Marilyn Monroe would have been 90 today

Marilyn Monroe with Louis Calhern in The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Marilyn Monroe was born on this date in 1926, so why not post some of the pictures I've used of her to illustrate some of my blog posts over the past eight years? Monroe didn't have a particularly big part in The Asphalt Jungle, but I used that one at the top of the post just because it is in some ways so emblematic of Monroe's beauty. The one at left is with Richard Widmark in Don't Bother to Knock, one of her early starring roles at Fox. In fact, I think it's her first starring role at Fox; she had been a supporting player or used in anthologies in her earlier movies

Of course, Monroe's eventual fame and being more remembered than the other Fox stars of the decade means that she's the one who gets to grace the DVD covers, because they'll think more people will buy the DVDs that way if they think they're getting a Marilyn Monroe movie. Such is the case with Love Nest, which is actually a June Haver/William Lundigan movie, but then neither of them had the charisma Marilyn had. (And William certainly didn't have the looks.)

It's tough to say which movie is the definitive Marilyn Monroe movie, since the scene of her dress being blown up by a grate from The Seven Year Itch might be the most memorable single image, while Some Like It Hot is probably the single best movie she made.