30-Year Itch : Faithful Fans and Look-Alikes Mark Anniversary of Marilyn’s Death

Cortney Page stood in the sun in her white dress, the same style as the one that blew lustily when Marilyn Monroe straddled a subway grate in “The Seven Year Itch.� Her wig was set in golden waves, her eyeliner extended, her eyebrows arched, her wedgies gold lame.

You had to admit there was a certain resemblance to the legendary actress, but on Wednesday, the 30th anniversary of Monroe’s death, similarities seemed to abound at Westwood Village Memorial Park, where about 200 fans turned out in her memory.

“I’m also from Maryland, which sounds a lot like Marilyn,� Page noted, her manager and husband-to-be yanking her out of the sun before she started to sweat.

“And I went to school in Durango, Colo., where they filmed ‘Tickets to Tomahawk,’ one of Marilyn’s early films where she didn’t have any lines,� Page went on, as her manager assaulted an ink spot on her dress with a pencil eraser.

Fanning themselves in the chapel, Marilyn’s fans, however eccentric, grasped at bits of her short life in search of some affinity.

Gloria Pall, a.k.a. “Miss Cleavage,� claimed to have once stolen Marilyn’s thunder at a party given by a guy who later wrote a song called “Marilyn.�

Fran Mondello, who believes Marilyn was bumped off by the Mob (“probably by injection�), had a niece who was murdered in New York.

Bettina Lupinski, who once entered a Marilyn look-alike contest when she ran out of money in New York, claimed to look just like the movie star, even when she wasn’t sporting the same hairdo, red lipstick and left cheek beauty mark.

“I respect her too much to be a cheap look-alike,� Lupinski said reverently, handing out bank deposit slips for lack of business cards and posing for a paparazzo .

It was the same chapel where movie legends eulogized Monroe three decades ago, after a housekeeper found her body on the bed in her Brentwood home, an empty bottle of sedatives nearby.

But this time there were no big Hollywood names, just the simple flock of fans captivated by her timeless mystique. People like Celeste DeLongpre, a retired beautician who rode three days on a bus from Statesville, N.C., as she has every August since 1962 (with the exception of 1978, when there was a bus strike.)

DeLongpre noted the crypt’s discolored facade, smudged by thousands of lipsticked women who have kissed it over the years, and looked in disgust at marks left by “a bunch of fraternity morons who tried to open it one year.�

Greg Schreiner, president of Marilyn Remembered, which co-sponsored the ceremony with the All About Marilyn fan club, played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow� on the organ, just as it was played the day of her funeral.

Evelyn Moriarty, Monroe’s double in “Let’s Make Love,� “The Misfits� and other films, read a poem, her body frail and her face aged as Marilyn’s never would be.

“What’s that?� Moriarty barked, swatting at a microphone that someone tried to move closer to her mouth.

Marilyn Monroe has been dead nearly as long as she lived, and still her image dominates more memorabilia than any actress ever.

“Others were as physically beautiful as she was, but there was obviously something more to her,� the late acting coach and director Lee Strasberg said when he delivered her eulogy 30 years ago.

While few have been able to put that elusive quality into words, it continues to lure a public still obsessed by an actress drenched in fame and lost in despair. Even at Wednesday’s service, some wept while others advertised female impersonation acts and tours of the drugstore where she filled her last prescription.

As biographer Donald Spoto put it: “Everyone . . . wanted to touch her body. But in the end, there was no one to claim it.