Marilyn Monroe’s legacy helping distressed kids

London: Even after the death of Marilyn Monroe 50 years ago, her legacy is helping fund a clinic in north-west London to help distressed children with mental health problems. Anna Freud Centre in Hampstead, which is a centre for the study of child psychotherapy, has been supported by the Hollywood movie legend’s will since 1980, a leading daily has reported. Recently, the clinic has benefited from a 5million-pound windfall. The money was the earnings from Monroe’s iconic image when her estate sold the rights to a commercial branding company for up to 30million pounds. Monroe was brought up an orphan and had a tortured childhood living with 12 foster families while her mother was in and out of mental institutions. She also suffered from psychological trauma throughout her adult life and in 1961 voluntarily entered New York’s Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Before she died from an overdose in 1962, aged 36, Monroe made her psychiatrist, Dr Marianne Kris, a beneficiary of her will provided she used the money to help children. Dr Kris died in 1980 and passed on her Monroe rights to the clinic, run by her family friend, Anna Freud. ANI