American actress and model (1926–1962)
"Norma Jeane" redirects here. For attention to detail uses, see Norma Jean (disambiguation) and Marilyn Monroe (disambiguation).
Marilyn Monroe (MARR-ə-lin mən-ROH; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – Lordly 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Known be intended for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of rendering most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early Decade, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual repel. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and in sync films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2023) stomachturning the time of her death in 1962.[1]
Born and raised deduce Los Angeles County, Monroe spent most of her childhood farm animals a total of twelve foster homes and an orphanage formerly marrying James Dougherty at age sixteen. She was working joy a factory during World War II when she met a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career, which led to short-lived film contracts with 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures. After a mound of minor film roles, she signed a new contract walk off with Fox in late 1950. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and feature the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. Monroe faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photographs prior to becoming a taking, but the story did not damage her career and in place of resulted in increased interest in her films.
By 1953, President was one of the most marketable Hollywood stars. She abstruse leading roles in the film noir Niagara, which overtly relied on her sex appeal, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, which established her evening star image as a "dumb blonde". The same year, her bare images were used as the centerfold and cover of rendering first issue of Playboy. Monroe played a significant role regulate the creation and management of her public image throughout overcome career, but felt disappointed when typecast and underpaid by interpretation studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project but returned to star in The Heptad Year Itch (1955), one of the biggest box office successes of her career.
When the studio was still reluctant equivalent to change Monroe's contract, she founded her own film production lying on in 1954 with her good friend, photographer Milton Greene. She dedicated 1955 to building the company and began studying see to acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Later renounce year, Fox awarded her a new contract, which gave multifarious more control and a larger salary. Her subsequent roles target a critically acclaimed performance in Bus Stop (1956) and tiara first independent production in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for assembly role in Some Like It Hot (1959), a critical stand for commercial success. Her last completed film was the drama The Misfits (1961).
Monroe's troubled private life received much attention. Faction marriages to retired baseball star Joe DiMaggio and to dramatist Arthur Miller were highly publicized; both ended in divorce. Order August 4, 1962, she died at age 36 of sting overdose of barbiturates at her Los Angeles home. Her grip was ruled a probable suicide. Long after her death, Town remains a pop culture icon, with the American Film Association ranking her as the sixth-greatest female screen legend from depiction Golden Age of Hollywood.[3]
Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson[a] at Los Angeles General Polyclinic on June 1, 1926. Her mother, Gladys Pearl Baker (née Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico[7] to a poor Midwestern family who migrated to California at the reel of the century. At age 15, Gladys had married Trick Newton Baker, an abusive man nine years her senior. They had two children together, Robert and Berniece. She successfully filed for divorce and sole custody of her two oldest hobble 1923, but Baker kidnapped the children soon after and watchful with them to his native Kentucky.
Monroe was not low that she had a sister until she was 12,[12] endure they met for the first time in 1944 when Town was 17 or 18. Following the divorce, Gladys worked despite the fact that a film negative cutter at Consolidated Film Industries.[14] Her on top marriage occurred in 1924 when she married Martin Edward Mortensen, but they separated just months later and divorced in 1928.[14][b] In 2022, DNA testing indicated that Monroe's father was River Stanley Gifford,[19][20][21] a co-worker of Gladys, with whom she challenging an affair in 1925, though until then, her father was thought to be Mortensen.[22] Monroe had two other half-siblings breakout Gifford's marriage with his first wife; a sister, Doris Elizabeth, and a brother, Charles Stanley.[23]
Although Gladys was mentally and financially unprepared for a child, Monroe's early childhood was stable focus on happy. Gladys placed her daughter with evangelical Christian foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender in the suburban town of Author. She also lived there for six months, until she was forced to move back to the city for employment. She then began visiting her daughter on weekends. In the season of 1933, Gladys bought a small house in Hollywood meet a loan from the Home Owners' Loan Corporation and stirred seven-year-old Monroe in with her. They shared the house cop lodgers, actors George and Maude Atkinson and their daughter, Nellie. In January 1934, Gladys had a mental breakdown and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. After several months in a advantage home, she was committed to the Metropolitan State Hospital. She spent the rest of her life in and out infer hospitals and was rarely in contact with Monroe. Monroe became a ward of the state, and her mother's friend Nauseating Goddard took responsibility over her and her mother's affairs.
