The making of a legend
MARILYN MONROE is dead 50 years — she’d be 86 now, had she not overdosed on barbituates in 1962. We prefer her eternally 36, frozen in our cultural consciousness, forever a luminous goddess. To commemorate her death, Getty Images are showing 66 mostly unseen photos of the star, plus video footage and some of her most memorable costumes. According to Getty gallery director Louise Garczewska, Marilyn’s only serious competitor is Audrey Hepburn in Getty’s top ten female idols.
The first thing that strikes you when you walk through the door of the Getty Images Gallery off London’s Oxford Street is how petite Marilyn really was. Twelve of her dresses and costumes are in glass cases, some of them the most iconic frocks of the 20th century, yet far smaller than images of the star suggest. By today’s extreme standards — emaciated stars and an obese public — she was somewhere in the middle. Certainly not as voluptuous as she looked on camera, with her famous wiggle, the dresses are all around a UK size 8. Marilyn had a fabulous hour glass shape, perfectly proportioned, which she used to maximum effect, but she was probably closer in size to Kylie or Dita Von Teese than to a more fuller figured woman; it was how she used her shape which made us sit up and stare.
