Not the World's Biggest Breasts After All

As a child, I was fascinated by Marilyn Monroe, whose movies I saw on TV. In my child brain, I thought she was famous because she had the biggest breasts in the whole world, and that was an amazing thing. I was several years into adulthood before I realized that wasn’t the case. Many women had bigger breasts, even in the days before fake ones.

This realization really came home when I was just the right weight…for maybe a year. I had finally gained enough weight to have a chest, and my waist had not given up yet. When I measured myself, I discovered to my shock I had the same dimensions as Marilyn Monroe! Almost! (She had a smaller waist.) How come I didn’t look like her? How come I wasn’t a sex symbol now that made men giddy?

Because there was so much more to her than her measurements.

If you look at photos of Janet Leigh from the same era, she was just as big in the bosom as Marilyn, if not more, but she didn’t dress provocatively, and she had the face of a wholesome girl next door. She wore her hair shorter and straighter. From the neck up, she was a librarian. Where Marilyn sold it was her face, her hooded eyes that she knew just how to squint to appear post-orgasm; her generous, pouty smile that was sly and beguiling. Watch how she keeps flexing her lips, even when she's not talking. Her hair was short, too, but not too short. It was soft and tousled looking. Up until the last years of her life (from “The Misfits” on) when she adopted an unflattering, brittle, helmet bouffant, she looked fun to be with, someone who didn’t mind getting her hair messed up.

She and Jackie Kennedy shared the same breathy voice, but Marilyn had a sighing baby-like tease to hers, while Jackie’s was guarded as if she was trying to enunciate very carefully. You couldn’t imagine Jackie calling a man “Daddy.” Marilyn looked and acted like a woman who liked men and liked being with them. Jackie looked like she’d rather be sitting on a throne someplace…alone. Marilyn looked like she liked to laugh. Jackie did not.

So Marilyn was special, but not for breasts. They were just part of the package. In her last years – and you need to remember she had just turned 36 when she died – she was already looking worn out. Her girlish voluptuousness had faded away and the notorious nude photos she did for photographer Bert Stern at the end reveal an ordinary body, thin, with drooping breasts. Nothing magical there. Her too blonde, too straight hair isn’t helping the illusion. Only her eyes still deliver the sex appeal. Her eyes always had it.