The Resume

Mentally ill mother. Abandoned. Assaulted by cousin and foster parent.  Adopted dog Tippy. Tippy got shot by a neighbor for barking. Orphan. Married Jim to leave orphanage. Lifted weights. Worked with model airplanes. Made arty photos. Hollywood studio signed her. Divorce. Tacky photos. In and out of work. Car accident. Pin Up photos. Hollywood studio signed her. Changes hair color and name. Stereotype role as secretary. Great photos. Decorative roles. Plastic surgery. Read Wilke and Russian lit. Attended Actor’s Lab. Studied art history and lit at UCLA. Admires renown playwright for refusing to concede to anti-Communist propaganda in screenplay changes. Pays drama coach to earn more than her. Refuses to marry powerful agent whom she didn’t love. He dies that year of a heart attack. Realizes her power in Korea singing to 100,000 GIs. Championed Ella Fitzgerald to get onto an all-White stage at El Mocambo. She went to every show for 2 weeks to applaud. Affairs with America’s most powerful President, baseball player, playwright, and singer after having an affair with the Actor’s Studio founder. She saw Clark Gable as a child and danced with him as an adult. This’ll never happen again.  Some say she was crazy. She had more status reports than anyone before Facebook. The most photographed person in the world. Transient, she moved many times a year. She owned one house bought just months before she died.  She took home a Golden Globe. Her lover delivered roses daily to her crypt every day, every year, until he died. She was his Candle in the Wind. So we're told.