“What cannot be pushed past the censors with words is often tried with costume. Marilyn Monroe was an expert at this—often to the despair of designers. Miss Monroe refused to wear underclothes. She felt they inhibited the rotary motion of her hips, dulled the color of her skin and, in general, reduced her sex appeal. Even in a high-necked gown with long sleeves she managed to be so revealing that on one occasion beads had to be added as a sop to the censors.
“Miss Monroe’s favorite comment about the concern of censors with her cleavage was: ‘The trouble with censors is that they worry whether a girl has cleavage. They ought to worry if she hasn’t any.’ To make sure her cleavage was shown to best advantage, she would slyly pull down the décolletage before camera time. This infuriated some of her designers.”
–Schumach, Murray. “ ‘Boudoirs and Blood; sex,’ The Face on the Cutting Room Floor: The Story of Movie and Television Censorship, New York: Morrow, 1964. p. 167-168.
1 Comment
I love her as the badass. It isn’t consistent with this tortured soul image many historians and biographers have painted. She was smart and a little troubled but she knew what she was doing.