Marilyn
Monroe
American actress
original name Norma Jean Mortenson, also called Norma Jean Baker
born June 1, 1926, Los
Angeles, Calif., U.S.
died Aug. 5, 1962, Los Angeles
American actress who
became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially
successful motion pictures during the 1950s.
Norma Jean Mortenson later took her mother’s name, Baker. Her mother was
frequently confined in an asylum, and Norma Jean was reared by 12
successive sets of foster parents and, for a time, in an orphanage. In
1942 she married a fellow worker in an aircraft factory, but they
divorced soon after World War II. She became a popular photographer’s
model and in 1946 signed a short-term contract with Twentieth Century
Fox, taking as her screen name Marilyn Monroe. After a few brief
appearances in movies made by the Fox and Columbia studios, she was
again unemployed, and she returned to modeling for photographers. Her
nude photograph on a calendar brought her a role in the film Scudda-Hoo!
Scudda-Hay! (1948), which was followed by other minor roles.
In 1950 Monroe played a
small uncredited role in The Asphalt Jungle that reaped a mountain of
fan mail. An appearance in All About Eve (1950) won her another contract
from Fox and much recognition. In a succession of movies, including
Let’s Make It Legal (1951), Love Nest (1951), Clash by Night (1952), and
Niagara (1953), she advanced to star billing on the strength of her
studio-fostered image as a “love goddess.” With performances in
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), and
There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), her fame grew steadily
and spread throughout the world, and she became the object of
unprecedented popular adulation. In 1954 she married baseball star Joe
DiMaggio, and the attendant publicity was enormous. With the end of
their marriage less than a year later she began to grow discontented
with her career.
Monroe studied with Lee
Strasberg at the Actors’ Studio in New York City, and in The Seven-Year
Itch (1955) and Bus Stop (1956) she began to emerge as a talented
comedienne. In 1956 she married playwright Arthur Miller and briefly
retired from moviemaking, although she costarred with Sir Laurence
Olivier in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). She won critical acclaim
for the first time as a serious actress for Some Like It Hot (1959). Her
last role, in The Misfits (1961), was written by Miller, whom she had
divorced the year before. After several months as a virtual recluse,
Monroe died in her Los Angeles home in 1962, having taken an overdose of
sleeping pills.
In their first runs,
Monroe’s 23 movies grossed a total of more than $200 million, and her
fame surpassed that of any other entertainer of her time. Her early
image as a dumb and seductive blonde gave way in later years to the
tragic figure of a sensitive and insecure woman unable to escape the
pressures of Hollywood. Her vulnerability and sensuousness combined with
her needless death eventually raised her to the status of an American
cultural icon.
