Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend


"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" is a jazz song written for the stage musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Leo Robin. Carol Channing introduced the song in the original Broadway production, and Marilyn Monroe followed in the film version, performing it in a strapless, “now-iconic satin pink gown” in a rendition ranked by the American Film Institute the 12th best film song of the 20th century.
The song has since been covered by scores of singers of various genres, such as Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, Kylie Minogue, and Emmylou Harris, some in imitation of Monroe, whose rendition has inspired spectacles beyond the song itself.

Marilyn Monroe version

The American actress and singer Marilyn Monroe performed the song in the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Monroe's character, Lorelei Lee, has been followed on a transatlantic ocean liner by a detective hired by her fiancé's father, who wants assurance that she is not marrying purely for money. He is informed of compromising pictures taken with a British diamond mine owner and cancels her letter of credit before she arrives in France, requiring her to work in a nightclub to survive. Her fiancé arrives at the cabaret to see her perform this song, about exploiting men for riches. Diamonds are an element in another story line in the film, in which Lorelei is given a diamond tiara by the mine owner, in gratitude for her recovering the photographs. In a later scene, Jane Russell, who plays opposite Monroe, sings "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in court, while pretending to be Lorelei.
Most of the song in the film is Monroe's own voice, and sources differ on how much help she had. The American Film Institute, TCM, and a biography of director Howard Hawks state the only help she had was for the brief high-pitched introduction to the song, which was sung by Gloria Wood. However, a 2007 article in The New York Times recounting the career of famous ghost singer Marni Nixon claims Nixon dubbed the phrase "These rocks don't lose their shape." George Chakiris can be spotted as a member of the admiring male chorus.
The number was later re-shot in CinemaScope, to be used as part of a CinemaScope demonstration held on the Fox lot in March 1953. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck told Daily Variety that it only took hours to shoot the number in CinemaScope versus four days for the original film version. The public finally saw the CinemaScope version ten years later when it closed Fox's documentary tribute to Marilyn, but this has not been released on DVD or VHS.

Influence

Monroe's performance, ranked the 12th best film song of the century by the American Film Institute, has been referenced by entertainers ranging from Madonna and Kylie Minogue to Geri Halliwell and Anna Nicole Smith. The music video for Madonna's "Material Girl" references Monroe's "Diamonds" gown as she is surrounded by male dancers. The song was sampled by Megan Thee Stallion and Normani in 2020 for "Diamonds", with the music video featuring a set and costumes evoking Monroe's film performance. Monroe's vocals can also be heard in the background throughout the song. Ryan Gosling's performance of I'm Just Ken from the film Barbie at the 96th Academy Awards in 2024 was also inspired by Monroe's performance.

Product placement campaign

The display of diamonds in Hollywood films and songs is one of the most successful cases of product placement in marketing history. The diamond company De Beers, who dominates the world market for diamonds, engaged advertising company N.W. Ayer in the 1930s and 1940s to make diamonds more popular. The advertising company came up with the idea of placing diamond jewelry on idols in popular movies. Diamonds were placed in several Hollywood films, including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Diamonds Are Forever, and in songs such as "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend". This campaign made engagement rings with diamonds popular and made diamond sales rise dramatically.

''Moulin Rouge!'' version

The song is also featured in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!, in which it is sung principally by Nicole Kidman in the role of Satine, the star performer of the famous Moulin Rouge nightclub in Paris, at the turn of the 20th century. This film version is technically a musical adaptation that director Baz Luhrmann titled "Sparkling Diamonds". Although it consists almost entirely of an adaptation of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", this version differs from the lyrics in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in several ways. For example, it does not include the name Harry Winston in the chant of famous jewelers; rather, Moulin Rouge founder Charles Zidler's name was changed to Harold in the film, so his name replaces Winston's in the song as "Harry Zidler". Black Starr & Frost-Gorham was known by that name only after 1925, but instead of using their 1875-1925 name of "Black, Starr & Frost", the Luhrmann film's makers substituted nonsense words. And the potentially anachronistic line "help you at the Automat" was altered in the Luhrmann film to "help you feed your pussycat." Additionally, a lyrical snippet from Madonna's song "Material Girl" was worked into this adaptation of the song.

Other notable versions