Marilyn Monroe

Norma Jeane Mortenson—who will become better known around the world as the glamorous actress and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe—is born on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California. She was later given her mother’s name, and baptized Norma Jeane Baker. After a tumultuous childhood—both maternal grandparents and her mother were committed to mental institutions, and she lived with a string of foster families—Norma Jeane married one of her neighbors, James Dougherty, when she was 16. He later joined the Merchant Marines and was sent to the South Pacific during World War II. A photographer “discovered” the naturally photogenic Norma Jeane while she was working in a California munitions factory, and she was soon launched into a successful modeling career. She divorced Dougherty in June 1946 and soon after signed a film contract with 20th Century Fox.
At the outset of her acting career, Norma Jeane dyed her brown hair blonde and changed her name again, calling herself Marilyn Monroe (Monroe was her grandmother’s last name). After a bit part in 1947’s The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, she had a string of forgettable roles before landing a spot in John Huston’s thriller The Asphalt Jungle (1950). That same year, she also drew attention for her work in All About Eve, starring Bette Davis. Her true breakout performance, however, came in Niagara (1953), a thriller in which Monroe played an adulterous young wife who plots with her lover to kill her husband.
After starring turns in Gentleman Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire–both also released in 1953–Monroe was at the top of Hollywood’s A-list. In January 1954, she married baseball great Joe DiMaggio at San Francisco’s City Hall after a two-year romance. Though the press hailed their relationship as the quintessential All-American love affair, trouble began brewing almost immediately. DiMaggio was notoriously uncomfortable with his new wife’s sexy public image, and her wild popularity, as evidenced by the near-riot among U.S. servicemen stationed in Korea during a performance she gave in the middle of the couple’s honeymoon. They would divorce that October, after only nine months of marriage, but remained good friends. (After Monroe’s death, DiMaggio famously sent roses to her grave several times a week for more than three decades, until his own death in 1999.)
Monroe attempted to switch to more serious acting roles, studying at the prestigious Actors’ Studio in New York. She earned positive reviews for her more nuanced work in Bus Stop (1956), The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) and particularly Some Like It Hot (1959). By 1961, however, trouble in Monroe’s personal life—her third marriage, to the acclaimed playwright Arthur Miller, dissolved after four years—had led to her increasing emotional fragility, and that year she was admitted on two occasions to hospitals for psychiatric observation and rest. Her final film was The Misfits (1961), written by Miller and co-starring Montgomery Clift and Clark Gable (it would also be Gable’s final appearance on-screen). In June 1962, Fox dismissed the actress after repeated and extended absences from the set of Something’s Got to Give. On August 5, 1962, Monroe was found dead from an overdose of barbiturates in her home in Brentwood, California. She was 36 years old.
== Early Life and Education ==
Monroe was born on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California. Monroe was named Norma Jeane Mortenson at birth (later baptized as Norma Jeane Baker). Growing up, Monroe spent much of her time in foster care and in an orphanage.
In 1937, a family friend and her husband, Grace and Doc Goddard, took care of Monroe for a few years. The Goddards were paid $25 weekly by Monroe's mother to raise her. The couple was deeply religious and followed fundamentalist doctrines; among other prohibited activities, Monroe was not allowed to go to the movies. But when Doc's job was transferred to the East Coast, the couple could not afford to bring Monroe with them.
At seven years old, Monroe returned to a life in foster homes, where she endured sexual assault on several occasions; she later said that she had been raped when she was 11 years old. She dropped out of high school by age 15. Monroe had a way out through marriage, and she wed her boyfriend and merchant marine Jimmy Dougherty in 1942, at the age of 16.
Monroe never knew her father. She once thought Clark Gable to be her father — a story repeated often enough for a version of it to gain some currency. However, there's no evidence that Gable ever met or knew Monroe's mother, Gladys, who developed psychiatric problems and was eventually placed in a mental institution. As an adult, Monroe would maintain that one of her earliest memories was of her mother trying to smother her in her crib with a pillow. Monroe had a half-sister, to whom she was not close; they met only a half-dozen times.
== Career in Acting ==
Monroe dreamt of becoming an actress like Jean Harlow and Lana Turner. When her husband was sent to the South Pacific, she began working in a munitions factory in Van Nuys, California. It was there that she was first discovered by a photographer. By the time Dougherty returned in 1946, Monroe had a successful career as a model. That year, she signed her first movie contract. With the contract came a new name and image; she began calling herself "Marilyn Monroe" and dyed her hair blonde.
At first, Monroe wasn't initially considered to be star acting material. Her acting career didn't really take off until a few years later. With her breathy voice and hourglass figure, she would soon become one of Hollywood's most famous actresses. She proved her skill by winning various honors and attracting large audiences to her films. Monroe became a much-admired international star despite chronic insecurities regarding her acting abilities. She suffered from pre-performance anxiety that sometimes made her physically ill and was often the root cause of her legendary tardiness on film sets, which was so extreme that it often infuriated her co-stars and crew. "She would be the greatest if she ran like a watch," director Billy Wilder once said of her. "I have an aunt Minnie who's very punctual, but who would pay to see Aunt Minnie?"
