A girl’s best friend: Marilyn Monroe remembered by her closest confidants

Four days before what would have been her 100th birthday, Hollywood legends look back on their friendships with a woman who, underneath the studio sheen, was warm, supportive and empatheticYou can judge a woman by the people she surrounds herself with. For the last few months I’ve been talking to the people Marilyn Monroe surrounded herself with, during her eventful 36 years on earth. Ostensibly and primarily, I was doing this to make a radio documentary, which begins on what would have been her 100th birthday. But I also had a secret secondary motive: I wanted to find out if – maybe in another life – Marilyn and I might have been friends.The first thing to say about Monroe’s friends is that she had a lot of them. The fact that more than six decades have passed since her death, and it’s still possible to find enough living people to interview, tells you something. This is all the more surprising because MM (as she’s sometimes referred to in fan circles) seems far too much t