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| Marilyn Monroe |
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage and married for the first time at the age of sixteen. While working in a factory as part of the war effort in 1944, she met a photographer and began a successful pin-up modeling career. The work led to two short-lived film contracts with Twentieth Century-Fox (1946–47) and Columbia Pictures (1948). After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in 1951. 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 in 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 photos before becoming a star, but rather than damaging her career the story increased interest in her films.
By 1953, Monroe was one of the most bankable Hollywood stars, with leading roles in three films: the noir Niagara, which focused on her sex appeal, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, which established her star image as a "dumb blonde". Although she played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, she was disappointed at being typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project, but returned to star in one of the biggest box office successes of her career, The Seven Year Itch (1955). When the studio was still reluctant to change her contract, Monroe founded a film production company in late 1954, Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP). She dedicated 1955 to building her company and began studying method acting at the Actors Studio. In late 1955, Fox gave her a new contract, which gave her more control and a larger salary. After giving a critically acclaimed performance in Bus Stop (1956) and acting in the first independent production of MMP, The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), she won a Best Actress Golden Globe for Some Like It Hot (1959). Her last completed film was the drama The Misfits (1961).
Monroe's troubled private life received much attention. She struggled with addiction, depression, and anxiety. She had two highly publicized marriages, to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller, which both ended in divorce. She died at the age of 36 from an overdose of barbiturates at her home in Los Angeles on August 5, 1962. Although the death was ruled a probable suicide, several conspiracy theories have been proposed in the decades following her death.
Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson at the Los Angeles County Hospital on June 1, 1926, as the third child of Gladys Pearl Monroe (1902–84), a negative-cutter at Columbia Pictures.Gladys' older children, Robert (1917–33)and Berniece (born 1919), were from her first marriage to John Newton Baker in 1917–23. After she had filed for divorce in 1921, Baker had taken the children with him to his native Kentucky. Monroe was not told that she had a sister until she was 12, and met her for the first time as an adult. Gladys then married Martin Edward Mortensen in 1924, but they separated after only a few months and before she became pregnant with Monroe; they divorced in 1928. The identity of Monroe's father is unknown. During her childhood, Mortenson, Mortensen and Baker were all used as her surnames.
Gladys was mentally and financially unprepared for a child, and so placed Monroe with foster parents in Hawthorne, California soon after the birth. Albert and Ida Bolender were evangelical Christians and raised their foster children accordingly. At first, Gladys lived with the Bolenders to care for the infant herself, until longer work shifts forced her to move back to Hollywood in early 1927. She then began visiting her daughter on the weekends and planned on taking her back once she felt more stable. Gladys was prompted to do this in June 1933, and later that summer bought a small house on Arbol Drive near the Hollywood Bowl, which they shared with lodgers, actors George and Maude Atkinson. Only some months later in early 1934, Gladys had a mental breakdown and was hospitalized. She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was institutionalized at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk in 1935. She spent the rest of her life in and out of hospitals, and was only occasionally in contact with Monroe.
"When I was five I think, that's when I started wanting to be an actress. I loved to play. I didn't like the world around me because it was kind of grim, but I loved to play house. It was like you could make your own boundaries... When I heard that this was acting, I said that's what I want to be... Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I'd sit all day and way into the night. Up in front, there with the screen so big, a little kid all alone, and I loved it."
Modeling and first film roles (1945–49)
In late 1944, Monroe met photographer David Conover, who had been sent by the U.S. Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit (FMPU) to the factory to shoot morale-boosting pictures of female workers.Although none of her pictures were used by the FMPU, she quit working at the factory in January 1945 and began modeling for Conover and his friends.He also encouraged her to apply to the Blue Book Model Agency, run by Emmeline Snively, to which she was signed in August 1945.She began to occasionally use the name Jean Norman when working, and had her curly brunette hair straightened and dyed blond to make her more employable.As her figure was deemed more suitable for pin-up than fashion modeling, she was employed mostly for advertisements and men's magazines.According to Snively, Monroe was one of the agency's most ambitious and hard-working models; by spring 1946, she had appeared on 33 magazine covers for publications such as Pageant, U.S. Camera, Laff, and Peek.
