Marilyn Monroe dress, which prompted veteran star Joan Crawford to describe her behavior as "unbecoming an actress and a lady" to the press. While "Niagara" made Monroe a sex symbol and established her "look", her second film of the year, the satirical musical comedy "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", established her screen persona as a "dumb blonde". Based on Anita Loos' bestselling novel and its Broadway version, the film focuses on two "gold-digging" showgirls, Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, played by Monroe and Jane Russell. The role of Lorelei was originally intended for Betty Grable, who had been 20th Century-Fox's most popular "blonde bombshell"
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel) first film version, which is now lost, was released in 1928 and starred Ruth Taylor and Alice White. Better known is the 1953 film version of the musical, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. The novel's characters were licensed for use in a daily newspaper comic strip series that ran from April to September 1926. The comic strip was not an adaptation of the novel, but used the novel's characters in new gag situations. Although the writing was credited to Loos, it was presumably ghosted by the artists, Virginia Huget and Phil Cook. The original series was