"A star that glows that brightly had to dim faster than we would have liked, but we will remain forever in her afterglow," said Mickey Song, the hairdresser who combed Monroe's hair the night she cooed "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy.

Gathering at Westwood Village Memorial Park, where Monroe was buried in 1962 -- three days after her naked, dead body was discovered in her Los Angeles bungalow -- some 75 people attended a memorial service designed to keep her memory alive.

The service included remarks by Hollywood producer Stanley Rubin and photographer George Barris, who took the last pictures of Monroe on a beach in nearby Santa Monica. It ended with a tape of the 1962 eulogy by acting coach Lee Strasberg.

When it was over, the assembled throng paid their respects at Monroe's crypt, marked only by a metal plate giving her name and dates of birth and death and surrounded for the day by bouquets of flowers.

There, former B-movie actress and retired golf trick-shot artist Jeanne Carmen said she and Monroe were close friends after meeting at a "sleazy" New York bar while both were studying at Strasberg's Actor's Studio.

Carmen -- who posed for pictures and signed autographs for star-struck tourists next to the crypt at the small cemetery where crooners Dean Martin and Mel Torme are also buried -- said the blond bombshell called her the night of Aug. 4, 1962 asking for sleeping pills.

"But I was slightly crocked on champagne myself so I couldn't bring them over, otherwise I probably would have been arrested," Carmen said. "That's how I know she didn't kill herself; she didn't have any sleeping pills. That and she was afraid of death."

Carmen, who planned to play golf with Monroe the day she was found dead, said she still feels "awful" that she didn't save her close friend's life that night.

But the former actress -- still looking like a movie star in giant sunglasses and accompanied by a personal assistant -- believes Monroe was the victim of a murder and cover-up, despite the official ruling of suicide by drug overdose.

"I might not have saved her even if I'd tried," Carmen said. "I might have gone too."

Carmen said she and Monroe spent lots of time doing "the usual girlfriend stuff, like talking about guys and drinking champagne," she said as she placed a bouquet of yellow roses at the crypt before leaving.

"When we were together she was just Norma Jean," Carmen said, referring to Monroe's real name. "Then she'd get up on stage and she was Marilyn Monroe."

But most of those gathered in the cemetery had never met Monroe. One was Dennis Smith, who once offered guided tours of her life in Los Angeles complete with copies of her autopsy report and the prescription that killed her.