Best Known As: Hollywood's most famous blonde sex symbol
Name at birth: Norma Jeane Mortenson
Marilyn Monroe's sex appeal, talent and untimely death combined to make her an enduring star and one of Hollywood's most recognizable icons. Early in her film career she starred as a dumb blonde in movies like How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Her va-va-voom beauty made her an international celebrity, and she won acclaim as a talented actress in the films Bus Stop (1956) and Some Like It Hot (1959, with Jack Lemmon). Her personal life was famously untidy; her husbands included baseball star Joe DiMaggio (1954) and playwright Arthur Miller (1956-61). Her last film was Miller's drama The Misfits (1961, co-starring Clark Gable). She was found dead in 1962 of an overdose of sleeping pills, and her death was officially ruled a probable suicide.
Monroe was married three times in all: to Jimmy Dougherty (1942-1946), whom she married when she was 16; to Joe DiMaggio (1954), and to Arthur Miller (1956-1961)... Elton John's memorial tribute to Lady Di, "Candle in the Wind", was originally written for Marilyn... According to the official site of her estate, though the name on her birth certificate was Norma Jean Mortenson, she was later baptized as Norma Jeane Baker.
Although film actress and Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe has been the subject of a large number of albums, she rarely stepped into a recording studio to make a commercial recording and only appeared in five real movie musicals (with a few other musical performances in her straight films), making for a total record and soundtrack output of less than three dozen titles that are recycled endlessly along with bits of movie dialogue and radio and TV appearances on the frequent reissues. Nevertheless, she had a good voice that matched her seductive visual appeal, and her limited catalog includes effective interpretations of the work of such songwriters as Harold Adamson and Hoagy Carmichael; Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer; Irving Berlin; Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen; Cole Porter; and Leo Robin and Jule Styne.
Monroe was the illegitimate daughter of Edward Mortenson (who abandoned her mother before her birth and died in a motorcycle accident when she was three years old) and Gladys Pearl (Monroe) Baker, a film cutter. Her mother was mentally unstable and was institutionalized when the child was five, leaving her to a succession of orphanages and foster homes. At 16 in 1942, she married Jim Dougherty, an aircraft plant worker who soon enlisted in the merchant marine as his participation in World War II. Left alone, she joined the war effort by taking a job as a paint sprayer at the Radio Plane Company. There she was spotted by a photographer on assignment for Yank magazine to take pictures of women in the defense industry, and the resulting photographs led her to a career in modeling; she divorced her husband in 1946. The same year, she was signed to a one-year contract at 20th Century Fox, where she changed her name and took acting, singing, and dancing lessons. Monroe was given tiny parts in a couple of Fox films, then dropped. Columbia Pictures signed her in March 1948 and gave her her first important role in a B-picture, the musical Ladies of the Chorus (1949), in which she had two featured songs, "Anyone Can See" and "Ev'ry Baby Needs a Da-Da-Daddy," both written by Allan Roberts and Lester Lee. She was then dropped by Columbia and, in financial straits, accepted an offer to pose nude for a calendar; she was paid 50 dollars. She got small parts in films on a freelance basis in 1949 and 1950, including Love Happy, the last Marx Brothers movie, and the acclaimed dramas The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve. In 1951, she returned to Fox with a seven-year contract and appeared in supporting roles in nine films over the next two years.
She was finally given a substantial part in the thriller Niagra, released in January 1953, and she also got to sing a song in the film, Lionel Newman and Haven Gillespie's "Kiss." In the summer of 1953, Monroe co-starred with Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a movie adaptation of the Broadway musical with songs by Jule Styne and Leo Robin. She made a strong impression, singing "A Little Girl From Little Rock," "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," and "Bye Bye Baby" from the original show score as well as "When Love Goes Wrong (Nothin' Goes Right)," written by Hoagy Carmichael and Harold Adamson for the film. She proved herself up to the vocal demands for the most part, though Marni Nixon, Hollywood's most prominent ghost singer, dubbed in some notes for her. MGM Records released a 10" LP soundtrack album.
