Marilyn Monroe's risqué statue unveiled

As dozens of people watched this Friday (July 15), a 26-foot-tall sculpture of Monroe in her famous pose from the The Seven Year Itch was unveiled on Chicago's Magnificent Mile.

The giant sculpture has evoked mixed reactions. On Twitter, Monroe fans called it "shocking". A few onlookers said they are thankful that "She has panties."

Some people who took pictures of the sculpture called "Forever Marilyn" were surprised when they came around the side and back of the sculpture and saw honest-to-goodness lace panties on the movie icon.

Monroe's statue will be stationed until next spring at the Plaza.

Coming up: More on Marilyn Monroe.

Forty nine years after Marilyn Monroe's death, the iconic ivory pleated Travilla dress she wore in The Seven Year Itch was sold on June 18 for a whopping $4.6 million.
Her red sequined number from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes fetched $ 1.2 million and Monroes's saloon costume from River Of No Return was auctioned at $510,000.
The dresses were part of a Hollywood memorabilia collection belonging to actress Debbie Reynolds.

A snapshot of the actress who gave us some of the most breathtaking moments from the movies. Here are some breathtaking moments from the life of the timeless actress.

The world has never stopped loving Marilyn Monroe. She created an archetype, a woman who was sensuous and hedonistic yet innocent and seemingly unaware of the effect she had. As she famously said (among many other things) : "I am not interested in money, I just want to be wonderful".

Wonderful she was and much more. Marilyn Monroe was born as Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles. Her mother was divorced and mentally ill and abandoned her to the care of a series of foster homes. The actress had a series of bizarre interactions with her unstable mother, recollected in My Story, the autobiography Marilyn wrote with screenwriter Ben Hecht. Her mother's friend Grace McKee took her in and reportedly it was Grace who first introduced the idea of a career in showbiz to an incredibly beautiful young Marilyn. “You're going to be a beautiful girl when you get big...an important woman, a movie star, “ she would say.

Due to financial difficulties, Jeane was later placed in an orphanage but continued to visit Grace and her relatives. "The world around me then was kind of grim. I had to learn to pretend in order to...I don't know...block the grimness. The whole world seemed sort of closed to me...(I felt) on the outside of everything, and all I could do was to dream up any kind of pretend-game”- her words expressed a kind of loneliness not many endure.

In September 1941, Jeane was again living with Grace when she met Jim Dougherty, who was 5 years her senior. Encouraged to enter the relationship by Grace, Jeane ended up marrying Dougherty on June 19, 1942. Dougherty joined the Merchant Marines in 1943 and in 1944 was sent overseas.

"Grace McKee arranged the marriage for me, I never had a choice. There's not much to say about it. They couldn't support me, and they had to work out something. And so I got married."

Norma Jeane, while working in a factory inspecting parachutes in 1944, was photographed by the Army as a promotion to show women on the assembly line contributing to the war effort. Her overwhelming beauty captured a photographers heart, who induced her to pose for posters for the troops. By spring of 1945, she was quickly becoming known as a "photographers dream".

Meanwhile, her marriage to Dougherty was doomed.
"My marriage didn't make me sad, but it didn't make me happy either. My husband and I hardly spoke to each other. This wasn't because we were angry. We had nothing to say. I was dying of boredom." In the fall of 1946, she was granted a divorce.

In 1946 she signed a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox Studios but had only two small film roles before she was dropped by the studio. A contract with Columbia Pictures followed in 1948. This stint yielded appearances in a low-budget musical, Ladies of the Chorus (1949), and in the film Love Happy (1949), in which she had a bit part with the Marx Brothers.

20th Century-Fox came back to Marilyn with a contract in 1950. Over the next few years she was noticed on screen, though her roles were still small. Monroe's first lead role was in Don't Bother to Knock (1952), as a psychotic babysitter. By 1953 she was appearing as a star in such films as Niagara, How to Marry a Millionaire and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

She met her future lover and mentor super-agent Johnny Hyde, of the William Morris Agency- credited with have first discovered her. Marilyn quickly went on to become “Hyde's girl”, and an already married Hyde was also falling wildly for the budding and hungry young star. When they first met in 1949, Marilyn was 22 and Hyde, 53. Many still believe Johnny Hyde was the only man responsible for making Marilyn Monroe a star.

Hyde set up a home in North Palm Drive in Beverly Hills in an effort to convince Marilyn to marry him. She declined repeatedly, but he did get her to move in with her. Reportedly he even offered to give her his entire empire if he were to die married to her. John Hyde literally forced her footage down every Hollywood studio but the constant parties, networking and ambition to make Marilyn a star took a toll on his health. He suffered a final heart attack on December 18, 1950.

