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Ana de Armas's portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde (streaming Wednesday, September 28, on Netflix) is all any Marilyn fan can talk about these days. But the movie, which chronicles Monroe's career as well as her tumultuous relationships, is just one of many modern interpretations of the late actor's life. Another is novelist J.I. Baker's The Empty Glass. Back in 2012 the writer shared a few little-known facts about the sex symbol with Glamour.
Her birth name wasn’t Marilyn Monroe.
Marilyn Monroe is one of the most widely recognized stage names in the world. The actor was convinced to change her real name, Norma Jeane Baker (born Mortenson), by a studio executive in the early days of her career, according to Time.
Albert Einstein may have been her lover.
In the late 1940s, actor Shelley Winters shared an apartment with Marilyn Monroe—and in her autobiography, Winters claimed that Monroe had hinted about a dalliance with the genius.
She was originally going to star as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Monroe was writer Truman Capote's first pick to play the lead in the iconic movie adapted from his best-selling novel, according to Baker. Capote, who was good friends with Monroe during her time in the limelight, was thought to have based parts of lead character Golightly on the actor's personality, according to The Guardian. The role later went to Audrey Hepburn.
She once believed that actor Clark Gable was her father.
Monroe's mother had a picture of a man she had once dated on her wall. “He had a thin mustache like Clark Gable,” Monroe remembered, according to Baker. “I asked my mother what his name was. She wouldn't answer.” In 1935, Monroe went to see a movie called China Seas, starring Gable and Jean Harlow—and from that point onward, Gable became “the man I thought was my father,” Monroe revealed.
Monroe had to be literally sewn into her famous beaded “Happy Birthday, JFK” gown.
When Monroe stepped onto the stage at Madison Square Garden to sing ”Happy Birthday” to the president on May 19, 1962, she tossed a fur stole off her shoulders and there were gasps from the crowd—people thought that she was nude. She may as well have been: Afterward Adlai Stevenson said, “I don't think I had ever seen anyone so beautiful as Marilyn Monroe that night. She was wearing skin and beads. I didn't see the beads!”
Kim Kardashian famously wore the dress decades later while attending the 2022 Met Gala with her then beau, Pete Davidson.
Her mother was institutionalized as a paranoid schizophrenic.
Mental illness ran in Monroe's family; her maternal grandmother killed herself. Her mother (Gladys Eley) was hospitalized in Rockhaven, an upscale sanitarium in California, when Marilyn died. Eley was a devoted, if not obsessive, Christian Scientist, says Baker. When asked about her famous daughter, Eley reportedly said, “I have never heard of Marilyn Monroe.”
Monroe had a disguise to avoid paparazzi.
To avoid being recognized in public, Monroe adopted an alter ego, Zelda Zonk, by wearing a dark wig and sunglasses. She became “a normal” person through Zonk, according to Baker.
You can still buy her signature red lipstick.
Monroe's sultry red shade was a combination of many colors, but her makeup artist most prominently used Max Factor's Ruby Red, according to InStyle. Although you can't buy the color anymore in the United States, Max Factor's vibrant red shade is still available in Europe (and on Amazon!).
Her home contained an elaborate, government-grade bugging system to record her calls.
A device the size of a “grain of rice” was embedded in her home so that others could eavesdrop on the late actor's conversations—including ones that took place on the day she died. Vanity Fair reported that Paris Theodore, an associate to an electronics consultant, heard a fight between Robert Kennedy and Monroe on the day of her death.
Frank Sinatra gifted her a puppy.
Toward the end of her life, Frank Sinatra, one of Monroe's alleged lovers, gave the actor a Maltese terrier puppy, which she cheekily named Mafia—or Maf, for short—as a nod to the singer's alleged mob ties. Two Polaroid photographs of Maf the puppy went for more than $220,000 during a 1999 sale at Christie's auction house, per The Guardian.