With the release of the comedy How to Marry a Millionaire in November and the December publication of the inaugural issue of Playboy magazine, which contained her 1949 nude photographs, only adding to her celebrity, Monroe became a major star in 1953. She capped her fame by wedding retired baseball player Joe DiMaggio on January 14, 1954, though the marriage lasted less than a year, ending in divorce on October 27. Monroe's ascent to stardom led to a recording contract with RCA Victor Records. Her next film was the Western drama River of No Return, released in April 1954, but she managed to sing four songs in it, "One Silver Dollar," "I'm Gonna File My Claim," "Down in the Meadow," and the title song, all written by Lionel Newman and Ken Darby. Her studio recording of "River of No Return" for RCA briefly appeared in the singles charts in July. In December, she had a co-starring role in There's No Business Like Show Business, a major movie musical starring Ethel Merman and Dan Dailey and also featuring Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, and Johnnie Ray. The movie was an anthology film of the music of Irving Berlin, and Monroe sang the newly written "A Man Chases a Girl" with O'Connor as well as the vintage Berlin songs "You'd Be Surprised," "After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want It," "Lazy," and "Heat Wave." Decca Records released a 10" soundtrack LP from the film, but Monroe's contract with RCA precluded her participation in it; her parts were replaced by Dolores Gray, and RCA released its own EP of Monroe singing her songs from the film.
Monroe worked less frequently after 1954, attempting to take greater control of her career. After the spring 1955 release of the comedy The Seven Year Itch (in which she played "Chopsticks" on the piano with co-star Tom Ewell), she didn't work for a year. In the interim, she married playwright Arthur Miller on June 29, 1956. She gave one of her strongest performances in Bus Stop, released in the summer of 1956, in which she played a saloon singer who performed a sultry version of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer's 1942 song "That Old Black Magic." The Prince and the Showgirl, released in the spring of 1957, gave her the opportunity to sing Richard Addinsell and Christopher Hassall's "I Found a Dream." Another lengthy layoff ensued before Monroe returned to outright musical comedy with Paramount's Some Like It Hot in 1959. The film's 1929 setting and Monroe's casting as band singer Sugar Kane gave her three musical numbers, all period songs: A. Harrington Gibbs, Joe Grey, and Leo Wood's 1922 tune "Runnin' Wild!"; Harry Ruby, Herbert Stothart, and Bert Kalmar's 1928 standard "I Wanna Be Loved by You"; and Matt Malneck, Fud Livingston, and Gus Kahn's slightly anachronistic 1931 hit "I'm Through With Love." United Artists Records released a soundtrack album and even issued a Monroe single of "I Wanna Be Loved by You"/"I'm Through with Love." Monroe returned to Fox for Let's Make Love, released in the summer of 1960. She played an off-Broadway actress wooed by a billionaire played by Yves Montand in her final movie musical, and got to sing a trio of Sammy Cahn-James Van Heusen songs, "Let's Make Love," "Specialization," and "Incurably Romantic," in addition to a revival of Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." Columbia Records released the soundtrack album. Monroe next filmed The Misfits, a drama written by her husband, but she and Miller divorced in January 1961 shortly before the movie was released.
Her next and last musical appearance occurred in May 1962, when she led the audience at Madison Square Garden in a rendition of "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy. She had flown in from Los Angeles where she was shooting Something's Got to Give with Dean Martin, and it was absences like that which led Fox to fire her from the picture. On August 5, 1962, she was found dead of an overdose of barbiturates that may have been either an accident or suicide.
