Marilyn Monroe as Vulnerable Babysitter on Sweethearts 119, at Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Fawcett Publications, Marilyn Monroe, Romance Comics

The cowl of Fawcett romance comedian Sweethearts #119 hit stands in late 1952 with a Marlilyn Monroe cowl for her movie Don’t Bother to Knock.

Article Summary

Marilyn Monroe graced Sweethearts #119 cowl, tied to her movie Don’t Bother to Knock.

Fawcett Publications used star energy on the ultimate problems with the title, together with Elizabeth Taylor.

Fawcett, a pioneer in movie magazines, had in depth historical past with Hollywood tie-ins.

Sweethearts #119 is a collector’s gem as a result of Marilyn’s rising stardom and its rarity.

1952 was a yr that helped make Marilyn Monroe an icon. Early that yr, she started a romance with New York Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio. In March, together with her studio movie profession taking off, pictures taken of her for a nude calendar in 1949 turned public data, and she or he leaned into the scandal by admitting to it and saying she had merely wanted the cash at the time. The resultant publicity despatched her profession into overdrive, and she or he was featured on the duvet of Life Magazine whereas three of her movies had been rushed to launch to reap the benefits of the furor. One of those movies was Don’t Bother to Knock, co-starring Richard Widmark and together with the massive display screen debut of Anne Bancroft. Don’t Bother to Knock is a noir thriller during which Monroe performs a babysitter with a troubled previous who has an opportunity encounter with a pilot (Widmark) who has simply been dumped by his girlfriend (Bancroft). The sparks initially fly between the pair, however the night shortly takes a really darkish flip as the pilot on the rebound discovers that this babysitter is just not what she appears. It’s a stable efficiency by Monroe, and a photograph that appears to be a publicity shot from the movie of her and Widmark seems on the duvet of Fawcett’s romance comedian guide Sweethearts #119 later that yr.

Marilyn Monroe and Richard Widmark on Sweethearts #119 (Fawcett, 1952).

Sweathearts was the primary month-to-month romance comedian guide on American newsstands, launched a few yr after Joe Simon and Jack Kirby‘s genre-defining Young Romance, which was initially a bi-monthly. The title, touted as the business’s best-selling romance comedian by 1949, featured photograph covers all through its run at Fawcett. While these photograph covers usually featured uncredited fashions and photographers in what was primarily the inventory images of the period, Fawcett gave the impression to be attempting one thing completely different by the top of the title’s run. In addition to the Don’t Bother to Knock promotion on Sweethearts #119, situation #121 contains a photograph of Elizabeth Taylor and Fernando Lamas from the 1953 movie The Girl Who Had Everything.

Fawcett had established an ongoing presence among the many movie media by that point. It eased into that subject in its early years with an unlikely 1925 title known as This is Paris!, which was patterned after La Vie Parisienne and shortly went by way of a sequence of identify modifications on its journey to changing into a standard film fan journal, together with This is Paris and Hollywood, Paris and Hollywood Screen Secrets, and Screen Secrets; lastly changing into the better-remembered Screen Play in 1930. That identical yr, Fawcett acquired the journal Hollywood from one other writer, and in 1935 additionally acquired the venerable Motion Picture Magazine, which had launched in 1911 and is extensively thought-about the primary true film fan journal. In 1952, Motion Picture Magazine was being rebranded as Motion Picture and Television Magazine with extensive cross-promotion in Fawcett’s comedian guide line late that yr. Unsurprisingly, Motion Picture and Television Magazine featured a Marilyn Monroe cowl story at the identical time that Sweethearts #119 hit the newsstands. The writer had been no stranger to promotional film tie-ins for its different periodicals all through its historical past, having launched Whiz Comics with the assistance of actress Jane Withers in 1939, and in 1954, put Creature from the Black Lagoon on the duvet of Mechanix Illustrated.

Notably, Fawcett was publishing as many romance comics as it was superhero titles as the corporate entered into its closing yr of comics publishing in 1953. That yr, Fawcett would settle with DC Comics for $400,000 and agreed to cease publishing Captain Marvel & Co. after prolonged authorized battles over the character’s similarities to Superman. A glance at Fawcett’s publishing timeline over that interval signifies that the corporate’s comedian guide line started to slowly wind down as quickly as January 1953, a plan possible put into movement in late 1952. By the top of 1953, the corporate had introduced that it had offered all its comedian guide titles “except the Marvels” to Charlton, the place Sweethearts and others continued. The title loved a 24-year run between the 2 publishers from 1948 to 1972.

Unfortunately, the tales of Sweethearts #119 don’t have anything to do with the plot of Don’t Bother to Knock, and the contents of the ultimate few problems with the title, which included a Hollywood information characteristic, recommend that the writer could have already identified that its comedian guide social gathering was over and was attempting to entice these readers into attempting out the remainder of its journal line. As for Monroe, her star energy had risen significantly since her solely prior comedian guide look on the duvet of St. John’s Teen-Age Diary Secrets #6 in 1949 with a photograph by Bruno Bernard, and naturally she’s now a legend — which has made Sweethearts #119 essentially the most sought-after situation of that run. There’s a replica of that situation and way more within the 2024 February 29 – March 1 Golden Age Romance Featuring Fox Comics & Comic Art Showcase Auction #40258.