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 Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and professional struggles within the film industry. Her life and death are still the subjects of much controversy and speculation.She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson at the Los Angeles County Hospital on June 1, 1926. Her mother, Gladys Pearl (Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, to American parents from Indiana and Missouri, and was a film-cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. Marilyn's biological father has been established through DNA testing as Charles Stanley Gifford, who had been born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the state. Because Gladys was mentally and financially unable to care for young Marilyn, Gladys placed her in the care of a foster family, The Bolenders. Although the Bolender family wanted to adopt Marilyn, Gladys was eventually able to stabilize her lifestyle and took Marilyn back in her care when Marilyn was 7 years old. However, shortly after regaining custody of Marilyn, Gladys had a complete mental breakdown and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and was committed to a state mental hospital. Gladys spent the rest of her life going in and out of hospitals and rarely had contact with young Marilyn. Once Marilyn became an adult and celebrated as a film star, she paid a woman by the name of Inez Melson to look in on the institutionalized Gladys and give detailed reports of her progress. Gladys outlived her daughter, dying in 1984.Marilyn was then taken in by Gladys' best friend Grace Goddard, who, after a series of foster homes, placed Marilyn into the Los Angeles Orphan's Home in 1935. Marilyn was traumatized by her experience there despite the Orphan's Home being an adequate living facility. Grace Goddard eventually took Marilyn back to live with her in 1937 although this stay did not last long as Grace's husband began molesting Marilyn. Marilyn went to live with Grace's Aunt Ana after this incident, although due to Aunt Ana's advanced age she could not care properly for Marilyn. Marilyn once again for the third time had to return to live with the Goddards. The Goddards planned to relocated and according to law, could not take Marilyn with them. She only had two choices: return to the orphanage or get married. Marilyn was only 16 years old.She decided to marry a neighborhood friend named James Dougherty; he went into the military, she modeled, they divorced in 1946. She owned 400 books (including Tolstoy, Whitman, Milton), listened to Beethoven records, studied acting at the Actors' lab in Hollywood, and took literature courses at UCLA downtown. 20th Century Fox gave her a contract but let it lapse a year later. In 1948, Columbia gave her a six-month contract, turned her over to coach Natasha Lytess and featured her in the B movie Ladies of the Chorus (1948) in which she sang three numbers : "Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy", "Anyone Can Tell I Love You" and "The Ladies of the Chorus" with Adele Jergens (dubbed by Virginia Rees) and others. Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw her in a small part in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and put her in All About Eve (1950) , resulting in 20th Century re-signing her to a seven-year contract. Niagara (1953) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) launched her as a sex symbol superstar.When she went to a supper honoring her in the The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she arrived in a red chiffon gown borrowed from the studio (she had never owned a gown). That same year, she married and divorced baseball great Joe DiMaggio (their wedding night was spent in Paso Robles, California). After The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she wanted serious acting to replace the sexpot image and went to New York's Actors Studio. She worked with director Lee Strasberg and also underwent psychoanalysis to learn more about herself. Critics praised her transformation in Bus Stop (1956) and the press was stunned by her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller . True to form, she had no veil to match her beige wedding dress so she dyed one in coffee; he wore one of the two suits he owned. They went to England that fall where she made The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) with Laurence Olivier , fighting with him and falling further prey to alcohol and pills. Two miscarriages and gynecological surgery followed. So had an affair with Yves Montand . Work on her last picture The Misfits (1961) , written for her by departing husband Miller, was interrupted by exhaustion. She was dropped from the unfinished Something's Got to Give (1962) due to chronic lateness and drug dependency.On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe's day began with threatening phone calls. Dr. Ralph Greenson, Marilyn's physician, came over the following day and quoted later in a document "Felt it was possible that Marilyn had felt rejected by some of the people she had been close to." Apart from being upset that her publicist slept too long, she seemed fine. Pat Newcombe, who had stayed the previous night at Marilyn's house, left in the early evening as did Greenson who had a dinner date. Marilyn was upset he couldn't stay, and around 7:30pm she telephoned him to say that her second husband's son had called him. Peter Lawford also called Marilyn, inviting her to dinner, but she declined. Lawford later said her speech was slurred. As the evening for wore on there were other phone calls, including one from Jose Belanos, who said he thought she sounded fine. According to the funeral directors, Marilyn died sometime between 9:30pm and 11:30pm. Her maid unable to raise her but seeing a light under her locked door, called the police shortly after midnight. She also phoned Ralph Greenson who, on arrival, could not break down the bedroom door. He eventually broke in through French windows and found Marilyn dead in bed. The coroner stated she had died from acute barbiturate poisoning, and it was a 'probable suicide' though many conspiracies would follow in the years after her death.Probably the most celebrated of all actresses, Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, in the charity ward of the Los Angeles General Hospital. Her mother, Gladys Pearl (Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, to American parents from Indiana and Missouri, and was a film-cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. Marilyn's biological father has been established through DNA testing as Charles