In a fleeting moment of gold, superstar shimmers and sings for a president
All eyes were on Kim Kardashian when she stepped on to the red carpet at the Met Gala earlier this month.
The reality star and entrepreneur was wearing one of the most famous dresses in the world – Marilyn Monroe’s flesh-coloured, rhinestone-embedded gown that the fallen idol wore just three months before her death in August 1962.
Kardashian drew criticism in the days after the gala event in New York, when she revealed that she lost 16lbs in a matter of weeks in order to fit into the vintage dress, which she was not allowed to alter. She wore a sauna suit twice a day, ran on the treadmill, and ate only vegetables and protein.
The 41-year-old wore the dress for just a few minutes, such is its vintage state, and changed into a replica for the rest of the event.
While her appearance in the outfit drew the headlines she was no doubt courting, it was never going to compare to the attention Monroe garnered when she stepped on to the stage at Madison Square Garden in New York on May 19, 1962.
In a lavish 45th birthday celebration for President John F Kennedy, which also doubled as a fundraiser for the Democrats, Monroe made sure she was the centre of attention.
The sheer dress was based on a sketch by Bob Mackie, just 21 and fresh out of college at the time, for the Hollywood costume designer Jean Louis. Monroe is said to have paid $1,440 for the custom outfit.
It was so tight-fitting, 36-year-old Monroe had to be stitched into the outfit. The glitzy evening at Madison Square Garden wouldn’t be the first time Monroe and JFK had crossed paths, with rumours of an affair suggesting they knew each other intimately well. Tellingly, the president’s wife, Jackie Kennedy, was nowhere to be seen for her husband’s birthday bash.
After a chaotic time in Monroe’s life, in which her previous film The Misfits had been a disappointment, she had gone through a divorce, had stayed at a psychiatric hospital, and gone through gallbladder surgery, she was attempting to put her life and career back on track.
She had moved to a new, quieter area of Los Angeles and had signed up to star in a remake of My Favourite Wife, a comedy called Something’s Got To Give. But her behaviour during filming was erratic, her timekeeping abysmal, and she left the set to fly to Manhattan for the party.
The movie would never be completed.
Monroe spent the next two days in a New York apartment, practising her rendition of Happy Birthday Mr President, each time delivering a version sexier and sultrier than the last.
When she shimmied on to the stage, she banished the nerves that had been threatening to topple her and delivered a performance never to be forgotten.
Removing the white stole from around her shoulders, the audience gasped when they thought for a moment she was naked, before she launched into song.
Afterwards, JFK joked he could “retire after having had Happy Birthday sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way”, while journalist Dorothy Kilgallen described it as “making love to the president in the direct view of 40 million Americans”.
It was to prove Monroe’s last triumphant moment in the spotlight.
She was found dead from a drug overdose three months later, while Kennedy was assassinated the following year.