A Mole like Marilyn's
Every MUA needs a muse
For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted a mole like Marilyn’s.
As a celebrity makeup artist, I’ve darkened thousands of beauty marks, all while carrying a torch for the tragic blonde we think we know so well. Marilyn is a brand, an enigma, and a Gemini (like me!). She’s everywhere; her ghost is rumored to haunt the full-length lobby mirror in the Roosevelt Hotel, and her final home in Brentwood is now protected as a historical landmark. Thank goodness it’s safe; some over-tanned real estate demons wanted to bulldoze it. It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 60 years since this woman’s tragic passing, yet through her death, her heart-shaped face is frozen in our visual lexicon—mole and all. Who knew that a tiny raised dot could hold so much symbolic power?
As you now know, I drool over moles. Give me an SJP chin mole, or make a big one appear on my cheek, mole gods. I was blessed with good hair and a smattering of freckles—but when it comes to beauty marks, all I’ve got is a skin-toned mole near my inner left eye that an ex once rudely said over brunch—that he was getting used to.
If I’ve done your makeup and you have a mole, I’ve probably darkened it, as Marilyn did. But did she? Was Marilyn (a beauty aficionado and fellow perfume lover who poured Chanel No. 5 directly into the bathtub) responsible for darkening a pre-existing mole, or did her beloved makeup artist, Allan “Whitey” Snyder, create her iconic beauty mark?
Did Marilyn create her beauty mark?
The first place to search was Norma Jeane’s face, Marilyn’s true self. I looked for early markings of a beauty mark or a freckle on her face, but besides her cornflower blue eyes, curly auburn hair, and a wide-set nose, her cheek was bare. Norma Jeane was labeled "the chin-less wonder" and deemed "beautiful but too plump" by the Blue Book Modeling Agency. She was perfectly imperfect. This was long before her infamous Hollywood glow-up, which involved multiple plastic surgeries. But where was the iconic mole on her cheek? Did it appear later in life on her face, or was this all part of a rebrand?
A MUA and his Muse
Long before the days of Mario and Kim K., there was Marilyn and Whitey.
From Marilyn's first screen test with Whitey at Twentieth Century Fox in 1946 until her untimely funeral makeup, her beloved MUA, Whitey, developed and maintained a multifaceted character makeup to transform the girl next door into the perfectly contoured vixen."I can sit here and do the whole thing in my sleep," Whitey mused of her makeup routine.
After pouring over the details for the millionth time, I marveled at the work and dedication this glam took. As you will see, this wasn’t just a smoky eye, this was a MUA who knew precisely what he was doing. Marilyn wasn’t the only woman who depended on Whitey to transform; his coterie included: Katherine Hepburn, Doris Day, and Raquel Welch. But what made Whitey so coveted? Like the late Kevyn Aucoin, Whitey was highly skilled in highlight and shadow, a master of character transformation.
After watching multiple video tutorials of Marilyn’s glam (the best by Erin Parsons and Lisa Eldridge) and studying the giant Bible “Marilyn Monroe: Metamorphosis,” I can finally translate the famous routine here for you here. This research also inspired a little trip to Target to buy products on a budget for a modern Marilyn tutorial look; stay tuned for that, too!
Marilyn Monroe’s Glam:
To achieve Marilyn’s complex look, Whitey began by priming (or slugging) her luminous skin with layers of Vaseline and Nivea (this is very thick, lol) to give her that radiant glow. Next, he mixed Max Factor suntan base with ivory coloring and a "clown white" dropper to create a customized foundation. He applied several layers of this mixture under her eyes, on her cheeks, and her chin. For her eyebrows, he shaped them to peak above the pupil and extended them outward as far as he could (not all of us have this kind of forehead space!) To create “the Greta Garbo eye,” Whitey used white eyeshadow blended from the inner corners of her eyes across the lids to the brow bone, cut-creasing toned eyeshadow. Additionally, he used black and brown eyeliner along her lower lash line, lined her waterline with white liner, and applied half-cut false eyelashes to the outer eyes. To enhance her eyes, he added red dots on her inner corners and Vaseline to her eyelids and cheeks to create a shiny effect. Another key trick was sketching a small white triangle between the top and lower eyeliner wings on the outer corner of her eye to make her hooded eyes appear more prominent. He did a similar trick to thin her nose, highlighting and shadowing the tip and bridge, powdering, and setting the entire look. Marilyn’s signature heart-shaped red lips typically involved 3-5 shades of red, which changed as Cinemascope shifted. Overlining her lips in a darker shade and finishing with another dab of Vaseline, the final touch of white blended on her lower lips to pop the pout.