Stanley Gifford, who had been born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the state. Marilyn grew up not knowing for sure who her father really was. Gladys gave Norma Jeane the name of Baker. Poverty was a constant companion to Gladys and Norma. Gladys, who was extremely attractive and later worked for R.K.O. Studios, suffered from mental illness and was in and out of mental institutions for the rest of her life, and because of that Norma Jeane spent time in foster homes. When she was nine, she was placed in an orphanage where she was to stay for the next two years. Upon being released from the orphanage, she went to yet another foster home. In 1942, at sixteen years old, Norma Jeane married twenty-one-year-old aircraft plant worker James Dougherty. The marriage lasted only four years, and they divorced in 1946. By this time, Marilyn began to model swimsuits and bleached her hair blonde. Various shots made their way into the public eye, where some were eventually seen by R.K.O. Pictures head Howard Hughes. He offered Marilyn a screen test, but an agent suggested that 20th Century-Fox would be the better choice for her, since it was a much bigger and more prestigious studio. She was signed to a contract at $125 per week for a six-month period and that was increased by $25 per week at the end of that time when her contract was lengthened.Her first film was in 1947 with a bit part in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947). Her next production was not much better, a bit in the forgettable Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948). Two of the three brief scenes in which she appeared wound up on the cutting room floor. Later that same year, she was given a somewhat better role as Evie in Dangerous Years (1947). However, Fox declined to renew her contract, so she went back to modeling and acting school.Columbia Pictures then picked her up to play Peggy Martin in Ladies of the Chorus (1948), where she sang three numbers. Notices from the critics were favorable for her, if not the film, but Columbia dropped her. Once again Marilyn returned to modeling. In 1949, she appeared in United Artists' Love Happy (1949). It was also that same year she posed nude for the now famous calendar shot which was later to appear in Playboy magazine in 1953 and further boost her career. She would be the first centerfold in that magazine's long and illustrious history. The next year proved to be a good year for Marilyn. She appeared in five films, but the good news was that she received very good notices for her roles in two of them, The Asphalt Jungle (1950) from MGM and All About Eve (1950) from Fox. Even though both roles were basically not much more than bit parts, movie fans remembered her dizzy but very sexy blonde performance.In 1951, Marilyn got a fairly sizable role in Love Nest (1951). The public was now getting to know her and liked what it saw. She had an intoxicating quality of volcanic sexuality wrapped in an aura of almost childlike innocence. In 1952, Marilyn appeared in Don't Bother to Knock (1952), in which she played a somewhat mentally unbalanced babysitter. Critics didn't particularly care for her work in this picture, but she made a much more favorable impression later in the year in Monkey Business (1952), where she was seen for the first time as a platinum blonde, a look that became her trademark. The next year, she appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) as Lorelei Lee. It was also the same year she began dating the baseball great Joe DiMaggio.Marilyn was now a genuine box-office drawing card. Later, she appeared with Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, and Rory Calhoun in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Although her co-stars got the rave reviews, it was the sight of Marilyn that really excited the audience, especially the male members. On Thursday, January 14th, 1954, Marilyn wed DiMaggio, then proceeded to film There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). That was quickly followed by The Seven Year Itch (1955), which showcased her considerable comedic talent and contained what is arguably one of the most memorable moments in cinema history: Marilyn standing above a subway grating and the wind from a passing subway blowing her white dress up.By October 1954, Marilyn announced her divorce from DiMaggio (though the divorce was not finalized until October 31, 1955). In 1955, she was suspended by Fox for not reporting for work on How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955). It was her second suspension, the first being for not reporting for the production of The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955). Both roles went to others. Her work was slowing down, due to her habit of being continually late to the set, her illnesses (whether real or imagined) and generally being unwilling to cooperate with her producers, directors, and fellow actors.However in Bus Stop (1956), Marilyn finally showed critics that she could play a straight dramatic role. It was also the same year she married playwright Arthur Miller. (They divorced January 20, 1961.) In 1957, Marilyn flew to Britain to film The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), which proved less than impressive critically and financially. It made money, but many critics panned it for being slow-moving. After a year off in 1958, Marilyn returned to the screen the next year for the delightful comedy, Some Like It Hot (1959) with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. The film was an absolute smash hit, with Curtis and Lemmon pretending to be females in an all-girl band, so they can get work. This was to be Marilyn's only film for the year.In 1960, Marilyn appeared in George Cukor's Let's Make Love (1960) with Tony Randall and Yves Montand. Again, while it made money, it was critically panned as stodgy and slow-moving. The following year, Marilyn made what was to be her final film, The Misfits (1961), which also proved to be the final film for the legendary Clark Gable, who died later that year of a heart attack. The film was popular with critics and the public alike. In 1962, Marilyn was chosen to star in Fox's Something's Got to Give (1962). Again, her absenteeism caused delay after delay in production, resulting in her being fired from the production in June of that year. It looked as though her career was finished. Studios just didn't want to take a chance on her because it would cost them thousands of dollars in delays. She was only 36 years old.Marilyn acted in only thirty films, but her legendary status and mysticism will remain with film history for ever.
