THE WOMAN IN WHITE…

By Kavita Kane

Norma Jean. Marilyn Monroe. I don’t remember her as the voluptuous beauty with her swirling dress billowing behind a rapturous face, holding that tilted, sultry smile, but as that ‘woman’ who made my father’s eyes flare up passionately every time her name was mentioned. Or rather, whenever he got to glimpse her - be it tiny, black and white pix besides a yellowed newspaper clipping or a glossy blow-up off a raucous, heaving street or the beauteous lady herself - gloriously, magnificently, surely blistering the 70 mm silver screen. He watches her these days through thick glasses on a miniaturized 29” which doesn’t moderate her throbbing flamboyance - a restricting small screen cannot confine or contain her palpable sensuousness, her most dedicated devotee insists.

As a child who loved Robert Redford, Cary Grant, James Stewart and Ryan O’Neal, strictly in that order, and who later jostled comfortably with Kevin Costner, Alec Baldwin and George Clooney, I used to openly wonder why my constant companion and movie partner, Pater dear, adored the blonde bombshell so unabashedly, so unrestrainedly. I didn’t mind the Grace Kellys, the Hepburns (both Katharine and Audrey!), the Lauren Bacals or Ingrid Bergmans in his fervent cinematic experiences, but as a ten-year old, frankly doubted what he saw in “that fat woman”, as an annoyed me once angrily expostulated. Visibly fighting an inner apoplexy, he purred, breathing out a long, satiated sigh, “Grow up and you’ll find out one day!”

I did – through a fascinating journey. And every time I fell in love with her, over and over again. Be it, at her tinkling, seductive best in The Seven year Itch or deliciously devious in Niagra, or plain adorable and fun unmitigated in How To Marry a Millionaire. The Tom Ewells, Joseph Cottens didn’t distract my romantic senses – this lady did. A child-woman blossoming wondrously, a star blazing in full glory, an enigmatic legend draped in brutal mystery…

And then I hear her name again…my little girls are squealing out the twin magic Ms as they enact out a How To Marry a Millionaire in a noisy round of dumb charade, and I realize, like me once, they are growing up too, in the shadow of that everlasting enchantment called Marilyn Monroe…