Good bye, Norma Jean

Today I held my Marylin Monroe presentation. I think it went just fine, I mean, she is an interesting person, so everybody was very into what I said, and I didn't get any particular nervous-breakdown. I can tell, she really does fascinates me, Marilyn. From being a young, insecure girl grown up in several foster homes to become a world wide sex symbol, a woman who was supposed to look self-assured, I believe Marilyn was vulnerable - all along. And between all the different roles she had to play - was she ever able to give them, give us, that little glimpse of what the real Norma Jean Mortensen, which was her birth-name, was like?
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Here's some you might didn't know about her:
- Her father was a Norwegian named Martin Edward Mortensen, but Norma never knew her father and was later baptized Norma Jean Baker.
- Gladys Baker, Norma's mother, had psychological problems which prevented her from keeping her job, and she was committed to a mental institution.
- When she was 16, her foster parents couldn't afford to keep her, and Norma had to marry her 21-year old neighbour, Jimmy Doherty.
- She was a Jew.
- She had likely a high IQ.
- She was a brunette.
- She preformed in front of service men in Korea during her honeymoon with Joe Dimaggio.
- She was married four times.
- Her mother never knew her daughter was famous.
- She died of an overdose of sleeping pills at her Brentwood home, April 5th, 1962. She was then 36 years old.
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This is Elton John's famous tribute to Marilyn - to Norma Jean. The song is called "Candle in the Wind" and was later circumscribed to princess Diana.

Goodbye Norma Jean

Though I never knew you at all

You had the grace to hold yourself

While those around you crawled

They crawled out of the woodwork

And they whispered into your brain

They set you on the treadmill

And they made you change your name

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And it seems to me you lived your life

Like a candle in the wind

Never knowing who to cling to

When the rain set in

And I would have liked to have known you

But I was just a kid

Your candle burned out long before

Your legend ever did

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Loneliness was tough

The toughest role you ever played

Hollywood created a superstar

And pain was the price you paid

Even when you died

Oh the press still hounded you

All the papers had to say

Was that Marilyn was found in the nude

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Goodbye Norma Jean

From the young man in the 22nd row

Who sees you as something as more than sexual

More than just our Marilyn Monroe