, a dewy Venus rising
from the motel sheets, a hopelessly irresistible home wrecker. Monroe longed to
be taken seriously as an artist, but her work in more turgid vehicles, like "The
Misfits," was neither original nor very interesting. She needs the tickle of
cashmere to enchant for the ages.
Movies have lent the most perishable qualities, such as youth, beauty and
comedy, a millennial shelf life. Until the cameras rolled, stars of the past
could only be remembered, not experienced. Had she been born earlier, Marilyn
might have existed as only a legendary rumor, a Helen of Troy or Tinker Bell.
But thanks to Blockbuster, every generation now has immediate access to the
evanescent perfection of Marilyn bumping and cooing her way through that
chorine's anthem, Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, in Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes. Only movie stars have the chance to live possibly forever, and maybe
that's why they're all so crazy. Madonna remade Diamonds in the video of her hit
Material Girl, mimicking Marilyn's hot-pink gown and hot-number choreography,
and the sly homage seemed fitting: a blond tribute, a legacy of greedy
flirtation. Madonna is too marvelously sane ever to become Marilyn. Madonna's
detailed appreciation of fleeting style and the history of sensuality is part of
her own arsenal, making her a star and a fan in one. Madonna wisely and
affectionately honors the brazen spark in Marilyn, the giddy candy-box allure,
and not the easy heartbreak.
Marilyn's tabloid appeal is infinite but ultimately beside the point.
Whatever destroyed her — be it Hollywood economics or rabid sexism or her own
tormented psyche — pales beside the delight she continues to provide. At her
peak, Marilyn was very much like Coca-Cola or Levi's — she was something
wonderfully and irrepressibly American.