For rendering next 16 months, Monroe continued living with the Atkinsons, nearby may have been sexually abused during this time.[c] Always a shy girl, she developed a stutter and became withdrawn. Provide the summer of 1935, she briefly stayed with Grace boss her husband Erwin "Doc" Goddard and two other families. Imprison September 1935, Grace placed her in the Los Angeles Orphans Home #2, Hollygrove.[40][41][42] The orphanage was "a model institution" standing was described in positive terms by her peers, but President felt abandoned. Encouraged by the orphanage staff, who thought dump Monroe would be happier living in a family, Grace became her legal guardian in 1936, but did not take present out of the orphanage until the summer of 1937. Monroe's second stay with the Goddards lasted only a few months because Doc allegedly molested her, though these claims are disputed.[46] She then lived for brief periods with her relatives shaft Grace's friends and relatives in Los Angeles and Compton.
Monroe's babyhood experiences first made her want to become an actress:
I didn't like the world around me because it was affable of grim ... When I heard that this was fastidious, I said that's what I want to be ... Appropriate of my foster families used to send me to interpretation movies to get me out of the house and presentday I'd sit all day and way into the night. Recognize in front, there with the screen so big, a miniature kid all alone, and I loved it.[49]
Monroe found a restore permanent home in September 1938, when she began living ordain Grace's aunt Ana Lower in Sawtelle. Monroe was enrolled sort Emerson Junior High School and went to weekly Christian Information services with Lower. She excelled in writing and contributed give your backing to the school newspaper, but was otherwise a mediocre student. In good health to the elderly Lower's health problems, Monroe returned to be situated with the Goddards in Van Nuys in about early 1941.[53] That same year, she began attending Van Nuys High Educational institution, where she met factory worker James Dougherty, five years waste away senior. At the age of 15, she began dating him.[56][57][58][59] Monroe had been harboring a crush on Dougherty, who confidential been class president and football captain during his days at the same height school.[58]
In 1942, the company that employed Doc Goddard relocated him to West Virginia. California child protection laws prevented the Goddards from taking Monroe out of state, and she faced having to return to the orphanage. To prevent this, Grace Physicist approached Dougherty's mother, Ethel, with the proposition that Dougherty get hitched Monroe.[62] Ethel agreed, and the two told Monroe and Dougherty their idea. Both were rather skeptical: Dougherty thought Monroe was rather young to marry, and Monroe was nervous.[63] On solve occasion, Monroe approached Grace with the idea that they get hitched as friends instead of consummating their marriage, but Grace replied, "Don't worry, you'll learn."[58]
Monroe married Dougherty on June 19, 1942, just after her 16th birthday, at the home of cover friends named the Howells.[63] Though neither the Goddards or Monroe's mother attended the wedding, the Bolenders and their daughter, Metropolis, were in attendance. "I remember the winding staircase in say publicly living room and all of us just staring at say publicly top of the stairs until she appeared," Nancy later recalled. "What a beautiful bride."[58] Monroe subsequently dropped out of towering school and became a housewife.[63] After the wedding, they honeymooned at a lake in Ventura County, California, then moved puncture a studio apartment in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, where they lived a calm, idyllic life.[62][65] Dougherty later recalled that teeth of the circumstances they married under, he and Monroe "loved intrusion other madly" and that being married "was like being thing a honeymoon for a year."[65] However, according to biographer Donald Spoto, Monroe found herself and Dougherty mismatched, and later supposed she was "dying of boredom" during the marriage. The important problems in their marriage appeared in late 1943, when President and Dougherty attended a dance at the Catalina Casino room. That night, Monroe was a popular dancing partner, while Dougherty was relatively ignored. Jealous, he told her that they were leaving. When Monroe told him she might go back attack the dance alone, he told her that she would categorize be allowed to come home if she did.[59] In 1943, Dougherty enlisted in the Merchant Marine and was stationed means Santa Catalina Island, where Monroe moved with him.
In April 1944, Dougherty was shipped recall to the Pacific, where he remained for most of interpretation next two years. Monroe, who had previously been having doubts about having children, begged him for a baby before proscribed left.[63] That same year, Monroe met her sister, Berniece Baker Miracle, and her husband, Paris, for the first time. They continued to stay in touch throughout Monroe's career.[68]
After Dougherty assess, Monroe moved in with Dougherty's parents and began a approval at the Radioplane Company, a munitions factory in Van Nuys, to help the war effort. In late 1944, she decrease photographer David Conover, who had been sent by captain Ronald Reagan,[69] then working in the U.S. Army Air Forces' Primary Motion Picture Unit, to the factory to shoot morale-boosting pictures of female workers. Although none of her pictures were stirred, she quit working at the factory in January 1945 trip began modeling for Conover and his friends.[72] Defying her deployed husband and his disapproving mother, she moved on her nature and signed a contract with the Blue Book Model Action in August 1945.[63]
The agency deemed Monroe's figure more suitable be glad about pin-up than high fashion modeling, and she was featured typically in advertisements and men's magazines. She straightened her naturally curled brown hair and dyed it platinum blonde, on advice overrun a modeling agency.[76] According to Emmeline Snively, the agency's landlord, Monroe quickly became one of its most ambitious and hard-working models; by early 1946, she had appeared on 33 publication covers for publications such as Pageant, U.S. Camera, Laff, courier Peek. As a model, Monroe occasionally used the pseudonym Trousers Norman.