In the fall of 1962, 20th Fox Records released Marilyn, an album of soundtrack recordings from her films There's No Business Like Show Business, River of No Return, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It spent more than two months in the charts. The album was reissued in 1972 in a TV offer under the title Remember Marilyn. Around the same time, the Legends label released an album called Marilyn Monroe that included everything from film excerpts to a television commercial and Monroe's performance of "Happy Birthday." The album was reissued by Sandy Hook Records under the title Rare Recordings 1948-1962 in the 1980s. Starting in the 1990s, many small labels, especially overseas, released CDs that repackaged the same material. Monroe's fame has only increased since her death, making such albums popular despite their repetitiousness and often inferior quality. In 1998, Varese Sarabande released a version of the soundtrack of There's No Business Like Show Business including Monroe's performances for the first time; the same year, Rykodisc reissued an expanded version of the soundtrack to Some Like It Hot. Marilyn Monroe's singing constitutes a limited but significant part of her overall appeal as a performer. Especially because there is a tendency to focus on her fame and her troubled life over her actual work, it is worth listening to as an example of the real talent she brought to her performances. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Career Highlights: Some Like It Hot, Bus Stop, The Seven Year Itch
First Major Screen Credit: The Fireball (1950)
Biography
The most endlessly talked-about and mythologized figure in Hollywood history, Marilyn Monroe remains the ultimate superstar, her rise and fall the stuff that both dreams and nightmares are made of. Innocent, vulnerable, and impossibly alluring, she defined the very essence of screen sexuality. Rising from pin-up girl to international superstar, she was a gifted comedienne whom the camera adored, a luminous and incomparably magnetic screen presence. In short, she had it all, yet her career and life came crashing to a tragic halt, a Cinderella story gone horribly wrong; dead before her time -- her fragile beauty trapped in amber, impervious to the ravages of age -- Monroe endures as the movies' greatest and most beloved icon, a legend eclipsing all others.
Born Norma Jean Mortensen (later Baker) on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, she was seemingly destined for a life of tragedy: Her mother spent the majority of her life institutionalized, she was raised in an endless succession of orphanages and foster homes, and she was raped at the age of eight. By 1942, she was married to one Jim Dougherty, subsequently dropping out of school to work in an aircraft production plant; within a year she attempted suicide. When Dougherty entered the military, Baker bleached her hair and began modeling. By 1946, the year of the couple's divorce, she was accredited to a top agency, and her image regularly appeared in national publications. Her photos piqued the interest of the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, who scheduled her for a screen test at RKO; however, 20th Century Fox beat him to the punch, and soon she was on their payroll at 125 dollars a week.
Rechristened Marilyn Monroe, she began studying at the Actors' Lab in Hollywood; however, when virtually nothing but a bit role in the juvenile delinquent picture The Dangerous Years came of her Fox contract, she signed to Columbia in 1948, where she was tutored by drama coach Natasha Lytess. There she starred in Ladies of the Chorus before they too dropped her. After briefly appearing in the 1949 Marx Brothers comedy Love Happy, she earned her first real recognition for her turn as a crooked lawyer's mistress in the 1950 John Huston thriller The Asphalt Jungle. Good notices helped Monroe win a small role in the classic All About Eve, but she otherwise continued to languish relatively unnoticed in bit parts. While she was now back in the Fox stable, studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck failed to recognize her potential, and simply mandated that she appear in any picture in need of a sexy, dumb blonde.
In 1952, RKO borrowed Monroe for a lead role in the Barbara Stanwyck picture Clash by Night. The performance brought her significant exposure, which was followed by the publication of a series of nude photos she had posed for two years prior. The resulting scandal made her a celebrity, and seemingly overnight she was the talk of Hollywood. Zanuck quickly cast her as a psychotic babysitter in a quickie project titled Don't Bother to Knock, and after a series of minor roles in other similarly ill-suited vehicles, Monroe starred in 1953's Niagara, which took full advantage of her sexuality to portray her as a sultry femme fatale. However, lighter, more comedic fare was Monroe's strong suit, as evidenced by her breakout performance in the Howard Hawks musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Like its follow-up How to Marry a Millionaire (just the second film shot in the new CinemaScope process), the picture was among the year's top-grossing ventures, and her newfound stardom was cemented.
