why is marilyn still such an icon

MM was hugely popular before she died, so her death did enhance her popularity but isn't the only reason. Those opinions you have about her are not accurate, IMO, and since many people love her acting and comedic talents and looks and singing and sweet sexuality, the answer to your question is more that you are underappreciating her, or if you want to insist your opinions are accurate, then many people are over-appreciating her. Have you seen The Seven Year Itch? It could show you how wonderful she is to a lot of us...


"Did you make coffee? Make it!"--Cheyenne.

I agree with you. She is not a good role model, but, sex sells and that's what she is. Her voluptuous figure and the way she used her mouth when she talks, ect.

Marilyn did all of her own singing.Please check your facts.

Another moronic troll. Marilyn was radiant on screen.

1. She defined 1950s glamour, and the camera loved her.

2. She may not have been the most talented of actresses, but she had loads of charm. Sometimes you need a serious actress or a talented singer or dancer; sometimes you just want someone to light up the screen. (And she could sing; I'd rather listen to her, or just about anyone else, than the overpraised singing of Streisand).

3. She passed away in the prime of life and at the height of her popularity, so
no one remembers her for sad appearances on game shows, Love Boat reruns,
infomercials, talk show interviews in which she blasts the younger stars of more recent years, and catty National Enquirer covers featuring photos of her in her more aged years and mocking her lost looks.

4. She had few family members who survived her, so she was ripe for perpetual exploitation. Ever since her death, attention-seekers have been crawling out of the woodwork with "Marilyn as you've never seen her before!" photos and stories,
with no one around to dispute their tales or heirs to contest any money made off her memory. Even Tony Curtis, who famously claimed that kissing Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot was like "kissing Hitler," waited patiently for many years until Arthur Miller, Monroe's last surviving ex-spouse, passed away. Then he began making claims that the Hitler remark was a lie, and that he and Monroe actually had an affair during the making of the movie. Nobody else from the movie was around anymore, so he was free to say whatever he wanted to exploit someone who couldn't defend herself and had no one to speak for her.

I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.

I honestly don't get it.
Monroe was a horrible actress. She was completely monotone.
The only thing I can see is that it was the fifties and she was the ultimate woman for the time. Total bombshell, zero intelligence, zero confidence. The fifties man's dream.
She was a disaster filming this movie. A disaster. I don't think there is anyone less deserving of their fame and respect than Marylin Monroe.
I am sorry but someone like Judy Holiday deserved this role over Monroe. I doubt Holiday would have taken 48 takes to say "It's me Sugar", or push the production fifty grand over budget due to her unprofessional behavior.
Monroe was basically the Kim Kardashian of the fifties.

All of the above, and her talent, too. There were definitely better actors, but she could act.

She led a tough life and seemed to have succeeded. She was climbing high, but could not take the thin air. Then she died tragically under suspicious circumstances. I follow the principal of Occam's Razor. Suicide was certainly not ruled out and was certainly conceivable, so the simplest plausible reason is the most likely.

The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.

Roger Ebert hit the nail on the head describing this scene:
Consider her solo of "I Wanna Be Loved by You." The situation is as basic as it can be: a pretty girl standing in front of an orchestra and singing a song. Monroe and Wilder turn it into one of the most mesmerizing and blatantly sexual scenes in the movies. She wears that clinging, see-through dress, gauze covering the upper slopes of her breasts, the neckline scooping to a censor's eyebrow north of trouble. Wilder places her in the center of a round spotlight that does not simply illuminate her from the waist up, as an ordinary spotlight would, but toys with her like a surrogate neckline, dipping and clinging as Monroe moves her body higher and lower in the light with teasing precision. It is a striptease in which nudity would have been superfluous. All the time she seems unaware of the effect, singing the song innocently, as if she thinks it's the literal truth. To experience that scene is to understand why no other actor, male or female, has more sexual chemistry with the camera than Monroe.