‘America’s sweetheart’: exhibition explores Monroe’s complex relationship to stardom

Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon, a new exhibition opening in Los Angeles this weekend, includes an unsettling moment where some of the star’s last recorded words emanate from the gallery walls. Her voice, gentle and unassuming, is taken from a restored audio recording of her final interview, published in Life magazine the day before she died.

"With fame, you can read about yourself and somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about you, for survival and living day to day with oneself," Marilyn Monroe said in 1962. "I like people, but the public scares me." The show is packed with dramatic costumes and photography, but it is the intimate items on display — letters, notes, personal effects — that leave the biggest impression.

The exhibition is one of several this year, including at the British Film Institute and National Portrait Gallery in London, to celebrate Monroe’s centenary, and curators worked together to ensure each was unique, says Sophia Serrano, who curated the Academy Museum event.

United States, Los Angeles

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