Biography of Movie Star and Sex Symbol Marilyn Monroe Part 3

About the famous movie star and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe, history and biography of the actress.

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MARILYN MONROE (1926-1962)

When the film The Misfits was completed, Marilyn returned to California without Miller and began treatment for her depression with psychiatrist Ralph Greenson. There were, during the last years of her life, times when the dread would lift and she would experience a sense of well-being. During these times she would build friendships, begin a new picture, write poetry. She returned to New York and had a series of candid interviews with journalist W.J. Weatherby. They would meet in an Eighth Avenue bar--the movie queen disguised in a scarf and baggy shirt--and talk. Marilyn made Weatherby promise not to publish the material while she was alive. In the last interview, they spoke of aging and of Marilyn's abhorrence of staying young artificially. "I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I've made," she said. Upon leaving the bar, she asked him not to make her "a joke" as other reporters had done.

Marilyn was not a joke to those who knew and loved her. When she died, they grieved heavily. The coroner's report stated that she was found dead in her bedroom from an overdose of barbiturates at 3:40 A.M., Aug. 5, 1962. There are more than a few unanswered questions regarding her death. No trace of barbiturates was found in her stomach, yet there was a lethal dose in the blood sample. Her doctor stated that she was seriously depressed, while a friend said she had been in fine spirits. Calls had been made the night of her death--one to Peter Lawford's home, where Marilyn often met the Kennedys--the records of which were removed from the phone company the next day. Was it suicide or was it an accidental overdose? A moot point. Was it murder? Conflicting theories abound. There are explanations of a murder plot by the political left and the right. There are psychiatric evaluations and the hindsight of professional astrologers. Elton John interpreted Marilyn for the rest of us in a song he and Bernie Taupin wrote for her, "Candle in the Wind," a tribute from one superstar to another: "It seems to me you lived your life/ Like a candle in the wind/ Never knowing who to cling to/When the rain set in. / And I would have liked to have known you, / But I was just a kid/ Your candle burned out long before/ Your legend ever did."

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