Sex symbol and icon Marilyn Monroe would have celebrated her 86th birthday this year. celebrate her birthday. The life of the model blonde is a Cinderella story with a tragic ending. We have compiled the most important facts for you.
Brigitte Bardot, Pamela Anderson, Angelina Jolie and the rest are basically imitations, exaggerated versions of the first real sex symbol: Marilyn Monroe. Who, unlike her successors, has fought against her bombshell image all her life. Over 600 books have been written about her, and many more stories have been told about her. There are several conspiracy theories about her death alone, which will be 50 years old in August. Here you have the facts about Marilyn Monroe.
She would have been almost suffocated, almost sexually abused. Norma Jeane Mortesen (later Marilyn Monroe) hardly received any care, her mother was mostly in an insane asylum, she herself was in an orphanage or with foster parents – she believed her foster father to be a woman. The dreariness came to an end when Norma Jeane was discovered by a photographer at the age of 16 and became Miss Artichoke Queen of California.
Monroe’s constant tiredness, insecurity and forgetfulness often caused production costs to skyrocket. The scene from “The Seven Year Itch” (1955), in which Monroe’s dress is whirled up over a subway shaft, was filmed a total of 80 times, and her marriage to Joe DiMaggio sometimes ended because of this scene.
500 dollars
Monroe was undoubtedly the biggest actress in Hollywood in the 50s, but her wages remained modest: For “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (1953), she collected the contractually agreed 500 dollars per week, while co-star Jane Russell received 200,000 dollars. While stars like Elizabeth Taylor earned record salaries of 1 million dollars, Monroe never managed to earn more than 250,000 dollars for “The Misfits” (1961).
27 million $
On Forbes’ “Highest-Earning Dead Celebrities” list, Monroe ranks third – 60 years after her death – with 27 million dollars. The leader is Michael Jackson with 170 million, followed by Elvis with 55 million.
Tom Kelley photographed Marilyn Monroe in 1949, when she was still unknown, for a calendar called “Miss Golden Dreams”. Four years later, Hugh Hefner bought the rights to the pictures for 500 dollars and made Monroe “Sweetheart of the Month” for the first Playboy issue. Monroe, who earned 50 dollars from the recordings, paid off the debt on her car. Incidentally, a Playboy edition with Marilyn was worth 28,000 dollars to a collector in 2018. Find out more here.
Monroe had severe depression. During her marriage to Arthur Miller, she suffered three miscarriages and was admitted to a psychiatric ward for a short time; ex-husband Joe DiMaggio got her out again. During the last seven years of his life, Monroe was in constant psychoanalytic treatment. She had gotten into the habit of swallowing pills for everything, which she downed with champagne.
The mass of Marilyn Monroe 93-58-91
Marilyn Monroe was 1 meter 66 tall and wore dress size 42 (today 38). In her spaghetti-free heyday, her measurements were 93-58-91. Her weight fluctuated between 52 and 54 kilos.
IQ 168
Dumb blonde my ass: With an IQ of 168, Marilyn Monroe even surpassed Albert Einstein, who had an IQ of 148, which is far higher than the average (100).
Marilyn Monroe died on 5.8.62, between 21:30 and 23:30, from an overdose of Nebutal and the sleeping pill chloral hydrate. There are three steadfast theories about her death: Monroe’s career was on the decline and she took her own life out of despair. After Robert Kennedy left Monroe, she reacted hysterically, whereupon he hired the CIA to kill her for fear that she might divulge inside information. Or: Mafioso Sam Giancana had Monroe eliminated in order to frame Robert Kennedy, with whom he had a score to settle.
With her first film roles came the transformation into an artificial figure, and plastic surgery was carried out on her nose and chin. Intensive speech training was used to overcome the stuttering and train the erotic way of speaking. Monroe tried out nine shades of blonde before deciding on platinum blonde.
Photo: picture alliance / Keystone