Celebrity makeup artist Erin Parsons is well-known for her fascination with Old Hollywood glamour, and has purchased several beauty products formerly owned by Marilyn. But there’s one item that eludes her, as Margaux Anbouba reports for Vogue...
“Makeup artist and historian Erin Parsons sent me a mysterious email last week. ‘I wanted to let you know first that I’m breaking a big story,’ she shared cryptically. ‘It’s a big story on Marilyn Monroe’s missing lipstick. I can’t say much else now, but curious if you are interested in this?’
My answer, from both a personal and professional point of view, was a big yes.
Yesterday, Parsons took to TikTok to share the sordid story … ‘In December 1987, in Los Angeles, friends dedicated a time capsule to Marilyn Monroe,’ she begins. Artifacts inside the vessel, created by artist and sculptor Bill Mack, included a mink cap owned by the actor and a lock of her hair, all meant to be unearthed on August 5, 2062—the 100th anniversary of Monroe’s tragic death.
On the day the capsule was set to be buried, Monroe’s longtime makeup artist, Allan ‘Whitey’ Snyder, also added something to the collection: a tube of her lipstick. ‘Whitey’s contribution to the event was a red lipstick used to make up Marilyn’s body in death,’ Parson says, reading from a newspaper clipping. ‘He told the gathering that he had used this red colour for half her career and that he had specially made it for her.’
But Monroe’s time capsule was never buried—instead, according to Parsons, it was actually stolen.
To find out what happened, Parsons reached out to the three living people who had been part of the project. First, Hollywood Heritage’s archivist Richard Adkins described the entire event as ‘not a happy story.’
Parsons then spoke to the event’s publicist, Chris Harris, before coming to her conclusion: ‘I’m not accusing Bill Mack of having the lipstick, but some others are, and I’m going to show you all of the evidence that I found.’
Hear all the (rather compelling!) proof in her video…”
According to press coverage of the 1987 event at Hollywood Heritage Museum, Eleanor ‘Bebe’ Goddard – stepdaughter of Grace Goddard, Marilyn’s legal guardian – donated a lock of Norma Jeane’s hair to the proposed time capsule. The girls lived together as teenagers, and after Marilyn’s death, Bebe regularly attended the annual memorial services in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, Bebe later became a rather infamous figure among fans for selling personal items of dubious provenance. In any case, the lock of hair is now missing along with other items, including the lipstick donated by Whitey – which he had used while preparing Marilyn’s body for her funeral on August 8, 1962.
The mink cap donated to the time capsule was worn by Marilyn in her last, unfinished movie, Something’s Got to Give, setting off the elegant, fur-trimmed suit designed by Jean Louis. Marilyn sported the ensemble in a scene with Dean Martin and Wally Cox, shot on June 1, 1962 – her 35th birthday, and her final day’s work at Twentieth Century-Fox before her firing on June 6.
Erin Parsons has tracked down interviews with artist Bill Mack in which he claimed to own more than one lipstick worn by Marilyn, and a lock of her hair. Furthermore, a tube of lipstick featured in one article looks similar to the lipstick affixed to the frame of another Bill Mack portrait of Marilyn.
The lipstick, a coral pink shade by vintage brand Michel Cosmetics, is not the ‘true red’ typically associated with Marilyn’s palette. Whitey often blended several colours when working with Marilyn (see here), but she can be seen wearing a similar hue in one of her last photo shoots with George Barris.
A duplicate tube was sold for $5,625 at Julien’s Auctions in 2016, from the estate of Marilyn’s heir, Lee Strasberg. It’s likely, then, that she kept copies. But Whitey’s lipstick – the last to touch Marilyn’s lips – remains lost, and following its disappearance in 1987, the Hollywood Heritage time capsule was destroyed.
The Marilyn Report 