Iconic dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in the movie almost didn’t exist

Remember when dancer Lorelei Lee stunned her groom when she appeared on stage in a pink satin gown covered in diamonds in the movie “Men Prefer Blondes”?

Lee, played by Marilyn Monroe, then launches into a musical number where she sings “diamonds are a woman’s best friend” – a scene widely imitated in the following decades, from Madonna with the “Material Girl” video to Margot Robbie with the movie “Material Girl” Birds of Prey: Harley Quinn and Her Fantabulous Emancipation”.

Equally unforgettable was Monroe’s off-the-shoulder dress. Wrapping around the body, paired with gloves and tied with a giant pink bow, the look became one of Hollywood’s most iconic after the film’s release in 1953.

But clothing was, in fact, a last-minute alternative. The original – and far more revealing – costume was abandoned because of a scandal involving nude photos of the actress.

Four years earlier, Monroe, then an unknown actress, posed nude for a photo shoot, earning just $50 for a series of images that would later be used in a calendar. Taken by popular photographer Tom Kelley, the photos showed Marilyn lying artfully on red velvet sheets, her face tilted towards the camera, arms outstretched and toes outstretched, creating beautiful lines.

In CNN International’s new four-part documentary series, “Reframed: Marilyn Monroe”, Monroe says that Kelley made sure no one would recognize her. However, there was no mistaking her combed blonde curls and red lips in the fiery photos.

When the calendar came out in 1952, Monroe’s Hollywood profile had begun to blossom. She was soon identified as the nude model, sparking backlash in conservative 1950s America and casting unflattering attention on the rising star. But Monroe got over the incident and even gained sympathy for her unwavering honesty.

“A few years ago, when I didn’t have money for food or rent, a photographer I knew asked me to pose nude for an art calendar,” she told reporter Aline Mosby of United Press International.

The studio 20th Century Fox, which would release “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” the following year, asked her to deny that it was her. But she refused, explaining to Mosby, “Oh, the calendar is hanging in every auto repair shop in town. Why deny? You can get one anywhere. Besides, I’m not ashamed of it. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

By owning the photos, she was able to control the narrative – and her public image – in the face of those who tried to embarrass her.

“The naked calendar scandal really put her at the forefront of the sexual revolution,” says American literature professor Sarah Churchwell in the docuseries.

last minute controversy

Costume designer William “Billy” Travilla, who worked with Monroe on 11 films including “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” told cable network A&E that the photos left the studio “wild.” Executives feared that the footage could ruin Monroe’s career and that the film’s investors might back out.

Initially, Travilla was tasked with creating the “sexiest, most exciting, and nearly naked woman on the big screen” – a look very different from the now-iconic pink satin dress.

“The costume was fishnets over her naked body,” he told A&E. “The breasts and hip line (were) covered with diamonds mounted by a jeweler. And just as we were ready to shoot the number, it all went wrong. (A reprint of) Marilyn Monroe’s nude calendar had hit the market.”

Although Monroe was never filmed wearing the original outfit, there are rare test photographs of her wearing the outfit. Travilla said he was told to “throw the clothes away” by producers who feared “missing the entire box office of the film”. The costume designer then designed the pink dress, or a “very covered dress”, as a safer alternative.

However, the studio’s concerns about the nude photographs of the actress were allayed when the film grossed $5.3 million at the box office, catapulting Monroe into total stardom.

Another movie starring Monroe, “How to Catch a Millionaire,” was released the same year, grossing another $8 million. As author Aubrey Solomon wrote in his biography of 20th Century Fox, “in 1953, Fox’s two biggest assets were CinemaScope and Marilyn Monroe, in that order.”

Monroe, ironically, was paid just $500 a week for the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she revealed in her final Life Magazine interview in 1962, while co-star Jane Russell earned $200,000.

Subverting ‘dumb blonde’ clichés

Although it was only the second choice, the pink dress became a pop culture phenomenon, selling for $310,000 at a Hollywood memorabilia auction in 2010.

Celebrities also paid tribute to the outfit and music that steals the show. Some emphasized the number’s obvious allusions to materialism, such as Madonna’s 1985 music video for the song “Material Girl”, while others turned it into an anthem for female empowerment, as Megan Thee Stallion and Normani did on the song “Diamonds”. ”.

Singers Ariana Grande, Camilla Cabello and Kylie Minogue wore replicas of the dress to various performances, while James Franco even wore a version of it as a co-host at the Oscars in 2011.

And films like “Birds of Prey: Harley Quinn and Her Fantabulous Emancipation” (2020) and “Moulin Rouge” (2001) offered darker references to the scene, with female protagonists struggling to secure their place in patriarchal societies.

In “Birds of Prey…”, the dress is reimagined as a jumpsuit worn by Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), as she hallucinates a mysterious version of the famous scene during a violent interrogation with crime lord Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor). Sionis greatly underestimates Harley Quinn as a “dumb blonde”, which proves to be her eventual undoing.

Astutely navigating her career, Marilyn Monroe herself was anything but a “dumb blonde” – as she demonstrated in dealing with the nude photo scandal. In “Reframed: Marilyn Monroe,” Churchwell points to an offhand phrase Monroe came up with for her character, Lorelei Lee, and insisted on using: “I can be smart when it matters, but most men don’t like that.”