Every time I see a photo of Katherine Heigl or Jessica Simpson or any other dazzling-looking blonde actress (giving Ms. Simpson the benefit of the doubt), I think of Marilyn Monroe, who once again is back in the news.

First, Lindsay Lohan did a photo spread for "New Yorker" magazine inspired by Marilyn. And, the other day a returned Bronx mechanic recently discovered a photo of Marilyn Monroe taken 45 years ago. A Las Vegas retiree worked on a Ford Sunliner convertible at a Bronx gas station in 1962, but the car was never claimed.

Unloading the trunk, the mechanic sorted the items over, it was among those things that the photo was discovered.

Sounds like a plot from a "B" movie, but it's true. She was posing as a hitchhiker in a 1960 photo taken during the shooting of her last movie, "The Misfits."

"Here is a face that burns with more kilowatts than any other" said the great director Billy Wilder after he'd directed "Some Like It Hot." Her drama coach, Constance Collier once said “she possesses that quality which no amount of lessons can give to anyone. She's a born star."

My father knew her and we have photos of them together. My 16th birthday present, in fact, was a congratulatory phone call from her, a few years before she tragically and mysteriously died.

As an unknown she came to New York to promote her first film, "Love Happy" which featured the Marx Brothers. The studio installed her in a huge hotel suite to meet film exhibitors. That night she forgot to cancel room service in the small room to which she'd been moved.

" I didn't care," she said, " I kept ordering caviar. That's what I first remembered about New York; caviar for breakfast."

When she returned from entertaining the troops in Korea, she told her husband Joe, "It was great. They cheered and cheered. You can't imagine what that's like."

"Oh yes, I can," smiled Joe.

There isn't a college dorm which doesn't have her poster up somewhere, lo these many years after her time.

Today's stars, those who can act, and even those who can't, owe her an eternal debt.