The Shattered Portrait Behind America's Sweetheart
Tired, lonely and depressed, America’s
number one beauty icon and film legend, often found herself slipping into deep
levels of suicidal thoughts, leading to her frequent abuse of drugs and
alcohol. Outwardly, she had everything; looks, charm, talent, and yet, inside
she’d felt so empty.
Perhaps it had been because of her loneliness as well as
her disappointment in people… the disappointment that had been found by parents
who’d so greatly failed her as a child, as well as a husband who’d even hit her
at times, out of jealousy and rage. She, as if addicted to the sessions,
attended therapeutic sessions with the guidance of Dr. Ralph Greenson. Her
depression had most ideally been brought on by her pained and lonely childhood that had been filled with a sense of worthlessness, abandonment as well as a lack of trust in
others.
In and out of foster homes and orphanages for the first sixteen years
of her life, Marilyn was abused and suffered in many ways. Her mother, Gladys
Baker had suffered from an immense series of mental disturbances and her
father, Heaven knows what of her father, despite his cowardly abandonment of
both his unstable wife and little child. Marilyn recalled on many occasions throughout
her life of the kindness that her guardian Grace offered to her during her
childhood. Almost acting as a rainbow in the midst of a massive storm, Grace often took
Marilyn or Norma Jeanne as she’d been referred to as a little girl, to go and
have her hair curled which (in her own words) had “meant a great deal” to her.
Marilyn also remembered how her kind guardian had also bestowed upon her the
freedom and ability to try on her lipsticks, powders, etc.
At the tender age of
sixteen years old, forced to choose between more foster homes and orphanages or the
marriage to a “kind” as she often referred to him, young man of about 21 years
old, won over by the man’s kind and gentle nature, Marilyn settled upon the
choice of “premature marriage.”
After her husband had left for the war… Norma
Jeane drifted off towards her goal of one day becoming an “actress”. First,
through various modeling gigs
as well as a cameo appearance in a few b-rated films,
connections which had later led to her breakthrough film starring alongside
Jane Russell “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", she soon became a well-known movie
star, a household name … and through the help of her appearance in the noir film
“Niagara”, was soon painted even more so as “America’s Favorite Blonde” 
a highly
regarded bombshell.
As the years went on, after two failed marriages, following
her early marriage to young James Dougherty back in June of 1942, and several
appearances (most of which linked themselves to roles of “dumb blondes”) 
the
years of depression that had been caused from her sorrowful childhood as well as her excessive fame had finally caught up to her.
After her final days, spent entangled in the
excessive addiction to drugs and alcohol, Marilyn’s self-destructive behaviors
had finally begun to wear on her. During the filming of her final and
uncompleted film “Something’s Gotta Give”
starring alongside the two celebrated film stars; Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse,
(an experience which most of the producers and members of the set referred to
as a “nightmare”), 
Marilyn had in fact suffered the bordering of a death-ridden
experience due to her drug abuses. Despite the red flag put up by Marilyn’s
death-bordering attack, her mental difficulties weren't quite aided enough, and
in a sense (as some consider it to have been) made even worse by her therapy
sessions with Dr. Greenson. Overworked, drained and used as if a machine, treated as a source of wealth for the producers in Hollywood, the studio dismissed Marilyn's attack and encouraged her to keep working regardless of her troubled mental and physical health.
The day had finally come… the day when Norma Jeanne Baker’s sorrow
and tragedy had all caught up to her back in early August of ’62. On that morbid late
summer morning, the actress’ body was found dead in her Brentwood
home, a discovery which both pained and shocked the entire world. An interviewer, a
journalist who’d interviewed her for “Life” magazine days before her death,
had, in his own words been “floored” by the news of Marilyn’s death. He also
had expressed his lack of suspicion of Marilyn’s nearness to such an event while interviewing her just days before the tragic incident. “To
think, of Marilyn Monroe attempts suicide, around the world, punishing those
s.o.b.s at Fox, punishing all of the people that’d been mean to her and treated
her like a “joke”.” Were the journalist’s final words pertaining to his
disbelief in the actress’ attempted “suicide”.
Perhaps poisoned by the toll
that the excessive use of drugs and alcohol, I believe that either her mind had
been fogged by the above listed factors, all of which had provoked her to such
a tragic end. However, I do feel that with Marilyn’s final days being spent
with an excessive amount of determination and fight towards Fox’s studios, in
hopes of rejuvenating her career and fame
as well as re-obtaining her role in
and resuming the production of “Something’s Gotta Give”, that Marilyn had not committed
suicide purposefully.
I believe, in fact, that there had still been a lot of willingness
to live as well as a firm desire to become mentally stable as well as the hopes of rejuvintating her will to live. and that had it not been for drugs and alcohol,
the legend would still be here today.
Perhaps, it is true that no matter how hard we try, Norma
Jeanne will never be brought back to life… her end, despite it’s untimeliness
had been a force far to strong to fight against. However, I do know that her legend
will live on forever, and her image has and for many generations yet to come
shall remain embedded into the heads of those who have even ever seen a mere
photograph of her. She is (as a documentary had once expressed) "An icon who's celebrity transcended her untimely end."
