The blonde committed suicide in her mansion in Los Angeles, at the age of 36.
Half a century after her death, Marilyn Monroe magnifies her legend beyond her films, turning her into an aesthetic icon with a magnetic personality whose spirit still waddles through Hollywood thanks to her fervent legion of admirers.
Desired as a woman and discussed as an actress, her tragic end due to an overdose of barbiturates on August 5, 1962, did nothing more than immortalize her fame, the same as she, in one of her last interviews, assured that it would be "passenger". Marilyn, who was 36 years old, couldn't be more wrong.
In the 21st century, in the era of 3D and HD, of bony models and electronic music, artists like the Canadian Malaika Millions, whose physical resemblance to Monroe is undeniable, certify the validity of the myth of the protagonist of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes".
"People get excited when they see me. The kids circle me and I feel a bit like an alien. Most of the time it's like being a famous person except for the fact that I'm not," Millions confessed.
This vaudeville professional opened the doors of her Hollywood apartment to Efe while she was preparing to attend one of the parties held these days in Los Angeles in honor of Marilyn Monroe.
She brushes her wavy, platinum blonde hair before putting the finishing touches on her makeup where her passion-red lips are only dwarfed by the subtle black mole painted on her left cheek, as pale as Monroe herself.
Her resemblance to the actress made her win the "The Spirit of Marilyn" contest in May, a prize paid with $1,000, an amount far from the millions that Malaika carries as her artistic surname and those that Monroe's image generates every year, if well she is clear that she does not want to earn a living as a double for the actress.
"A lot of imitation denigrates the memory of her," said Millions, who insisted that Marilyn "was so much more than a toy that she thinks of as dumb, she was the complete opposite."
Not far from his home, near Monroe's star on the Walk of Fame, The Hollywood Museum is currently exhibiting an exhibition on the "All About Eve" actress who, in the opinion of the institution's director, Donelle Dadigan, is "the world's largest exhibition" on Monroe's private life.
For Dadigan, Monroe combines femininity, vulnerability, and allure in a way no one has been able to match to date, something she tried to capture with a collection of photos, including posing from when she was 21 and still Norma Jean, as well as magazine covers, coats and accessories that the diva used.
The most treasured piece was Marilyn's dress when she visited US troops in the Korean War in 1954 while she was on her honeymoon for her wedding to baseball player Joe Di Maggio.
"It is her most photographed outfit because she wore it for a decade," said Dadigan, who stated that when the urn that protects it is opened, "it smells like Marilyn" and her favorite perfume, Chanel. No.5.
The visit to this museum marked the beginning of the activities of the acts to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Marilyn Monroe on Thursday for hundreds of fans who came from all over the United States, as well as Europe and Oceania during the weekend will tour Los Angeles following in the footsteps of the actress.
"She had a timeless appeal," explained Efe the president of the "Immortal Marilyn" club, Mary Sims, who organized the trip for 150 members of her association and in which each of them will leave a minimum of 1,000 dollars.
"She was a woman ahead of her time, at the forefront of feminism, she was one of the first to have her own production company, she fought against the studio star system and won," said Leslie Kasperowicz, Sims's partner at the group of fans for whom it was Monroe's "contradictions" that made her unique.
"The beauty of her is what draws people to her in the first place but then it's the person of her that keeps you interested," Sims said.
On Sunday Sims and her companions will attend a symbolic funeral at the grave of the actress located in Los Angeles's Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery. This tribute is a greeting, more than a goodbye, to that eternal diva.
