|Biography|
*Adapted from her Official website and many other sources.
ALSO KNOWN AS: Norma Jeane Baker
BIRTH NAME: Norma Jeane Mortenson
BORN: June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, CA (Los Angeles General Hospital)
DIED: August 4, 1962 in Brentwood, CA
HUSBANDS: Jimmy Dougherty, Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller
MEASUREMENTS: 37-23-36 (Studio's Claim) 35-22-35 (Dressmaker's Claim)
HEIGHT: 5 ft., 5 1/2 in.
~MARILYN MONROE~
Marilyn Monroe personified Hollywood glamour with an unparalleled glow and energy that enamored the world. Although she was an alluring beauty with voluptuous curves and a generous pout, Marilyn was more than a 50s sex goddess. Her apparent vulnerability and innocence, in combination with an innate sensuality, has endeared her to the global consciousness. She dominated the age of movie stars to become, without question, the most famous woman of the 20th Century.
~HER CHILDHOOD~
RIGHT: Picture of Glady's and Norma Jeane; provided by Danamo's Marilyn Monroe Pages)
Marilyn was born to her mother, Gladys Baker, and as the identity of her father was undetermined, she was later baptized Norma Jeane Baker. Marilyn would never know the true identity of her father. Gladys had been a film-cutter at RKO studios, but psychological problems prevented her from keeping the job and she was eventually committed to a mental institution. Due to her mother's mental instability and the fact that she was unmarried at the time, Norma Jeane was placed in the foster home of Albert and Ida Bolender. It was here she lived the first 7 years of her life.
In 1933, Norma Jeane lived briefly with her mother, but Gladys begin to show signs of mental depression and in 1934 was admitted to a rest home in Santa Monica, CA. Grace was to marry in 1935 and, due to financial difficulties, Norma Jeane was placed in an orphanage from September 1935 to June 1937. Grace frequently visited her, taking her to the movies, buying clothes and teaching her how to apply makeup at her young age.
"The world around me then was kind of grim. I had to learn to pretend in order to...I don't know...block the grimness. The whole world seemed sort of closed to me...(I felt) on the outside of everything, and all I could do was to dream up any kind of pretend-game."
Norma Jeane was to later live with several of Grace's relatives. Norma Jeane spent most of her childhood in foster homes and orphanages until 1937, when she moved in with family friend, Grace McKee Goddard. Grace McKee, a close friend of her mother, took over the care of Norma Jeane. "Grace loved and adored her", recalled one of her co-workers. Unfortunately, when Grace learned that her husband were being transferred to the East Coast, they knew they couldn't afford to take 16-year-old Norma Jeane with them. Norma Jeane had two options: return to the orphanage or get married. She met Jim Dougherty, 5 years her senior, when she was living with Grace. Grace encouraged the relationship and knowing that she and her husband would be moving to the East Coast, set in motion plans for Norma Jeane to marry Dougherty on June 19, 1942.
Dougherty joined the Merchant Marines in 1943 and, in 1944, was sent overseas. Norma Jeane, while working in a factory inspecting parachutes in 1944, was photographed by the Army as a promotion to show women on the assembly line contributing to the war effort. One of the photographers, David Conover, asked to take further pictures of her.
By spring of 1945, she was quickly becoming known as a "photographers dream" and had appeared on 33 covers of national magazines. In the fall of 1946, she was granted a divorce...later saying, "My marriage didn't make me sad, but it didn't make me happy either. My husband and I hardly spoke to each other. This wasn't because we were angry. We had nothing to say. I was dying of boredom."
~A STAR IS BORN~
On August 26, 1946 Norma Jeane signed a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox Studios. She dyed her hair blonde and, from this point on, she would be known as MARILYN MONROE to all her fans (a combination of her grandmother's last name, Monroe, and actress Marilyn Miller's first name).
Marilyn's first movie role was a bit part in 1947's The Shocking Miss Pilgrim. She also had a minor part in the movie "Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay! and played a series of inconsequential characters until she was dismissed as a contract player in August. Rehired in 1948, Marilyn sang her first song in the movie "Ladies of the Chorus". Johnny Hyde, of the William Morris Agency, became her mentor and lover in 1949. Also in 1949, Marilyn agreed to pose nude for a calendar....a fact that was to stir controversy later in her career as a superstar. Her first serious acting job came in 1950 when she had a small but crucial role in "The Asphalt Jungle" and received favorable reviews. "Clash By Night" in 1952 earned her several favorable notices...Alton Cook of the New York World-Telegram and Sun wrote..."a forceful actress, a gifted new star, worthy of all that fantastic press agentry. Her role here is not very big, but she makes it dominant." Monroe's first leading part in a serious feature was to be in "Don't Bother to Knock", also filmed in 1952.
Marilyn met Joe DiMaggio in early 1952, when she was 25 and he was 37. DiMaggio, recently retired from baseball, had expressed a desire to meet this famous star. By February, the romance was in full bloom. Also in 1952, Marilyn began filming "Niagara" with Joseph Cotten...a film that was to establish her stardom. After her next big film, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", she and Jane Russell signed their names and placed their hands and feet in the wet cement in front of the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard...the same place she had visited with Gladys and Grace years earlier as a child. Fox suspended Marilyn in 1954 for failure to appear on the set of "Pink Tights". The studio had refused to let her look at the script prior to accepting the part. She felt that due to her star status, she should have the right to script approval.
On January 14, 1954, Marilyn married Joe DiMaggio at San Francisco's City Hall. The wedding captured the headlines worldwide. During their Tokyo honeymoon, Marilyn was asked to go on a USO tour of Korea in February to entertain the troops, beginning on the 16th for four days. Her presence caused a near-riot among the 60,000 soldiers. Joe was an extremely jealous type of guy and resented her popularity among other men. He desired a housewife, not a star of such magnitude...the marriage was in trouble from the beginning.
On May 29, Marilyn began filming "There's No Business Like Show Business". Throughout the summer, she was ill with bronchitis and anemia. For the first time, Marilyn began showing serious side-effects of the many sleeping pills she had been taking for the last few years...often groggy, lethargic and crying on the set.
The famous "skirt blowing" scene from the "Seven Year Itch" , filmed in 1954, was to be a hit with both amateur and professional photographers. Several hundred, along with 2000 spectators gathered outside the Trans-Lux Theater in New York City in the early morning hours of September 15th to see and record her as she posed for over two hours for her adoring fans. Unfortunately, Marilyn's career and provocative image began to deteriorate their marriage. On October 27, 1954, nine months into the marriage, Marilyn and Joe divorced. They attributed the split to a "conflict of careers," and remained close friends.
In early 1955, Marilyn returned to New York and joined the Actors Studio, in pursuit of becoming a serious actress. There she met Lee Strasberg, head of the Studio and drama coach. Mr. Strasberg and his family would play an important role throughout the rest of her life. She was to renew her acquaintance with Arthur Miller and have an affair with him before their marriage over a year later.
To Marilyn, Miller represented the serious theater and an intellect that she found attractive. Marilyn returned to Hollywood in February 1956, after over a years absence, to film "Bus Stop" under her newly formed motion picture company, Marilyn Monroe Productions. After completing the film, she once again returned to New York in June. Miller also returned to New York after obtaining a divorce in Reno, Nevada. Marilyn and playwright Arthur Miller were married on June 29, 1956 in White Plains, NY.
The Millers departed for London soon after their marriage so that Marilyn could start production on "The Prince and the Showgirl" with Lawrence Olivier. As early as July, Arthur began to have doubts about the marriage. Sidney Skolsky remarked that..."Miller looked on Marilyn strictly as an ideal and was shocked to discover that she is a human being, a person, even as you and I and maybe Miller."
LEFT: Photo Copyright © Milton Greene
"Bus Stop" opened in London in October 1956. A Times review said..."Miss Monroe is a talented comedienne, and her sense of timing never forsake her. She gives a complete portrait, sensitively and sometimes even brilliantly conceived. There is about her a waif-life quality, an underlying note of pathos which can be strangely moving." Marilyn Monroe did not return to Hollywood until 1958 to make "Some Like It Hot" with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Her health continued to deteriorate due to increased dependency on drugs and involvement in an unhappy marriage. She often came to the set late and was unable to remember her lines. Director, Billy Wilder later said..."Anyone can remember lines, but it takes a real artist to come on the set and not know her lines and yet give the performance she did." Her next film "Let's Make Love" proved to be an unremarkable film with much publicity over her brief affair with co-star Yves Montand. Early in 1960, Marilyn was consulting with Dr. Ralph Greenson, a prominent psychoanalyst to Hollywood stars. As common during this period, he relied heavily on drug therapy...routinely prescribing barbiturates and tranquilizers in addition to his psychotherapy.
