IMAGE: Marilyn Monroe greets the troops during her Korea USO tour, 1954. From USMC Archives on flickr. Some rights reserved. (Monroe is actually wearing army fatigues in this cropped photo.)

One might speculate that since Milton Caniff based Miss Mizzou on Marilyn Monroe, that perhaps he saw a picture of her wearing a trench coat, and that inspired the look of the character. While some trench coat-like items were worn by Monroe before Miss Mizzou’s debut September 5th, 1952, I tend to think the evidence for this theory seems pretty flimsy. Caniff had many reasons for picking a trench coat for the character, but I’m not sure Marilyn Monroe’s fashion sense had much to do with it.

In my mind the closest thing that Monroe wore to a trench coat before 1952 was in a photograph session with Earl Leaf. He set up a session of photographs on May 17, 1950, where she wore what looks like a camel hair coat that looks somewhat similar to a trench coat. The only problem with these photographs being a source of inspiration is that it looks like they went unreleased at the time, and only saw general publication in the 1997 book “Marilyn Monroe: From Beginning to End.”

Post 1952, Monroe did actually wear a trench coat at least once; in the 1960 film “Let’s Make Love,” she dons a trench coat in a scene with Yves Montand. She doesn’t particularly look like Miss Mizzou in that film, but it’s interesting to see that Monroe did eventually dress like the character she inspired.

(Updated 04-22-18: Removed reference to a pinterest board that no longer exists.)

IMAGE: Miss Mizzou talks about being a waitress in her debut in the Steve Canyon comic strip, September 5th, 1952. Copyright 2015 the Milton Caniff Estate.

Milton Caniff had many influences in creating the character Miss Mizzou. Actress Marilyn Monroe & character model Bek Stiner helped inspire the character visually, while a 1949 visit Caniff made to Columbia, Missouri helped inspire the character’s name & back-story. However, the “waitress” part of her back-story came from Caniff’s days as a student at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. In a 1985 interview, Caniff said the Columbia atmosphere sparked his memory: “It reminded me of when I was in college; there was a gal who was a waitress/night cook in a little diner off campus. All the guys went there. They went ostensibly to eat, but they really went to watch this cute kid.”

The only diner that I’ve found mentioned from Caniff’s college years is “Hennick’s,” a restaurant that was situated at 1824 N. High St. in Columbus, Ohio.

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Oddly enough, this happens to be directly across the street from the present day Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum in Sullivant Hall on the Ohio State University Campus. The library & museum was founded in 1977 due to a gift of artwork and papers of alumnus Milton Caniff, and was relocated to Sullivant Hall in 2013.

Here’s what R.C. Harvey had to say about the “Hennick’s” in Caniff’s “Meanwhile” biography: “Owner Herbert Hennick was everybody’s confidant, an entrepreneur who understood college kids and their problems–including, notably, the financial difficulties that arose because money from home came only once a month, which wasn’t often enough.” Harvey goes on to explain that Caniff once earned a week’s meals by decorating the walls with portraits of campus heroes.

“Hennick’s” later became part of “Terry and the Pirates” lore when Caniff introduced “Dude Hennick” into the comic strip. The character was based on an old friend of Caniff’s named Frank Higgs. As Milton Caniff wrote in 1986: “… Dude was his college nickname, and Hennick came from the name of a prominent eatery located directly across the street from Ohio State. It was the campus hangout and Higgs had been associated with it, like Walter Winchell had been associated with the Stork Club in New York.”

It’s hard to say if “Hennick’s” was the place that Caniff was talking about from his college days in regard to Miss Mizzou, but it’s a definite possibility. For more information on the eatery, the “Columbus Dispatch” has an article with a photo from 1946.

Willie Colón performing opening night at the new Copacabana in Times Square, NYC, July 13, 2011. Photo by L. Frank Cabrera on wikimedia commons. Some rights reserved.

The Copacabana night club in New York plays an integral part in the story of Miss Mizzou. It’s where Milton Caniff picked the first Miss Mizzou model Bek Stiner in 1952, and another Miss Mizzou model Gayle Sheldon in 1958.

As I say in the book, I think that Caniff used the Copacabana to pick his Miss Mizzou models for particular reason. In the academy award winning film All About Eve, a young Marilyn Monroe is introduced in the film as a “graduate of the Copabana school of dramatic art.” The comment is a sly insult to the character since the Copabana night club featured women known for dancing and not their acting skills.

Reportedly the insult made it’s way into infamy as other comedians repeated the quip, so it’s likely that Caniff would have been aware of it. When he decided to loosely base Miss Mizzou on Marilyn Monroe, I bet the idea of picking out a model from the Copacabana came to him as a novel solution.

The Copacabana is still a popular nightclub in New York. To modern audiences, they’ve probably mostly heard of it due to the infamous 1978 Barry Manilow tune. If you’re looking for more background on the nightclub, check out the books The Copa: Jules Podell and the Hottest Club North of Havana and The Copacabana.

IMAGE: Marilyn Monroe as she’s drawn on the cover of the comic book biography put out by Bluewater Productions in 2013 as part of their TRIBUTE line of comics. Used with permission.

Marilyn Monroe was a pop culture phenomenon. In the realm of comics, Monroe inspired Miss Mizzou just as she was gaining popularity as a star in 1952. In addition to Miss Mizzou she is said to have inspired at least two other comic characters.

Bob Kane, the creator of Batman, claims that he created the reporter character Vicki Vale based off of meeting Marilyn Monroe back in 1948. You can listen to him recount the story in the documentary “Batman and Me.” It’s hard to believe this story given Kane’s exaggerations over the years, but Terrance Canote’s blog post has a pretty good cross examination of the claim.

Posthumously Marilyn Monroe also inspired the comic character Miss Buxley. She was created by Mizzou Alum Mort Walker in 1971 as a secretary for General Halftrack in the comic strip Beetle Bailey. I mention the character in my Miss Mizzou book, and Mort Walker mentions the character in the quote he gave in relation to my book.

Beyond these characters, Marilyn Monroe herself has appeared in many comics over the years. This Marilyn Monroe character page gives a pretty good rundown of her comic appearances stretching as far back as 1954. As that page states, she is most often used in comics in a cameo role or as an homage to her classic poses, and not as a featured character. The exception to this is of course biography comics featuring Monroe, such as the Bluewater Marilyn Monroe comic from 2013.

IMAGE: The cover and a few pages of the Marilyn Monroe comic put out by Bluewater Productions in 2013 as part of their TRIBUTE line of comics. Used with permission.

What did Monroe herself think of comics? Besides this photo of her glancing at James Thurber drawings inside Costello’s Bar in New York, I haven’t been able to find anything connecting her personally to comics within her lifetime.