Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962), was a Golden Globe award winning American actress, model, Hollywood icon, and sex symbol. She was known for her comedic skills and screen presence. Monroe became one of the most popular movie stars of the 1950s and early 1960s. During the later stages of her career, she worked towards serious roles with a measure of success and her fame surpassed that of any other entertainer of her time. However, she faced disappointments in her personal life during her later years.

Her premature death was classified as a "probable suicide." Conspiracy theorists and Jack Clemmons, the first LAPD Police officer to arrive at the death scene speculate that she was murdered. She is the only female on the Forbes top earning dead celebrities list.

Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in the charity ward of the Los Angeles County Hospital. According to biographer Fred Lawrence Guiles, her grandmother, Della Monroe Grainger, had her baptized Norma Jeane Baker by Aimee Semple McPherson. She would not legally change her name to Marilyn Monroe until 1956.

Her mother was Gladys Pearl Monroe. Monroe's birth father was never identified. For many years it was believed that Gladys's second husband Martin Edward Mortenson (1897-1981) was Monroe's father. His name was listed on her birth certificate. However this has been disputed with Monroe herself believing a salesman named Charles Stanley Gifford was her father. Whatever the case, Monroe had no father in her life.

Mentally unstable and unable to care for Monroe, Gladys placed her with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, California, where she lived until she was seven. In her autobiography My Story, Monroe states she thought Albert was a girl.

One day, Gladys announced that she had bought a house. A few months after they had moved in, Gladys suffered a breakdown. In My Story, Monroe recalls her mother "screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly removed to the State Hospital in Norwalk. According to My Sister Marilyn, Gladys's brother, Marion, hanged himself upon his release from an asylum, and Della's father did the same in a fit of depression.

Norma Jeane was declared a ward of the state, and Gladys' best friend, Grace McKee (later Goddard) became her guardian. After McKee married in 1935, Norma Jeane was sent to the Los Angeles Orphans Home (later renamed Hollygrove), and then to a succession of foster homes.

The Goddards were about to move to the east coast and could not take Monroe. Grace approached the mother of a neighbor boy, James Dougherty, about the possibility of her son marrying the girl. They married weeks after she turned 16, so that Norma Jeane would not have to return to an orphanage or foster care. Monroe stated in her autobiography that she did not feel like a wife; instead she enjoyed playing with the neighborhood children until her husband would call her home for the evening. The marriage would last until 1946 when Monroe decided to pursue her career.

While her husband was in the Merchant Marine during World War II, Norma Jeane Dougherty moved in with her mother-in-law where she started working in the Radioplane Company factory owned by Hollywood actor Reginald Denny. Her job required spraying airplane parts with fire retardant and inspecting parachutes. Army photographer David Conover was scouting local factories, taking photos for a YANK magazine article about women contributing to the war effort. He saw her potential as a model, and she was soon signed by The Blue Book modeling agency. Shortly after signing with the agency, Monroe had her hair cut, straightened, and lightened to golden blonde. She began taking drama classes and singing classes.

She became one of Blue Book's most successful models, appearing on dozens of magazine covers. In 1946, she came to the attention of talent scout Ben Lyon. He arranged a screen test for her with 20th Century Fox. She was offered a standard six-month contract with a starting salary of $125 per week.

Lyon suggested she adopt Marilyn (after the famous actress Marilyn Miller) as her stage name, since Norma Jeane was not considered commercial enough. For her last name, she took her mother's maiden name. Thus, the 20-year-old Norma Jeane Baker became Marilyn Monroe. During her first six months at Fox, Monroe was given no work, but Fox renewed her contract and she was given minor appearances in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! and Dangerous Years, both released in 1947. In Scudda Hoo!, her part was edited out of the film except for a quick glimpse of her face when she speaks two words. Fox decided not to renew her contract. Monroe returned to modelling and began to network and make contacts in Hollywood. She posed for nude photographs which were later featured in the first issue of Playboy.

In 1948, during a six-month stint at Columbia Pictures, she starred in Ladies of the Chorus. The low-budget musical was not a success and Monroe was dropped yet again. She met one of Hollywood's top agents, Johnny Hyde, who had Fox re-sign her after MGM turned her down. Darryl F. Zanuck, the vice-president of Fox, was not convinced of Monroe's potential, but because of Hyde's persistence, she gained supporting parts in the Marx Brothers film Love Happy (1949), and in Fox's All About Eve and MGM's The Asphalt Jungle (both 1950). Even though the roles were small, moviegoers as well as critics took notice. Hyde also arranged for her to have minor plastic surgery on her nose and chin, adding that to earlier dental surgery.

