Marilyn joins a card game in the ‘Stars at Play’ feature for the latest edition of Australian Women’s Weekly: Icons (#2607, with Sophia Loren on the cover.)
On June 21, 1949, the 22 year-old starlet was then on a press tour for Love Happy, the final Marx Brothers movie. While making her first East Coast trip, she was enlisted by Photoplay magazine to present a ‘Dream House‘ in Warrensburg, NY to a lucky contest winner. She boarded a train from Grand Central Station New York City with a team of Hollywood well-wishers, under the eye of photographer Charles Carbone.
Seated at her right (and in a second image below) is the actor Don DeFore, best-known for his role as ‘Thorny’ in the TV sitcom Ozzie and Harriet.
Another photo shows the Love Happy cast (minus Marilyn) playing cards on the set. Despite having less than a minute’s screen time, she was the only cast member on the tour. Love Happy wouldn’t get a general release until 1950.
Elsewhere, Icons looks back at the remarkable career of Eugene Joseff, aka Joseff of Hollywood. Marilyn wore pieces of his costume jewellery in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire – and a pair of her gold-tone earrings sold for over $80,000 at Julien’s Auctions in 2022 – but behind the glitz and glamour, Joseff’s designs were manufactured by workers on an assembly line.
And finally, Marilyn’s blonde ambition gets its due in an article about Hollywood hairstyles. In contrast to the ‘controlled rolls’ of fellow ’50s blonde Grace Kelly, Marilyn’s platinum curls – ‘set away from the face and arranged in a forward sweep’ – crowned her bombshell look and became ‘the decade’s defining fantasy.’
The Marilyn Report 