The Los Angeles Times takes a look at Marilyn’s enduring appeal.
“Hippie chicks and their flower power came and went, and the sunken cheeks of heroin chic had their moment, but a half-century later it’s Monroe’s recipe for reinvention — since followed by the likes of Madonna, Anna Nicole Smith, Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan, Lady Gaga and others — that perseveres.
That resonance is one reason why the stiletto-clad footfalls of Marilyn Monroe seem to be growing ever louder. One can hardly swing a white mink wrap without hitting a Marilyn-branded product or project, such as a CGI appearance in a Dior fragrance ad with Charlize Theron or her estate’s @MarilynMonroe Twitter feed, which has more than 52,000 followers.
And there’s more: If all goes according to plan, Marilyn fans will be able to end 2012 being able to wrap their bodies in Marilyn Monroe bathing suits, accessorize with Marilyn Monroe jewelry, paint their faces with Marilyn Monroe makeup, get their nails done at a Marilyn Monroe salon, slip into a pair of Marilyn Monroe stilettos and sip skinny lattes at a Marilyn Monroe Café.
There are other factors feeding the current Marilyn frenzy, of course, including the 50th anniversary of her death, by barbiturate overdose, on Aug. 5, 1962, and the current trend toward anything that smacks of retro-nostalgia (i.e. the Mad Men effect). But the fascination has been on the upswing longer than that, says Lois Banner, an author and USC history professor whose second book about the late actress, Marilyn Monroe: The Passion and the Paradox, was published earlier this month.
‘There started to be articles about the ongoing fascination with Marilyn Monroe as far back as the mid-’70s,’ says Banner, ‘after Norman Mailer published his biography. But … it’s really increased in the last 12 years.'”