Bio:
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and professional struggles within the film industry. Her life and death are still the subjects of much controversy and speculation.She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson at the Los Angeles County Hospital on June 1, 1926. Her mother, Gladys Pearl (Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, to American parents from Indiana and Missouri, and was a film-cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. Marilyn's biological father has been established through DNA testing as Charles Stanley Gifford, who had been born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the state. Because Gladys was mentally and financially unable to care for young Marilyn, Gladys placed her in the care of a foster family, The Bolenders. Although the Bolender family wanted to adopt Marilyn, Gladys was eventually able to stabilize her lifestyle and took Marilyn back in her care when Marilyn was 7 years old. However, shortly after regaining custody of Marilyn, Gladys had a complete mental breakdown and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and was committed to a state mental hospital. Gladys spent the rest of her life going in and out of hospitals and rarely had contact with young Marilyn. Once Marilyn became an adult and celebrated as a film star, she paid a woman by the name of Inez Melson to look in on the institutionalized Gladys and give detailed reports of her progress. Gladys outlived her daughter, dying in 1984.Marilyn was then taken in by Gladys' best friend Grace Goddard, who, after a series of foster homes, placed Marilyn into the Los Angeles Orphan's Home in 1935. Marilyn was traumatized by her experience there despite the Orphan's Home being an adequate living facility. Grace Goddard eventually took Marilyn back to live with her in 1937 although this stay did not last long as Grace's husband began molesting Marilyn. Marilyn went to live with Grace's Aunt Ana after this incident, although due to Aunt Ana's advanced age she could not care properly for Marilyn. Marilyn once again for the third time had to return to live with the Goddards. The Goddards planned to relocated and according to law, could not take Marilyn with them. She only had two choices: return to the orphanage or get married. Marilyn was only 16 years old.She decided to marry a neighborhood friend named James Dougherty; he went into the military, she modeled, they divorced in 1946. She owned 400 books (including Tolstoy, Whitman, Milton), listened to Beethoven records, studied acting at the Actors' lab in Hollywood, and took literature courses at UCLA downtown. 20th Century Fox gave her a contract but let it lapse a year later. In 1948, Columbia gave her a six-month contract, turned her over to coach Natasha Lytess and featured her in the B movie Ladies of the Chorus (1948) in which she sang three numbers : "Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy", "Anyone Can Tell I Love You" and "The Ladies of the Chorus" with Adele Jergens (dubbed by Virginia Rees) and others. Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw her in a small part in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and put her in All About Eve (1950) , resulting in 20th Century re-signing her to a seven-year contract. Niagara (1953) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) launched her as a sex symbol superstar.When she went to a supper honoring her in the The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she arrived in a red chiffon gown borrowed from the studio (she had never owned a gown). That same year, she married and divorced baseball great Joe DiMaggio (their wedding night was spent in Paso Robles, California). After The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she wanted serious acting to replace the sexpot image and went to New York's Actors Studio. She worked with director Lee Strasberg and also underwent psychoanalysis to learn more about herself. Critics praised her transformation in Bus Stop (1956) and the press was stunned by her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller . True to form, she had no veil to match her beige wedding dress so she dyed one in coffee; he wore one of the two suits he owned. They went to England that fall where she made The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) with Laurence Olivier , fighting with him and falling further prey to alcohol and pills. Two miscarriages and gynecological surgery followed. So had an affair with Yves Montand . Work on her last picture The Misfits (1961) , written for her by departing husband Miller, was interrupted by exhaustion. She was dropped from the unfinished Something's Got to Give (1962) due to chronic lateness and drug dependency.On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe's day began with threatening phone calls. Dr. Ralph Greenson, Marilyn's physician, came over the following day and quoted later in a document "Felt it was possible that Marilyn had felt rejected by some of the people she had been close to." Apart from being upset that her publicist slept too long, she seemed fine. Pat Newcombe, who had stayed the previous night at Marilyn's house, left in the early evening as did Greenson who had a dinner date. Marilyn was upset he couldn't stay, and around 7:30pm she telephoned him to say that her second husband's son had called him. Peter Lawford also called Marilyn, inviting her to dinner, but she declined. Lawford later said her speech was slurred. As the evening for wore on there were other phone calls, including one from Jose Belanos, who said he thought she sounded fine. According to the funeral directors, Marilyn died sometime between 9:30pm and 11:30pm. Her maid unable to raise her but seeing a light under her locked door, called the police shortly after midnight. She also phoned Ralph Greenson who, on arrival, could not break down the bedroom door. He eventually broke in through French windows and found Marilyn dead in bed. The coroner stated she had died from acute barbiturate poisoning, and it was a 'probable suicide' though many conspiracies would follow in the years after her death.
