Poor man's Marilyn (for example)

Posted by Masakim on March 01, 2003

In Reply to: Poor man's Marilyn (for example) posted by michael wade wicks on March 01, 2003

: I have heard a lot the expression like "Jayne Mansfield was a 'poor man's' Marilyn Monroe. I was wondering where this expression started.

poor man's [something or someone], (the or a)
A less famous, less expensive, smaller or less satisfactory version of something or someone. The term does not necessarily imply inferiority, though it often does.
1924: "Another nickname for the town [St. Petersburg, Fla.] is the Poor Man's Palm Beach." R. Lardner in _The American Twenties_, 40f.
1958: "Burton, 'Poor Man's Olivier,' To Portray Heathcliff on TV [headline]. Like Sir Laurence, Burton has successfully portrayed such characters as Hamlet, Henry V, and Toby Belch. On Friday, May 9, he reaches another Olivier plateau when he plays the fierce but romantic Heathcliff in the Dupont 'Show of the Month' version of `Wuthering Heights' on CBS-TV." _The Morning Telegraph_, Apr. 30, 4.
From _Dictionary of American Slang_ by Wentworth & Flexner
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I was fed entirely upon bread and milk, and whitepot, pronounced _whitpot_. This last was strictly a Rhode-Island dish, and sometimes called the "poor man's custard." (G.G. Channing, _Early Recollections of Newport_, 1868)