Ahead of a landmark sale of Marilyn Monroe’s jewellery collection, and to celebrate 100 years since her birth, we look back at some of her most beautiful jewellery moments on film. Discover them all below.
Read More: Find out how fine jewellery goes from the shop window to the Silver Screen
One of the most beguiling female figures of the 20th century, Marilyn Monroe helped to immortalise diamonds on the silver screen when she crooned ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes over 70 years ago.
Howard Hawks – CREDIT: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images
Unlike her Hollywood contemporary Elizabeth Taylor, who famously adored and collected expensive jewellery (including historic pieces by Cartier, Bulgari and Van Cleef & Arpels), Monroe was rarely linked to precious jewellery in her personal life. Instead, she mainly wore paste and costume jewels with fabulous aplomb. “She didn’t have a lot of ‘high quality’ jewellery – she had very little with precious metals or stones, nearly everything was synthetic or rhinestones,” agrees Scott Fortner, founder of The Marilyn Monroe Collection, the largest privately-owned collection of her artefacts.
While one of her most famous characters may have been the gold-digging fortune hunter Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Monroe herself accumulated just a handful of expensive jewels – pieces gifted to her from husbands and admirers – which she later bequeathed to the renowned acting coach, Lee Strasberg, following her death at the age of 36 in 1962. Strasberg was a close friend and mentor of Monroe’s, while his wife, Paula, was the actress’s on-set acting coach and a close companion.
Amongst the most expensive jewels in Monroe’s collection was 16-inch strand of cultured Akoya pearls with a diamond clasp, made by Japanese jeweller Mikimoto. These were presented to her by her husband, baseball player Joe Di Maggio, on their honeymoon in Japan in 1954. Though the couple were married for less than a year, Monroe wore them throughout her life as a reminder of ‘happier times’ and they passed through the Strasberg family before being sold back to Mikimoto at auction in 1998.
It was mainly for glamorous publicity shots and press tours that Monroe actually wore precious jewels, such as the Moon of Baroda, a 24.04-carat pear-shaped, fancy yellow diamond that was lent to her by the Meyer Jewelry Company in 1953 for the promotional tour of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The historic stone was first recorded in the 15th century as part of the royal collection of the Gaekwads of Baroda, who ruled India (and its most famous diamond mines) at the time. It was most recently sold at auction by Christie’s in 2018, where it fetched $1.3 million.
Here, to celebrate the centennial of her birth on June 1st, as well as an upcoming auction of many of her personal affects, we take another look at some of Marilyn Monroe’s most beautiful jewellery moments on screen.
Like this? Take a closer look at Marilyn Monroe’s jewellery that’s coming to auction soon
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