Mad About Marilyn? (marilynmonroe.com)

Name: karenuk

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Product:	marilynmonroe.com
Date:	19/04/07 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting, good photos, informative

Disadvantages: Not regularly updated, not very much for long-time fans

I’m a big fan of Marilyn Monroe – and so are plenty of other people. Just type her name into Google and see how many websites there are out there, which feature this beautiful woman. I thought I would review her official site which is marilynmonroe.com.

As well as being in English, the website can also be viewed in Spanish, Portuguese and German. I think the homepage is rather bland, but the site certainly has plenty to explore.

The news section is a bit sparser than I feel it should be. The latest news item here is from March and I know from belonging to various Marilyn yahoogroups, there have been other stories around her since then.

This site is a good place to start if you are interested in finding out more about Marilyn. The four-page biography is worth reading, if you are new to liking her. It gives a good résumé of her personal life and career.

You can find out more about her films too. She made thirty-one films between 1947 and the unfinished Something’s Got To Give in 1962. Some of her most famous movies are The Seven Year Itch, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Niagara, All About Eve, There’s No Business Like Show Business, The Misfits and Some Like It Hot. The film section links to Amazon, where you can buy the films on DVD and gives a synopsis of each one.

The music section features three files, where you can hear Marilyn singing I Wanna Be Loved By You (from Some Like It Hot), Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend (from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and her famous breathy rendition of Happy Birthday as sung to President Kennedy.

Marilyn’s Favourites is an interesting list of things she loved. I was pleased to see she used Nivea moisturizer, as I do too. (Sadly, I don’t seem to have the stunning results she did!) The ‘dumb blonde’ image is also ridiculed by her listing authors such as Dostoyevsky amongst her preferences.

My favourite section of the website is the photo section. This is pretty extensive and is organised into the work of various photographers and by colour or black and white images.

There are photos from the Andre De Dienes collection, which are from the 1940s and 1950s, mainly showing Norma Jean (as she was then) in her modelling days as a brunette. If you like these, I would recommend buying De Dienes’ Marilyn book or diary, which show many more of these photos.

The Harold Lloyd photos (Yes, THAT Harold Lloyd) are in the Marilyn Monroe blonde bombshell era. I am not keen on the swimsuit or negligee shots he took, but I do like the others.

The George Barris section is my favourite here. They are rather dark and not great quality, but I love the ones taken in the 1960s, where she looks so radiant and naturally beautiful. These photographs are featured in the book Marilyn by Gloria Steinem, which I think is an essential book in any fan’s collection.

The colour and black and white galleries contain some of the images we see used a lot on merchandise, but also some rarer ones, so it’s worth a browse. You can right click and save the images, but consult the Photo Usage section for copyright issues.

The official online store has some beautiful items, but they are often expensive. It’s worth a look round, but I would personally try to get them cheaper from Ebay.

The Fan Club section is currently under renovation, so I can’t tell you much about it sadly. I successfully subscribed to the updates newsletter though.

There are four screensavers available on the site and fifteen wallpapers, so this is one place to look, if you want to put Marilyn on your computer.

Overall, I found the website to be worth a look and spent an hour or so there, but as a long-time MM fan, there was little new information here and I was left wanting more. For the beginner though, it is a great resource to find out more about Marilyn.

If this site isn’t enough for you, check out the links here as there are loads – several of which I visit myself. I would also recommend joining a Marilyn yahoogroup. The ones I love are -

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/AllAboutMa rilyn/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/forevermarily n/
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/ImmortalMa rilyn/
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/NJ2MM/

Summary: The official Marilyn site - but not necessarily the best!