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Today – June 1 – is Marilyn Monroe’s birthday. It’s interesting to know that Hollywood’s most enduring sex symbol, who would have turned 97 on June 1, almost drowned while shooting a film in Canada in 1954.
Born Norma Jean Baker to Gladys Baker in Los Angeles on June 1, 1926, she rose to stardom with films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blonde, Some Like it Hot, and The Seven Year Itch. She was given the name Marilyn Monroe when she entered Hollywood.
Married thrice, she reportedly died of drug overdose at the age of 36 – on August 5, 1962.
There is a little known fact about the actress which links her to Canada. Marilyn almost got drowned in Canada in 1954 when she was shooting in Jasper for Otto Preminger’s western `River of No Return’ with actor Robert Mitchum.
The incident happened when Marilyn was rehearsing for her role, wearing chest-high hip waders to protect her costume.
During the rehearsal, Marilyn slipped on a rock and fell into the river. The waders got filled with water. As she struggled to rise, Mitchum and other people jumped into the river to save her.
Marilyn suffered a sprained ankle in the incident and had to wear a cast.
Jean Harlow and Clark Gable were Marilyn’s childhood icons. In fact, Marilyn’s mom had chosen her birth name Norma Jean inspired by two actresses Jean Harlow and Norma Shearer.
When the great actor William Powell told Marilyn that “you remind me of a girl I loved very much. You don’t look like Jean (Harlow)—but you have the same warmth and inner radiance that made Jean such a lovable person,” Marilyn said, “I think that is the sweetest compliment I ever had.”
Powell was engaged to Jean Harlow when she died of kidney failure in 1937 at the age of 26. Harlow was known as the `Platinum Blonde’ of Hollywood.
Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
About her film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes which established her as a star in Hollywood, Marilyn once said, “I remember when I got the part in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Jane Russell – she was the brunette in it and I was the blonde. She got $200,000 for it, and I got $500 a week, but that to me was, you know, considerable. She, by the way, was quite wonderful to me. The only thing was I couldn’t get a dressing room. Finally, I really got to this kind of level and I said, “Look, after all, I am the blonde, and it is ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!'”
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