Impressed by her success, Snively arranged a contract for Monroe with an acting agency in June 1946.Through it, she met Ben Lyon, a 20th Century-Fox executive, who gave her a screen test. Head executive Darryl F. Zanuck was unenthusiastic about it,but he was persuaded to give her a standard six-month contract to avoid her being signed by rival studio RKO Pictures.Monroe began her contract in August 1946, and together with Lyon selected the screen name of "Marilyn Monroe".The first name was picked by Lyon, who was reminded of Broadway star Marilyn Miller; the last was picked by Monroe after her mother's maiden name.In September 1946, she was granted a divorce from Dougherty, allowing her to concentrate on her acting career.
Monroe had no film roles during the first months of her contract and instead dedicated her days to acting, singing and dancing classes.Eager to learn more about the film industry and to promote herself, she also spent time at the studio lot to observe others working.Her contract was renewed in February 1947, and during that spring she was given her first two film roles: nine lines of dialogue as a waitress in the drama Dangerous Years (1947) and a one-line appearance in the comedy Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948).The studio also enrolled her in the Actors' Laboratory Theatre, an acting school teaching the techniques of the Group Theatre.Monroe's contract was not renewed in August 1947, and she returned to modeling.She continued taking classes at the Actors' Lab, and in October appeared as a blonde vamp in the short-lived play Glamour Preferred at the Bliss-Hayden Theater, but the production was not reviewed by any major publication.
Monroe landed her next film contract in March 1948, this time with Columbia Pictures.According to biographers Donald Spoto, Anthony Summers and Lois Banner, it was arranged for her by Fox executive Joseph M. Schenck, whose mistress she was at the time, and who was friends with Columbia's head executive, Harry Cohn.At Columbia, Monroe began working with the studio's head drama coach, Natasha Lytess, who would remain her mentor until 1955, and had some changes made to her appearance: her hairline was raised by electrolysis and her hair was bleached even lighter, to platinum blond.Her only film at the studio was the low-budget musical Ladies of the Chorus (1948), in which she had her first starring role as a chorus girl who is courted by a wealthy man.During the production, she began an affair with her vocal coach, Fred Karger, who paid to have her slight overbite corrected.Despite the starring role, Monroe's contract was not renewed.Ladies of the Chorus was released in October and was not a success.
After leaving Columbia in September 1948, Monroe became a protégée of Johnny Hyde, vice president of the William Morris Agency. Hyde began representing her and their relationship soon became sexual, although she refused his proposals of marriage.To advance Monroe's career, he paid for a silicone prosthesis to be implanted in her jaw and possibly for a rhinoplasty, and arranged a bit part in the Marx Brothers film Love Happy (1950).Monroe also continued modeling, and in May 1949 posed for nude photos taken by Tom Kelley.Although her role in Love Happy was very small, she was chosen to participate in the film's promotional tour in New York in the summer.
Breakthrough (1950–52)
Monroe appeared in six films released in 1950. She had bit parts in Love Happy, A Ticket to Tomahawk, Right Cross and The Fireball, but also made minor appearances in two critically acclaimed films: John Huston's crime film The Asphalt Jungle and Joseph Mankiewicz's drama All About Eve.In the former, Monroe played Angela, the young mistress of an aging criminal.Although only on the screen for five minutes, she gained a mention in Photoplay and according to Spoto "moved effectively from movie model to serious actress".In All About Eve, Monroe played Miss Caswell, a naïve young actress.