Probably the most celebrated of all actresses, Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, in the charity ward of the Los Angeles General Hospital. Her mother, Gladys Pearl (Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, to American parents from Indiana and Missouri, and was a film-cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. Marilyn's biological father has been established through DNA testing as Charles Stanley Gifford, who had been born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the state. Marilyn grew up not knowing for sure who her father really was. Gladys gave Norma Jeane the name of Baker. Poverty was a constant companion to Gladys and Norma. Gladys, who was extremely attractive and later worked for R.K.O. Studios, suffered from mental illness and was in and out of mental institutions for the rest of her life, and because of that Norma Jeane spent time in foster homes. When she was nine, she was placed in an orphanage where she was to stay for the next two years. Upon being released from the orphanage, she went to yet another foster home. In 1942, at sixteen years old, Norma Jeane married twenty-one-year-old aircraft plant worker James Dougherty. The marriage lasted only four years, and they divorced in 1946. By this time, Marilyn began to model swimsuits and bleached her hair blonde. Various shots made their way into the public eye, where some were eventually seen by R.K.O. Pictures head Howard Hughes. He offered Marilyn a screen test, but an agent suggested that 20th Century-Fox would be the better choice for her, since it was a much bigger and more prestigious studio. She was signed to a contract at $125 per week for a six-month period and that was increased by $25 per week at the end of that time when her contract was lengthened.Her first film was in 1947 with a bit part in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947). Her next production was not much better, a bit in the forgettable Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948). Two of the three brief scenes in which she appeared wound up on the cutting room floor. Later that same year, she was given a somewhat better role as Evie in Dangerous Years (1947). However, Fox declined to renew her contract, so she went back to modeling and acting school.Columbia Pictures then picked her up to play Peggy Martin in Ladies of the Chorus (1948), where she sang three numbers. Notices from the critics were favorable for her, if not the film, but Columbia dropped her. Once again Marilyn returned to modeling. In 1949, she appeared in United Artists' Love Happy (1949). It was also that same year she posed nude for the now famous calendar shot which was later to appear in Playboy magazine in 1953 and further boost her career. She would be the first centerfold in that magazine's long and illustrious history. The next year proved to be a good year for Marilyn. She appeared in five films, but the good news was that she received very good notices for her roles in two of them, The Asphalt Jungle (1950) from MGM and All About Eve (1950) from Fox. Even though both roles were basically not much more than bit parts, movie fans remembered her dizzy but very sexy blonde performance.In 1951, Marilyn got a fairly sizable role in Love Nest (1951). The public was now getting to know her and liked what it saw. She had an intoxicating quality of volcanic sexuality wrapped in an aura of almost childlike innocence. In 1952, Marilyn appeared in Don't Bother to Knock (1952), in which she played a somewhat mentally unbalanced babysitter. Critics didn't particularly care for her work in this picture, but she made a much more favorable impression later in the year in Monkey Business (1952), where she was seen for the first time as a platinum blonde, a look that became her trademark. The next year, she appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) as Lorelei Lee. It was also the same year she began dating the baseball great Joe DiMaggio.Marilyn was now a genuine box-office drawing card. Later, she appeared with Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, and Rory Calhoun in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Although her co-stars got the rave reviews, it was the sight of Marilyn that really excited the audience, especially the male members. On Thursday, January 14th, 1954, Marilyn wed DiMaggio, then proceeded to film There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). That was quickly followed by The Seven Year Itch (1955), which showcased her considerable comedic talent and contained what is arguably one of the most memorable moments in cinema history: Marilyn standing above a subway grating and the wind from a passing subway blowing her white dress up.By October 1954, Marilyn announced her divorce from DiMaggio (though the divorce was not finalized until October 31, 1955). In 1955, she was suspended by Fox for not reporting for work on How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955). It was her second suspension, the first being for not reporting for the production of The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955). Both roles went to others. Her work was slowing down, due to her habit of being continually late to the set, her illnesses (whether real or imagined) and generally being unwilling to cooperate with her producers, directors, and fellow actors.However in Bus Stop (1956), Marilyn finally