After starring in the 1954 Western River of No Return, Monroe continued to make headlines by marrying New York Yankees baseball great Joe DiMaggio. She also made a much-publicized appearance singing for American troops in Korea, and -- in a telling sign of things to come -- created a flap by failing to show up on the set of the movie The Girl in Pink Tights. As far back as 1952, Monroe had earned a reputation for her late on-set arrivals, but The Girl in Pink Tights was the first project she boycotted outright on the weakness of the material. The studio suspended her, and only after agreeing to instead star in the musical There's No Business Like Show Business did she return to work. After starring in the 1955 Billy Wilder comedy The Seven Year Itch, Monroe again caused a stir, this time for refusing the lead in How to Be Very, Very Popular. In response, she fled to New York to study under Lee Strasburg at the Actors' Studio in an attempt to forever rid herself of the dumb blonde stereotype.
In New York, Monroe met playwright Arthur Miller, whom she wed following the disintegration of her marriage to DiMaggio. In the meantime, her relationship with Fox executives continued to sour, but after pressure from stockholders -- and in light of her own financial difficulties -- she was signed to a new, non-exclusive seven-year deal which not only bumped her salary to 100,000 dollars per film, but also allowed her approval of directors. For her first film under the new contract, Monroe delivered her most accomplished performance to date in Joshua Logan's 1956 adaptation of the William Inge Broadway hit Bus Stop. She then starred opposite Laurence Olivier in 1957's The Prince and the Showgirl. Two years later, she co-starred in Wilder's classic Some Like It Hot, her most popular film yet. However, despite her success, Monroe's life was in disarray -- her marriage to Miller was crumbling, and her long-standing reliance on alcohol and drugs continued to grow more and more serious.
After starring in George Cukor's Let's Make Love with Yves Montand, Monroe began work on the Miller-penned The Misfits; the film was her final completed project, as she frequently clashed with director John Huston and co-stars Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift, often failed to appear on-set, and was hospitalized several times for depression. In light of her erratic behavior on the set of the follow-up, the ironically titled Something's Got to Give, she was fired 32 days into production and slapped with a lawsuit. Just two months later, on August 5, 1962, Monroe was dead. The official cause was an overdose of barbiturates, although the truth will likely never be revealed. Her alleged affairs with President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert, have been the focus of much speculation regarding the events leading to her demise, but many decades later fact and fantasy are virtually impossible to separate. In death, as in life, the legend of Marilyn Monroe continues to grow beyond all expectation. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
The film actress Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) epitomized the Hollywood sex symbol with her provocative clothes, champagne blond tresses, and breathless, whisper-voiced manner of speaking.
Norma Jean Baker, better known as Marilyn Monroe, experienced a disrupted, loveless childhood that included two years at an orphanage. When Norma Jean, born on June 1, 1926, was seven years old her mother, Gladys (Monroe) Baker Mortenson, was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and hospitalized. Norma was left to a series of foster homes and the Los Angeles Orphans' Home Society. She opted for an early marriage on June 19, 1942, and her husband, James Dougherty, joined the U.S. Merchant Marine in 1943.
During the war years Norma Jean worked at the Radio Plane Company in Van Nuys, California, but she was soon discovered by photographers. She enrolled in a 3-month modelling course, and in 1946, aware of her considerable charm and the potential it had for a career in films, Norma obtained a divorce. She headed for Hollywood, where Ben Lyon, head of casting at Twentieth Century Fox, arranged a screen test. On August 26, 1946, she signed a $125 a week, one-year contract with the studio. Ben Lyon was the one who suggested a new name for the fledgling actress - Marilyn Monroe.
During her first year at Fox Monroe did not appear in any films, and her contract was not renewed. In the spring of 1948 Columbia Pictures hired her for a small part in Ladies of the Chorus. In 1950 John Huston cast her in Asphalt Jungle, a tiny part which landed her a role in All About Eve. She was now given a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century Fox and appeared in The Fireball, Let's Make It Legal, Love Nest, and As Young as You Feel.
In 1952, after an extensive publicity campaign, Monroe appeared in Don't Bother to Knock, Full House, Clash by Night, We're Not Married, Niagara, and Monkey Business. After this the magazine Photoplay termed her the "most promising actress," and she was earning top dollars for Twentieth Century Fox.