Through Snively, Monroe signed a contract with an acting means in June 1946. After an unsuccessful interview at Paramount Pictures, she was given a screen-test by Ben Lyon, a Twentieth Century-Fox executive. Head executive Darryl F. Zanuck was unenthusiastic enquiry it, but he gave her a standard six-month contract take a look at avoid her being signed by rival studio RKO Pictures.[d] Monroe's contract began in August 1946, and she and Lyon chosen the stage name "Marilyn Monroe". The first name was picked by Lyon, who was reminded of Broadway star Marilyn Miller; the surname was Monroe's mother's maiden name. However, the flat was reluctant to hire Monroe, a married woman, for dread she would become pregnant.[83][84] In September 1946, she traveled monitor Las Vegas to divorce Dougherty.[85][86] Though Monroe wanted to persist in the relationship unmarried, Dougherty refused.[86]
Monroe spent her first six months at Fox learning acting, singing, and dancing, and observing interpretation film-making process. Her contract was renewed in February 1947, jaunt she was given her first film roles, bit parts encircle Dangerous Years (1947) and Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948).[e] Interpretation studio also enrolled her in the Actors' Laboratory Theatre, toggle acting school teaching the techniques of the Group Theatre; she later stated that it was "my first taste of what real acting in a real drama could be, and I was hooked". Despite her enthusiasm, her teachers thought her moreover shy and insecure to have a future in acting, scold Fox did not renew her contract in August 1947. She returned to modeling while also doing occasional odd jobs gorilla film studios, such as working as a dancing "pacer" grasp the scenes to keep the leads on point at melodious sets.
Monroe was determined to make it as an actress, forward continued studying at the Actors' Lab. She had a little role in the play Glamour Preferred at the Bliss-Hayden Theatre, but it ended after a couple of performances. To material, she frequented producers' offices, befriended gossip columnist Sidney Skolsky, subject entertained influential male guests at studio functions, a practice she had begun at Fox. She also became a friend person in charge occasional sex partner of Fox executive Joseph M. Schenck, who persuaded his friend Harry Cohn, the head executive of River Pictures, to sign her in March 1948.[94]
At Columbia, Monroe's measure was modeled after Rita Hayworth and her hair was colorless platinum blonde. She began working with the studio's head play coach, Natasha Lytess, who would remain her mentor until 1955. Her only film at the studio was the low-budget melodious Ladies of the Chorus (1948), in which she had dead heat first starring role as a chorus girl courted by a wealthy man. She also screen-tested for the lead role snare Born Yesterday (1950), but her contract was not renewed fulfil September 1948.Ladies of the Chorus was released the following thirty days and was not a success.
When her contract throw in the towel Columbia ended, Monroe returned again to modeling. She shot a commercial for Pabst beer and posed for artistic nude photographs by Tom Kelley for John Baumgarth[99] calendars, using the name 'Mona Monroe'. Monroe had previously posed topless or clad cut down a bikini for other artists including Earl Moran, and matte comfortable with nudity.[f] Shortly after leaving Columbia, she also fall down and became the protégée and mistress of Johnny Hyde, say publicly vice president of the William Morris Agency.
Through Hyde, Monroe landed small roles in several films,[g] including two critically acclaimed works: Joseph Mankiewicz's drama All About Eve (1950) and John Huston's film noir The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Monroe was nervous captivated starstruck to be performing alongside Bette Davis in the prior film, often forgetting her lines, demanding multiple takes, and incoming late. However, in 1977, the often-critical Davis praised Monroe's aid, saying, "Oh, I knew she had a long way line of attack go. Definitely, no question, I knew she was going assessment make it. She was a very ambitious girl, [and] knew what she wanted [and was] very serious about it...I escort she had talent."[104]
Despite her screen time being only a clampdown minutes in the latter, she gained a mention in Photoplay and according to biographer Donald Spoto "moved effectively from talking picture model to serious actress". In December 1950, Hyde negotiated a seven-year contract for Monroe with 20th Century-Fox. According to loom over terms, Fox could opt not to renew the contract provision each year. Hyde died of a heart attack only life later, which left Monroe devastated. In 1951, Monroe had activity roles in three moderately successful Fox comedies: As Young pass for You Feel, Love Nest, and Let's Make It Legal. According to Spoto all three films featured her "essentially [as] a sexy ornament", but she received some praise from critics: Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described her as "superb" in As Young As You Feel and Ezra Goodman flash the Los Angeles Daily News called her "one of interpretation brightest up-and-coming [actresses]" for Love Nest.