The next two years were filled with inconsequential roles in standard fare such as We're Not Married! and Love Nest. However, RKO executives used her to boost box office potential of the Fritz Lang production Clash by Night. After the film performed well, Fox employed a similar tactic, and she was cast as the ditzy receptionist with Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers in Howard Hawks's slapstick comedy Monkey Business. Critics no longer ignored her, and both films' success at the box office was partly attributed to Monroe's growing popularity.

Fox finally gave her a starring role in 1952 with Don't Bother to Knock, in which she portrayed a deranged babysitter who attacks the little girl in her care. It was a cheaply made B-movie, and although the reviews were mixed, they claimed that it demonstrated Monroe's ability and confirmed that she was ready for more leading roles. Her performance in the film has since been noted as one of the finest of her career.

Monroe proved she could carry a big-budget film when she starred in Niagara in 1953. Movie critics focused on Monroe's connection with the camera as much as on the sinister plot. She played an unbalanced woman planning to murder her husband. Around this time, the nude photos of Monroe began to surface, taken by photographer Tom Kelley during her unemployment. Prints were bought by Hugh Hefner and, in December 1953, appeared in the first edition of Playboy. To the dismay of Fox, Monroe decided to publicly admit it was indeed her in the pictures. When a journalist asked her what she wore in bed she replied, "Chanel no.5". When asked what she had on during the photo shoot, she replied, "The radio".

Over the following months, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire cemented Monroe's status as an A-list actress, and she became one of the world's biggest movie stars. The lavish Technicolor comedy films established Monroe's "dumb blonde" on-screen persona.

In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Monroe's turn as gold-digging showgirl Lorelei Lee won her rave reviews, and the scene where she sang "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" has inspired the likes of Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Geri Halliwell. In the Los Angeles premiere of the film, Monroe and co-star Jane Russell pressed their foot- and handprints in the cement in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. In How to Marry a Millionaire, Monroe was teamed up with Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable. She played a short-sighted dumb blonde, and even though the role was stereotypical, critics took note of her comedic timing.

Her next two films, the western River of No Return and the musical There's No Business Like Show Business, were not successful. Monroe tired of the roles that Zanuck assigned her. After completing work on The Seven Year Itch in early 1955, she broke her contract and fled Hollywood to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York. Fox would not accede to her contract demands and insisted she return to work on productions she considered inappropriate, such as The Girl in Pink Tights (which was never filmed), The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, and How to Be Very, Very Popular.

Once in New York Monroe set up her own production company Maryiln Monroe Productions with fashion photographer Milton H. Greene.

As The Seven Year Itch raced to the top of the box office in the summer of 1955, and with Fox starlets Jayne Mansfield and Sheree North failing to click with audiences, Zanuck admitted defeat and Monroe returned to Hollywood. A new contract was drawn up, giving Monroe approval of the director as well as the option to act in other studios' projects.

The first film to be made under the contract and production company was Bus Stop, directed by Joshua Logan. She played Chérie, a saloon bar singer who falls in love with a cowboy. Monroe deliberately appeared badly made-up and unglamorous. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for the performance and was praised by critics. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times proclaimed: "Hold on to your chairs, everybody, and get set for a rattling surprise. Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress." In his autobiography, Movie Stars, Real People and Me, director Joshua Logan wrote: "I found Marilyn to be one of the great talents of all time... She struck me as being a much brighter person than I had ever imagined, and I think that was the first time I learned that intelligence and, yes brilliance have nothing to do with education."

The second movie filmed under her production company was The Prince and the Showgirl co-starring Laurence Olivier. Olivier, who directed the movie, said Monroe was "a brilliant comedienne, which to me means she is also an extremely skilled actress" However, he became furious at her habit of being late to the set, as well as her dependency on her drama coach Paula Strasberg. Monroe's performance was hailed by critics, especially in Europe, where she was handed the David di Donatello, the Italian equivalent of the Academy Award, as well as the French Crystal Star Award. She was also nominated for the British BAFTA award.

In 1959, she scored the biggest hit of her career starring alongside Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot. After shooting finished, Wilder publicly blasted Monroe for her difficult on-set behavior. Soon, however, Wilder's attitude softened, and he hailed her as a great comedienne. Some Like It Hot is consistently rated as one of the best films ever made. Monroe's performance earned her a Golden Globe for best actress in musical or comedy.

