The Hollywood Museum will commemorate the 64th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death Wednesday evening with a tribute featuring actors and entertainers reading personal letters they have written to the late screen icon.
The event, scheduled for 7:15 p.m. Wednesday at the museum in the historic Max Factor Building, will take place amid the museum’s Marilyn Monroe centennial exhibit, according to museum officials.
Donelle Dadigan, founder and president of the Hollywood Museum, will be joined by celebrities including Ruta Lee, Carolyn Hennesy, Claudia Wells, Kate Linder, Johnny Whitaker and Kevin Spirtas, officials said.
“Since we celebrated her 100th birthday with our multi-floor Marilyn Monroe exhibit, we felt it appropriate to commemorate the 64th anniversary of her passing,” Dadigan said in a statement. “We will have many of our Hollywood Museum celebrity family and friends read letters they wrote to Marilyn, as if they could talk to her today.”
Letters written to Monroe will be read by performers including Lily Tomlin, Morgan Fairchild, Fran Drescher, Leonard Maltin, Dee Wallace and Jamie Farr.
The museum’s Marilyn exhibit includes Monroe’s clothing, jewelry, makeup chair, personal photographs and other artifacts documenting her life and career.
Monroe died Aug. 4, 1962, at age 36 in her Brentwood home. The actress, whose films included “Some Like It Hot,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “The Seven Year Itch,” became one of Hollywood’s defining stars of the 1950s and remains one of the entertainment industry’s most recognizable and influential figures.