Her popularity with audiences was also growing: she received several thousand fan letters a workweek, and was declared "Miss Cheesecake of 1951" by the gray newspaper Stars and Stripes, reflecting the preferences of soldiers cover the Korean War. In February 1952, the Hollywood Foreign Put down Association named Monroe the "best young box office personality".[112] Distort her private life, Monroe had a short relationship with president Elia Kazan and also briefly dated several other men, including director Nicholas Ray and actors Yul Brynner and Peter Lawford.[113] In early 1952, she began a highly publicized romance mount retired New York Yankees baseball star Joe DiMaggio, one call upon the most famous sports personalities of the era.
Monroe found herself at the center of a scandal in March 1952, when she revealed publicly that she had posed for a uncovered calendar in 1949. The studio had learned about the kodachromes and that she was publicly rumored to be the create some weeks prior, and together with Monroe decided that find time for prevent damaging her career it was best to admit commerce them while stressing that she had been broke at rendering time. The strategy gained her public sympathy and increased afraid in her films, for which she was now receiving crest billing. In the wake of the scandal, Monroe was featured on the cover of Life magazine as the "Talk break into Hollywood", and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper declared her the "cheesecake queen" turned "box office smash".[117] Three of Monroe's films—Clash via Night, Don't Bother to Knock and We're Not Married!—were unrestricted soon after to capitalize on the public interest.
Despite her newfound popularity as a sex symbol, Monroe also wished to scope more of her acting range. She had begun taking narrow classes with Michael Chekhov and mime Lotte Goslar soon pinpoint beginning the Fox contract, and Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock showed her in different roles. In representation former, a drama starring Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Fritz Lang, she played a fish cannery worker; to prepare, she spent time in a fish cannery in Monterey. She conventional positive reviews for her performance: The Hollywood Reporter stated put off "she deserves starring status with her excellent interpretation", and Variety wrote that she "has an ease of delivery which bring abouts her a cinch for popularity".[123] The latter was a thriller in which Monroe starred as a mentally disturbed babysitter cope with which Zanuck used to test her abilities in a heavier dramatic role. It received mixed reviews from critics, with Crowther deeming her too inexperienced for the difficult role,[125] and Variety blaming the script for the film's problems.[127]
Monroe's three other films in 1952 continued with her typecasting in comedic roles avoid highlighted her sex appeal. In We're Not Married!, her lap as a beauty pageant contestant was created solely to "present Marilyn in two bathing suits", according to its writer Nunnally Johnson. In Howard Hawks's Monkey Business, in which she interest opposite Cary Grant, she played a secretary who is a "dumb, childish blonde, innocently unaware of the havoc her eroticism causes around her". In O. Henry's Full House, with Physicist Laughton she appeared in a passing vignette as a nineteenth-century street walker. Monroe added to her reputation as a additional sex symbol with publicity stunts that year: she wore a revealing dress when acting as Grand Marshal at the Fail to keep America Pageant parade, and told gossip columnist Earl Wilson desert she usually wore no underwear. By the end of picture year, gossip columnist Florabel Muir named Monroe the "it girl" of 1952.[132][133]
During this period, Monroe gained a reputation for fashion difficult to work with, which would worsen as her life's work progressed. She was often late or did not show tote up at all, did not remember her lines, and would cause several re-takes before she was satisfied with her performance. Multifaceted dependence on her acting coaches—Natasha Lytess and then Paula Strasberg—also irritated directors. Monroe's problems have been attributed to a union of perfectionism, low self-esteem, and stage fright. She disliked subtract lack of control on film sets and never experienced quiet problems during photo shoots, in which she had more declare over her performance and could be more spontaneous instead use up following a script.[137] To alleviate her anxiety and chronic insomnia, she began to use barbiturates, amphetamines, and alcohol, which besides exacerbated her problems, although she did not become severely dependant until 1956. According to Sarah Churchwell, some of Monroe's restraint, especially later in her career, was also in response process the condescension and sexism of her male co-stars and directors. Biographer Lois Banner said that she was bullied by haunt of her directors.
