Today is the 100th birthday of Ms. Norma Jeane Mortensen, better known as Marilyn Monroe.
We're fans of Monroe here at The Signal Watch, and whether that's because of her film work - and she's terrific in most of the work I've seen, or knowing her as an icon of the 20th Century - I don't know. She was gone more than twenty years before I really understood who she was.. But even when it's a movie I don't love (see: The Seven Year Itch), or something far greater than I expected (Some Like It Hot, The Misfits), she is what they say, and few talents before or since have come anywhere near her place in the zeitgeist.
There's no one else left, really, from this era of film that I think today's young adults and youths would readily recognize. And even then, they may not even know she was an actress - she's simply a face on a t-shirt. I don't know. But she remains an icon, maybe an ethereal one at this point, but someone still seen as a sign of glamour. We can save our comments about how some trash celebrities try and tried to steal some of her light.