Picture of Marilyn Monroe

From February 16th to February 19th 1954, Marilyn Monroe performed at around 10 different military bases in South Korea, including Seoul. She felt “perfectly at ease” in front of thousands of soldiers, men who had been looking at her pin-up calendars and magazine spreads for several years. As she drove the soldiers into a frenzy with songs such as “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” and the extremely popular “Do It Again,” the freezing temperatures and windy conditions seemed of no concern. As she told writer Ben Hecht, the soldiers “were all yelling at me at the top of their lungs. I stood smiling at them. It had started snowing. But I felt as warm as if I were standing in a bright sun… I’ve always been frightened by an audience, any audience. My stomach pounds, my head gets dizzy and I’m sure my voice has left me. But standing in the snowfall facing these yelling soldiers, I felt for the first time in my life no fear of anything. I felt only happy.”