Following Monroe's success in these roles, Hyde negotiated a seven-year contract with 20th Century-Fox in December 1950.He died of a heart attack only days later, leaving her devastated.Despite her grief, 1951 became the year in which she gained more visibility. In March, she was a presenter at the 23rd Academy Awards and in September, Collier's became the first national magazine to publish a full-length profile of her.She had supporting roles in four low-budget films: in the MGM drama Home Town Story, and in three moderately successful comedies for Fox, As Young as You Feel, Love Nest, and Let's Make It Legal.According to Spoto all four films featured her "essentially 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 of the Los Angeles Daily News called her "one of the brightest up-and-coming" for Love Nest.To develop her acting skills, Monroe began taking classes with Michael Chekhov.Her popularity with audiences was also growing: she received several thousand letters of fan mail a week, and was declared "Miss Cheesecake of 1951" by the army newspaper Stars and Stripes, reflecting the preferences of soldiers in the Korean War.In her private life, Monroe was in a relationship with director Elia Kazan, and also briefly dated several other men, including directors Nicholas Ray and Yul Brynner and actor Peter Lawford.
The second year of the Fox contract saw Monroe become a top-billed actress, with gossip columnist Florabel Muir naming her the year's "it girl" and Hedda Hopper describing her as the "cheesecake queen" turned "box office smash". In February, she was named the "best young box office personality" by the Foreign Press Association of Hollywood,and began a highly publicized romance with retired New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio, one of the most famous sports personalities of the era.The following month, a scandal broke when she revealed in an interview that she had posed for nude pictures in 1949, which were featured in calendars.The studio had learned of the photographs some weeks earlier, and to contain the potentially disastrous effects on her career, they and Monroe had decided to talk about them openly while stressing that she had only posed for them in a dire financial situation.The strategy succeeded in getting her public sympathy and increased interest in her films: the following month, she was featured on the cover of Life as "The Talk of Hollywood".Monroe added to her reputation as a new sex symbol with other publicity stunts that year, such as wearing a revealing dress when acting as Grand Marshal at the Miss America Pageant parade, and by stating to gossip columnist Earl Wilson that she usually wore no underwear.
Monroe appeared in three commercially successful films in the summer of 1952.The first was Fritz Lang's drama Clash by Night, for which she was loaned to RKO and featured in an atypical role as a fish cannery worker, allowing her to show more of her acting range.Monroe received positive reviews for her performance: The Hollywood Reporter stated that "she deserves starring status with her excellent interpretation", and Variety wrote that she "has an ease of delivery which makes her a cinch for popularity".She then starred as a beauty pageant contestant in the comedy We're Not Married! and as a mentally disturbed babysitter in the thriller Don't Bother to Knock. According to its writer Nunnally Johnson, the former role was created solely to "present Marilyn in two bathing suits",but the latter film was intended as a vehicle to show that she could act in heavier dramatic roles.It received mixed reviews from critics, with Crowther deeming her too inexperienced for the difficult role,and Variety blaming the script for the film's problems.
Monroe next played a secretary opposite Cary Grant in Howard Hawks' screwball comedy Monkey Business. Released in October, it was one of the first films to feature her as a "dumb, childish blonde, innocently unaware of the havoc her sexiness causes around her", marking the beginning of typecasting in her career.Monroe's final film of the year was O. Henry's Full House, in which she had a minor role as a prostitute.
During this period Monroe gained a reputation for being difficult on film sets, which worsened as her career progressed: she was often late or did not show up at all, could not remember her lines, and would demand several re-takes before she was satisfied with her performance.A dependence on her acting coaches, first Natasha Lytess and later Paula Strasberg, also irritated directors.Monroe's problems have been attributed to a combination of perfectionism, low self-esteem, stage fright, and her gradually escalating use of barbiturates, amphetamines and alcohol, which most likely began during this period to aid with her anxiety and chronic insomnia.The use of medication to assist sleeping and to provide energy was not unusual in the 1950s, and was reportedly very common in the film industry.
