Has there ever been a movie star like Marilyn Monroe? My
lifetime doesn’t come anywhere close to any time that she was alive so it’s
hard to fully understand the attention that she drew and the madness of her
celebrity. All I know is what’s been written about those times and what little
I’ve seen of documentary footage of her in crowds. Is it anything like the
fervor exhibited over a sighting of Leo, George or Brad? I think there’s a
great difference between the way we viewed celebrities then and now. The rarity
of bearing witness to something in the private life of a celebrity then is
nothing compared to the ubiquity of celebrity gossip, sightings, paparazzi
photos and such today. We didn’t know (or feel like we know) celebrities then
like we do now. Marilyn’s popularity, however, was about much more than public
interest in a movie star. She had qualities most women would have died for: she
was beautiful, voluptuous, dazzling, sexy and sultry. She was a true classic
star, a fact that Simon Curtis’s debut feature My Week With Marilyn is acutely aware of.