*It's important to note here that this elaborate makeup routine doesn't mention Whitey's role in creating or darkening Marilyn's beauty mark; I found no mention of this anywhere, which raises the question of whether or not he was responsible for it.
Mole-Worthy
Frustrated, I kept searching for more mole facts. After forcing my sweet boyfriend through another watch of Marilyn Monroe: The Lost Tapes on Netflix, I still didn’t know the mole story. Bleary-eyed in bed, I continued to scroll through the now too-familiar images, saddened by the loss of this fascinating human—she had so much more to give to the world. Is it really true that only the good, die young? Looking into her sad, starry eyes felt like a mirror of sorts, a traumatic pain that I recognized a little too well. Like many of us, Marilyn was a survivor.
I remember working with one of my first muses, a young Brie Larson, and darkening her mole (light brown flat mole on her upper left cheek) in the early stages of her acting career. Doing makeup on Peter Fonda, Lucy Liu, and Michael C. Hall was a dream job, and I was totally in love with New York. Brie was a bit of a Norma Jean then, and we quickly became fast friends, running around the city together many nights after wrap. This was before Brie became a household name and underwent the familiar glow-up transformation that Marilyn did, yet another Hollywood rebrand.
I was nearing the end of my Saturn returns and still attached to the wrong person in Los Angeles at that time. One feature film led to another, and living on a new coast was more challenging than I expected. It wasn't just because I was dyeing my natural auburn hair a dark brown. Riddled with anxiety, I missed my peaceful, rent-controlled apartment and the guy who couldn't love me back. Like Marilyn, I have struggled to find myself in distant men, searching for someone who will stay. Even in my dream city, I didn't know how to navigate the uncertainty of being alone. I could hear the hills of Hollywood calling me back…
The Last Shoot
Finally, a different version of Marilyn’s mole appeared in my Google searches. This was during her Pucci era, all orange lipstick and bright prints. Cosmopolitan had assigned the photographer George Barris to capture a carefree Marilyn frolicking around LA on July 13th, 1962. This was to help with Marilyn’s recent termination from her final unfinished film, “Something’s Got to Give.” Barris's stunning photoshoot features a more vulnerable side, wrapped in a creamy cardigan, a seaweed bikini, and Pucci, running through the waves of Malibu while sipping champagne. In these images, her raised mole was initially quite faint in color but was then made darker at some point in the shoot by Whitey. This indeed seemed clear to me that her MUA determined the mood of her mole.
Another statement from Whitey supports this theory: "The issue with Marilyn was that she lacked confidence in her own judgment and always relied on others. Coaches, so-called friends. Even me.”
In reality, Marilyn needed her makeup artist to darken her mole because he saw her more clearly than she could. It was understandable that she had difficulty making decisions. As a fellow trauma survivor, I understand this profound need for emotional support. On the flip side, I’ve been lucky enough to be that north star for many, to guide my clients and loved ones in the importance of less makeup meaning much more sometimes, to help them choose what color lipstick to wear or to darken a mole they never saw the beauty in. I may not have a mole like Marilyn's, but the skin-toned one near my inner left eye is cuter than it used to be; I just have to darken it a little.
I truly want to try to do this myself. You have such a unique and dreamy way of explaining these secrets about our Hollywood heros.
Fantastic piece,,,, and soooo interesting!