Marilyn is mentioned in the September 2024 issue of Yours Retro (#79, with Elvis Presley on the cover), as part of a feature headlined ‘If the Price is Right’, looking at movie star salaries.
When Marilyn won the plum part of Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1952, she was under contract with Twentieth Century-Fox on a salary of $750 per week – not $1,500 as stated by Yours Retro. Although her career was rising fast, Marilyn was not yet the Hollywood superstar that she would soon become.
Her most recent picture, Let’s Make it Legal, had been released in 1951. Clash By Night, made on loan to RKO, followed in June 1952, and then in July, she began shooting Niagara. By the time Blondes went into production in November, We’re Not Married, Monkey Business and O. Henry’s Full House were on release, with Don’t Bother to Knock still to come.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was only Marilyn’s third starring role, and her first in an A-grade film. In 1949, studio head Darryl F. Zanuck had acquired the property for Betty Grable, his most profitable star for over a decade – but her salary was $150,000 per picture, and besides, she was on suspension when casting got underway.
At 26, Marilyn was nearly ten years younger than Betty, far less expensive, and had already visited New York in 1951 to see the Broadway production with Carol Channing.
As for her co-star, Jane Russell was a bigger name than Marilyn at the time, with notable films like The Outlaw and The Paleface under her belt. She was under a personal contract with Howard Hughes, the eccentric owner of RKO, who had made her one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood.
While Jane’s salary being so much more may seem unfair to us now, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes assured Marilyn’s swift elevation from supporting actress to leading lady – and at this time, the average American worker took home just $100 per week.
By 1958 Marilyn was earning $100,000 per picture, plus 10% of the gross profits. She recalled her road to fame with gentle irony in her final interview for LIFE magazine, published in 1962. However, she erroneously claimed to have earned $500 per week for Blondes – perhaps recalling her starting salary at Fox back in 1950.
Marilyn also said that Jane was paid $200,000, but according to Russell’s biographer, Christina Rice, her ‘price tag’ was $175,000. Whether this sum refers to Jane’s actual salary, or if Hughes took a cut, is unclear.
“I remember when I got the part in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Jane Russell – she was the brunette in it and I was the blonde. She got $200,000 for it, and I got my $500 a week, but that to me was, you know, considerable. She, by the way, was quite wonderful to me. The only thing was I couldn’t get a dressing room. Finally, I really got to this kind of level and I said, ‘Look, after all, I am the blonde, and it is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!’ Because still they always kept saying, ‘Remember, you’re not a star.’ I said, ‘Well, whatever I am, I am the blonde!’ And I want to say to the people, if I am a star, the people made me a star. No studio, no person, but the people did.”
Thanks to Fraser and April
The Marilyn Report 