Marie Irvine was 99 years old when a chapter in her long-ago career became a TikTok sensation. During a crucial period late in Marilyn Monroe’s life, Ms. Irvine had been her makeup artist in New York City. When a TikTok star learned her story, it blew up the internet. In 1958, Life magazine commissioned Richard Avedon to reimagine Ms. Monroe as the screen and stage sirens Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich, Theda Bara, Jean Harlow and Lillian Russell. It was Ms. Irvine who assisted with her makeup — turning her into Ms. Russell’s candy-box pinup, and Ms. Dietrich’s steamy Lola Lola from the film “The Blue Angel.”It ran in the Dec. 22 issue of the magazine, with a piece written by Ms. Monroe’s husband at the time, the playwright Arthur Miller, with the headline, “My Wife Marilyn.” He described the photos “as a kind of history of our mass fantasy, so far as seductresses are concerned.”And when Ms. Monroe, having been sewn into her skintight sequined gown, sang a breathless “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy at a Democratic fund-raiser at Madison Square Garden in May of 1962, it was Ms. Irvine who prepared her beforehand in Ms. Monroe’s apartment on East 57th Street, and then rushed to the Garden later with the star’s drop earrings, because she had left them behind.

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Persons: Marie Irvine, Marilyn Monroe’s, Irvine, Richard Avedon, reimagine Ms, Monroe, Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich, Theda Bara, Jean Harlow, Lillian Russell, Dietrich’s steamy Lola Lola, Monroe’s, Arthur Miller, Marilyn, ”, John F, Kennedy Organizations: Democratic, Garden Locations: New York City, Madison