“Forever Marilyn” stands on the corner of Palm Canyon Drive and Tahquitz Canyon Way in Palm Springs. This amazing sculpture, created by artist J. Seward Johnson will reside there until June 2013. If alive today Marilyn would be 85 years old. Stunning in her flowing white dress and famous pose, modeled from the subway scene in the movie, “The Seven Year Itch,” she still bedazzles. And at 26 feet tall, back dropped by the San Bernardino Mountains and vivid blue sky, how she could not? Marilyn memorabilia can be found all over this city, and since this is where she spent many a day, this is the perfect place for her to resurrect.

Hidden in a courtyard between high rises In Los Angeles’s Westwood Memorial Park, Marilyn is now resting, if you can call it that since it is the single most visited grave in all of Southern California. Her crypt, adorned with flowers and loving notes from her fan club was the only decoration amongst her neighbors I observed when I visited. Her fan club even purchased a bench in her honor for visitors to sit and enjoy the solitude from the bustling Wilshire Boulevard on the other side of the buildings. She’s in good company, too. Donna Reed, Dean Martin, Natalie Wood, Don Knotts, Eva Gabor and Roy Orbison to name a few, rest in this yard as well.

As I sat on that bench and pondered the magnitude of combined talent in that courtyard, I imagined when the streets quieted, and no one was aware, ghostly stars emerged to mingle, Hollywood style, deck out in stylish attire and sipping martinis.