Palm Springs residents sue to remove 25-foot Marilyn Monroe statue (2024)

A 25-foot-tall statue of Marilyn Monroe towering over Palm Springs, which depicts the iconic scene from 'The Seven-Year Itch' in which her dress is blown up by a subway grate, has enraged residents who are fighting to have it removed.

The incensed group have argued that the Seward Johnson 2011 sculpture is a 'sexist eyesore' that blocks traffic and should be removed from its current position outside the Palm Springs Art Museum.

The scene from the 1955 comedy has been immortalized by the 'Forever Marilyn' statue but has been a source of discomfort for some because it prominently features the blonde bombshell's underwear-clad backside.

California's Fourth District Court of Appeals overturned a motion to dismiss a lawsuit by the Committee to Relocate Marilyn which has been battling to remove the statue, according to Art Newspaper.

The lawsuit against the city argues that officials did not have the right to stop traffic on the street where the statue now stands.

The piece was purchased for $1 million by the tourism agency PS Resorts in 2020 and later that year unanimously voted by city council to move it outside the art museum for three years.

Court documents cited California Law and said that 'enactments allow cities to temporarily close portions of streets for short-term events like holiday parades, neighborhood street fairs, and block parties.

'Proceedings that generally last for hours, days, or perhaps as long as a few weeks,' it states.

'They do not vest cities with the expansive power to close public streets, for years on end, so statues or other semi-permanent works of art may be erected in the middle of those streets.'

The museum's executive director at the time the statue was erected, Louis Grachos, said the artwork posed a moral challenge.

'You come out of the museum and the first thing you're going to see is a 26ft-tall Marilyn Monroe with her entire backside and underwear exposed,' said Grachos.

'What message does that send to our young people, our visitors and community to present a statue that objectifies women, is sexually charged and disrespectful?'

In 2021, protestors from the Women's March Foundation echoed this sentiment, calling the statue misogynistic and exploitative of Marilyn Monroe, who is said to have been discovered in Palm Springs.

Brook Thomas, 50, has been living in the region for eight years and said at the time that having the statue there was 'absurd.'

'It's absurd that you're going to leave the museum and see the backside of someone's underpants from any era, regardless of who it is or what it is like,' he said.

'People have all kinds of issues with other things that they find obscene, but this, you know, they think it's acceptable.'

Retired artist Melissa Manson is among those who couldn't see a problem.

'I don't think this offends anybody. I don't think it's misogynistic. I don't think it exposes women to anything dangerous or uncomfortable,' she said in a 2021 interview.

Chris Menrad, founder of the Committee to Relocate Marilyn, simply said at the time that the location itself is the problem.

'The issue that the committee to relocate Marilyn has with the current location of the statue is that, it is placed in the middle of a new street that was created to open up our world-famous Palm Springs Art Museum and connect it to our main street, which is Palm Canyon, just that direction,' he said.

'We have an issue with placing a large statue that is blocking that view on a quote unquote, temporary basis that everybody knows is not going to be temporary.'

Palm Springs resident John McDermott thought it was great for business.

'Everybody is ecstatic to have her back here, absolutely ecstatic. It's good for the community, it's good for the businesses. You know, this is going to be our Eiffel Tower. This is going to be the Eiffel Tower of Palm Springs,' he said at the time.

Much like the statue, the controversial scene it emulates caused a stir with Monroe and reportedly led to the Hollywood siren's relationship with then-husband and baseball superstar Joe DiMaggio to end.

Monroe had money, fame and critical acclaim, but what she wanted most was a man to love her.

DiMaggio first noticed Monroe after seeing some publicity shots of the starlet in March 1952 and decided to ask her for a date.

Although she was a dazzlingly beautiful movie star, at that time, he was by far the bigger celebrity.

His prowess on the baseball field earned him a spot as a New York Yankee legend and made him one of America's most revered sports athletes at the time - and despite retiring at the age of 36, because of injuries - he was still widely adored.

Monroe and DiMaggio set a date, and a year later DiMaggio popped the question, on New Year's Eve 1953. The pair married quickly in a civil ceremony in San Francisco in 1954.

The Seven-Year Itch was released in 1955. An American romantic comedy directed by Billy Wilder, the famous scene was shot in September 1954, at the height of Monroe and DiMaggio's relationship.

DiMaggio's jealous tendencies were well-reported at the time and, following that iconic scene, in which Monroe's dress flew up from a gust of air from the subway below, it is claimed the baseball star 'beat her up.'

'He was smacking her around,' said one of his closest friends, in a book extract from The Secret Life Of Marilyn Monroe byJ. Randy Taraborrelli.

'He didn't seem too ashamed of it, either. He said that she brought the worst out in him, that he wasn't usually that kind of man. He said she was spoiled and very self-centered and it drove him crazy.'

In the book, it's claimed that DiMaggio 'beat her up in their hotel room after he became incensed at the sexy, skirt-flying shoot' for the film.

Five thousand onlookers watched the filming of that shot, at 1am, with Monroe standing over a subway grate, her accordion-pleated skirt flying.

Director Billy Wilder described the expression on DiMaggio's face as: 'The look of death'.

'Even though Marilyn wore two pairs of pants for modesty, under the powerful Klieg lights the material became quite see-through,' the book stated.

'He rushed back to their hotel and waited for his wife. Then he took out his rage on her, slapping her around the room. The noise was so great that other hotel guests reported it to the hotel's management, afraid that someone was getting badly hurt.'

On October 27, 1954, just nine months after her wedding, Marilyn stood before a judge and detailed her reasons for her divorce petition.

She said DiMaggio was 'cold and indifferent' to her and that days would go by when he wouldn't speak to her. DiMaggio didn't make an appearance and the divorce was granted.

The Seven-Year Itch starred Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, who reprised his stage role.