Throughout her career, Monroe was signed and released from several contracts with film studios. In the mid-1950s Monroe grew tired of bubbly, dumb blonde roles and moved to New York City to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors' Studio. By the early 1960s, however, Monroe's professional and personal life seemed to be in turmoil following unsuccessful relationships. Her last two films, Let's Make Love (1960) and The Misfits (1961), were box office disappointments.
== Movies ==
During her career, Monroe's films grossed more than $200 million. Monroe's most notable films include:
=== The Asphalt Jungle' (1950) ===
Monroe's small part in John Huston's crime drama The Asphalt Jungle (1950) was her first movie to garner her a lot of attention.
=== All About Eve' (1950) ===
In 1950, Monroe impressed audiences and critics alike with her performance as Claudia Caswell in All About Eve, starring Bette Davis.
=== 'Niagara' (1953) ===
In 1953, Monroe delivered a star-making turn in Niagara, as a young married woman out to kill her husband with help from her lover. 
=== Gentleman Prefer Blondes' (1953) ===
The emerging sex symbol was paired with another bombshell, Jane Russell, for the hit musical comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. In the film, two showgirls travel to Paris and are pursued by a private detective, hired by the father of Monroe's fiancé, along with many other admirers.
=== How to Marry a Millionaire' (1954) ===
Monroe continued to find success in a string of light comedic fares, such as How to Marry a Millionaire, with Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall. The three women set out to find millionaires to marry in the film, but they find true love instead.
=== There's No Business Like Show Business' (1954) ===
In 1954, Monroe starred alongside Ethel Merman and Donald O'Connor in another romantic comedy, There's No Business Like Show Business, about a couple whose marriage starts to unravel when the husband (O'Connor) meets a hat-check girl (Monroe).
=== The Seven Year Itch' (1955) ===
Monroe again played the other woman in the 1955 film The Seven-Year Itch, about a faithful husband who's tempted to cheat when his family goes away for the summer.
=== Bus Stop' (1956) ===
Following her stint in New York at Strasberg's acting school, Monroe returned to the screen in the dramatic comedy Bus Stop (1956). She received mostly praise for her performance as a saloon singer kidnapped by a rancher who has fallen in love with her.
=== The Prince and the Showgirl' (1957) ===
In 1957, Monroe starred in The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier, who also directed and produced the film. She often didn't show up for filming and her erratic behavior on set created a tense relationship with her co-stars, the crew and Olivier.
The film received mixed reviews and was a box office hit in Britain, but not as popular in the United States. The troubled production was the backdrop for the 2011 film My Week with Marilyn, starring Michelle Williams as Monroe.
=== Some Like It Hot' (1959) ===
In 1959, Monroe returned to familiar territory with the wildly popular comedy Some Like It Hot, with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. She played Sugar Kane Kowalczyk, a singer who hopes to marry a millionaire in this humorous film, in which Lemmon and Curtis pretend to be women. The men, on the run from the mob after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, hide out with an all-girl orchestra featuring Monroe.
Monroe's work on the film earned her the honor of "Best Actress in a Comedy" at the 1959 Golden Globe Awards.
=== The Misfits' (1961) ===
The Misfits was Monroe's last completed film. Set in Nevada, this adventure drama reunited Monroe with Huston (The Asphalt Jungle); Monroe starred opposite Gable and Montgomery Clift. In the film, Monroe falls for Gable's cowboy but battles him over the fate of some wild mustangs.
=== Something's Got to Give' (1962) ===
In 1962, Monroe was dismissed from Something's Got to Give — co-starring Dean Martin — for missing so many days of filming. According to an article in The New York Times, the actress claimed that the absences were due to illness. Martin declined to make the film without her, so the studio shelved the picture.
== Spouses and Lovers ==
Monroe had three husbands in her lifetime: James Dougherty (1942-1946); Joe DiMaggio (1954) and Arthur Miller (1956-1961). She is also remembered for her romantic relationships with Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Yves Montand and director Elia Kazan.
On June 19, 1942, 16-year-old Monroe wed Dougherty, a 20-year-old merchant marine. Dougherty lived next door to a friend of Monroe's mother; he suggested he could marry Monroe so she wouldn't be sent to an orphanage or another foster home. When they wed, Monroe had just turned 16 and the couple had been dating for just a few months. After Monroe's career began to take off, she sought a quickie divorce in September 1946. “I never knew Marilyn Monroe, and I don’t claim to have any insights to her to this day. I knew and loved Norma Jean,” Dougherty later said.
