dress

Date:   11/23/2016 12:00:39 AM ( 8 y ago)

Setting a new world record, the long prom dresses Marilyn Monroe was wearing when she sang “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy just sold at auction for $4.8 million.

That’s probably more than the actress ever made during her career. In the last interview she gave before her death, Monroe told a reporter from Life magazine that she was paid $500 a week to appear in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” while brunette bombshell Jane Russell made $200,000. But what really bothered her was that she had to fight to get a dressing room.

“You’re not a star,” Monroe said the studio executives told her. “That may be,” she responded, “but the picture’s called ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.’ And I’m the blonde!”

There have been many blondes in Hollywood, some with highly successful careers and millions of fans. But Marilyn Monroe is in a different category. What is it about her that speaks to us today? Why are people willing to pay millions of dollars for her dresses?

In 2011, a buyer paid $4.6 million for the white halter dress Monroe wore in the famous subway grate scene in the 1955 film, “The Seven Year Itch.” It was the highest price ever paid at auction for a dress, until the “Happy Birthday” dress broke that record.

But why?

Maybe it’s because Marilyn Monroe seemed to project the joy that was possible to the human spirit, and because at the peak of that achievement, she was taken away by death.

Monroe was 36 when she was found dead in her home on Aug. 5, 1962, just three months after she appeared at Madison Square Garden before 15,000 invited guests to sing “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy.

The following year, he would be assassinated.

That moment in New York City, as we look back on it today in a grainy video, is frozen in time with all its possibilities still before it. We see celebration, joy, life. And we know too much about the future.

Maybe that’s why the dress is worth $4.8 million. Because people will line up to see it, to stand next to something that once sparkled in the presence of greatness, of triumph, of happiness.

The dress was a creation of Hollywood costume designer Jean Louis, with the original sketch done by 19-year-old Bob Mackie. Made of sheer silk gauze, the flesh-colored gown was hand-sewn with over 2,500 rhinestone crystals. It was tailored so close to the body that Monroe was sewn into it before she walked onto the stage.

The film of the event includes the downright eerie introduction by actor Peter Lawford after Monroe missed the cue for her entrance. “Mr. President,” he says, leaning into the microphone, “the LATE Marilyn Monroe.”

As he takes her white ermine coat, a thousand voices in the audience let out a gasp of “Oh!” at the sight of the dress, and the woman underneath it. According to Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles, the woman was the only thing underneath it. The dress was so tight that Monroe wore nothing else.

Rumors of an affair between the president and the movie star were sparked by the absence of Jacqueline Kennedy from the 45th birthday celebration, and by the sultry and suggestive performance.

“I can now retire from politics after having had ‘Happy Birthday’ sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome manner,” JFK said when he stood alone at the lectern a few minutes later. Monroe had been spirited away from the microphone while the cameras were distracted by the entrance of an enormous birthday cake carried in on the shoulders of two men in chefs’ jackets.

He wasn’t retired from politics yet. A photo of the president standing next to that dress would certainly have been a problem in the more conservative states during the re-election campaign.

There, did you feel it? The ache for what might have been. The wistful longing for a time before assassinations and overdoses. Life the way it was supposed to be, a celebration of beauty and greatness, a sense of unlimited time and possibility.

It’s not just any dress if it makes you feel that.

The buyer was Ripley’s Entertainment, Inc., the company that operates the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum in Hollywood. The company plans to display the dress there and also take it on tour. Next year Ripley’s is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and the “Happy Birthday” long evening dresses will be prominently featured.

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