"In 1952, Marilyn Monroe went to an all-Black club in LA—and the photo almost cost her best friend his career."
Before Marilyn Monroe became the world's biggest star, she was a girl who grew up poor in foster homes across Los Angeles. One of those homes was with the Bolanders, whose father delivered mail in Watts—a predominantly Black neighborhood where most of Hollywood wouldn't dare to set foot.
While other white starlets kept their distance from communities of color, Marilyn felt at home there. Her poverty and her proximity to people of different races shaped her into something Hollywood wasn't expecting: a blonde bombshell with progressive politics and a refusal to stay in her lane.
In 1952, Marilyn was on the verge of superstardom. She'd just wrapped Don't Bother to Knock and was about to start work on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes—the film that would make her an icon. Her costume designer and close friend William Travilla had become one of the few people in Hollywood she truly trusted.
One night, Marilyn and Travilla did something that "just wasn't done" in 1952 Los Angeles: they went out to an almost exclusively Black club. They drank, laughed, and were photographed sitting casually with a Black man whose name history never recorded.
To Marilyn, it was just a night out with friends. To 1952 Hollywood, it was a scandal.
When the photo surfaced, studio executives weren't pleased. Interracial socializing—even just being photographed in the same frame—could damage careers, tank box office numbers, and create PR nightmares in an era when segregation was still legal in much of America and miscegenation laws banned interracial marriage in many states.
Travilla and his longtime partner Bill Sarris would later tell the story of how they "got in trouble with their employers" over that photo. The studio system had eyes everywhere, and stepping outside racial boundaries—even socially—carried real consequences.
But here's what made Marilyn Monroe different she stood with them