On January 14, 1954, she married Yankee baseball player Joe Di Maggio. But the pressures created by her billing as a screen sex symbol caused the marriage to founder, and the couple divorced on October 27, 1954.
Continually cast as a dumb blond, Monroe made Seven Year Itch in 1954. Growing weary of the stereotyping, she broke her contract with Fox and moved to New York City. There she studied at the Actors Studio with Lee and Paula Strasberg. Gloria Steinem recalls a conversation with Monroe during that time in which Monroe referred to her own opinion of her abilities compared to a group of notables at the Actors Studio. "I admire all these people so much. I'm just not good enough."
In 1955 she formed her own studio, Marilyn Monroe Productions, and re-negotiated a contract with Twentieth Century Fox. She appeared in Bus Stop in 1956 and married playwright Arthur Miller on July 1, 1956.
Critics described Monroe in the film The Prince and the Showgirl, produced by her own company, as "a sparkling light comedienne." Monroe won the Italian David di Donatello award for "best foreign actress of 1958," and in 1959 she appeared in Some Like It Hot. In 1961 she starred in The Misfits, for which Arthur Miller did the screenplay.
The couple was divorced on January 24, 1961, and later that year Monroe entered a New York psychiatric clinic. After her brief hospitalization there she returned to the Fox studio to work on a film, but her erratic behavior betrayed severe emotional disturbance, and the studio discharged her in June 1962.
Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles bungalow on August 5, 1962, an empty bottle of sleeping pills by her side.
Further Reading
As a subject of biographies and Hollywood exposé, Marilyn Monroe had no equal. More than 20 books have been written on her brief life. Some, like Norma Jean (1969) by Fred Lawrence Guiles, Edwin P. Hoyt's Marilyn: The Tragic Venus (1965, 1973), or Robert F. Slatzer's The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe (1974), investigate her life in detail. Others are memoirs: Marilyn Monroe: Confidential (1979) by Lena Pepitone and William Stadiem is one such volume. Norman Mailer's Marilyn (1973) includes photographs, and The Films of Marilyn Monroe (1964) by Michael Conway and Mark Ricci details her many movies and shows stills as well as review excerpts. A careful overall biography is Goddess (1985) by Anthony Summers. Gloria Steinem's Marilyn (1986) is an insightful account of a tragic life.
(click to enlarge) Marilyn Monroe. (credit: Brown Brothers)
(born June 1, 1926, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S. — died Aug. 5, 1962, Los Angeles) U.S. film actress. She endured a loveless childhood and a brief teenage marriage. After working as a photographer's model, she made her screen debut in 1948 and won bit parts in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and All About Eve (1950). She achieved stardom as a blonde sex symbol in the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), and The Seven Year Itch (1955). After studying at the Actors Studio, she starred in more-ambitious films, including Bus Stop (1956), Some Like It Hot (1959), and The Misfits (1961). Her private life, which included marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, was widely publicized. She died at age 36 of an apparently self-administered barbiturate overdose. Her vulnerability and sensuousness combined with her death raised her to the status of an American cultural icon.
Monroe, Marilyn (Norma Jean Mortenson; or Baker Monroe 1926-62), American actress and glamour legend. After a troubled childhood and early first marriage, she worked as a model and Hollywood bit player before starring in a thriller, Don't Bother to Knock, in 1952. The discovery of nude calendar photographs of her (taken by Tom Kelley (b. 1914) ) attracted huge publicity and boosted her appeal; some of them appeared in the first number of Playboy in November 1953. Her best films included Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and Billy Wilder's Prohibition-era farce Some Like It Hot (1959); her last was The Misfits (1961), written by her third husband, Arthur Miller. In retrospect, her often dysfunctional, convention-negating roles seem as subversive as those of her fellow 1950s stars James Dean and Marlon Brando.
