Immortal Marilyn’s Leslie Kasperowicz caught up with Marilyn’s ‘birthday dress’ during its tour of Canada’s supermarkets this week, sharing her impressions with the Winnipeg Free Press.
“‘She’s someone I think of when I think I can’t handle things,’ said Kasperowicz, who admires how Monroe rose above the hand dealt to her. ‘I see her as someone who overcame a lot and achieved things that were almost impossible for someone that came from her background.’
Kasperowicz’s obsession began when she was eight and received a hand-me-down T-shirt with Monroe’s face on the front. It was her favourite shirt, and when she read her first book about Monroe a few years later, she was hooked and has spent the past 25 years studying Monroe’s life and dispelling conspiracy theories about her death.
Kasperowicz, originally from Winnipeg, now lives in Minnesota. She just happened to be visiting relatives in Lac du Bonnet when she heard the dress would be here.
‘This was like the grand finale surprise to my vacation,’ she said.
Kasperowicz thinks of Monroe as a feminist and activist, something people often overlook, she said.
More than 10,000 people have been to see the dress over its first four stops in Saskatchewan. Winnipeg will be the dress’s last public showing before it returns to a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum. The dress will visit Save-On-Foods’ Bridgewater location Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the St. James location Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The owner of Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Jim Pattison, also owns Save-On-Foods, making it possible for the stores to display the dress.”
