On this day in New York · May 19, 1962
Marilyn Monroe Sings Happy Birthday to a President
Ten days before his real birthday, John F. Kennedy sat in a packed Madison Square Garden and let a whole city watch Marilyn Monroe practically purr his name.
The facts
- Where
- Madison Square Garden, Manhattan (the third Garden building, on Eighth Avenue)
- The dress
- A sheer, flesh-colored marquisette gown by Jean Louis, hand-sewn with 2,500 rhinestones, built for $1,440.33
- Crowd
- More than 15,000 people at the Democratic fundraiser
- Timing
- Performed 10 days before Kennedy's actual birthday, May 29
On May 19, 1962, more than 15,000 people packed Madison Square Garden for a Democratic Party fundraiser honoring President John F. Kennedy, whose 45th birthday was still ten days off. Marilyn Monroe, sewn into a sheer, rhinestone-studded gown designed by Jean Louis, stepped out under a spotlight, dropped her white ermine coat, and half whispered a slowed-down Happy Birthday before sliding into a rewritten verse of Thanks for the Memory. Jazz pianist Hank Jones backed her at the piano. Jacqueline Kennedy skipped the whole thing for a horse show in Virginia. Monroe would be dead less than three months later, which is part of why this five minutes on a Garden stage never stopped getting replayed.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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I can now retire from politics after having had Happy Birthday sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way
President John F. Kennedy, addressing the Madison Square Garden crowd after Monroe's performance, May 19, 1962
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
It is the moment Cold War-era Camelot politics and New York showbiz fused into one image, glamorous, a little reckless, and, in hindsight, shadowed by how little time Monroe had left.
Sources
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