Actress Marilyn Monroe was born as Norma Jeane Mortenson on
June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, California. During her all-too-brief life,
Marilyn Monroe overcame a difficult childhood to become of the world's
biggest and most enduring sex symbols. During her career, Monroe's films
grossed more than $200 million. Monroe died of a drug overdose on
August 5, 1962, at only 36 years old.
Norma Jean Baker endured a fatherless childhood of sexual
abuse and poverty and was put in a string of orphanages and foster homes
after mother Gladys Baker (nee Monroe), who suffered mental illness,
was institutionalised.
She was
born on 1 June 1926 in the Los Angeles County Hospital, the third child
of Gladys Baker. She lived with a number of foster parents, as her
mother was mentally unstable, until her mum's best friend Grace Mckee
became her guardian.
Mckee was inspired by Jean Harlow and
allowed the nine-year-old Norma to wear makeup and curl her hair until
McKee married and sent Norma to an orphanage.
She was then sent
to live with her great aunt Olive Brunings and it is thought that Norma
was sexually assaulted by Olive's son, which some biographers have
claimed led to her later behaviour, including substance abuse.
At
16, she escaped her old life by marrying a 21-year-old aircraft plant
worker, Jim Dougherty, who she divorced four years later. By this time
she had begun modelling bathing suits and, after bleaching her hair
blonde, posed for pin-ups and glamour photos.
Howard Hughes tried
to get her a screen test but was beaten to the punch by 20th
Century-Fox, who signed her to a contract - at $125 per week for six
months - and changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.
After appearing
in small parts in films including 'Love Happy' and 'All About Eve',
Monroe found fame in 1953 with 'Niagara', 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' and
'How To Marry a Millionaire'. That same year, she began dating baseball
player Jo DiMaggio, and a nude spread of her appeared in the debut
issue of Playboy magazine. Monroe had hit stardom.The nude spread caused
a scandal with her studio so she agreed to admit she had posed for the
photo as she was struggling to pay her rent. The resulting publicity
created some sympathy for the struggling actress.
In 1954, she
eloped with DiMaggio - a union which was only to last eight months -
before filming 'There's No Business Like Show Business' and 'The
Seven-Year Itch', with the classic scene in which she stood over a
subway grating, skirt billowing. She applied for divorce from DiMaggio
on the grounds of mental cruelty. Despite this, he secured her release
from the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Mental Clinic in 1961.
Monroe's
work began to slow down but, after undergoing psychoanalysis, critics
praised her acting in 1956 film 'Bus Stop'. She married playwright
Arthur Miller the same year, divorcing him four years on. In the
meantime, she fell prey to alcohol and pills, and suffered two
miscarriages.
After a year off in 1958, Marilyn returned to the
silver screen for smash comedy, 'Some Like It Hot'. In 1960, she
appeared in 'Let's Make Love', with Yves Montand, with whom she had an
affair.
'The Misfits', written by husband Miller, was to be her
final film. Work was interrupted by exhaustion, and she was then fired
from 'Something's Got to Give' for not turning up for filming.
On
19 May 1962, the actress attended the early birthday celebration of
John F Kennedy at Madison Square Gardens and sang 'Happy Birthday Mr
President' in a now iconic manner.
She went into seclusion and on
5 August 1962, she was found dead at her home of an overdose of
sleeping pills, aged 36. The verdict was suicide but has always been
disputed, with countless conspiracy theories triggered by alleged
affairs with brothers John F and Robert Kennedy.
Monroe has been portrayed by a number of actresses over the years, with the latest being Michelle Williams.
Williams
will be playing Monroe in the BBC TV film 'My week with Marilyn' this
year (2011), which portrays the seven days Monroe spent in England in
1957 filming 'The Prince and the Showgirl' with Laurence Olivier.
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