Rising star (1953)
Monroe starred in three movies released in 1953, emerging as a major sex symbol and one of Hollywood's most bankable performers.The first of these was the Technicolor film noir Niagara, 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 the make-up look that became associated with her: dark arched brows, pale skin, "glistening" red lips and a beauty mark.According to Sarah Churchwell, Niagara was one of the most overtly sexual films of Monroe's career, and it included scenes in which her body was covered only by a sheet or a towel, considered shocking by contemporary audiences.Its most famous scene is a 30-second long shot of Monroe shown walking from behind with her hips swaying, which was heavily used in the film's marketing.
Upon Niagara's release in January, women's clubs protested against it as immoral.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 at this point ... she can be seductive – even when she walks".Monroe continued to attract attention with her revealing outfits in publicity events, most famously at the Photoplay awards in January 1953, where she won the "Fastest Rising Star" award.She wore a skin-tight gold lamé dress, which prompted veteran star Joan Crawford to describe her behavior as "unbecoming an actress and a lady" to the press.
Final films and personal difficulties (1960–62)
After Some Like It Hot, Monroe took another hiatus from working until late 1959, when she returned to Hollywood to star in the musical comedy Let's Make Love, about an actress and a millionaire who fall in love when performing in a satirical play.She chose George Cukor to direct and Miller re-wrote portions of the script, which she considered weak; she accepted the part solely because she was behind on her contract with Fox, having only made one of four promised films.Its production was delayed by her frequent absences from set.She had an affair with Yves Montand, her co-star, which was widely reported by the press and used in the film's publicity campaign.Let's Make Love was unsuccessful upon its release in September 1960;Crowther described Monroe as appearing "rather untidy" and "lacking ... the old Monroe dynamism",and Hedda Hopper called the film "the most vulgar picture she's ever done".Truman Capote lobbied for her to play Holly Golightly in a film adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's, but the role went to Audrey Hepburn as its producers feared that Monroe would complicate the production. Monroe in The Misfits, holding a wide-brimmed hat filled with dollar bills and standing next to Clark Gable and Thelma Ritter. Behind them is a sign spelling "BAR" and a crowd of people.
The last film that Monroe completed was John Huston's The Misfits, which Miller had written to provide her with a dramatic role.She played a recently divorced woman who becomes friends with three aging cowboys, played by Clark Gable, Eli Wallach and Montgomery Clift. Its filming in the Nevada desert between July and November 1960 was again difficult.Monroe and Miller's four-year marriage was effectively over, and he began a new relationship.Monroe disliked that he had based her role partly on her life, and thought it inferior to the male roles; she also struggled with Miller's habit of re-writing scenes the night before filming.Her health was also failing: she was in pain from gall stones, and her drug addiction was so severe that her make-up usually had to be applied while she was still asleep under the influence of barbiturates.In August, filming was halted for her to spend a week detoxing in a Los Angeles hospital.Monroe and Miller separated after filming wrapped, and she was granted a quick divorce in Mexico in January 1961.The Misfits was released the following month, failing at the box office. Its reviews were mixed,with Bosley Crowther calling Monroe "completely blank and unfathomable" and stating that "unfortunately for the film's structure, everything turns upon her".Despite the film's initial failure, in 2015 Geoff Andrew of the British Film Institute described it as a classic.
Monroe was next to star in a television adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's short story Rain for NBC, but the project fell through as the channel did not want to hire her choice of director, Lee Strasberg.Instead of working, she spent a large part of 1961 preoccupied by health problems, undergoing surgery for her endometriosis and a cholecystectomy, and spending four weeks in hospital care – including a brief stint in a mental ward – for depression.She was helped by her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio, with whom she had not been in contact since the finalization of their divorce in 1955; they now rekindled their friendship.In spring 1961, Monroe moved back to Los Angeles after six years in New York.She began a relationship with Frank Sinatra, and in early 1962 purchased a house in Brentwood.
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