The Manufacture of Marilyn

Monroemania is worldwide, and tacky tributes proliferate

Marilyn Monroe occupies an unquiet grave. The 20th anniversary of her death has set off a worldwide orgy of necrolatry. While she continues to inspire plays, books and lyrics, the beautiful blond whom Norman Mailer called "the sweet angel of sex" is being all but drowned in a flood of tacky tribute. Boutiques and stores from San Francisco to Rome have found an apparently inexhaustible market for such mementos as life-size cardboard stand-ups, 3-D posters, calendars, bed sheets, shopping bags, masks, hot-water bottles ("Take me to bed. I will keep you warm"), piggy banks, pepper shakers, ashtrays, pillboxes (a cruel touch), shower curtains and, yes, negligees.

French adolescents, who were unborn in her heyday, flock to a Marilyn boutique in Paris' Latin Quarter and mimic the bouffant hairdos and casual dress styles of "La Marieleen." A line of Monroe dolls planned by a New York City manufacturer will include a $6,000, 16-in. porcelain model that is described as a replica of the star, with a fur coat and diamond earrings. It will make its debut next month at the American Toy Fair in New York. Last week, "Remember Marilyn" shops at Bloomingdale's New York-area department stores began offering a line of Monroe-inspired blouses, sweaters and tight pants. Says Bloomingdale's Vice President Kal Ruttenstein: "The '50s are a source of inspiration to young people. Kids think of the way Monroe appeared on the screen and don't deal with the tragic elements of her life."

Another product of Remember Marilyn Year is a musical, Marilyn!, which is already in rehearsal for a March opening in London's West End. "There was something about her I was in love with," admits the show's director-choreographer Larry Fuller, 44, who made the dances for Evita and Sweeney Todd. Marilyn will be played by Stephanie Lawrence, who portrayed Monroe last fall on a BBC show and who will quit the title role of Evita for the new part.

Though Monroe left an estate valued at more than half a million dollars, with continuing income from movie royalties, there is speculation that her interests have been mishandled since her death. The major beneficiaries of her will--notably the late Lee Strasberg, the Method acting coach, who was a father figure to the actress, and a clinic selected by Monroe's psychiatrist, Marianne Kris--had received paltry sums. Then, just in time for the 20th anniversary of her death last August, a Los Angeles lawyer-agent, Roger Richman, won the right to represent the Monroe estate as the sole licensing agent for Monroebilia. Richman is currently tracking down marketers of bric-a-brac and is now reportedly charging those new to the Monroe business 6% of gross in return for the right to use an "official" M.M. logo. He will not reveal his agent's fee, but notes that "there is no regulation for those dearly departed." (Some manufacturers have separate agreements with 20th Century-Fox, which has claimed franchise rights to clothing used in movies that Monroe made for them.)

Richman, whose other interests include the merchandising of Elvis Presley collectibles, has not managed to restrain the manufacture of vulgar, blatantly exploitative junk. In After the Fall, a play about a Monroe-esque bombshell, Dramatist Arthur Miller, her real-life third husband, has the stage husband warn the heroine: "It's not the money they take; it's the dignity they destroy." True, even 20 years later. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.