But Monroe's supreme asset was her voluptuousness and aura of guilt-free sexuality, as bewitching in still photographs as on the big screen; Norman Mailer described her as ‘a Stradivarius of sex’. Early cover appearances included Yank magazine (26 June 1945) and Life (7 Apr. 1952, by Philippe Halsmann). A New York publicity shot for The Seven Year Itch (1954), catching her skirt billowing over a subway ventilator, became a 1950s icon. Though notoriously difficult with film directors, she enjoyed being photographed, whether by GIs in Korea or by top professionals. Richard Avedon said, ‘She was more comfortable in front of the camera than away from it.’ Eve Arnold, who photographed her making The Misfits, recalled, ‘She knew she was superb at creating still photographs, and she loved doing it.’ Others who photographed her included André de Dienes (1913-85), Milton H. Greene (1922-85), who took over 4, 000 pictures of her, Beaton, Cartier-Bresson, and Eisenstaedt. The last was Bert Stern in July 1962, shortly before her death. Monroe photographs were also appropriated by artists from Warhol in the 1960s to the Chinese Dai Guangyu in the 1990s. With Dean, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Diana, princess of Wales, she was a global icon of the later 20th century, and perhaps the most photogenic.
— Robin Lenman
Bibliography
Stern, B., The Last Sitting (1982).
Dienes, A. de, Marilyn Mon Amour (1986).
Dyer, R., Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (1986)
(1926-1962), movie star. Born Norma Jean(e) Mortenson in Los Angeles, Monroe was the daughter of Gladys Baker, an unmarried movie technician. Her mother's mental instability resulted in a childhood marred by foster homes, neglect, and abuse. At sixteen she married James E. Dougherty, a defense worker. During World War II an army photographer took pin-up pictures of her, which attracted the attention of other photographers. She was signed by a modeling agency and bleached her light brown hair. In 1946 she divorced Dougherty.
The same year 20th Century-Fox signed her to a contract, and she became Marilyn Monroe. Her first bit part in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948) wound up almost entirely on the cutting room floor. The studio dropped her as did Columbia for whom she played a lead in the Grade B movie Ladies of the Chorus (1948). Then, in need of money, she posed nude for a calendar that upon her ascent to stardom became famous. With the help of various older men she got a series of small roles, most notably in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) as a crooked lawyer's "niece" and in All about Eve (1950) as a "graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Art." Her rise was rapid, thanks to an intelligent, intensive publicity campaign orchestrated by Fox, which had signed her again and now recognized her box-office potential. She weathered revelations about the calendar and her mother's mental illness, and in 1952 appeared in her first starring role in the potboiler Don't Bother to Knock. It was followed by the equally ridiculous but equally successful Niagara (1953). Monroe had become a strong box-office attraction, and her breathless sexuality helped make hits of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and River of No Return (1954), among other films.
A nine-month marriage to the baseball star Joe DiMaggio failed in 1954. In rebellion against her stereotyped blond sex symbol roles, Monroe moved to New York City, announcing she wished to play more serious parts. The success of The Seven-Year Itch (1955) led Fox to meet many of her demands. In 1956 she received critical accolades for her performance in the film version of the Broadway hit Bus Stop, married the playwright Arthur Miller, and went to England to make a movie with Sir Laurence Olivier. It flopped, but Some Like It Hot (1959), which followed, was her most successful film.
The marriage to Miller foundered, but he wrote her last movie, The Misfits. They were divorced in 1960 just days before it premiered to an indifferent response. Always a difficult performer to direct (she was noted for her lateness and indecision), she was fired by Fox from her last movie. Monroe now became increasingly unstable. She had tried to take her life several times before, and on the night of August 4, 1962, she succeeded. It is not clear, however, whether she really meant to kill herself.
Monroe was a sex goddess who yearned to be more. Whatever her shortcomings as an actress, in most of her films she exuded a blatant yet attractive sexuality that set her apart from the other screen personalities of her time. Although intelligent, hardworking, and determined, she could not escape her own image. She was, as her friend director Lee Strasberg noted in his eulogy, "a legend in her own lifetime."
