Well, well, well. Dust off your champagne flutes and polish your platform stilettos, darlings, because the spectral eyebrows of Norma Jeane Mortenson have just hit triple digits. Yes, it is the centenary of Marilyn Monroe. And what do Her Majesty’s celluloid custodians do? They do not simply re-release *Some Like It Hot*. No. That would be far too straightforward for a nation that invented passive aggression and queuing. Instead, the British Film Institute has dusted off a trove of UK-made Monroe masterpieces for the absolute delight of pensioners, cinephiles, and anyone who fancies a good old-fashioned nostalgia bath.
Let us be very clear: Marilyn Monroe was a Hollywood goddess, a platinum-blonde atomic bomb of charisma who could make a man weep into his Ovaltine. But did you know she also made some films in Blighty? Of course you didn’t. Because the British film industry, bless its cotton socks, has a long and proud tradition of importing American stars and then filming them in the rain on a soundstage in Shepperton that smells faintly of stale tea and regret.
The BFI’s archive unveiling is, of course, a masterclass in cultural appropriation of the highest order. “Look,” they cry, “Marilyn was *ours* for a fleeting moment! She filmed *The Prince and the Showgirl* with Laurence Olivier here! That makes her a national treasure, pip pip, tally ho.” And yes, that film exists. It is a celluloid monument to tension, where Olivier’s theatrical pomposity meets Monroe’s raw, bleeding vulnerability. It is like watching a lion wrestle a butterfly in a corset. Absolutely riveting, but you do feel the need to give them both a stiff drink afterwards.
The restored prints, I am told, are pristine. The pinks are pinker. The soft-focus lenses are softer. Monroe’s breathy delivery is now so clear you can hear the faint sound of her heart breaking under the weight of her own legend. Because let us not forget, the tragic irony of Marilyn Monroe is that she was a woman trapped inside a symbol. She was a living, breathing protest against the very thing she had become. And now, on her 100th birthday, we are celebrating by selling restored DVDs and putting her face on commemorative tea towels. Oh, the humanity.
But what else did the archives reveal? A rare colour home movie of Monroe giggling while trying to eat a jellied eel? A deleted scene where she sings “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” but with a cockney accent? No. Instead, we are treated to the sad, beautiful spectacle of a woman who wanted to be taken seriously as an actress, doing her best with the material she was given in a country that was still rationing eggs. There is a grainy newsreel of her attending the Royal Command Performance, looking utterly luminous and slightly terrified, as if she might be asked to explain the plot of *The Prince and the Showgirl*.
I must confess, when I first heard this story, I was about to file a scathing satire about how Britain is so desperate for cultural legitimacy that we will claim any passing celebrity as our own. We will probably dig up Elvis’s discarded chip wrapper from 1958 and put it on display at the V&A. But then I watched the footage. And I remembered why Marilyn Monroe matters. She was a woman who weaponised her own fragility, who performed femininity so spectacularly that it became a kind of brutal, beautiful art. She was the original gonzo feminist, long before the term existed. And on her 100th birthday, as she smiles down from a restored 35mm print, I raise a glass of lukewarm gin from a plastic cup in this godforsaken newsroom and toast her. Happy birthday, Norma Jeane. You still make the world stop. Even from beyond the grave. Even in Shepperton.
