Often cited as being the most beautiful woman in the world, Norma Jeane Mortenson was a lot of things before she was Marilyn Monroe. Surviving a tough childhood and several abusive relationships, along with battling depression and severe stress, Marilyn Monroe still remains one of the most controversial and fascinating women that Hollywood ever saw. She was one of the most enigmatic figures in the film industry, and a mystery in life, as well as in death. These facts about Marilyn Monroe might help us understand the person she really was, however vague that image might be.
1. Before entering the industry, Marilyn Monroe worked in an airline plant which was part of the World War II factory effort, working first as a parachute inspector, then a paint sprayer.
2. She was discovered in 1945 while she was working in a factory that produced military drones.
On June 26, 1945, Army photographer David Conover visited the factory and saw a young woman assembler who he thought had great potential as a model. She was photographed, and referred by him, which led to a screen test for Norma Jeane Mortenson, who later changed her name to Marilyn Monroe. (source)
3. Marilyn Monroe was Playboy’s first cover girl, being the very first Sweetheart – and later, Playmate – of the Month. She had been paid $50 for the pictures in 1949, which Hugh Hefner bought for $500, launching his now famous empire.
4. She wasn’t very good at learning lines; in her film “Some Like It Hot”, it took her 60 takes to deliver the line – ‘It’s me, Sugar.’
5. When it came to personal hygiene, she was fairly filthy.
Sources claim that she rarely bathed, and ate a lot in bed, shoving whatever was left under the sheets before she went to bed, and suffered from irritable bowel syndrome and flatulence.(source)
6. The Advertising Association of the West named her “The Most Advertised Girl in the World” in 1953.
She advertised for brands like American Airlines, Kyron Way Diet Pills, Pabst Beer, Tan-Tan Suntan Lotion and Royal Triton Oil.(source)
7. She enjoyed nudity; in fact, she would often go naked while in the company of female studio employees, such as wardrobe mistresses, hairdressers, and make-up artists.
Marilyn Monroe famously enjoyed nudity. So much so, that it is rumoured that she gave interviews in the nude. She also went out often wearing nothing but the black mink coat that her second husband and baseball legend Joe DiMaggio had given her.(source)
8. She had a stutter which, although not very severe, was still pretty noticeable. She regularly sought assistance from voice coaches to help overcome this problem.
However, she never really fully overcame this problem, which plagued her at several instances in her life: she stuttered as a child, and for a couple of years in high school. A speech therapist taught her breathing techniques which helped her through her stuttering, and also resulted in her famous breathy voice. She was not, however, entirely rid of the problem, which came back to haunt her in her final days.(source)
9. Her chest X-rays sold for $45,000.
A set of three chest X-rays of Marilyn’s from when she was admitted for surgery for endometriosis at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Florida in 1954, sold for a whopping $45,000 at an auction in 2010.(source)
10. A New York businessman bought a film of Marilyn Monroe performing oral sex on an unidentified man for $1.5 million.
The 15-minute silent, black-and-white film was bought by a Manhattan businessman, who said that he would keep it out of the public’s view in a bid to protect Marilyn’s privacy. It was rumoured that the man in the video – whose head remains out of the frame for the entire duration of the video – was John F. Kennedy, with whom Marilyn is rumoured to have had an affair.(source)
11. In 1992, Hugh Hefner bought the burial vault next to Marilyn’s at the Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles for £50,000.
12. The New York Times reported that the week following Marilyn’s death saw the number of suicides in New York reaching a record high of 12 a day.
One victim’s note read – “If the most wonderful, beautiful thing in the world has nothing to live for, then neither must I.”(source)
