If Marilyn Monroe had lived longer...

Aging Boomer

Project QL Intern
Mar 18, 2007
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This is a question inspired by the "Goodbye Norma Jean" episode. What if Sam had managed to save Marilyn for more than just a couple of years? What would have happened to her career?

I wonder if she would have handled aging well and graduated to more mature roles, or if she would have gone on making fluffy sex farces until the hippie movement rendered her obsolete for good.

What do you all think?
 
The latter. The late 60's brought with it some realistic acting. As was the case with the radio and silent film transition, she, quite likely, woud've ended up on the fringe, kept from obscurity only by her looks.
 
Aging Boomer said:
What would have happened to her career?

I wonder if she would have handled aging well and graduated to more mature roles, or if she would have gone on making fluffy sex farces until the hippie movement rendered her obsolete for good.

Sadly, I don't think she would have handled aging well. I wonder if that was a factor in her suicide--she was 36, which was considered middle-aged then. Her best bet would have been to retire gracefully, and I even think she could have been a lot happier in obscurity. She was notoriously difficult to work with on the set, which makes it seem that she didn't actually like acting that much. I don't think she could have done more mature or serious roles. Unfortunately, people like her attract the worst kind of social parasites who would continue to exploit her. What she needed was someone like Sam Beckett.
 
Aging Boomer said:
This is a question inspired by the "Goodbye Norma Jean" episode. What if Sam had managed to save Marilyn for more than just a couple of years? What would have happened to her career?

I wonder if she would have handled aging well and graduated to more mature roles, or if she would have gone on making fluffy sex farces until the hippie movement rendered her obsolete for good.

What do you all think?

I'm inclined to believe that somebody like Marilyn Monroe was meant to die young. I believe that her death would have been inevitable, even if Sam was to have changed her apparent suicide. It just would have been postponed, much like the plot of the episode itself.

However, let me toss that idea out the window for a minute and imagine that she lived a full life. Her career would probably inevitably go downhill, partly because of being difficult to work with, and also partly because her looks and charm had nowhere to go but down. There was no real Reality TV back then, so making a comeback or even keeping the paychecks coming would have been extremely difficult. I hate to even make this comparison, but in some ways she seems almost like the Paris Hilton of the '60s. The difference is that Marilyn had class, but I believe that's because she was a product of her time. Class is something that the world is sorely lacking right now, and now it seems like the trashier something is, the more successful it will be. And that goes for all forms of entertainment: movies, music, acting, etc.

If Marilyn Monroe had been a rising star nowadays, she'd have to act like a porn star just to keep up. I see her as a person who was in the right place at the right time with the right look (in terms of her career and iconic status). It's very difficult to produce icons nowadays, because everything, quite frankly, is glorified crap.
 
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