(1926 – 1962) Vulnerable, funny, alluring but not threatening, this platinum blonde with pouty lips and breathy voice remains the ultimate sex symbol of the postwar era decades after her mysterious suicide. Born Norma Jean Mortenson, she suffered through a horrendous childhood of abuse before escaping into marriage, modeling and film, where she debuted in 1948. Stardom came in the 1950s along with marriages to American baseball icon Joe Di Maggio and the playwright Arthur Miller. Along the way Marilyn produced movies, characters and even scenes that live vividly in the American imagination—production numbers from Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953), a blowing skirt from The Seven Year Itch (1955), the naive Sugar from Some Like it Hot (1959). Psychological problems and drugs marred her last years before her death from an overdose. This has been linked subsequently to her involvement with President John Kennedy, to whom she had offered a famous birthday tribute (“Happy Birthday Mr President”) before the lives of two icons of the 1960s were cut short. We do not forget either.