- Marilyn Monroe, USO Camp Show, 1954
Q: Was Marilyn Monroe really a size 14?
A: With her hourglass figure, Marilyn Monroe has become today’s poster gal for curvy women. “You think a size 12 is fat?” goes the argument. “Well, Marilyn Monroe was a size 14!” … or 12 … or 10.
… Until some dern naysayer pipes up. “Actually,” (says a whiny voice, nose in the air—at least in my head) “she’d be a size 6 by today’s standards.” … or 4 … or 2.
OK, I must admit, I never thought Marilyn Monroe looked like a size 14. She was 5’5 1/2″, for goodness sake. If we’re going to make an argument, it’d be good if it were fact-based, so I did some digging. And I found the truth. And the truth, my friends, is not black-and-white.
Marilyn Monroe’s Real Size
First of all, guess what. Though celebrated for being curvaceous, Monroe was on the low end of a normal weight. Her website (yes, she has one) says she weighed 115 to 120 pounds. That’s an 18.8 to 19.7 BMI. Normal is 18.5 to 24.9.
So, as you might imagine, she was not a size 14.
Her site lists two sets of measurements. The studio claimed 37-23-36. Her dressmaker said 35-22-35. Either way, it’s a good thing she had a dressmaker: Though U.S. charts vary, her waist today would be around a size 00/0, hips a size 2 to 6 and bust a size 6 to 10 (or around a medium).
So, although it’s not clear to me what overall size Marilyn Monroe would be, a size 10 dress would probably hang like a sack on her. I’d suggest a little number in a 4 to 6.
Are you surprised?
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Leigh Ann Otte is a professional writer, editor and blogger.
This article was originally published on Leigh Ann’s former blog Hollywood Weight Watch: Rebooting Our Perception of Healthy-Weight Women. Read more posts from that blog here.
Photo courtesy National Archives, via pingnews.
not surprised, just don’t believe you, looking at her she looks like a UK 12-14 in today’s size, meaning a US 8-10 US, so at least a US 8, my dear, and definitely not a 6 or 4, she was small boned and full figured, normal weight, not thin, not fat, and she looked great. But not less than 8 US.
Hi, L. She was only 5’5 1/2″, so a 4 or 6 looks like the perfect fit for her to me. If our eyes tell us she wasn’t that size or she wasn’t thin, despite what the numbers show, I’d suggest that our vision has been warped by modern propaganda about what women’s bodies look like and what thin really is.