Lillian Gissen has written about Marilyn’s alleged cosmetic procedures for the Daily Mail, marking the 10th anniversary of the sale of Dr. Michael Gurdin’s medical files at Julien’s Auctions in November 2013. What is most striking about these files – and the sensationalist headlines they have generated, then and now – is that the surgical enhancements mentioned therein were relatively minimal.
“During her time in the spotlight, Marilyn stayed tight-lipped about the topic – and long after she passed away from a drug overdose in 1962, the question still remained: were Marilyn’s stunning features all-natural?
In 2013, the burning inquiry was finally answered when part of Marilyn’s medical history was made public after a set of six X-rays and a file filled with notes from a doctor who claimed to have treated her were auctioned off.
The notes were written by a Hollywood plastic surgeon named Michael Gurdin, who, according to the files, saw Marilyn in 1958 after she came in to complain about a ‘chin deformity.’
Under the section titled ‘Physical findings,’ Michael wrote that Marilyn had gotten a cartilage implant in her chin eight years prior – in 1950, right before her career as an on-screen siren took off – which had ‘slowly’ become ‘absorbed.’
The papers eventually fell into the hands of Norman Leaf, Michael’s medical partner, after he died in 1994, and he put them up for sale in November 2013 through an auction house called Julien’s. They were ultimately sold to an anonymous buyer for $26,500.
According to Allure, who spoke to the doctor who had the files that were put up for auction in 2013, Marilyn opted to get the procedure after someone referred to her as a ‘chinless wonder.’ The outlet also claimed that the doctor said she secretly had a nose job, which ‘refined her nasal tip,’ but there was no mention of that in the X-rays or file.”
However, the files sold at Julien’s also included nasal X-Rays from the office of Drs. Conti and Steinberg, dated June 7, 1962, when Marilyn injured her nose after a fall in the shower. The X-Rays were labelled ‘Joan Newman,’ a pseudonym Marilyn used to protect her privacy. Fortunately, her nose was not fractured.
And finally, my own ES Updates posts from 2013 regarding the sale of Dr. Gurdin’s files can now be viewed at The Marilyn Archive.
The Marilyn Report 