Marilyn Monroe left behind a 100-year mystery that we are trying to solve

There she is, in that iconic hot pink dress, with her arms open as if to offer herself to the world and embrace what the world offers: love, applause, admiration and diamonds, which are, as she sang from the confines of that body-hugging pink silk in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” a girl's best friend.

It's not her, of course, although it is. he Dress, designed by William Travilla and now part of the new installation “Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon” at the Academy of Motion Picture Museum. Opening Sunday, it is just one of many exhibits and events scheduled to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Monroe's birth.

More than 60 years after her death, Monroe still shines brightly in the Hollywood firmament. Her career only lasted 17 years, but during that time she dazzled so much that her image, and everything projected upon it, remains etched in our collective line of sight, an indelible afterimage of an exploding star.

As the Academy Museum exhibition highlights, Marilyn Monroe was a pioneer in many ways.

(Emily Shur / Academy Museum Foundation)

His death, at age 36 from an overdose, did much to cement his legacy, generating international headlines and then a host of conspiracy theories, many of them involving powerful men, including members of the equally mythical Kennedy family.

Tragedy and mystery are powerful binding agents, but they don't fully explain the torrent of books that have been and continue to be written about her (including several published this year) or the many films made about her life or the art she has inspired, from Andy Warhol's iconic “Marilyn Diptych” screen print (made a year after her death) to Seward Johnson's enormous “Forever Marilyn” statue, which, after some controversy, made its final home in Palm Springs five years ago.

A little girl and her mother look at each other in a lighted makeup mirror.

As the Academy Museum exhibit highlights, Monroe was a pioneer in many ways. In the repressive '50s, she was sex-positive and openly talked about psychotherapy and the vagaries of fame. She often challenged studio bosses, was one of the first actresses to found her own production company, and demanded approval for her numerous photo shoots.

He had multiple marriages, problems with drugs and alcohol, and a reputation for being difficult on set, but he wasn't afraid to call out the press or joke with them.

Even so, the masses do not consider her a pioneer, a term reminiscent of scientists and suffragettes. No, Monroe remains a fascinating and radiant symbol: of beauty, glamour, sensuality, a life force so rare that it cannot be expected to survive long in a world full of envy and petty demands.

In preparing “Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon,” associate curator Sophia Serrano spoke to many devoted fans, including those whose collections helped build the exhibit, and they all said the same thing.

A large heart cut out with an image of Marilyn Monroe.

“Even though she had a tragic end,” Serrano said, “people would say she is a symbol of resilience. Her story is like a movie: an orphan who succeeds and then loses everything. They see her fighting against the studio, wanting to get more nuanced roles and not getting the roles she wanted… A lot of people cling to her because she gives them hope.”

In many ways, Monroe is, and was, a work of art onto which we could project our own longings and adulation. But that art, Serrano says, was created by Monroe, with equal parts natural magnetism and a shrewd, rigorous sense of his own strengths.

In 1952, when she was a rising star, a journalist noticed that a nude pin-up girl used on calendars and posters was Monroe; Five years earlier she had posed for what is now known as the “Golden Dream” series. Monroe was filming 20th Century Fox's “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” at the time and studio head Darryl Zanuck pressured her to deny that the photos were of her.

Monroe did the exact opposite, downplaying it in an interview, in which she said, “I was broke and I needed the money… I'm not ashamed of it; I haven't done anything wrong.”

A director's chair named after Marilyn Monroe.

Monroe's unique and, to some extent, self-constructed combination of vulnerability (the wide eyes, the half-open mouth, the childish voice) and her essential courage is what fuels her continued cultural resonance and what constitutes the guiding principle of the Academy Museum exhibition.

An exhibit about the life and legacy of Marilyn Monroe could fill an entire museum, so for this exhibit, Serrano and her team chose objects that were relevant to her life. Being the Academy Museum, much of it focuses on his film career. Costumes from her various films (including the original exhibition copy of the famous white dress from “The Seven Year Itch”) take up a large portion, in part, Serrano says, because Monroe was so often involved in their design.

“I was very smart looking at these costumes,” Serrano says. “She was obviously Fox's star for Cinemascope; she's the way they marketed new technology and she didn't like the way certain silhouettes looked, so she didn't use A-lines in Cinemascope because she thought the effect was unflattering. She really paid attention to how things worked and then knew how to control them, edit them and manage them.”

Mannequins wearing Marilyn Monroe dresses.

The pink dress in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” has its own story. Monroe's character was originally going to appear in jeweled shorts (also on display), but when the Golden Dream “scandal” broke, Zanuck demanded that she wear something less revealing.

Many personal items are also on display, including the shoes she wore at her wedding to Joe DiMaggio, a rare apology from gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, bookmarked scripts, and parts of her makeup regimen (including a face-slimming mask she used after being told she had a double chin). The love-hate relationship he had with the press is well represented in newspaper clippings and newsreels.

A mannequin wearing a white pleated dress.

An entire room is dedicated to scenes from his most famous films and an entire long wall to countless photographs. “She understood the camera better than anyone,” Serrano says, echoing observations made by photographers and actors who worked with her, including Laurence Olivier, who famously did not get along with Monroe during the filming of “The Prince and the Showgirl.”

Her reputation for being difficult in certain settings is also documented in a rather infuriating series of telegrams between director Billy Wilder complaining to her then-husband, playwright Arthur Miller, and Miller responding in defense of his wife.

It's a well-crafted look at Monroe as a whole, including pieces from her Brentwood home and some of her own clothing, which Serrano said was much simpler than the dresses and suits she was photographed in. “His personality was carefully constructed. He knew how to give just enough to create the illusion of something.”

A wall of photographs of Marilyn Monroe.

And perhaps that's why Monroe continues to fascinate. Yes, she owned her beauty and sexuality with a boldness that stands out even now. Her relationship with the camera remains incomparable: when it is framed, it is almost impossible to look away. His swaggering walk remains iconic and, perhaps, also revealing. It was achieved by placing one foot directly in front of the other, as if you were a tightrope walker.

Which in many ways Monroe was, treading the line, invisible to the rest of us, between innocence and worldliness, between vulnerability and power.

The tension between the human need for love and self-determination drives both art and madness, but it was never brought to life as tangibly as Marilyn Monroe. Art and artist, creation and creator, left behind a century-old mystery that we are still trying to unravel.

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