Marilyn Monroe Memorial, August 2002,
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Some of the guest speakers seated up front.

The speakers at this year's memorial service included:



Greg Schreiner, whose LA based Marilyn Remembered club organizes these memorials every year. Greg is the Master of Ceremonies at the memorial services, and he also provides the live music on the keyboard.
Nancy Bolender Jeffreys - Norma Jeane's foster sister. She's the little girl in Norma Jeane and Jim Dougherty's wedding photo.
Mary Belzunce - President of the French Fan Club http://belzunce.chez.tiscali.fr/html/Marilyn.htm
Jack Allen - Authour of Marilyn By Moonlight.
Gloria Pall - pinup girl, TV and movie star, and author. See her web site
Barbara Kotlarchick - President of Norma 2 Marilyn Fan Club
Mickey Song - hairdresser for stars... he touched up Marilyn's hair before she went out to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" at JFK's party.
Leslie Kasperowicz - President of Immortal Marilyn Fan Club
Penny McGuiggan - co-starred with Marilyn in Some Like It Hot. She still has the instrument she played in the movie! Click here to download and listen to an MP3 sound file of her playing it at the memorial service.
George Barris - fashion photographer, author, and friend of Marilyn www.barrisphotos.com
Jill Adams - Co-President of Forever Marilyn Fan Club
Stanley Rubin - Producer of River of No Return.
Kathleen Hughes - Actress and wife of Stanley Rubin.
A.C. Lyles - He was affiliated with Paramount Pictures for over 60 years, serving 30 years as a producer- writer-partner in numerous theatrical features and television shows.
The crowd gives a standing ovation to Greg Shreiner for his dedication to Marilyn's memory. In the center foreground is Ernest Cunningham, author of The Ultimate Marilyn
Douglas Kirkland - Fashion photographer, his most famous image is a sultry shot of Marilyn Monroe, naked save for a loosely draped silk sheet and tightly clutching a pillow the way she might hold a lover.
Vocal Selection: "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep" written by Greg Schreiner for Marilyn's 10th Memorial Service, and performed by Sue Ann Pinner and Greg Shreiner.

At the end of the service, a recording is played of Lee Strasberg's eulogy at Marilyn's funeral.
This is a transcript of his words.

Marilyn Monroe was a legend. In her own lifetime she created a myth of what a poor girl from a deprived background could attain. For the entire world she became a symbol of the eternal feminine. But I have no words to describe the myth and the legend. I did not know this Marilyn Monroe. We gathered here today, knew only Marilyn - a warm human being, impulsive and shy, sensitive and in fear of rejection, yet ever avid for life and reaching out for fulfillment. I will not insult the privacy of your memory of her - a privacy she sought and treasured - by trying to describe her whom you knew to you who knew her. In our memories of her she reamins alive, not only a shadow on the screen or a glamorous personality. For us Marilyn was a devoted and loyal friend, a colleague constantly reaching for perfection. We shared her pain and difficulties and some of her joys. She was a member of our family. It is difficult to accept the fact that her zest for life has been ended by this dreadful accident. Despite the heights and brillance she attained on the screen, she was planning for the future; she was looking forward to participating in the many exciting things which she planned. In her eyes and in mine her career was just beginning. The dream of her talent, which she had nurtured as a child, was not a mirage. When she first came to me I was amazed at the startling sensitivity which she possessed and which had remained fresh and undimmed, struggling to express itself despite the life to which she had been subjected. Others were as physically beautiful as she was, but there was obviously something more in her, something that people saw and recognized in her performances and with which they identified. She had a luminous quality - a combination of wistfulness, radiance, yearning - to set her apart and yet make everyone wish to be a part of it, to share in the childish naivete which was so shy and yet so vibrant. This quality was even more evident when she was in the stage. I am truly sorry that the public who loved her did not have the opportunity to see her as we did, in many of the roles that foreshadowed what she would have become. Without a doubt she would have been one of the really great actresses of the stage. Now it is at an end. I hope her death will stir sympathy and understanding for a sensitive artist and a woman who brought joy and pleasure to the world. I cannot say goodby. Marilyn never liked goodbys, but in the peculiar way she had of turning things around so that they faced reality - I will say au revoir. For the country to which she has gone, we must all someday visit.

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