Marilyn Monroe can still cause ripples almost 50 years after her death, it appears.
A giant statue of the big-screen icon in her most famous pose, that of battling to keep her skirt down in The Seven Year Itch, has been causing a storm in Chicago.
While tourists have been indulging themselves around the 26-ft edifice, taking photos, including some all-too-inevitable up-the-skirt shots, critics have been lining up to rant at what they are calling a “sexist” and “creepy” offering.
The Guardian lists a number a Chicago writers less than impressed by the spectacle named Forever Marilyn. Arts writer Abraham Ritchie has described it as “a creepy schlock from a fifth-rate sculptor” while newspaper columnist Richard Roeper decries the behavior it incites in spectators – “Men (and women) licking Marilyn’s leg, gawking up her skirt… as they leer and laugh.”
The statue is due to remain on its Chicago pedestal until next year, so no hope of the furore quieting any time soon.
Meanwhile over in Europe, a Spanish collector is planning to auction what he claims is a newly-discovered film of the nubile film star caught mid-romp when she was still an underage actress going by the name Norma Jean Baker.
Press Association reports that, while Mikel Barsa is seeking more than £300,000 for the six and a half-minute black-and-white film, Monroe experts are disputing that it is, in fact, the actress caught in the explicit footage, with one collector, Scott Fortner, claiming the real Marilyn was a lot more petite.
Barsa is adamant, explaining the film was shot in the extremely early days of Monroe’s career, before she lost all her puppy-fat, added a beauty spot to her cheek and donned the white dress that would cause such a fracas in Chicago more than half a century later.