When we say “Marilyn Monroe”, what image pops in your head? If you are like most people, your mind automatically goes to the famous scene from The Seven Year Itch when the beautiful blonde sex symbol, wearing a white halter dress with a full pleated skirt, steps onto a subway grate and the air current blows her dress up. And with good reason. This scene, this star, and this dress are legendary, but there is more to the story of this iconic scene in cinematic history.
Filming on The Seven Year Itch, directed by Billy Wilder, took place in the fall of 1954. The film starred Tom Ewell as a middle-aged New York City businessman who became infatuated with his sexy new neighbor, played by Marilyn Monroe. The film was released in 1955 to mixed reviews. Despite this, it was a box office favorite. Monroe’s role in The Seven Year Itch was a defining one in her career, in part because of the subway scene.
The peek-a-boo moment in the film took more planning than one might think. First, the wardrobe department had to find the perfect dress. Billy Wilder, the director of The Seven Year Itch, wanted Marilyn Monroe in a white dress for this scene. Award-winning costume designer William Travilla designed the dress in a halter style to show off Monroe’s curves and with a full pleated skirt. The pleats allowed the skirt to billow out even more which helped enhance the scene.
The famous subway scene was shot in New York City at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street. To keep the number of passersby to a minimum, Wilder arranged for the scene to be filmed at 1 a.m. Still, a crowd of spectators showed up to watch the filming. Some estimate that there were as many as 5,000 fans on hand to watch. In addition to the crowd of spectators and the camera crew, more than a hundred photographers – all men! – were there with their cameras strategically focused on what was underneath Marilyn’s dress. According to accounts, every time Monroe’s skirt went flying, the crowd of onlookers cheered, hooted, and whistled.
Even though she had posed nude in the past and would famously swim in the nude while filming a later film, Something’s Got to Give, Marilyn Monroe wanted to make sure the film crew and the photographers didn’t see a little too much when her dress blew. She wore two pairs of white underwear when the scene was shot.
The famous subway scene from The Seven Year Itch took three hours and 14 takes to film. Wilder wanted to make sure to capture the billows of the dress, the flirtatious expression on Monroe’s face, and the coy way that she tried to keep the skirt from revealing too much. But he also wanted to make sure to showcase as much of Monroe’s legs as possible, with enough glimpses of her panties to give the scene some shock value. At the end of the night, Wilder was happy with the footage he shot.
There was one person, however, who was less than happy with the entire situation – Marilyn Monroe’s husband, baseball player Joe DiMaggio. Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio got married on January 14, 1954, a little more than seven months before Monroe filmed The Seven Year Itch. DiMaggio was Monroe’s second husband. By all accounts, he was a shy, reserved, private person … the opposite of Monroe’s outgoing, larger-than-life personality.
Marilyn’s subway scene from The Seven Year Itch greatly upset her new husband. One of the photographers that was there when the scene was filmed later recalled that Joe DiMaggio stormed across the set and angrily left. For a moment, everyone was shocked into silence. DiMaggio’s fury was palpable. DiMaggio apparently referred to the scene as “exhibitionism.”
As the story goes, Monroe and DiMaggio argued about it in their hotel room that night and that argument turned into a physical altercation. Upon their return to California, Marilyn Monroe filed for divorce, which was finalized on October 27, 1954. She stated that the “mental cruelty’ following the violent fight in their New York City hotel as the grounds for the divorce. It was that famous white halter dress and the subway grate that ended their marriage.