showed critics that she could play a straight dramatic role. It was also the same year she married playwright Arthur Miller. (They divorced January 20, 1961.) In 1957, Marilyn flew to Britain to film The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), which proved less than impressive critically and financially. It made money, but many critics panned it for being slow-moving. After a year off in 1958, Marilyn returned to the screen the next year for the delightful comedy, Some Like It Hot (1959) with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. The film was an absolute smash hit, with Curtis and Lemmon pretending to be females in an all-girl band, so they can get work. This was to be Marilyn's only film for the year.In 1960, Marilyn appeared in George Cukor's Let's Make Love (1960) with Tony Randall and Yves Montand. Again, while it made money, it was critically panned as stodgy and slow-moving. The following year, Marilyn made what was to be her final film, The Misfits (1961), which also proved to be the final film for the legendary Clark Gable, who died later that year of a heart attack. The film was popular with critics and the public alike. In 1962, Marilyn was chosen to star in Fox's Something's Got to Give (1962). Again, her absenteeism caused delay after delay in production, resulting in her being fired from the production in June of that year. It looked as though her career was finished. Studios just didn't want to take a chance on her because it would cost them thousands of dollars in delays. She was only 36 years old.Marilyn acted in only thirty films, but her legendary status and mysticism will remain with film history for ever.
Tivia:
Often carried around the book, "The Biography of Abraham Lincoln."Was good friends with Judy Garland.Ex-husband Joe DiMaggio put fresh roses at her memorial site, for numerous years after her death.Fearing blemishes and sweat, she washed her face fifteen times a day.When she was told that she was not the star in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) she verbally said "Well whatever I am, I'm still the blonde.".In 1972, actress Veronica Hamel and her husband became the new owners of Marilyn's Brentwood home. They hired a contractor to replace the roof and remodel the house, and the contractor discovered a sophisticated eavesdropping and telephone tapping system that covered every room in the house. The components were not commercially available in 1962, but were in the words of a retired Justice Department official, "standard FBI issue." It is known that renegade F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover believed that President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy (who was Hoover's boss) were threats to national security because of their dalliances with Monroe and with Judith Exner, who was also a girlfriend of a Mafia boss. This bugging equipment led to Hoover's rumored blackmailing of the Kennedy brothers. The new owners spent $100,000 to remove the bugging devices from the house.Was close friends with singer Ella Fitzgerald and helped her rise in her musical career by arranging for her to sing in many upscale nightclubs some of which were segregated during the time of their friendship.Monroe was a stutterer, a little known fact that was easily covered thanks to studio vocal coaches who provided her with diction lessons.Her "Happy Birthday Mr. President" dress sold for $1,267,500.00, a world record for the most expensive piece of clothing ever sold, and is in the Guinness Book of World Records.Spent most of her early childhood in foster homes and orphanages because her mother was committed to a mental institution. Later, she lived with her mother's best friend, Grace McKee, and her family. McKee, a big fan of Jean Harlow, allowed her to wear make-up and curl her hair and, when she was 15, it was McKee who pierced her ears for her using a sewing needle. At 16, when McKee could no longer take care of her, she got married to avoid returning to the orphanage.Her personal library contained over 400 books on topics ranging from art to history, psychology, philosophy, literature, religion, poetry, and gardening. Many of the volumes, auctioned in 1999, bore her pencil notations in the margins.She was discovered dead at her home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, Brentwood, California. She had a phone in one of her hands, her body was completely nude and face down, on her bed.She tried 9 different shades of blonde hair color before settling on platinum blonde.The dress Marilyn Monroe wore to serenade John F. Kennedy, on May 19, 1962 at his birthday celebration was so tight, that it had to be sewn onto her. She had to sit still for approximately an hour.Because the bathing suit she wore in the movie Love Nest (1951) was so risque (for the time period) and caused such a commotion on the set, director Joseph M. Newman had to make it a closed set when she was filming.Started using the name Marilyn Monroe in 1946, but did not legally change it until 1956.Her first modeling job paid only five dollars.Appeared on the first cover of Playboy in December 1953.Learned to play the guitar for her role in River of No Return (1954) and the ukulele for her role in Some Like It Hot (1959).Became pregnant twice (in July 1957 and November 1958) during her marriage to Arthur Miller; on both occasions she suffered miscarriages.Her classic shape, according