A natural mink collar with brown
satin lining. An obvious favorite, Marilyn wore this fur
regularly when living in New York City, and also during at least two
Milton Greene
photo shoots, one being the famous Edward R. Murrow session, which
was shot at his home prior to Marilyn's now famous appearance on his
television show. Images of Marilyn with Murrow can be viewed
here. On another occasion, Marilyn was interviewed wearing
this collar at Milton Greene's studio, located at 480 Lexington
Avenue in New York. These photos may be viewed
here. She's also pictured wearing the collar on several
other occasions, including while off the movie set in England when
filming "The Prince and The Showgirl."
On a mild mid-morning...I was walking
towards the Gladstone and as I arrived at the entrance I came upon a
teenager standing outside with an 8-mm camera aimed directly at the
hotel's revolving door, which was already in motion. Marilyn
came awhirl through the door and literally performed a 360-degree
turn for his home-movie camera. She was dressed in an elegant
black suit with a fur collar, her lustrous hair shoulder
length, and was fully made up. Dazzling! She was about
to walk from 52nd Street and Lexington Avenue over to the fifth
Avenue beauty salon of Elizabeth Arden. So I walked side by
side with her; naturally, to the utter frustration of this kid who
was walking backwards with his movie camera pointed at us, because I
was now unavoidably in all of his wonderful footage of Marilyn.
In fact, although I sought him out over the following years, he
never allowed me to see the candid film he took of Marilyn and me
walking across town that day.
As she walked her famous walk in her
very high black stiletto heels, cars and trucks just pulled over to
the curb and drivers emerged from them shouting "Marilyn! Marilyn!"
When we finally got the three blocks over to Fifth Avenue, we then
had to walk uptown to 54th-55th Streets. As we arrived at the
doorway to Elizabeth Arden's salon, I heard the nearby sounds of an
automobile crashing, and looked over to see a taxicab driver whose
head was bobbing out of the passenger-side front window of his cab,
the vehicle itself now embedded in the back end of a delivery truck!
He had a gleeful smile on his face and was hollering, "Marilyn!"
I tapped her on the shoulder and exclaimed "See what you did!"
She gave me a very "Marilynesque" laugh and swept rather grandly
into the salon.
Images
A candid image of Monroe wearing
the collar, likely in New York City, 1955
Shopping at Elizabeth Arden
Salon, New York City, March, 1955
Meeting with Edward R. Murrow,
days before her televised "Person to Person" television
interview on April 8, 1955
The Banshee Luncheon, April 26,
1955
Inside the offices of Marilyn
Monroe Productions
An Interview at Milton Greene's New York Studio
The preview of Arthur Miller's
play "View From The Bridge"
The New Watergate Club Theater
in London, September 9, 1956
Jewish Awards Ceremony, 1957
Marilyn's conversion to Judaism won her praise from all the
Jewish
American associations. At the end of 1957 she received an
award for her work promoting the Brotherhood of Peoples. Orson
Welles also received recognition during the same ceremony.
by James Haspiel in which he describes Marilyn wearing this mink
collar:
