Marilyn Monroe

Arguably the most recognizable Hollywood star from the 1950s until today, Marilyn Monroe (b. 1 June 1926–d. 4 August 1962) is associated with the Hollywood studio system, widescreen cinema, Playboy magazine, and a fascinating personal life. Born as Norma Jeane Mortenson to divorced and mentally unstable mother Gladys Baker, Monroe’s childhood included several foster families. In 2022, forensic scientists confirmed Charles Stanley Gifford as Monroe’s biological father. Monroe began work as a model after being “discovered” working at a wartime factory by David Conover in 1944. Monroe was signed to and dropped from short contracts with Twentieth Century-Fox in 1946 and 1947, and with Columbia Pictures in 1948. Monroe returned to Fox with a new contract in December 1950, where she would work for the rest of her career, with notable contract disputes in 1954 and 1962. Monroe appeared in thirty-two films between 1947 and her untimely death in 1962; only a dozen of those films feature Monroe in a lead starring role. Monroe won a Golden Globe for her performance in Some Like It Hot (1959), a film that consistently appears on Top 100 lists by the American and British Film Institutes. Monroe’s films span a range of genres. In her early roles, she often played a secretary or mistress, but her best-remembered roles are those in which she performs as a singing and dancing comedienne. Despite her memorable films, Monroe is perhaps better known for her personal life. In addition to her troubled childhood, authors frequently discuss the mental illness that ran in her family, to which Monroe was also susceptible and for which she underwent psychoanalytic treatment. Monroe’s nude calendar photo is emblematic of her sex symbol persona. She is also known for her famous lovers. She married Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller but has also been connected romantically to her agent Johnny Hyde, as well as celebrities Yves Montand, Frank Sinatra, John F. Kennedy, and Bobby Kennedy. Monroe died tragically at the age of thirty-six of an overdose; authors still debate whether that overdose was accidental or intentional. Because of her complex offscreen life, Monroe has been the subject of a number of works of fiction and plays, as well as biopics and documentaries. Today, Monroe remains an icon, remembered at times as an influential woman victimized by powerful Hollywood men and at other times associated with fashion, sex appeal, and independence.