After Some Like It Hot, Monroe shot Let's Make Love directed by George Cukor and co-starring Yves Montand. Monroe was forced to shoot the picture because of her obligations to Twentieth Century-Fox. While the film was not a commercial or critical success, it included one of Monroe's legendary musical numbers, Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy".

Arthur Miller wrote what became her and her co-star Clark Gable's last completed film, The Misfits. The exhausting shoot took place in the hot Nevada desert. Monroe, Gable and Montgomery Clift delivered performances that are considered excellent by contemporary movie critics. Tabloid magazines blamed Gable's death of a heart attack on Monroe, claiming she had given him a hard time on the set. Gable, however, insisted on doing his own stunts and was a heavy smoker. After Gable's death, Monroe attended the baptism of his son.

In 1961 some of the most famous photographs of Monroe were taken by Douglas Kirkland as a feature for the 25th anniversary issue of LOOK magazine.

Monroe returned to Hollywood to resume filming on the George Cukor comedy Something's Got to Give, a never-finished film that has become legendary for problems on the set and proved a costly debacle for Fox. In May 1962, she made her last significant public appearance, singing Happy Birthday, Mr. President at a televised birthday party for President John F. Kennedy.

After shooting what was claimed to have been the first ever nude scene by a major motion picture actress, Monroe's attendance on the set became even more erratic. On June 1, her thirty-sixth birthday, she attended a charity event at Dodger Stadium.

Financially strained by the production costs of Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Fox dropped Monroe from the film and replaced her with Lee Remick. However, co-star Dean Martin, who had a clause in his contract giving him an approval over his co-star, was unwilling to work with anyone but Monroe. She was rehired.

Monroe conducted a lengthy interview with Life, in which she expressed how bitter she was about Hollywood labeling her as a dumb blonde and how much she loved her audience. She also did a photo shoot for Vogue and began discussing a future film project with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, according to the Donald Spoto biography.

She was planning to star in a biopic of Jean Harlow as well as starring alongside Jack Lemmon in Irma La Douce, a Billy Wilder comedy that eventually starred Shirley MacLaine. Other projects under consideration were What a Way to Go! (in which Shirley MacLaine replaced her), Kiss Me, Stupid, a comedy starring Dean Martin and Kim Novak, and a musical version of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.

Before the shooting of Something's Got to Give resumed, Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles home on the morning of August 5, 1962. She remains one of the 20th century's legendary public figures and archetypal Hollywood movie stars.

Monroe did not consider herself a sex symbol. During an acting exercise with Strasburg, much to Monroe's confusion, he stopped her, believing she was too sexually excited to continue. According to him she 'vibrated' sexuality. Monroe's sex symbol status caused further problems for her in her later marriages to Dougherty and Dimaggio.

Monroe yearned to be perceived as intelligent. She never graduated from high school, which made her insecure, although she had a great love of reading and studying. Although she was baptized in the Christian faith, Monroe was not religious; however, she did convert to Judaism during her marriage to Arthur Miller, though it is not known whether she was devout.

Monroe married James Dougherty on June 19, 1942. In The Secret Happiness of Marilyn Monroe and To Norma Jeane with Love, Jimmie, he claimed they were in love, but dreams of stardom lured her away. In 1953 he wrote a piece called "Marilyn Monroe Was My Wife" for Photoplay, in which he claimed that he left her. In the 2004 documentary Marilyn's Man, Dougherty made three new claims: he was her Svengali and invented the "Marilyn Monroe" persona, studio executives forced her to divorce him, and that he was her only true love.

He remarried in 1947. The August 6, 1962 New York Times reported that, on being informed of her death, he replied "I'm sorry," and continued his LAPD patrol. He did not attend Monroe's funeral.

His sister wrote in the December 1952 Modern Screen Magazine that Dougherty left Monroe because she wanted to pursue modeling. He admitted to A&E Network that his mother asked him to marry her and told Lifetime in 1996 that he cut off her allotment after being served with divorce papers.

