
Marilyn with her Golden Globe Award
Please read the following article written by Jeffrey Bento-Carrier:
(original link: http://thenorthernlight.canadaeast.com/whatson/article/700333)
She was Hollywood’s biggest light for nearly 20 years, but her brightness dimmed, and eventually faded away, much too soon.
It’s been 47 years since Marilyn Monroe, arguably the most recognizable big screen star from the silver era of the movies, passed away under suspicious circumstances for the entire world to mourn.
Monroe was a person who had something filmgoers call ‘it.”
A person who has “it” on celluloid doesn’t know how it happened, but the public always knows what this intangible means.
In Marilyn’s case, it was being sexy without being sleazy, glamorous without being stuck-up, and talented without being conceited.
The ever-sarcastic Groucho Marx, who noticed Marilyn’s appeal many years before she hit it big, was one of the first people in the know who “got” Monroe’s style-over- substance plan. The famed comedian once said she was the type of actor who you couldn’t take your eyes off walking to, or away, from you.
Monroe received numerous awards during her short career, including a Golden Globe for Billy Wilder’s classic Some Like It Hot, but Oscar always snubbed the platinum one.
Maybe it was because she had too much sex appeal, or because of the Actors Studio-style of multiple takes she brought forth in her later work, which alienated her from those who cast the winners’ ballots.
Either way, those who were then in control of the Golden Boy always found an excuse to not make Marilyn a part of the big show.
Although we may never see it, because of politics seen and unseen amongst Academy voters, I think it’s time for the art and sciences guild to honour Ms. Monroe with a lifetime achievement award, or a posthumous Oscar.
In the five decades since she perfected the romantic comedy lead category, few thespians have matched her box office boffo, her amazing screen presence, and her natural style of body movement and diction.
She paid her dues in small parts at the start of her career just like Glenda Jackson, Goldie Hawn, Jane Fonda, and Meryl Streep did, yet Monroe is not taking seriously when her name is brought up with the above-mentioned Oscar winners as one some of the best comediennes of all-time.
People have always looked at the outside when they judged Marilyn, which I think did her a disservice.
Just because, as we say in the North Shore, she was “built” doesn’t mean she wasn’t the best at what she was.
In classics like Bus Stop, The Misfits, Asphalt Jungle, All About Eve, Some Like It Hot, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she owns ever scene she’s in, because you’re fascinated with how someone with skin like alabaster can hold a moment in time without overwhelming the ones around her with her star power.
In our lives, there was only one Marilyn. To go by another year without her finally being inducted into the Academy’s unofficial hall of fame roll call is a disgrace to her memory and those who knew Norma Jean, the person, better than Ms. Monroe.
The Academy shouldn’t wait until 2012, on the 50th anniversary of her passing, for some backward tribute.
They should get on the ball right now, towards the 2010 award, to finally let her legacy enter the bastion of greatness we all agree she should, finally, be a part of.
Jeffrey Bento-Carrier is sports editor of the Bugle-Observer newspaper in Woodstock and a longtime movie buff.