IMAGE: Marilyn Monroe’s star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars, Palm Springs, California. Photo from flickr user Chris Parker taken in 2013, some rights reserved.

Miss Mizzou debuted on September 5th, 1952, just as one of the people who inspired the character, Marilyn Monroe, was gaining momentum with her film career. Marilyn Monroe was in five films released during the summer and fall of 1952:

• • • “Clash by Night” – June 18, 1952
    • “We’re Not Married!” – July 11, 1952
    • “Don’t Bother to Knock” – July 18, 1952
    • “Monkey Business” – September 2, 1952
    • “O. Henry’s Full House” – September 19, 1952

These films were smaller roles except for “Don’t Bother to Knock,” which was her first major role as an actress. Most of these films don’t merit mention in relation to Miss Mizzou, but let me comment on a couple that might.

On July 11th, “We’re Not Married!” was released. The film portrays several couples who aren’t married because the judge who married them wasn’t licensed at the time. One of the couples includes Monroe’s character who easily wins a “Mrs. Mississippi” contest and sets her sights on a “Mrs. America” competition. The upstart offshoot of the “Miss America” contest struggles to get off the ground, but when the couple gets notice that they are not married, Monroe’s character simply takes the “Miss Mississippi” competition instead and sets her sights on becoming “Miss America”.

It’s tempting to look at Monroe’s role in “We’re Not Married!” and say that Caniff merely took “Miss Mississippi” and molded that into “Miss Mizzou.” I tend to think Monroe’s role in the film is only a odd coincidence as far as Miss Mizzou is concerned. Here’s my three reasons:

1. It doesn’t fit the timeline. Caniff was working up the Miss Mizzou character by the end of May, and would have likely had her name figured out by the time he started working on strips for August that would have featured the character. Caniff was working only about two months ahead at that time as far as I can tell; this means he would have been working up the August strips in early June, a full month before the film came out.
2. Monroe had a small role. In theory there could have been some advanced publicity for the film that Caniff could have been influenced by, but it seems to me that Monroe’s role in the jam packed cast wasn’t promoted that much, at least compared to Monroe’s role in “Clash by Night” released a few weeks earlier.
3. Monroe already had a beauty title. Monroe was already known as a “Miss Cheescake” in 1951 by Stars and Stripes Magazine, so idea of Monroe being “Miss [something]” already existed long before this film came out. (Perhaps this inspired Caniff instead?)

Monroe’s beauty queen role in “We’re Not Married!” likely led her to an interesting publicity stunt a couple months later. On September 2nd, the film “Monkey Business” was released and Monroe toured to support the film; she got the honor of being Grand Marshall the Miss America parade that month as well.

One more comment about the film “Monkey Business.” While Monroe did not wear a trench coat in Monkey Business, her blonde costar Ginger Rogers did put on a trench coat for a while near the end of the film. The use of the trench coat in the film is yet another example of how the trench coat was coming into use by women in post World War II America.