The goddess Aphrodite had no need for makeup. But it’s hard to imagine Marilyn Monroe, the Venus of Hollywood, without loads of mascara, lipstick and peroxide in her hair. Makeup elevated her natural beauty to artificial perfection and glamour, making her one of the most beautiful symbols of consumer society. The consummate blonde bombshell would have turned 85 on June 1.
Monroe’s far more artificial looking clones – from Paris Hilton, Lady Gaga, Christina Aguilera to the wives of Russian oligarchs – are pale shadows of Monroe and lack her self-deprecating sensibility and her ability to win hearts. It takes more than glossy makeup and a breathy voice to be Marilyn Monroe; one needs a restless soul and a great deal of talent. The glossy facade of this international star served to hide Monroe’s deep loneliness and misery. The actress sacrificed her life to glamour, which gave her fame but took away everything else. The fantasy girl of millions of men around the world never found happiness in marriage and remained childless. She joked that the fantasy of millions could never belong to one man.
She was scared of being alone, old age, of no longer being wanted or needed. Her relationships were brief, including her marriages to the likes of playwright Arthur Miller. Baseball player Joe DiMaggio was probably the only man who continued looking after the incredibly lonely and fatally infantile star even after their divorce.
Monroe’s smile was far from mysterious; in fact, it conveyed a rather blunt message: “Take me – I am easily approachable.” Not every princess was so easy to approach. Monroe’s Cinderella-type story had a tragic ending. The beautiful princess, who had complicated relationships with two American “princes”, the Kennedy brothers, died on August 5, 1962. The goddess’s exit has not sullied her myth. Her fans look away from the details of her death because it cast a gloomy shadow on her seemingly glamorous life. It is still unclear how or why she died. The public does not want to see the human side of this goddess of beauty.