My aunt uttered the weirdest rumor I believe I have heard in a while, she proclaimed that Marilyn Monroe had six (not five like most people) toes. Could there be any truth to the fact that America’s sexiest icon, who was wanted and idealized by so many have a major birth defect? Or is this just a sick rumor started to make us feel better about ourselves. What other famous icons had serious irregularities?
Erm, I wouldn’t exactly call polydactyly a ‘major birth defect’. In fact, it occurs in roughly one out of every one thousand births, and has absolutely no negative impact on the lives of those ‘afflicted’.
Athough I doubt being refered to as a ‘biological freak’ is terribly pleasant.
The Snopes article doesn’t believe the claim that Marilyn had six toes on one foot, because the surgery to remove the toe would take time to heal, would affect her balance, etc. And the expense of removing the toe would be too much for her, since it would be a not-insigificant surgery, etc.
Well, I am assuming that Marilyn didn’t have the extra toe, but Snopes is wrong on at least one point. Not all six-toed people have the extra toe actually attached to the foot with a bone. I know this, because I work with someone (who is mentally retarded) who has six toes on each foot. I don’t know why her family didn’t get the toes removed, because I can tell that they would not be hard to remove. Each of them are really just tags of skin (with maybe a bit of bone in there somewhere) with a toenail attached. They are not attached to the rest of the foot by a bone. They are basically just a flap of skin. I don’t think removing such toes would be a big issure. It probably wouldn’t take too long to heal (would need a few stiches, easily covered with a band-aid) and it certainly would not affect balance, since the toes are useless and don’t help in walking.
I think there is (possibly, maybe) a (very slim) chance that if Marilyn had this kind of extra toe, that she could have had it “taken care of” without too many people being aware of it.
Snopes annoys me sometimes with its excessively cynical attitude, something like, “somebody e-mailed that to you so it must be a tall tale”.
Looking at sailor’s link, it seems to me that Marilyn’s right foot (sole facing the camera) is a little malformed. Doesn’t it look like the little toe has a lot of space surrounding it, and the outer edge of the foot, toward the toes, is splayed out a bit more than usual? I’ve seen someone who had a sixth little toe removed, and their foot looked similar to this.
When I was in grade school my best friend’s mother had six fingers on one hand, but one of them was a tiny pinky that just hung off the side of her ‘real’ pinky. I imagine it could have been removed pretty simply, without major scarring.