to her dressmaker, is actually measured at 37-23-36.The licensing of Marilyn's name and likeness, handled world-wide by Curtis Management Group, reportedly nets the Monroe estate about $2 million a year.Her last film Something's Got to Give (1962), was finally released in 2003. In the swimming pool scene, Marilyn reveals much more to the camera than she did in her then controversial calendar photo from the early 1950s.Wore glasses.Suffered from endometriosis, a condition in which tissues of the uterus lining (endometrium) leave the uterus, attach themselves to other areas of the body, and grow, causing pain, irregular bleeding, and, in severe cases, infertility.Married Arthur Miller twice: the 1st time in a civil ceremony, then in a Jewish (to which she had converted) ceremony two days later.When she died in 1962 at age 36, she left an estate valued at $1.6 million. In her will, Monroe bequeathed 75% of that estate to Lee Strasberg, her acting coach, and 25% to Dr. Marianne Kris, her psychoanalyst. A trust fund provided her mother, Gladys Baker Eley, with $5,000 a year. When Dr. Kris died in 1980, she passed her 25% on to the Anna Freud Centre, a children's psychiatric institute in London. Since Strasberg's death in 1982, his 75% has been administered by his widow, Anna, and her lawyer, Irving Seidman.She left Hollywood to pursue serious acting by studying under Lee Strasberg at his Actors' Studio in New York City.She was suggested as a possible wife for Prince Rainier of Monaco. But he picked actress, Grace Kelly, to be his wife.Although she was perhaps the most famous actress of the 1950s decade, she never made more than $100,000 per picture upfront. Actresses such as Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck were earning significantly more.The first time she signed an autograph as Marilyn Monroe, she had to ask how to spell it. She didn't know where to put the "i" in "Marilyn".When she wasn't acting, she preferred to wear nothing but a bathrobe and occasionally a bikini.Was an outstanding player on the Hollygrove Orphanage softball team.A 1982 review into the original inquest of Marilyn's death, conducted on its 20-year anniversary, concluded that the actress committed suicide or accidentally overdosed, and was not murdered--rumors that were fueled by the sloppy handling of evidence, the delay in securing the scene and the disappearance of tissue samples.Although she was an avid buyer of books and owned over 400 of them at her death, third husband Arthur Miller said, "Aside from Colette's Cheri and a few short stories, I had never known her to read anything all the way through. She felt she could get the idea of a book, and often did, in just a few pages."."Time Magazine" reported in 1973 that Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, the doctor who performed Monroe's autopsy, said that contrary to rumors, Monroe's stomach was never pumped after her death. The level of Nembutal in her bloodstream was 4.5 milligrams per 100, which is the equivalent of 40 or 50 capsules indicating suicide.Was originally set to play Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), but Audrey Hepburn played the role instead.Read and wrote poetry.One of the first Los Angeles natives to become a major movie star.There are over 600 books written about her.Richard Widmark on co-starring with Monroe in "Don't Bother to Knock": "She was a vulnerable kid. Murder to work with because she was scared to death of acting - even when she became a big movie actress. We had a hell of a time getting her out of the dressing room. When it was five o'clock , it got irritating: 'C'mon, Marilyn, we want to go home!' She was a movie animal. Something happened between the lens and the film. Nobody knew what the hell it was. On the set, you'd think: 'Oh, this is impossible; you can't print this.' You'd see it, and she's got everyone backed off the screen. Olivier said the same thing. She had that phenomenal something! Nobody knows what it is, but she had it. She certainly was never a professional actress. She always had a coach with her, lurking in the background, giving her signals. And she could never remember three words in a row - so it was all piece-work. Beyond all the technical deficiencies, she was a nice girl. We got along fine.".Her mother, Gladys Pearl (Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, to American parents from Indiana and Missouri, and was a film-cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. Marilyn's biological father has been established through DNA testing as Charles Stanley Gifford, who had been born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the state; he was of English descent. From his side, she was descended from religious leader Anne Marbury-Hutchinson, from whom she is related to Lucretia Rudolph (wife of President James A. Garfield), Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, and George W. Bush.When budding actresses Shelley Winters and Marilyn were roommates in the late 1940s in Hollywood, Shelley said that one day she had to step out and asked Marilyn to "wash the lettuce" for a salad they were to share for dinner. When Shelley got back to the apartment, (Marilyn was apparently new to the art of cooking) had the leaves of lettuce in a small tub of soapy water and was scrubbing them clean. She had not heard of the phrase before either, or did not know it's true meaning.In 1999, a