Bibliography:
Norman Mailer, Marilyn (1973); Randall Riese and Neal Hitchens, The Unabridged Marilyn: Her Life from A-Z (1987); Gloria Steinem, Marilyn (1986).
Marilyn Monroe was found dead of an overdose of sleeping pills on this date in 1962. Born Norma Jean Mortenson and baptized Norma Jean Baker, she changed her name in 1946. One of the world's most famous sex symbols, Marilyn longed to be admired for her acting skills. She was lauded for her more serious role in Bus Stop (1956), as well as for her comic performances in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), The Seven-Year Itch (1955), and Some Like it Hot (1959).
1926–62, American movie actress, b. Los Angeles as Norma Jean Baker. Raised in orphanages and first married at 14, Monroe became a world-famous sex symbol and, after her death, a Hollywood legend. She was noted for her distinctively breathy singing style and seductive film roles. At first patronized by critics, she studied acting and won more challenging roles. Her death from a barbituate overdose at age 36, a possible suicide, only increased her mystique. Her films include Niagara (1952), The Seven-Year Itch (1955), Bus Stop (1956), Some Like It Hot (1959), and The Misfits (1960). Monroe's second husband was Joe DiMaggio and her third was Arthur Miller.
Bibliography
See the controversial study by Norman Mailer (1973) and the play After the Fall (1963) by Arthur Miller; biographies by G. McCann (1988), M. Zolotow (rev. ed. 1990), C. E. Rollyson (1993), D. Spoto (1993), and B. Leaming (1998); study by S. Churchwell (2005).
A twentieth-century American actress who became the leading sex symbol of the 1950s. While still in her thirties, she died of an overdose of sleeping pills. Among her best-known films are The Seven-Year Itch, Bus Stop, and Some Like It Hot.
"Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experienced, but that's not where I live."
"A sex symbol becomes a thing. I hate being a thing."
"Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents."
"I don't want to make money. I just want to be wonderful."
"Unfortunately, I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle."
"I've been on a calendar, but I've never been on time."
Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962), was a Golden Globe award winning Americanactress, model and sex symbol. She was
known for her comedic skills and screen presence and became one of the most popular movie stars of the 1950s and early 1960s. At
the later stages of her career, she worked toward serious roles with a measure of success. However, she faced disappointments in
her career and personal life during her later years. Her death has been subject to speculation and conspiracy theories.
Childhood
Her mother
Marilyn Monroe was born under the name of Norma Jeane Mortenson[1] in the charity ward of the Los Angeles County
Hospital.[2][3] According to biographer Fred Lawrence Guiles, her grandmother, Della Monroe
Grainger, had her baptized Norma Jeane Baker by Aimee Semple McPherson.[2] She obtained an order from the City Court of the State
of New York and legally changed her name to Marilyn Monroe on February 23, 1956. [4]
Monroe's maternal grandparents were Otis Elmer Monroe and Della Mae Hogan. Her mother, Gladys Pearl Monroe, was born in
Porfirio Diaz, Mexico, now known as Piedras
Negras, on May 271902[5] where the family had gone, so Otis could work on the railroad. The family
returned to California where Gladys's brother Otis was born in 1905. Their father, suffering from syphilis that had invaded his brain, died in 1909 in Southern California State Hospital in San Bernardino County.[6] Gladys married Jasper Baker in May 1917 and had two children, Robert Kermit Baker (born
January 241918) and Berniece Baker (Miracle) (born July 301919). They were both born in Los Angeles.[7][8] After Gladys and Jasper
divorced, he took the children and moved to Kentucky, where he had been born, according to
Miracle's book My Sister Marilyn. Gladys moved there to be near her children but later returned to Los Angeles.
