The other night, my boyfriend and I were reminiscing about favorite old movies. It was extremely hot and humid during the day, and I joked about how, in The Seven Year Itch, Marilyn Monroe felt compelled to tell her new neighbor that she would indeed join him for a cocktail as soon as she got her panties out of the freezer. A short rest in her Frigidaire, apparently, was her preferred remedy for beating the oppressive heat of August in Manhattan.

I remembered how the character Ewell played, a mild-mannered man suddenly bachelorized when his wife and son went to the shore for the summer, indulged his rich imagination by picturing Marilyn Monroe’s character walking through his doorway. In his mind’s eye, she would be dressed in a low-cut evening gown, holding a smoldering cigarette dangling provocatively from the end of a long black lacquered holder. He imagined himself wearing a sophisticated smoking jacket as he sat at the candelabra topped piano, rolling his head with feeling as he played Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. “Ah, Rachmaninoff,” he said in anticipation of his alluring neighbor’s visit. “What woman could resist Rachmaninoff?”

Of course when Marilyn did join him on the piano bench, the duet they played was Chopsticks. It was such a classic scene; the good husband, a lothario in his dreams but not in actions, and Marilyn, so fresh and funny – an unconscious temptress. She was a wonderful actress in her comic roles, in her beauty and her unabashedly, wide-eyed, sexy innocence.

Since it seemed I had Marilyn on the brain, I was bowled over the next day as I unexpectedly saw a crew erecting a thirty foot tall statue of Marilyn on Michigan Avenue, just across the street from the Wrigley Building. When I saw it, her torso and head were not yet attached. But the long white legs and startlingly white skirt, blowing upward, depicting her from another scene from The Seven Year Itch, was unmistakable. The image was one of the most universally recognized from her career. She was an icon.

For a few seconds, I laughed at the scene in front of me: the workman happily positioned at the statue’s feet polishing her ankles; the tourists, with their cameras, trying to snap a remembrance from under her billowing skirt; the summer-suited businessmen who had to check out what they didn’t get to see in the movie, the backside of her panties; and the working women who passed by. They seemed to be simultaneously upset by the objectification of a sister and titillated by it. It was so cute and kitsch, wasn’t it? A relic from glamorous, old Hollywood. After all, even Marilyn’s private parts belonged to everyone, didn’t they?

Then I felt very sad about the spectacle. I thought about Marilyn growing up in a series of foster homes and about how her career goals always seemed to be in conflict with her relationship goals. I thought about her impeccable comic timing and craftwork, her desire to be taken seriously as an actress, and the irrepressible sway of her fans who wanted her to be their blonde bombshell forever, to always perform in the type of role they imagined for her. And then there was the Kennedy connection… I have already lived almost twenty years more than she managed to.

I am happy I am not an icon. I don’t have to negotiate a gap between my personal life and a public persona, the difference between how others see me and how I see myself. Thanks to video recordings and garage sale memorabilia, the songs and literary characters she inspired, it would be hard to forget Marilyn, Marilyn the icon. But remembering the person calls for a different response.

And remembering the person, not the icon, with genuine love and respect, is no small thing.