Song of the Day: Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Leo Robin, was introduced in the 1949 stage musical of the same name, in which it was sung by Carol Channing. Marilyn Monroe famously performed the song in the 1953 film adaptation. That performance was ranked by the American Film Institute as the 12th Best Film Song of the Twentieth Century.
Today is the centennial anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth. Her iconic movie and cultural persona has had an impact way beyond her tragically brief lifetime. When she died at the young age of 36 in 1962, Ayn Rand famously wrote that Monroe was emblematic of a “pure, innocent, childlike joy in living”, despite having faced “sordid and horrifying” circumstances in her childhood—and malice, envy, and ridicule as a “vulgar symbol of obscenity” in her adult years. For Rand, Monroe projected a “radiantly benevolent sense of life.”
Monroe has been the subject of countless books and cultural artifacts, and has been portrayed by many actresses over the years, including Mira Sorvino, Ashley Judd, and Michelle Williams. But nobody played Marilyn Monroe better than Marilyn herself. Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, she completed 29 films in her short-lived career, from “All About Eve” and “The Seven-Year Itch” to “Bus Stop” and “The Misfits“. My favorite Monroe performance remains her star turn as Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk in the hilarious Billy Wilder 1959 comedy, “Some Like it Hot“, from which I’ve highlighted several songs.
Today’s song, however, is as iconic as the star who delivered it on screen. Check out “Diamonds are A Girl’s Best Friend” and Marilyn Monroe in her classic satin-pink gown [YouTube link]
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