make-up kit that she personally owned, sold for $266,500.Aside from her birth name of Norma Jeane Mortenson, she was baptized and mainly known throughout her life as Norma Jeane Baker. During her modeling days she was also known as Norma Jeane Dougherty (her first marriage name), and also as Jean Norman. When she signed with 20th Century-Fox, studio casting executive Ben Lyon had first chosen the name Carol Lind as her stage name, although she disliked that. Eventually she chose her mother's maiden name of Monroe. Three names were drawn up as possible stage names. The first was Norma Jeane Monroe, although that sounded awkward; the second was Jean Monroe, and the third was Marilyn Monroe, the latter first name being chosen by Lyon who thought Norma Jeane resembled famed stage actress Marilyn Miller. Norma Jeane liked Jean Monroe, for it preserved some of her name, but Lyon convinced her that Marilyn Monroe sounded more alliterative and so it was chosen.In order to fall asleep quicker and stay asleep longer she often mixed champagne with sleeping pills.According to the book "Flesh and Fantasy" Monroe perfected a Vaseline-based lip gloss.Although Monroe's famous nude calender grossed $750,000, the actress only got $50 and a bad cold out of it.Her lifelong bouts with depression and self-destruction took their toll during filming The Seven Year Itch (1955). She frequently muffed scenes and forgot her lines, leading to sometimes as many as 40 takes of a scene before a satisfactory result was produced. Her constant tardiness and behavioral problems made the budget of the film swell to $1.8 million, a high price for the time. The film still managed to make a nice profit. The classic shot of her dress blowing up around her legs as she stands over a subway grating in this film was originally shot on Manhattan's Lexington Avenue at 52nd St., On Wednesday, September 15th, 1954, at 1:00 a.m. Five thousand onlookers whistled and cheered through take after take as Marilyn repeatedly missed her lines. This occurred in presence of an increasingly embarrassed and angry Joe DiMaggio (her husband at the time; the nine-month-old marriage officially ended during the shooting of this film). The original footage shot on that night in New York never made it to the screen; the noise of the crowd had made it unusable. Director Billy Wilder re-shot the scene on the 20th Century-Fox lot, on a set replicating Lexington Avenue, and got a more satisfactory result. However, it took another 40 takes for Marilyn to achieve the famous scene. Amazingly, her very narrow spike heels don't get stuck or break in the subway grating, although this was a universal problem at the time for the countless women wearing that very popular style heel in New York City in that era. An important promotional campaign was released for this mainstream motion picture, including a 52-foot-high cutout of Marilyn (from the blowing dress scene) erected in front of Loews State Theater, in New York City's Times Square. The movie premiere was on June 1, 1955, which was also her 29th birthday.Interred at Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California, USA, in the Corridor of Memories, crypt #24. |
| Name: |
Marilyn Monroe |
Type: |
Actress,Writer,Music Department (IMDB) |
| Area: |
All World |
Platform: |
IMDB |
| Category: |
|
Business scope: |
Actress,Writer,Music Department |
| Products for sale: |
Actress,Writer,Music Department |
| Model rank: |
911 |
| Last update: |
2024-07-01 03:11:34 |
| Height: |
5' 6' (1.68 m) |
| Biography: |
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. She became one of the world\'s most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and professional |
| Trivia: |
Often carried around the book, "The Biography of Abraham Lincoln."Was good friends with Judy Garland.Ex-husband Joe DiMaggio put fresh roses at her memorial site, for numerous years after her death.Fearing blemishes and sweat, she washed her face fifteen times a day.When she was told that she was not the star in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) she verbally said "Well whatever I am, I'm still the blonde.".In 1972, actress Veronica Hamel and her husband became the new owners of Marilyn's Brentwood home. They hired a contractor to replace the roof and remodel the house, and the contractor discovered a sophisticated eavesdropping and telephone tapping system that covered every room in the house. The components were not commercially available in 1962, but were in the words of a retired Justice Department official, "standard FBI issue." It is known that renegade F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover believed that President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy (who was Hoover's boss) were threats to national security because of their dalliances with Monroe and with Judith Exner, who was also a girlfriend of a Mafia boss. This bugging equipment led to Hoover's rumored blackmailing of the Kennedy brothers. The new owners spent $100,000 to remove the bugging devices from the house.Was close friends with singer Ella Fitzgerald and helped her rise in her musical career by arranging for her to sing in many upscale nightclubs some of which were segregated during the time of their friendship.Monroe was a stutterer, a little known fact that was easily covered thanks to studio vocal coaches who provided her with diction lessons.Her "Happy Birthday