Two singers work their way to Paris, enjoying the company of eligible men they meet along the way.
Originally a 1928 film with Ruth Taylor and Alice White and then a smash Broadway musical starring Carol Channing, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was purchased for $500,000 by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1952 as a vehicle for
Betty Grable.
Niagara (1953) confirmed that the studio possessed a much more potent and a far less expensive sex symbol than Grable. The former “Pin-Up Girl” was earning $150,000 per picture in the early 1950s while Marilyn was making a contracted maximum of $1,500 per week. Thus,
Marilyn Monroe was cast in the role of Lorelei Lee.
Grauman’s Chinese Theater invited the two female stars of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to add their own contributions on June 26th, 1953. Marilyn initially suggested that her bust and
Jane Russell’s bottom – the actresses’ most celebrated assets – should be imprinted in cement for posterity, but Grauman’s was not amused. She settled for the more conventional hand and foot prints, plus a rhinestone (instead of a diamond) to dot the “i” in her signature.
In the "Ain't There Anyone Here for Love?" sequence, Jane Russell's fall into the pool was an accident. When
Howard Hawks saw the dailies, he kept it in the film.
When told she was not the star of the film, Marilyn Monroe was quoted: "Well whatever I am, I'm still the blonde."
This was Jane Russell's only film with Marilyn Monroe. They got along well. Russell called Monroe "Blondie" and was often the only person on the set who could coax Monroe out of her trailer to begin the day's filming.
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