After 35 Years They Still Follow a Star

Thirty-five years after her death, an overflow crowd of hundreds of fans filled a Westwood chapel at a memorial service for Marilyn Monroe.

They came from as far away as Europe and South Carolina. Many, such as 17-year-old Chad Morrisette of San Diego, were born well after Monroe’s death at age 36 in 1962.

It didn’t matter, said Morrisette, who discovered Monroe after a friend recommended that he read a biography and now visits her grave every time he drives north. “Today’s stars don’t have the glamour. She came from nothing and became everything.”

Added Ron Daniels, a 50-year old Glendale man who said he had come to Monroe’s grave on this anniversary 29 of the past 30 years: “She had a lonely life. I’m paying her back for the enjoyment she gave.”

Tina Mueller, of Monroe’s German fan club “Some Like It Hot,” which she said numbers more than 100 members, flew in for the service.

Milly Klaasen, 26, from Amsterdam, admitted developing “a kind of addiction” to Monroe. Other stars’ brilliance faded with their looks, but death froze Monroe forever beautiful, forever vulnerable, forever sexy, she said.

“It can’t be spoiled any more. She left the earth with her radiance still there.”

Fans are often drawn to the poignancy of Monroe’s death. It was officially attributed to an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. Her body was discovered by her psychiatrist, who was summoned by the housekeeper when Monroe didn’t respond to a knock at the door of her Brentwood home.

Photojournalist George Barris, speaking to the gathering at Westwood Memorial Park, recalled that the actress had difficulty accepting her magnitude.

Once, he said, he witnessed an exchange in which a stranger asked the star, “Are you really Marilyn Monroe?”

“That’s what they tell me,” she replied.

A park staffer who requested anonymity said Monroe’s crypt packs in more visitors than any other site, including the graves of author Truman Capote, stars Natalie Wood or Dean Martin, or industrialist Armand Hammer.

“Maybe we’re longing for a more innocent time,” said Greg Schreiner, a Cerritos College piano teacher who is president of the Monroe fan club “Marilyn Remembered.” He said he has turned his West Hollywood home into what he calls a museum to Marilyn Monroe, where fans hold meetings to discuss their icon.

Donald Spoto, author of “Marilyn Monroe, the Biography,” said that this kind of obsession comes not from nostalgia, but from people recognizing that Monroe was misunderstood. “Her talent was not appreciated in her lifetime, and we want to make it up.”

Monroe wasn’t the commonly portrayed dumb blond, he said. Rather, “She produced movies and supervised scripts and formed her own production company.”

Added Schreiner: “When you see her on screen, you still see a glow. You can’t see it there today. It just doesn’t exist any more.”