Marilyn Monroe’s possessions on nightstand next to where she died included pills and scarf

The outfits, the heartbreak, even the eyelashes… all the ingredients that turned Norma Jeane Mortenson into Marilyn Monroe are going on display in a unique exhibition. A detailed examination of a Hollywood icon’s life and death is provided by Marilyn – The Exhibition, which continues to captivate viewers worldwide.

“I don’t really know what the recipe is to create an icon, but Marilyn Monroe has become that,” says director Elizabeth Kovaros. We continue to tell her story over and over again. I don’t think it’ll stop for generations to come. “

The collection explores every aspect of Marilyn’s life, from her troubled Los Angeles upbringing to her three marriages to her fatal overdose in 1962 at the age of 36. As her mother battled mental health issues, Norma Jeane, a brown-haired girl, was raised in 12 different foster homes.

Elizabeth asserts that “there are early sketches and drawings from Norma Jeane, letters and postcards and correspondence back and forth with her foster sister, and all kinds of childhood records that allow us to see that picture of her life and what a challenging childhood she had. “It really was traumatic what she went through”.

Marilyn’s birth certificate, her will, and even the items discovered on the side of her LA home when she passed away, including some face cream, a black scarf, and her will. With original film scripts and then things like the keys to her dressing room, Elizabeth goes on to say, “You can see the full journey of her life with a lot of information about her career.” “All sorts of things that reveal the entire story behind what transpired.”

German collector Ted Stampfer, who has been collecting Marilyn memorabilia since he was a teenager, owns the 250 items on display. When Marilyn died, she left everything to Lee Strasberg, who ran the Actors Studio in New York with his wife, Anna. Elizabeth says: “They took all of her wardrobe, her kitchen utensils, everything in that house and put it into a storage unit.

Lee passed away before his wife could use the archive, which was then stored in a similar manner until 1999, when it was put in storage from 1962 until it was no longer available.

After being locked up for almost 40 years, Anna opened the storage unit and began moving it to major auction houses around the world. In 1999 and thereafter, massive auctions took place.

One of the highlights of the exhibition is a love note from Marilyn’s third husband, the playwright Arthur Miller, to whom she was married from 1956 to the year before she died. Marilyn, who was then renowned for movies like Monkey Business, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and The Seven Year Itch, continued to work even though Arthur had desired a housewife.

After she filmed The Misfits, which Arthur had written for her, the pair split, and their divorce was crucial to her descent into drug and alcohol abuse. But Arthur’s love note, on torn paper, is filled with hope. It reads: “I am sitting here, dearest, and my heart is bursting with love”.

Aside from personal mementos, the exhibition captures the life of the Hollywood pin-up. She has many of her well-known frocks and opulent loungewear, as well as her beauty items, which depict the development of a global celebrity.

You can see how she could sort of put together that look, Elizabeth says, “she has some of her hair still stuck in them, and there are things like her hair rollers with some of her hair still stuck in them.” She transitions from her teen years at one point in the exhibition and undergoes a significant makeover to create this new persona.

But why, 62 years after she died, is the world still queuing up to have a peek into Marilyn Monroe’s world? According to Elizabeth, “Some people are elevated by society to a sort of icon level.” They are “going through fame and celebrity,” according to the statement “they are being put back on a pedestal by the public.”

” That whole process, combined with an early tragic death, surrounded by conspiracy. You add all the influence and fashion to what she had when the movie industry was at its height.

Marilyn’s enduring fame might not have surprised her. She once said, “I knew I belonged to the public and the world, not because I was beautiful or talented, but because I had never belonged to either anyone or anything else.” As her story continues to captivate, one iconic object at a time, she will undoubtedly once more have the audience mesmerized.

On Friday, October 18, MARILYN – The Exhibition will open at Arches London Bridge. For tickets, visit marilynlondonbridge. co. uk

Source: Mirror