Later, Marilyn described the loss of her friend: “Sometimes I felt wrong in not marrying him and giving him what he wanted. But I also knew it would be wrong to marry a man you didn't really love. I didn't regret the million dollars I had turned down. I never stopped regretting the loss of Johnny Hyde”

In 1949, Tom Kelly's calendar featuring Marilyn Monroe was released. Photographs from the calendar would later appear in the very first issue of Playboy Magazine in 1955, making Marilyn the premiere centerfold. "It's not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on," she later said.

"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul"- Marilyn had famously said. Her first serious acting job came in 1950 when she had a small but crucial role in "The Asphalt Jungle".

Marilyn met Joe DiMaggio in early 1952, she was 25 and he was 37. DiMaggio, recently retired from baseball, had expressed a desire to meet the famous star. "...If you can make a girl laugh - you can make her do anything...", Marilyn said and by Feb the romance was in full bloom.
“He treated me like something special.”

In 1952 Marilyn began filming "Niagara", a film that was to make her a star. After her unforgettable performance in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", she and Jane Russell signed their names and placed their hands and feet in the wet cement on Hollywood Boulevard- a place she had visited with her mother and Grace McKee years ago as a child.

On January 14 Joe and Marilyn were married in a ceremony which was captured by millions worldwide.
But the marriage got off to a bad start- Joey was , what they called, the ‘jealous type' and he resented her popularity amongst the other men. "Joe hates crowds and glamour."

The same year she began filming the "There's No Business Like Show Business". Ironically, the showbiz pressure was finally getting to her- Marilyn began showing serious side-effects of the many sleeping pills she had been taking for the last few years...often groggy, lethargic and crying on the set.

The famous "skirt blowing" scene from the "Seven Year Itch", was also filmed the same year and distilled her unique blend of sexuality and sweetness into an iconic moment.

In the fall of 1954, Marilyn and Joe separated, later to be divorce. The press hounded her, as Marilyn answered in a choked voice, "I can't say anything today. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…”
When I married him (Joe), I wasn't sure of why I married him, I have too many fantasies to be a housewife."

The brief happiness America's bombshell found with its celebrated playwright Arthur Miller unraveled soon after their secret wedding on June 29, 1956 . Miller first met Marilyn Monroe at work on the set of As Young as You Feel. Apparently their relationship started at a party a few days later. Jewish by religion, Miller convinced Marilyn to convert to his faith.
People all over talked about the union, not just about the seemingly unlikely match of brain and beauty, but also at the hastiness of their marriage.

Their five-year marriage ended. The press swarmed Monroe as she announces her impending split from Miller; months later it would be finalized.

Marilyn Monroe did not return to Hollywood until 1958 to make "Some Like It Hot" with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Her health continued to deteriorate due to increased dependency on drugs and involvement in an unhappy marriage.
"I am invariably late for appointments...sometimes, as much as two hours. I've tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing," she said.

July 1960 marked the start of filming "The Misfits", a short story by Arthur Miller. While on location the two lived separately and pills for Marilyn were regularly flown.
"Everybody is always tugging at you. They'd all like a sort of chunk out of you. I don't think they realize it, but it's like "grrrr do this, grrrr do that..." But you do want to stay intact...intact and on two feet."

A reported affair with John F. Kennedy began in late 1961.
At the President's gala birthday celebration in Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1962, Marilyn sang “Happy Birthday" tribute to JF, wearing a full length evening sheath dress of flesh-colored soufflé gauze by Jean Lui.

JFK's brother and Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy was also reported to have had an affair with Marilyn shortly before her death. Much was said about her incompetence and her frequent trips with the Kennedys.
"I feel stronger if the people around me on the set love me, care for me, and hold good thoughts for me. It creates an aura of love, and I believe I can give a better performance."

Marilyn had been seeing Joe DiMaggio frequently during this time too and had finally agreed to remarry him. The wedding date was set for August 8, 1962. Fox rehired her on August 1 to complete "Somethings Got to Give" with a salary of $250,000.
To the world it seemed like she was finally getting it all together.

Of course these events would never come to pass due to her untimely death on August 5, 1962.

Conspiracy theories continue to spin around the flameout of Hollywood's timeless actress.

Joe DiMaggio made arrangements for the funeral, instead of the wedding, inviting no one from the Hollywood scene or press..."they had only hurt Marilyn."
For over 20 years flowers were delivered weekly to her crypt from Joe, JUST as he had promised Marilyn when she told him of William Powell's pledge to the dying Jean Harlow, Marilyn's idol.

"I don't mind living in a man's world, as long as I can be a woman in it," Marilyn said. Despite making only 30 films in her career, she remains a legend. Forty nine years hence, the world is yet to discover another Marilyn Monroe.