Marilyn Monroe
Image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

Marilyn Monroe would have been 89 today…FHM offers us these “Five Things You Didn’t Know About Marilyn Monroe.”

1. Because her mother was loony, Marilyn grew up in orphanages and with foster parents. She got engaged to her first husband, the neighbor of a family friend, at the tender age of 15, just so she’d have a place to live.
2. Discovered by an Army photographer while working in a WWII aircraft factory inspecting parachutes, Marilyn began modeling at the age of 19. In less than two years, she had appeared on the covers of more than 30 magazines.
3. Needing some money when she was 23, Marilyn took $50 to pose nude. It was those pictures that Hugh Hefner later brought for the very first centerfold of Playboy in 1953. Continuing his Marilyn fixation, Hef has also shelled out for the rights to the burial plot next to hers, so the two will be side-by-side for eternity.
4. Singing her famous breathy rendition of “Happy Birthday” to John F. Kennedy helped get Marilyn fired from her final film, “Something’s Got To Give.” Instead of serenading the president, she was supposed to be on the set filming. It didn’t help that health and emotional problems had caused her to miss two weeks and six days of the movie’s first three weeks of shooting.
5. The famous picture of Marilyn on the subway grate flashing her panties is supposedly from the film “The Seven Year Itch.” Except in the film, censors would only let her dress blow up to her knees. The shot everyone remembers comes from a publicity stunt where the studio let photographers snap pictures of a recreation of the scene. Reporters got 15 takes.