SHOW BUSINESS

The Only Blonde in the World

She was swept by panics, smothered by doubts and fears, and her death had been long in coming. Twenty years ago, when she was a warmly shopworn 16, she had first tried to kill herself. Guilt became her constant companion and she broke promises and contracts and friendships to seek it out. She felt pulled and taunted and cheated, but when she spoke of what troubled her, her thoughts always resolved themselves so innocently that she seemed more frolicsome than frightened. "I don't mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual," she would say. And her brow would furrow.

Films like How to Marry a Millionaire, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Seven Year Itch made her vague but sparkling smile and her shrill, excited voice the universal definition of Baby Doll.

She spent her last day alive sunbathing, glancing over filmscripts, playing with two cloth dolls—a lamb and a tiger. She went to bed early, but later her housekeeper noticed light spilling through the crack under her bedroom door, and summoned doctors. They broke in through her windows and found Marilyn Monroe dead. By her bedside stood an empty bottle that three days before had held 50 sleeping pills. One hand rested on the telephone and the other was at her chin, holding the sheets that covered her body.