THE GIRL: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch

The film The Seven Year Itch precipitated Marilyn into her stratospheric status as a sex symbol, but according to this author, a lifelong Marilyn fan, it was also paradoxically the film that gave Marilyn the confidence to assert herself against the studio system and to establish herself as a businesswoman with a keen interest in contracts and finance. By the time she made Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn was bored of her dumb blonde persona and seems to have married baseball legend Joe DiMaggio in order to get out of starring in The Girl in Pink Tights. When she landed The Seven Year Itch everything changed. The film fatally damaged her relationship with her second husband DiMaggio, who was unable to cope with the iconic image of Marilyn with her skirts blowing up around her. This was in spite of the fact that in her early career as a model Marilyn had posed for nude photographs, dividing opinion then and now as to whether this was a bold assertive act by a woman who needed to make her own living or a regrettable capitulation to a male agenda. Subsequent shows like There's No Business Like Show Business still failed to satisfy Marilyn, who let it be known she would like to star in films based on Dostoevsky. Abuse of women was widespread in the film industry and in 1955 she left her contract with 20th century Fox to start her own production company. At this time she also became involved with the Actors' Studio which taught Method acting, immersing yourself in every detail of a character, and the differences in their approach was at the root of the conflict between Marilyn and Laurence Olivier when they starred together in 1956 in The Sleeping Prince. 302pp, photos in black and white and colour.