A CLEAR TREND II (to be continued).

A CLEAR TREND II

One of the most outstanding women of our times is Mother Theresa of Calcutta.  She brought with her a message of love.  Her work demonstrates true conviction.  She took action through service, and won the Nobel Prize in 1979.  She objected, but accepted the prize on behalf of the "poorest of the poor". 

She was Albanian.  Her original name was Agnes Gonaha Bojaxhiu.  In 1948 she became a citizen of India.  At age 18 she attended a religious order in Ireland, and received her spiritual training in Dublin, Ireland and Darjeeling, India.  She took the name Teresa in 193l, after a Saint, and taught in Calcutta for 20 years.  Then she received a call to attend the poor in the streets in 1946.  Two years later Pope Pious XII gave her permission to share her life with the poor. 

She established an order called Missionaries of Charity.  The original work was with children teaching them to read.

In 1950 she began to care for lepers.  Pope Paul VI put her order under the Papacy and gave authorization to expand to other countries.  She created centers around the world to assist lepers, elderly, the blind and people with AIDS.  She also opened schools and homes for the poor and abandoned children.

Another important woman nowadays is Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton who was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 26, 1947.  She has two younger brothers and comes from a close knit family.  She has a commitment to family, work and service.  She is a Methodist and was a girl scout as a child.  She met Bill Clinton at Yale Universty and married in 1975.  Her daughter, Chesea, was born in 1980.

Hillary is a lawyer by profession.  The people of Arkansas named her Woman of the Year in 1984.  When Bill Clinton took office he was concerned about Health Care and asked her to chair the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. 

In 1996 "It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us", her book, was published and since 1995 she has written for a weekly Column "Talking it Over". 

In the White House, with Bill Clinton, she hosted two conferences on children:

1.  The White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning, and

2.  The White House Conference on Child Care.

She has worked to reform the foster care system.

She occupied the place of good will ambassador for the U.S. during visits abroad.  Her message is human rights, health care and economic empowerment of women.  She used to oversee special events at the White House, loves art, especially sculpture.

Hillary has had to suffer many troubles and has overcome many obstacles in personal and International crisis.

She has also been elected Senator, and was the 67^th Secretary of State, under Obama.

A woman who has probably had more attention than any other is Marilyn Monroe.  Her famous face has been seen and posted all over the world.  Her real name was Norma Jean Mortenson and she was born in Los Angeles.  She was raised as Norma Jean Baker of a mother who was a film splicer, Gladys Monroe Baker.  Gladys' second marriage to Mortenson ended before Norma Jean's birth.  Gladys Baker was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and Norma Jean had an unstable upbringing.

Norma Jean became a model by an army photographer at a factory job and then enrolled in a three month modeling course.   Her first husband was James Dogherty, an aircraft factory worker who she married in 1942, and later divorced.

In 1946 she signed with Fox for $75 a week, changed her name to be more appropriate for an actress, and became a "Fox Girl".  At first she had small parts and periods of unemployment. She worked hard to progess in studies and made much effort to succeed.

Her career had a turn for the better when Johnny Hyda became her agent.  She did the Asphalt Jungle and All about Eve in 1950.  She played an inexperienced woman in the company of worldly older men.

She became a manufactured sex queen.  By 1953 with a heavy publicity campaign and ten more pictures behind her she had become famous.

She married Joe Di Maggio in 1954 and got divorced the same year.

¨Bus Stop¨ was from 1956 and “Some Like it Hot”, came out in 1959.  In 1956 she married Arthur Miller, the playwright, and tried to get pregnant.  She lost two children. 

She suffered great mental and emotional disturbances, but fought against it in order to work.  In 1961 she did the ¨Misfits¨, written by her husband.  It provided her deepest and most complex screen role.  They divorced in 196l and that same year she was hospitalized in a clinic for mental patients.  In 1962 she died a mysterious death in her home in Los Angeles from an overdose.  She was later connected to the Kennedys, but it was never clear what kind or how much of a relationship she had with (apparently) both John and Bobby. 

Marilyn Monroe is a symbol.  Her situation showed the exploitation of sexuality and commercialism in the mass media and the marketing of women as sexual icon.  As an example of that marketing, Andy Warhol produced "Orange Marilyn” in 1964, which sold for $17.3 Million in 1998.

Marilyn was a homeless waif who needed to both give and receive a certain particular kind of tenderness.  Her image encircled the globe and dominated an era.