Here we have Marilyn Monroe, and she is shown in the film "The Seven Year Itch", released in 1955. The film had a very famous scene with her wearing a white halter neck dress which was unwontedly caught in a sudden gust from the subway below. In 2011, this dress became one of the most expensive costumes ever to be sold at auction - for $5.52 million, including commission.
You can read about some of the other costly costumes as Looper/CrazyCostumes
Marilyn Monroe was a film star too late to be featured on proper cigarette cards, so her first appearances were on trade cards. First of all she was on what is lumped together under "Dutch Gum", in several series of small but colourful cards issued between 1950 and 1959, though sadly they did not have anything printed on the reverse by way of biographies.
In the United Kingdom her first appearance was in black and white, and again on a plain back card. This came as card 123 of the 1954 third series of A & B.C. Gum "Film Stars", and it gives the name of her latest movie on the front - "The River of No Return", which was released in the same year and had Robert Mitchum as her leading man.
Another view of her, issued a year later, was card 24 of Barbers Tea "Cinema and Television Stars". Now this is one of the cards which are turning up alone at high prices, whilst the rest of the set from which it has been extracted are left to meander along as a part set. You may think this renders the part set less wanted, but there are some great stars of the 1950s in it - Grace Kelly, Tony Curtis (as Anthony Curtis), Jeff Chandler, Rock Hudson, and even Peter Brough and Archie Andrews, one of the few examples of the ventriloquist`s art which appears on cards.
Our set was issued by Sports Time Card Company of Carson City in California.The cards are very well made and the pictures were licensed from the Marilyn Monroe Estate, which must not have been cheap. They were sold in silvery foil packets each containing nine cards. Some of the packets contained a special chromium card, inserted at random, and there were ten of these cards in total.
It does not look like the company is still in business and I was unable at first to find out any other sets they issued - but John Levitt has got in touch to say that there was another, second set of Marilyn Monroe, plus sets of Baywatch (1995 - 100 cards), The Beatles (1996 - 100 cards) , Miller Brewing Co. (1995 - 100 cards), and five sets showing Playboy magazine covers.They also issued some promotional cards for sets that were never issued.