For longtime Marilyn fans, we hate to break the illusion, but Marilyn was not a natural blonde. According to Yahoo! Entertainment, she was originally a curly-haired brunette (occasionally mistaken for a redhead) who was encouraged to dye her hair to be more "versatile" in the film industry.

She reportedly began lightening her hair in the early 1940s to get noticed, especially after her modeling career began to take off at the age of twenty-one. "For Marilyn, going blonde, it was like the Hollywood star-building machine,” said photographer Nancy Lee Andrews to Yahoo!, “she saw what it could do for her."

The iconic color that most associate with Marilyn was dubbed as "pillow case white" by the starlet herself. Although she became known for roles playing the "ditzy" blonde, Marilyn's onscreen persona and appearance often undermined the work she did offscreen.