Asking if Marilyn Monroe was gentle, breathtaking and unforgettable is like asking if the water is wet. She was more than just a sex-symbol of her time. She was and she still remains symbol of feminine beauty and grace of the XXth century. How else could we have characterized her if not as a cake with a strawberry kiss?

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• strong character;
• great desire to prove that she is more than just a beautiful and sexy blonde;

For the kiss:

• hyper-sexuality as strawberry;
• charm;
• tenderness.

First of all let’s make the cake. Take a little girl Norma Jeane Mortenson (who was baptized as Norma Jeane Baker) and put her… to foster homes and orphanages for 6 years. It’s not a very happy beginning of the receipt, especially if we take into account that she was raped by the stepfather Doc Goddard when she was just 12 years old. It happened when her mother Gladys Baker took her back home from the orphanages. After this occasion Marilyn’s mother sent her to live with her great-aunt, whose son raped her as well. Later Marilyn lived with another great-aunt Ana Lower (maybe the only nice ingredient of the beginning of the receipt) until Ana had serious health problems. The girl had to come back to her mother and the stepfather.

The paste is ready. Now it is time to bake it in an oven of adult life that started for Marilyn when her mother and stepfather went to Virginia and didn’t take the girl with them. Marilyn got married with Jimmy Dougherty – the neighbor’s son, and did it with the only purpose – not to return to the orphanage. However, she loved him and they were happy together until he joined the Merchant Marines at the South Pacific in 1944. After that Marilyn applied to the assembly line at the Radio Plane Munitions factory in Burbank. Finally we can add a bit of luck: after some time of working there a photographer David Conover saw her while taking pictures of women contributing to the war effort for “Yank” magazine. It was the first step to the world of show-business. Marilyn stepped out briskly by this road, and in two years she became a famous model. However, we are cooking a cake so we need something more solid than a model work, so Marilyn enrolled in drama classes. When in 1946 Jimmy came back home, Marilyn divorced him for the sake of career and… added one more piece of luck to the dish of success – she signed her first studio contract with Twentieth Century Fox. Now it is time to add the kiss: Marilyn dyed her hair blonde and adopted a pseudonym Marilyn Monroe. Whisk thick foam from extreme sexuality, femininity, and talent, add piquant rumours about private life (including relationship with John Kennedy) and bake the kiss in high temperatures of fans’ passion to this woman. She started to step even faster by the road of success and in 1954 got an Award as Best Actress.

Though Marilyn was perceived mostly as a kiss, she knew that she is something more solid and substantial – something like a cake, so she didn’t just play roles of stupid blondes but also studied at the Actors Studio and formed Marilyn Monroe Productions. By the way, beside gaining general acceptance Marilyn got one more personal achievement – she went beyond the scope of her usual role in her last completed movie The Misfits.

Was Marilyn Monroe’s cake with strawberry kiss really successful? Beside other awards we could notice these: she got Golden Globe as the Best Motion Picture Actress in Comedy or Musical for Some Like It Hot (in 1960), Golden Globe as the World Film Favorite Female (in 1962), Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame 6104 Hollywood Blvd., she was also ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. Despite all the popularity people still argue if she was happy. Maybe it is also a kind of success – even in 48 years after her death people still talk about her, and you are reading this article. Her life was short but very bright, and results of her 15-year activity are still interesting; moreover we call her films classical. Maybe it means that she was much more than just a beautiful and sexy blonde. This is what she always wanted to be – she is a legend.

The Tastiest

Marilyn Monroe was a real godsend for the “20th Century Fox”, because she made all movies… fascinating. She charms from the first sight in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Marilyn is like a real strawberry kiss from the first frames of the movie. Maybe she plays not the smartest woman in the world, but she is sincere there. She says what she thinks, and doesn’t hide that she considers diamonds the best girls’ friends. This sincerity helped to convince her fiance’s father that she is not the stupidest. For the How to Marry a Millionaire Marilyn became a cherry on the top of a cake. She decorates this movie even not being the main character there. Nobody will be surprised to see you watch Some Like It Hot (Collector’s Edition) again and again just to see Marilyn once more. A very beautiful movie with a very beautiful Miss Monroe who shows that… money is not the most important thing for happiness. Could a stupid blonde understand it? I don’t think so. And if you want to taste another role of Marilyn Monroe, watch The Misfits. Finally Marilyn showed the whole world that she is more than just a sweet strawberry kiss.

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