Norma Jeane Mortenson, AKA Norma Jeane Baker, AKA Marylin Monroe was born on June 1st 1926, just thirty five days after future queen Elizabeth II.
There an outside chance she would be alive today had it not been for her tragic, well, everything. And although her life was all-too-short, her legacy still towers above the cultural stratosphere – and they’re both explored in this all new exhibition in London Bridge.
Titled MARILYN – The Exhibition, it’s hitting The Arches venue until February 2025. The whole thing is the work of a man named Ted Stampfer, who is far and away the world’s most prolific collector of Marilyn memorabilia, with over 1.5k objects in his personal collection. For this show, he’s taken the 250-ish best ones, and put them on display. Thus, you can expect to see love letters, movie props, dresses, make-up, personal photos, drawings, scripts, you name it.
It’ll delve into the glamour of the movies, the fashion, the style, and the extraordinary celebrity she embodied – but it’ll also touch on the immerse emotional hardship she endured, including her twelve childhood foster homes, her three failed marriages, and her eventual drug overdose.
And, given that it’s in London – the first time many of the items will have been this side of the Atlantic – there’ll also be a fair amount of material from her visit here in 1956, when she met one of her peers about her own age…
…a woman named Liz.
NOTE: MARILYN: The Exhibition runs from 18th October 2024 – 23rd February 2025. You can book tickets on the Marilyn exhibition website.
Marilyn: The Exhibition | The Arches London Bridge, 8 Bermondsey St, SE1 2ER
Want dinner beforehand? Here are the best restaurants in London Bridge