Marilyn Monroe: If they only knew.....04 08 62 Collage

Postage Stamp Portrait
The rhyming title for my final portrait of Marilyn on the 60th anniversary of her death is “If they only knew.....04 08 62”. The final hours of her life are mysterious although it is certain that on August 4th 1962, her body was found in her room. Her death was officially ruled a suicide based on information about her overdosing on barbiturates, yet the weeks leading to the tragedy caused concern. Conspiracy theories suggested murder or an accidental overdose. Many believed pain over her alleged affair and rejection by the politician Bobby Kennedy led to depression. Her final film, ’The Misfits’ found her in such a mental haze causing her co-star, Clark Gable to ask ”What the hell is that girl’s problem?” If they only knew... something may have been done to help as she was quietly crying herself to death inside. I have tried to capture both her innocence and vulnerability in her eyes, her total impermanence and hurt in the question her pose seems to ask “If only they knew”?