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Movies have lent the most perishable qualities, such as youth, beauty and comedy, a millennial shelf life. Until the cameras rolled, stars of the past could only be remembered, not experienced. Had she been born earlier, Marilyn might have existed as only a legendary rumor, a Helen of Troy or Tinker Bell. But thanks to Blockbuster, every generation now has immediate access to the evanescent perfection of Marilyn bumping and cooing her way through that chorine's anthem, Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Only movie stars have the chance to live possibly forever, and maybe that's why they're all so crazy. Madonna remade Diamonds in the video of her hit Material Girl, mimicking Marilyn's hot-pink gown and hot-number choreography, and the sly homage seemed fitting: a blond tribute, a legacy of greedy flirtation. Madonna is too marvelously sane ever to become Marilyn. Madonna's detailed appreciation of fleeting style and the history of sensuality is part of her own arsenal, making her a star and a fan in one. Madonna wisely and affectionately honors the brazen spark in Marilyn, the giddy candy-box allure, and not the easy heartbreak.
Marilyn's tabloid appeal is infinite but ultimately beside the point. Whatever destroyed her--be it Hollywood economics or rabid sexism or her own tormented psyche--pales beside the delight she continues to provide. At her peak, Marilyn was very much like Coca-Cola or Levi's--she was something wonderfully and irrepressibly American.
Paul Rudnick, author of The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, writes for stage and screen