'HOT,' INDEED Monroe, it seemed, was born to play ''Some Like It'''s wide-eyed sexpot

Some Like it Hot: Everett Collection

Marilyn Monroe

She drove everyone nuts. She arrived late on set, flubbed her lines, and deferred to her acting coach, Paula Strasberg, over director Billy Wilder. But she was Marilyn Monroe. And she was worth it. Though Wilder didn't have Monroe in mind at first (he assumed the part was too small for such a megastar), Sugar Kane, the ukulele-strumming, bourbon-swigging sexpot, is nothing if not pure Marilyn. Her wide-eyed, blissful sensuality is the perfect counterpart to Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon's drag show and confirmed what many already knew from 1955's ''The Seven Year Itch'': that Monroe was a gifted comedian who sparkled more vibrantly than all of Sugar's sequined dresses stitched together. When she breathily boop-boop-be-doops in the middle of ''I Wanna Be Loved by You,'' you have to wonder what fool wouldn't wanna be loved by her.