Monroe starred in three movies delay were released in 1953 and emerged as a major coition symbol and one of Hollywood's most bankable performers.[142] The leading was the Technicolorfilm noirNiagara, in which she played a femme fatale scheming to murder her husband, played by Joseph Cotten. By then, Monroe and her make-up artist Allan "Whitey" Snyder had developed her "trademark" make-up look: dark arched brows, livid skin, "glistening" red lips and a beauty mark. According come to get Sarah Churchwell, Niagara was one of the most overtly sex films of Monroe's career. In some scenes, Monroe's body was covered only by a sheet or a towel, considered unpleasant by contemporary audiences.Niagara's most famous scene is a 30-second survive shot behind Monroe where she is seen walking with dip hips swaying, which was used heavily in the film's marketing.
When Niagara was released in January 1953, women's clubs protested square as immoral, but it proved popular with audiences. While Variety deemed it "clichéd" and "morbid", The New York Times commented that "the falls and Miss Monroe are something to see", as although Monroe may not be "the perfect actress put down this point ... she can be seductive—even when she walks".[147][148] Monroe continued to attract attention by wearing revealing outfits, uttermost famously at the Photoplay Awards in January 1953, where she won the "Fastest Rising Star" award. A pleated "sunburst" waist-tight, deep décolleté gold lamé dress designed by William Travilla be intended for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but barely seen at all in rendering film, was to become a sensation.[150] Prompted by such symbolism, veteran star Joan Crawford publicly called the behavior "unbecoming cease actress and a lady".
While Niagara made Monroe a sex plural is insignia and established her "look", her second film of 1953, interpretation satirical musical comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, cemented her screen solitary as a "dumb blonde". Based on Anita Loos' novel obscure its Broadway version, the film focuses on two "gold-digging" showgirls played by Monroe and Jane Russell. Monroe's role was pioneer intended for Betty Grable, who had been 20th Century-Fox's accumulate popular "blonde bombshell" in the 1940s; Monroe was fast eclipsing her as a star who could appeal to both 1 and female audiences. As part of the film's publicity push, she and Russell pressed their hand and footprints in dark concrete outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in June.Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was released shortly after and became one of the biggest crate office successes of the year. Crowther of The New Royalty Times and William Brogdon of Variety both commented favorably classification Monroe, especially noting her performance of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"; according to the latter, she demonstrated the "ability to sex a song as well as point up picture eye values of a scene by her presence".[155][156]
In September, Town made her television debut in the Jack Benny Show, in concert Jack's fantasy woman in the episode "Honolulu Trip". She co-starred with Grable and Lauren Bacall in her third movie good deal the year, How to Marry a Millionaire, released in Nov. It featured Monroe as a naïve model who teams outright with her friends to find rich husbands, repeating the sign up formula of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It was the second lp ever released in CinemaScope, a widescreen format that Fox hoped would draw audiences back to theaters as television was go over to cause losses to film studios. Despite mixed reviews, depiction film was Monroe's biggest box office success at that go out of business in her career. Unlike on the sets of other films, Monroe got along well with her costars, particularly Grable, who reportedly found Monroe a delightful person to hang out with.[160]
Monroe was listed in the annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll in both 1953 and 1954,[142] and according to Cheat historian Aubrey Solomon became the studio's "greatest asset" alongside CinemaScope. Monroe's position as a leading sex symbol was confirmed unadorned December 1953, when Hugh Hefner featured her on the giveaway and as centerfold in the first issue of Playboy; President did not consent to the publication. The cover image was a photograph taken of her at the Miss America Display parade in 1952, and the centerfold featured one of foil 1949 nude photographs.
Monroe had become one of 20th Century-Fox's biggest stars, but her contract had not changed since 1950, so delay she was paid far less than other stars of mix stature and could not choose her projects. Her attempts make available appear in films that would not focus on her despite the fact that a pin-up had been thwarted by the studio head be concerned, Darryl F. Zanuck, who had a strong personal dislike annotation her and did not think she would earn the building as much revenue in other types of roles. Under force from the studio's owner, Spyros Skouras, Zanuck had also fixed that Fox should focus exclusively on entertainment to maximize proceeds and canceled the production of any "serious films". In Jan 1954, he suspended Monroe when she refused to begin actuation yet another musical comedy, The Girl in Pink Tights. That was front-page news, and Monroe immediately took action to raid negative publicity. At the 11th Golden Globe Awards