Hosted by journalist, film critic, and author, Karina Longworth, You Must Remember This is a podcast that focuses on the first century of Hollywood. Longworth writes, narrates, records, and edits all the episodes. She makes sure to separate the truth from the Hollywood mythos in order to figure out what went on behind films, performers, and scandals of those times.
For the podcast, Longworth did a season called "Dead Blondes." In this season, she focused on eleven actresses, all blondes, whether naturally or artificially, who died before their time through unexpected or tragic manners. Three episodes of this season covered Marilyn Monroe.
Ep. 98: Marilyn Monroe: the Beginning (Dead Blondes Part 6)
by Sherman Alexie, The Summer of Black Widows, Hanging Loose Press, 1996.
"Marilyn Monroe sang her unforgettable rendition of 'Happy Birthday' to the late President John F. Kennedy at a Madison Square Garden rally on May 19, 1962, 10 days before he turned 45. No photo was believed to have been taken of the two together that night--or ever--until one was discovered after the death of Kennedy's official White House photographer, Cecil W. Stoughton, in 2008."
Norse goddesses meet Monroe and Hayworth in Pam Glew's Art of Protest show
Pam Glew is a British artist that works with fabric, dye, and stitching to create images. She decided to portray famous screen stars as figures in Norse mythology. She portrays Marilyn Monroe as Hel, who runs the underworld.
According to Glew, "...I used Norse mythology as the nucleus for the show. The strong Norse goddesses featured include Hel...Freyja, goddess of sex, fertility, war and wealth; Nott, goddess of night, and Skadi, goddess of the hunt and winter. While researching, I was struck by how balanced the portrayal of women seemed to be; they are both light and dark, dangerous and caring, and not in any way superficial. The multifaceted trend of the gods, whereby they are both had and soft, runs through the representational paintings in my solo show. Hel, for example, is an entertainer to the dead; she is half beauty, half skull, and is painted on a split textile applique using ornate Japanese gold-printed fabric and calico."
Glew also portrays Rita Hayworth as Lofn, the goddess of forbidden love. Elizabeth Taylor is the human form of Britannia.