Famous Life

Marilyn Monroe's sex appeal, talent and untimely death combined to make her an enduring star and one of Hollywood's most recognizable icons. Early in her film career she starred as a dumb blonde inmovies like How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Her va-va-voom beauty made her an international celebrity, and she won acclaim as a talented actress in the films Bus Stop (1956) and Some Like It Hot(1959, with Jack Lemmon). Her personal life was famously untidy; her husbands included baseball star Joe DiMaggio (1954) and playwright Arthur Miller (1956-61). Her last film was Miller's drama TheMisfits (1961, co-starring Clark Gable). She was found dead in 1962 of an overdose of sleeping pills, and her death was officially ruled a probable suicide.

Extra credit: Monroe was married three timesin all: to Jimmy Dougherty (1942-1946), whom she married when she was 16; to Joe DiMaggio (1954), and to Arthur Miller (1956-1961)... Elton John's memorial tribute to Lady Di, "Candle in the Wind",was originally written for Marilyn... According to the official site of her estate, though the name on her birth certificate was Norma Jean Mortenson, she was later baptized as Norma Jeane Baker.Defamer posted a length entry yesterday titled "Exclusive: Debunking The Marilyn Monroe 'Sex Tape' Hoax" in which the blog's editors essentially hand over the microphone to a group of three Monroeexperts -- in this case, a Monroe author and two memorabilia vendors led by Mark Bellinghaus. The experts then lay out their case for why the purported sex tape can't be real.

As a disclaimer, I'll saythat I too doubt the existence of the tape -- more so than my insufficiently skeptical post of the other morning reflected. But debunking a claim means proving it's false -- not just speculating aboutit or attacking the source's credibility -- which is all this very long Defamer post manages to do.

Instead of getting to a smoking gun in the first paragraph, the post spends a few hundred...