Her father
After Gladys returned to Los Angeles, she married Martin Edward Mortenson (1897-1981) on October
11, 1924. [9] They
divorced six months into their marriage, according to My Sister Marilyn. Martin's father, also named Martin, was born in
Haugesund, Norway, and had immigrated to the United States
about 1880 where he married Stella Higgins. Their son was born in Vallejo,
California. [10]
Many biographers, such as Donald H. Wolfe in The Last Days of Marilyn
Monroe, believe Norma Jeane's biological father was Charles Stanley Gifford, a salesman for RKO Pictures where Gladys worked as a film-cutter. Monroe's
birth certificate lists Gladys's second husband, Martin Edward Mortenson, as the
father. While Mortenson left Gladys before Norma Jeane's birth, some biographers think he may have been the father.[11] In an interview with Lifetime, James Dougherty, Monroe's first husband, said
Norma Jeane believed that Gifford was her father. Whoever the father was, he played no part in Monroe's life.
Foster parents
Unable to persuade Della to take Norma Jeane, Gladys placed her with foster parents
Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, California, where she lived until she was seven. In her autobiographyMy Story, Monroe states she thought Albert was a girl.
Gladys visited Norma Jeane every Saturday. One day, she announced that she had bought a house. A few months after they had
moved in, Gladys suffered a breakdown. In My Story, Monroe recalls her mother
"screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly removed to the State Hospital in Norwalk. According to My Sister Marilyn, Gladys's brother, Marion, hanged himself upon his release from an asylum, and Della's father did the same in a fit of depression.
Norma Jeane was declared a ward of state, and Gladys's best friend, Grace McKee (later
Goddard) became her guardian. After McKee married in 1935, Norma Jeane was sent to the
Los Angeles Orphans Home (later renamed Hollygrove), and then to a succession of foster
homes.
The Goddards were about to move to the east coast and could not take her. Grace approached the mother of James Dougherty about the possibility of her son marrying the girl. They married two weeks after she
turned 16, so that Norma Jeane would not have to return to an orphanage or foster care.
While her husband was in the Merchant Marine during World War II, Norma Jeane Dougherty moved in with her mother-in-law and started to work in the
Radioplane Company factory (owned by Hollywood actor Reginald Denny), spraying airplane parts with fire retardant and inspecting parachutes. Army photographer David Conover was scouting local
factories, taking photos for a YANK magazine article about women contributing to
the war effort. He saw her potential as a model, and she was soon signed by The Blue Book
modeling agency. In his book Finding Marilyn, Conover claimed the two had an
affair that lasted years. Shortly after signing with the agency, Monroe had her hair cut, straightened, and lightened to golden
blonde.
She became one of Blue Book's most successful models, appearing on dozens of magazine
covers. In 1946, she came to the attention of talent scout Ben Lyon. He arranged a screen
test for her with 20th Century Fox. She was offered a standard six-month
contract with a starting salary of $125 per week.[12]
Lyon suggested she adopt Marilyn (after Marilyn Miller) as her stage name, since Norma
Jeane was not considered commercial enough. For her last name, she took her mother's maiden name. Thus, the twenty-year-old Norma
Jeane Baker became Marilyn Monroe. During her first half year at Fox, Monroe was given no work, but Fox renewed her contract and
she was given minor appearances in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! and
Dangerous Years, both released in 1947. In Scudda Hoo!, her part was
edited out of the film except for a quick glimpse of her face when she speaks two words. Fox decided not to renew her contract
again. Monroe returned to modelling and began to network and make contacts in
Hollywood.
In 1948, in a six-month stint at Columbia Pictures, she starred in
Ladies of the Chorus, but the low-budget musical was not a success and
Monroe was dropped yet again. She then met one of Hollywood's top agents, Johnny Hyde, who
had Fox re-sign her after MGM turned her down. Fox Vice-President Darryl F. Zanuck was not convinced of Monroe's potential, but because of Hyde's persistence, she gained
supporting parts in Fox's All About Eve and MGM's The Asphalt Jungle. Even though the roles were small, movie-goers as well as critics took notice.
Hyde also arranged for her to have minor plastic surgery on her nose and chin, adding
that to earlier dental surgery.[13][14][15][16]
The next two years were filled with inconsequential roles in standard fare such as We're Not Married! and Love
Nest. However, RKO executives used her to boost