In 1951 Joe DiMaggio saw a picture of Monroe with two Chicago White Sox players but did not ask the man who arranged the stunt to set up a date until 1952. She wrote in My Story that she did not want to meet him, fearing a stereotypical jock. They eloped at San Francisco's City Hall on January 14, 1954. During the honeymoon, they visited Japan, and she was asked to visit Korea. She performed ten shows over four days in freezing temperatures for over 100,000 servicemen. Biographers have noted that DiMaggio, who stayed in Japan, was not pleased with his wife's decision during what he wanted to be an intimate trip. Back home, she wrote him a letter about her dreams for their future, dated February 28, 1954:

DiMaggio biographer Maury Allen quoted New York Yankees PR man Arthur Richman that DiMaggio told him everything went wrong from the trip to Japan on. On September 14, 1954, Monroe filmed the iconic skirt-blowing scene for The Seven Year Itch in front of New York's Trans-Lux Theater. Bill Kobrin, then Fox's east coast correspondent, told the June 26, 2006 Palm Springs Desert Sun that it was Billy Wilder's idea to turn it into a media circus: "... every time her dress came up and the crowd started to get excited, DiMaggio just blew up." The couple later had a "yelling battle" in the theater lobby. She filed for divorce on grounds of mental cruelty 274 days after the wedding.

Years later, she turned to him for help. In February 1961, her psychiatrist arranged for her to be admitted to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, where, according to Donald Spoto, she was placed in the ward for the most seriously disturbed. Unable to check herself out, she called DiMaggio, who secured her release. She later joined him in Florida. Their "just good friends" claim did not stop rumors of remarriage. Archive footage shows Bob Hope jokingly dedicating Best Song nominee The Second Time Around to them at the 1960 Academy Awards telecast. The two conceived a child, but it was stillborn.

According to Maury Allen, on August 1, 1962, DiMaggio — alarmed by how his ex-wife had fallen in with people such as Frank Sinatra and his "Rat Pack" — quit his job with a PX supplier to ask her to remarry him.

After her death, he claimed her body and arranged her funeral, barring Hollywood's elite. For 20 years, he had a dozen red roses delivered to her crypt three times a week. Unlike her other two husbands, he never talked about her publicly, wrote a tell-all, or remarried.

On June 29, 1956, Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller, whom she first met in 1951, in a civil ceremony in White Plains, New York. City Court Judge Seymour Robinowitz presided over the hushed ceremony in the law office of Sam Slavitt (the wedding had been kept secret from both the press and the public). In reflecting on his courtship of Monroe, Miller wrote, "She was a whirling light to me then, all paradox and enticing mystery, street-tough one moment, then lifted by a lyrical and poetic sensitivity that few retain past early adolescence". Nominally raised as a Christian, she converted to Judaism before marrying Miller. After she finished shooting The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier, the couple returned to the United States from England and discovered she was pregnant. However, she suffered from endometriosis, and the pregnancy was found to be ectopic. A subsequent pregnancy ended in miscarriage.

Miller's screenplay for The Misfits, a story about a despairing divorcée, was meant to be a Valentine gift for his wife, but by the time filming started in 1960 their marriage was beyond repair. A Mexican divorce was granted on January 24, 1961. On February 17, 1962, Miller married Inge Morath, one of the Magnum photographers recording the making of The Misfits.

In January 1964, Miller's play After The Fall opened, featuring a beautiful and devouring shrew named Maggie. The similarities between Maggie and Monroe did not go unnoticed by audiences and critics (including Helen Hayes). Simone Signoret noted in her autobiography the morbidity of Miller and Elia Kazan resuming their professional association "over a casket". In interviews and in his autobiography, Miller insisted that Maggie was not based on Monroe. However, he never pretended that his last Broadway-bound work, Finishing the Picture, was not based on the making of The Misfits. He appeared in the documentary The Century of the Self lamenting the psychological work being done on her before her death.

It has been claimed that Monroe was involved with either Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, or both. Her close friend Jeannae Carmen claimed she had dated both, though she only loved Bobby. Carmen also believes at least one of the Kennedys was responsible for her death; however, other friends disagree.

Monroe's last home was in Brentwood in Los Angeles. She was found dead by her housekeeper on August 5, 1962. Her death was ruled to be "acute barbiturate poisoning" by Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los Angeles County Coroners office. Questions remain about the circumstances and timeline of housekeeper Eunice Murray's discovery of Monroe's body. Also, some conspiracy theories involve John and Robert Kennedy. The official cause of her death was "probable suicide".

On August 8, 1962, Monroe was interred in a crypt at Corridor of Memories, #24, at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Lee Strasberg delivered the eulogy.

Over 40 years after her death Forbes.com compiled a survey titled "Highest-Earning Dead Celebrities," which compared the money the celebrities' estates earn annually from sales. Monroe ranked 9th, as the only woman on the list.

In her will, Monroe left Lee Strasberg 75 percent of the residuary of the estate. She expressed her desire that Strasberg, or, if he predeceased her, her executor, "distribute [her personal effects] among my friends, colleagues and those to whom I am devoted."

Strasberg willed his portion to his widow, Anna. She declared she would never sell Monroe's personal items after successfully suing Odyssey Auctions in 1994 to prevent the sale of items which were withheld by Monroe's former business manager, Inez Melson. However, in October 1999 Christie's auctioned the bulk of the items Monroe willed to Strasberg, netting US$12.3 million.

Anna Strasberg is currently in litigation against the children of four photographers to determine rights of publicity, which permits the licensing of images of deceased personages for commercial purposes. The decision as to whether Monroe was a resident of California, where she died, or New York, where her will was probated, is worth millions.

On May 4 2007, a federal judge in New York ruled that Monroe's rights of publicity ended upon her death, thus allowing the family of photographer Sam Shaw to sell photos of Monroe.

I think that when you are famous every weakness is exaggerated. (...) Goethe said, "Talent is developed in privacy," you know? And it's really true. (...) Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer. You're gay, you're sick, you're nervous or whatever. The last interview for MM Life (magazine); Richard Meryman 3 August 1962 (two days before her death) with the title "Marilyn Monroe Pours Her Heart Out"

Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to the president, and say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy.[...]I'll see, I'll see. 

I don't know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.

*1952 Photoplay Award: Special Award *1953 Golden Globe Henrietta Award: World Film Favorite Female. *1953 Photoplay Award: Most Popular Female Star *1956 BAFTA Film Award nomination: Best Foreign Actress for The Seven Year Itch *1956 Golden Globe nomination: Best Motion Picture Actress in Comedy or Musical for Bus Stop *1958 BAFTA Film Award nomination: Best Foreign Actress for The Prince and the Showgirl *1958 David di Donatello Award (Italian): Best Foreign Actress for The Prince and the Showgirl *1959 Crystal Star Award (French): Best Foreign Actress for The Prince and the Showgirl *1960 Golden Globe, Best Motion Picture Actress in Comedy or Musical for Some Like It Hot *1962 Golden Globe, World Film Favorite: Female *Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame 6104 Hollywood Blvd. *1999 she was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute in their list AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars.

* Death of Marilyn Monroe * Marilyn Monroe in popular culture * Berniece Baker Miracle, her half-sister * Look alike contest Monroe's popularity as a costume * Mark Bellinghaus Monroe memorabilia collector and activist

* Examines Monroe's stature as an icon. * Monroe's "love affair" with the camera. * Explores Western Civilization's fixation with Monroe. * A compendium of facts, fantasies and scandals about Marilyn Monroe. * Examination of Monroe's personal and professional life. * Reissue of a biography cited in this article. * His controversial take on Monroe. *My Sister Marilyn, Miracle, Berniece Baker and Mona Raw Baker. Publisher: Algonquin Books; first edition (1994) Hardcover: 238 pages ISBN 1565120701 * Reprint of her memoirs, ghost-written by Ben Hecht; introduction by Andrea Dworkin. * Scholarly look at her films. * Biography cited in this article. * Alleged transcripts of Monroe's therapy sessions. * Examines Monroe's influence on numerous artists. *Vitacco-Robles, Gary (2003). Cursum Perficio: Marilyn Monroe's Brentwood Hacienda: The Story of Her Final Months. IUniverse. ISBN 0-595-01082-2 * *Steinem, Gloria (1988). Marilyn: Norma Jeane, photos by George Barris. Signet. (1988) ISBN 0451155963

*The Marilyn Monroe Collection *Marilyn Remembered Fan Club *The Forever Marilyn Fan Club *Marilyn Monroe's 1952 interview with Parade * * *Official website *http://mysite.verizon.net/resv9yjn/ Virtual Tour of Marilyn Monroe's Brentwood Hacienda *Marilyn Monroe's grave site *Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio and the 1954 "Wrong Door Raid." *Images taken at Niagara Falls during the filming of the movie Niagara Niagara Falls Public Library (Ont.) *Marilyn Monroe Collectibles Feature *Married to Marilyn by Norman Mailer from The New York Review of Books