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I think her body has been overhyped in more ways than one.

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At autopsy she was five-foot-five and weighed 117. That is quite slender, much slimmer than the current average today. She had recently dropped twenty-five pounds, so maybe her top weight was right around 145. That's still below today's average but most would consider it reasonably slender.

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In her day, people didn't exercise. I mean, they didn't go to the gym unless they were athletes, they didn't jog or run for fun. That doesn't mean they necessarily led healthier lifestyles; Marilyn drank and popped pills.

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I hear all the time that she was a size 14 or 16, and this simply cannot be true. My mother wears a size 12 and she is heavier than Marilyn was at her (presumed) heaviest. I've also heard how amazingly small her dresses are when they were put up on display in a museum and that the woman in charge claimed they were too small to go on a size 2 manneuqin.

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I don't think this can be true either. If I was guessing I'd say Marilyn might have worn a size 8. But even that is kind of meaningless when you remember that 1. Clothing sizes are not standardized at all. (I'm even beginning to think shoe sizes might not be either.) and 2. Celebrities have their clothes custom-made, and they can call it whatever size they want.

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Hell, five-foot-five and 145 pounds isn't even what most people think of when they think of that popular but essentially meaningless term "plus sized."

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You're entitled to your own opinions. You're not entitled to your own facts. -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan