Born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, Marilyn Monroe, according to Wikipedia, is known for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2025) by her death in 1962.

What is less known, however, is that her famous breathy voice came as a result of her childhood stuttering. The actress stuttered as a young child and at times during high school. A speech therapist taught her how deliberate breathing prior to speaking could guide her to fluency, and the rest is history.

According to a biography of Monroe by Donald Spoto, in an early student production at the Bliss-Hayden Miniature Theater, “she knew the dialogue perfectly, but she stuttered and paused so much that she threw the other student players into total confusion.”  As she went on to win roles in movies, she tended to stutter on the first takes on the set.

But sometimes it was later takes as well, according to Spoto. Her most famous line in the movie Some Like It Hot—“It’s me, Sugar”—took forty-seven takes before she got it right. Apparently, Marilyn had the hardest time getting out the word “Sugar.”

Monroe spoke frankly about her stutter during a rare 1960 interview found on YouTube: [1]  

“Sometimes when I’m very nervous or excited or something, I stutter. One time, they were doing a, I had a small part in a movie, and the assistant director came in and yelled at me. Oh, he talked awful.

“So, when I got into the scene, instead of my line, I said ‘Woo-wo-wo.’ And the director came up and he was furious, and he said ‘You don’t stutter!’ And I said ‘That’s what you think!’

“Oh, it’s painful, oh God!” 

Believe it or not, Monroe's stuttering would affect her life in her final days. During the filming of her last movie, the unfinished Something's Got to Give from which she was fired, the troubled actress was under so much stress from her personal life, not to mention the abuse of prescription drugs, that her stuttering returned, sometimes forcing her to not be able to deliver her lines at all.

Despite her passing more than 60 years ago, Marilyn Monroe remains one of the world’s most recognizable celebrities who stuttered.