July, 1960 marked the start of filming "The Misfits"...a short story by Arthur Miller adapted for film. While on location, the Millers lived in separate quarters and were barely speaking. Meanwhile, pills for Marilyn were regularly flown in from her Los Angeles doctors, including Dr. Greenson. Allan Snyder recalled..."It took so long to get her going in the morning that usually I had to make her up while she lay in her bed." But once again, she managed to give an exceptional performance.
On November 5th, the day after "The Misfits" was completed, co-star Clark Gable suffered a serious heart attack and died on November 16, 1960. Marilyn felt a great deal of guilt, commenting..."I kept him waiting.....kept him waiting for hours and hours on that picture." Evelyn Moriarty remembered..."Marilyn was being blamed for everything. All of her problems were exaggerated to cover up for Director Huston's gambling and the terrible waste of money on that production. It was easy for her to be made the scapegoat." Marilyn divorced Arthur Miller in January of 1961, the same month that "The Misfits" was released. Another unhappy marriage was terminated.
In February of 1962, Marilyn purchased a house in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. At the urging of her psychoanalyst, Dr. Greenson, she hired Eunice Murray as housekeeper. Murray, calling herself a nurse, had neither the training or credentials. It is suspected that she was a "spy" for Dr. Greenson who continued to have more and more control over Marilyn's life, seeing her almost daily when she was in Los Angeles. A reported affair with John F. Kennedy began in late 1961. At the President's gala birthday celebration in Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1962, Marilyn sang her now famous "Happy Birthday" tribute to JFK. The Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy was also reported to have had an affair with Marilyn shortly before her death.
LEFT:Something's Got to give (Uncompleted)
Marilyn began production on Something's Got to Give in April 1962. Much has been said about her inability to show up on the set and her trip to New York for the Presidents birthday celebration, but her illnesses had been well documented by physicians and she had obtained permission from the Studio well in advance of the trip to New York.
The Studio was deeply in debt over their production of "Cleopatra" starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The filming was way behind schedule and costing millions over budget. It is theorized, if Fox scrapped the Marilyn Monroe film with far fewer expensive sets and actors, they possibly could be reimburse by the insurance company for losses due to a star's illness, and recoup monies spent. Fox fired Marilyn and filed suit against Marilyn Monroe Productions on June 7, but the suit was later dropped.
Marilyn had been seeing Joe DiMaggio frequently during this time and had finally agreed to remarry him. The wedding date was set for August 8, 1962. Fox rehired her on August 1 to complete "Somethings Got to Give" with a salary of $250,000, which was two and a half times the original amount.
~HER UNTIMELY DEATH~
Of course these events would never come to pass due to a shocking misfortune. Shortly before midnight on August 4, 1962, Marilyn was found dead in Brentwood, California home. Much has been speculated about the events surrounding her death, including the day and time of her death, and others' involvement in it. But whatever the cause...it is highly unlikely that it was a suicide by this 36-year-old star. Marilyn's vibrant spirit and beauty made it impossible to believe she was gone.
On August 8, 1962, Marilyn's body was laid to rest in the Corridor of Memories, #24, at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California....the same day Marilyn and Joe were to be remarried. She was more than just a movie star or glamour queen. A global sensation in her lifetime, Marilyn's popularity has extended beyond star status to icon. Today, the name "Marilyn Monroe" is synonymous with beauty, sensuality and effervescence.
A saddened Joe DiMaggio made arrangements for the funeral, inviting no one from the Hollywood scene or press...but only close friends and relatives. As he said, "they had only hurt Marilyn."
For over 20 years, flowers were delivered weekly to her crypt from Joe...just as he had promised Marilyn when she told him of William Powell's pledge to the dying Jean Harlow.
Marilyn Monroe will forever remain an inspiration to all who strive to overcome personal obstacles for the goal of achieving greatness.