Talk:Marilyn Monroe#Lead image replacement

Hi, should we summarize her singing career in the lead? I mean, the reason for {{diff||prev|1277726489|this reversal}}, {{diff||prev|1275845947|this one}}, {{diff||prev|1221639836|this one}}, {{diff||prev|1220713121|this one}}, {{diff||prev|1210853973|this one}}, and {{diff||prev|1234338195|this one}} is because we have MOS:ROLEBIO and Template:Infobox person. Btw, there was a relevant discussion one year ago. Thedarkknightli (talk) 14:55, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Lolamelody123456, could you please participate in this discussion? I noticed you had {{diff||prev|1278599437|deleted}} the content I previously added to the lead. Thanks! Thedarkknightli (talk) 22:43, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

:Hi ! Upon reflection I think we shouldn't summarize her singing career in the lead because she sung as part of being an actress. She never released albums for example.The songs mentioned are either part of movies already in the lead or as for "Happy Birthday Mr. President", not relevant enough as a "song". Lolamelody123456 (talk) 17:17, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

::Yes. This was discussed somewhere before. She sang some of the songs in her musical films as part of the characters (and some were even dubbed), she did not pursue a career as a singer and never released an album. The exception here is the song traditionally sung to celebrate a person's birthday, which has indeed been popular, but it was just a live recording of the birthday event and was never intended to be part of a singer's repertoire (+no one who sings this most recognizable song in the English language on birthdays is automatically a singer). Not a WP:LEAD material squeezed in between information about marriages and death. ภץאคгöร 19:16, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Monroe was a singer and should be listed as such. Albums, career pursuit, films or not, etc are not relevant to the fact that she is very widely known as a model, actress and singer who sang very often in her performances. She went and gave concerts singing overseas for US troops etc. It is not up to Wikipedians to pass judgement that she was not a known singer. She was. We are here to give readers facts, not to extract them arbitrarily. Some models and actresses do not sing much. Monroe did.--SergeWoodzing (talk) 01:28, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

:This has come up a few times in the past with older actors... in a time where song and dance was normal in a movie. Basically if you weren't well-rounded you didn't get a job because of theatrical nature of acting in the past. Moxy🍁 01:51, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

::And? Not many singers went overseas to do song concerts for US troops. Even in the old days, some models and actresses did not sing much. Monroe did, in her movies, in recordings such as her big hit single "I Want to Be Loved by You" etc. Lots of movie stars never sang in their movies because the studios dubbed them with people who sang better. Monroe sang herself. Monroe was a singer. SergeWoodzing (talk) 18:54, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

::PS No [https://www.discogs.com/artist/135189-Marilyn-Monroe albums]??? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 19:01, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Disagree. Monroe is primarily known as an actress and model. All of her singing is associated with her acting career (and even then, of her 29 completed films, she sang in 8 of them, less than a third). As others have said, she released no albums nor even participated in any variety show, etc. as a singer. Rcarter555 (talk) 22:36, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Support adding 'Singer'. Akin to Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire's dancing career contained within their acting roles, the prominence of Monroe's songs in those eight films, in addition to her Kennedy birthday appearance, are understandably as notable as almost any other singer's body of work. That the songs were part of her occupation as an actress, and not within a stand-alone recording career, make her iconic singing performances even more unique and historically important in their own right. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:41, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

:“As notable as almost any other singers body of work” is a wild stretch. Rcarter555 (talk) 09:27, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

::Probably "a wild stretch", although her notability as a singer seems solid, with a few of her performances on the iconic side. Acclaimed actress Ginger Rogers made many films where she did not dance, but in those in which she did, her notability as a dancer took hold and became a historically significant part of her career. Similarly, Monroe's on-and-off singing throughout her film career seems equivalent enough to earn the 'singer' descriptor. Randy Kryn (talkingtoyouand) 09:36, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

I'd say this is a borderline case, as she made popular renditions of several songs, but the fact that practically all of those related directly to her films dissuades me from adding 'singer' to her roles. We're on much more solid ground with 'model', as she had that profession before she became an actress and continued to model afterwards. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:32, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

:{{u|Ian Rose}}, would you similarly remove 'dancer' from Ginger Rogers (a rhetorical question, as nobody would, but Monroe's showcased singing seems comparable to Rogers' filmed dance expertise). Randy Kryn (talk) 11:36, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

::Who says I wouldn't...?! Rogers did a lot of dancing (and singing) but she had plenty of straight acting roles (winning her Oscar for one). However, as with Monroe's modelling, Rogers was a song-and-dance lady before films so I'd probably let that one stay... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:43, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

OK, so one fact is being ignored by everybody, in previous discussuion and now, and it's tiresome: why did she tour overseas as a singer, nothing else, if she wasn't a singer? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 16:51, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

:Appearing for four days in a USO show hardly constitutes “touring overseas as a singer” Rcarter555 (talk) 17:47, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

::4 days overseas constitutes a tour and the fact that she went there to sing means she was a singer. If she hadn't been a singer, there would have been no tour. Sorry, but bias or WP:OWN, rather than WP:FAITH, seems now to be showing clearly in this case. We Wikipedians do not have the power to pass arbitrary judgement on the life stories of famous people. I've been at this logged in since 2008. It's not the first time I've seen such power-over-the-famous exerted, unreasonably, in my opinion. Monroe was a singer. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 14:27, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

:::{{tq|If she hadn't been a singer, there would have been no tour}} -- nonsense. The soldiers would have quite happily gone to see her if she'd performed pantomime. Knock off with the yelling and repetition; it doesn't strengthen your argument in the least. Rather the opposite. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 16:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

::::But she didn't do pantomime, she sang. The soldiers recognized her as a singer, from the films in which she was the featured singer. Where would "Diamonds are..." be rated as a "Iconic song from film"? To make an uneducated guess...number 1? Randy Kryn (talk) 22:08, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::A very uneducated guess. Rcarter555 (talk) 23:24, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::Maybe "Over the Rainbow", or that "Singing in the Rain" song and dance, but in the top four or five. When Monroe began to sing at the USO tour nobody was surprised. That's one thing that defines a singer. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:39, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

::::Heck, they would happily have gone to see her just stand there. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:05, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Dear Sir or Madam, Merilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Baker nit Mortenson, so it would be proper to have it corrected.

With kind regards,

Blazenka Krizan 77.78.225.4 (talk) 15:49, 1 June 2025 (UTC)