In 1954, Monroe was married to baseball great DiMaggio for nine months. Following her death, DiMaggio famously had red roses delivered to her crypt for the next 20 years. Monroe's longest marriage was with playwright Miller. They first met in 1950 at a party and later began exchanging letters. They met again when Monroe moved to New York in 1955, and they began an affair while she was still married to DiMaggio. They married on June 29, 1956. Right away, the couple began having problems. Monroe experienced two miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy. After Miller and Monroe had begun working together on what would have been her last film, The Misfits, they divorced on January 20, 1961.
== Marilyn Monroe and JFK ==
There have also been rumors that Monroe was involved with President John F. Kennedy and/or his brother Robert Kennedy around the time of her death. On May 19, 1962, Monroe made her now-famous performance at John F. Kennedy's birthday celebration, singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President."Moments later, President Kennedy appeared on stage, saying, "I can now retire from politics after having had 'Happy Birthday' sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way."
== Death ==
Monroe died at her Los Angeles home on August 5, 1962, at only 36 years old. An empty bottle of sleeping pills was found by her bed. There has been some speculation over the years that she may have been murdered, but the cause of her death was officially ruled as a drug overdose. Monroe was buried in her favorite Emilio Pucci dress, in what was known as a "Cadillac casket"—the most high-end casket available, made of heavy-gauge solid bronze and lined with champagne-colored silk. Strasberg delivered a eulogy before a small group of friends and family. Hugh Hefner bought the crypt directly next to Monroe's. Monroe did not own a house until the last year of her life and had surprisingly few possessions. One that she prized was an autographed photo of Albert Einstein, which included an inscription: "To Marilyn, with respect and love and thanks."
== Legacy ==
According to The Guide to United States Popular Culture, "as an icon of American popular culture, Monroe's few rivals in popularity include Elvis Presley and Mickey Mouse... no other star has ever inspired such a wide range of emotions—from lust to pity, from envy to remorse." Art historian Gail Levin stated that Monroe may have been "the most photographed person of the 20th century", and The American Film Institute has named her the sixth greatest female screen legend in American film history. The Smithsonian Institution has included her on their list of "100 Most Significant Americans of All Time", and both Variety and VH1 have placed her in the top ten in their rankings of the greatest popular culture icons of the twentieth century. 
Hundreds of books have been written about Monroe. She has been the subject of numerous films, plays, operas, and songs, and has influenced artists and entertainers such as Andy Warhol and Madonna. She also remains a valuable brand: her image and name have been licensed for hundreds of products, and she has been featured in advertising for brands such as Max Factor, Chanel, Mercedes-Benz, and Absolut Vodka.
Monroe's enduring popularity is tied to her conflicted public image. On the one hand, she remains a sex symbol, beauty icon and one of the most famous stars of classical Hollywood cinema. On the other, she is also remembered for her troubled private life, unstable childhood, struggle for professional respect, as well as her death and the conspiracy theories that surrounded it. She has been written about by scholars and journalists who are interested in gender and feminism; these writers include Gloria Steinem, Jacqueline Rose, Molly Haskell, Sarah Churchwell, and Lois Banner. Some, such as Steinem, have viewed her as a victim of the studio system. Others, such as Haskell, Rose, and Churchwell, have instead stressed Monroe's proactive role in her career and her participation in the creation of her public persona.
Owing to the contrast between her stardom and troubled private life, Monroe is closely linked to broader discussions about modern phenomena such as mass media, fame, and consumer culture. According to academic Susanne Hamscha, Monroe has continued relevance to ongoing discussions about modern society, and she is "never completely situated in one time or place" but has become "a surface on which narratives of American culture can be (re-)constructed", and "functions as a cultural type that can be reproduced, transformed, translated into new contexts, and enacted by other people". Similarly, Banner has called Monroe the "eternal shapeshifter" who is re-created by "each generation, even each individual... to their own specifications".
Monroe remains a cultural icon, but critics are divided on her legacy as an actress. David Thomson called her body of work "insubstantial" and Pauline Kael wrote that she could not act, but rather "used her lack of an actress's skills to amuse the public. She had the wit or crassness or desperation to turn cheesecake into acting—and vice versa; she did what others had the 'good taste' not to do". In contrast, Peter Bradshaw wrote that Monroe was a talented comedian who "understood how comedy achieved its effects", and Roger Ebert wrote that "Monroe's eccentricities and neuroses on sets became notorious, but studios put up with her long after any other actress would have been blackballed because what they got back on the screen was magical". Similarly, Jonathan Rosenbaum stated that "she subtly subverted the sexist content of her material" and that "the difficulty some people have discerning Monroe's intelligence as an actress seems rooted in the ideology of a repressive era, when super feminine women weren't supposed to be smart".
Category:Actress
Category:Female
Category:Caucasian-American
Category:Model