FIFTY YEARS AGO - One of the truly iconic (and frivolous) moments of the early 1960s was Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday" to President John Kennedy at a Democratic fundraiser in Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1962. It was Kennedy's 45th birthday. There have been persistent rumors for the last fifty years about an affair between Marilyn Monroe and Jack Kennedy, but never more than rumors.
Less than three months later (August 5, 1962), Marilyn committed suicide with a drug overdose. Her story really belongs in the 1950s, with famous movies like How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), and The Seven Year Itch (1955), and marriages to baseball star Joe DiMaggio and Pulitzer Prize winning writer Arthur Miller. Still, the scene reflects the transition from the 1950s, and reminds us that, unlike some 1960s personalities that have been exaggerated over the last 50 years, Marilyn was really larger than life in her own lifetime.
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