Key Insights
- Marilyn Monroe’s portrayal: The first person to embody Marilyn Monroe was the actress herself.
- Transformation magic: According to Amy Greene, Monroe had a unique ability to captivate audiences effortlessly.
- Iconic legacy: Her physical traits have inspired numerous actresses over the years, contributing to her legendary status.
- Oscar nominations: Both Michelle Williams and Ana de Armas received Oscar nominations for their roles as Monroe.
The first person to play Marilyn Monroe was Marilyn Monroe.
“Do you want to see me become her?” the actress born Norma Jean Mortensen asked one day while walking down Broadway in New York, according to Amy Greene, the wife of Monroe’s personal photographer Milton Greene.
“I don’t know how to explain what she did because it was so very subtle,” Greene recalled in 2020, “but she turned on something within herself that was almost like magic. And suddenly cars were slowing and people were turning their heads and stopping to stare.”
It was more than platinum blonde hair and a brilliant smile that turned the Some Like It Hot star into a legend. But recreating her iconic physical traits has certainly been a good place to start for the slew of actresses who’ve played Monroe onscreen over the past 40 years, as well as all the celebs who’ve tried her style on for size.
My Week With Marilyn‘s Michelle Williams and Ana de Armas—who did her own jaw-dropping take on the moment Marilyn would turn into Marilyn in the 2022 film Blonde—were both nominated for Oscars for their portrayals of the oft-underestimated actress.
“People wanted Marilyn, they wanted that product,” de Armas said on Today at the time. “She had to keep delivering that because the opposite was nothing. She was nothing else. She was not considered anything else.”