Mr. President" dress sold for $1,267,500.00, a world record for the most expensive piece of clothing ever sold, and is in the Guinness Book of World Records.Spent most of her early childhood in foster homes and orphanages because her mother was committed to a mental institution. Later, she lived with her mother's best friend, Grace McKee, and her family. McKee, a big fan of Jean Harlow, allowed her to wear make-up and curl her hair and, when she was 15, it was McKee who pierced her ears for her using a sewing needle. At 16, when McKee could no longer take care of her, she got married to avoid returning to the orphanage.Her personal library contained over 400 books on topics ranging from art to history, psychology, philosophy, literature, religion, poetry, and gardening. Many of the volumes, auctioned in 1999, bore her pencil notations in the margins.She was discovered dead at her home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, Brentwood, California. She had a phone in one of her hands, her body was completely nude and face down, on her bed.She tried 9 different shades of blonde hair color before settling on platinum blonde.The dress Marilyn Monroe wore to serenade John F. Kennedy, on May 19, 1962 at his birthday celebration was so tight, that it had to be sewn onto her. She had to sit still for approximately an hour.Because the bathing suit she wore in the movie Love Nest (1951) was so risque (for the time period) and caused such a commotion on the set, director Joseph M. Newman had to make it a closed set when she was filming.Started using the name Marilyn Monroe in 1946, but did not legally change it until 1956.Her first modeling job paid only five dollars.Appeared on the first cover of Playboy in December 1953.Learned to play the guitar for her role in River of No Return (1954) and the ukulele for her role in Some Like It Hot (1959).Became pregnant twice (in July 1957 and November 1958) during her marriage to Arthur Miller; on both occasions she suffered miscarriages.Her classic shape, according to her dressmaker, is actually measured at 37-23-36.The licensing of Marilyn's name and likeness, handled world-wide by Curtis Management Group, reportedly nets the Monroe estate about $2 million a year.Her last film Something's Got to Give (1962), was finally released in 2003. In the swimming pool scene, Marilyn reveals much more to the camera than she did in her then controversial calendar photo from the early 1950s.Wore glasses.Suffered from endometriosis, a condition in which tissues of the uterus lining (endometrium) leave the uterus, attach themselves to other areas of the body, and grow, causing pain, irregular bleeding, and, in severe cases, infertility.Married Arthur Miller twice: the 1st time in a civil ceremony, then in a Jewish (to which she had converted) ceremony two days later.When she died in 1962 at age 36, she left an estate valued at $1.6 million. In her will, Monroe bequeathed 75% of that estate to Lee Strasberg, her acting coach, and 25% to Dr. Marianne Kris, her psychoanalyst. A trust fund provided her mother, Gladys Baker Eley, with $5,000 a year. When Dr. Kris died in 1980, she passed her 25% on to the Anna Freud Centre, a children's psychiatric institute in London. Since Strasberg's death in 1982, his 75% has been administered by his widow, Anna, and her lawyer, Irving Seidman.She left Hollywood to pursue serious acting by studying under Lee Strasberg at his Actors' Studio in New York City.She was suggested as a possible wife for Prince Rainier of Monaco. But he picked actress, Grace Kelly, to be his wife.Although she was perhaps the most famous actress of the 1950s decade, she never made more than $100,000 per picture upfront. Actresses such as Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck were earning significantly more.The first time she signed an autograph as Marilyn Monroe, she had to ask how to spell it. She didn't know where to put the "i" in "Marilyn".When she wasn't acting, she preferred to wear nothing but a bathrobe and occasionally a bikini.Was an outstanding player on the Hollygrove Orphanage softball team.A 1982 review into the original inquest of Marilyn's death, conducted on its 20-year anniversary, concluded that the actress committed suicide or accidentally overdosed, and was not murdered--rumors that were fueled by the sloppy handling of evidence, the delay in securing the scene and the disappearance of tissue samples.Although she was an avid buyer of books and owned over 400 of them at her death, third husband Arthur Miller said, "Aside from Colette's Cheri and a few short stories, I had never known her to read anything all the way through. She felt she could get the idea of a book, and often did, in just a few pages."."Time Magazine" reported in 1973 that Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, the doctor who performed Monroe's autopsy, said that contrary to rumors, Monroe's stomach was never pumped after her death. The level of Nembutal in her bloodstream was 4.5 milligrams per 100, which is the equivalent of 40 or 50 capsules indicating suicide.Was originally set to play Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), but Audrey Hepburn played the role instead.Read and wrote poetry.One of the first Los Angeles natives to become a major movie star.There are over 600 books written about her.Richard Widmark on co-starring with Monroe in "Don't Bother to Knock": "She was a vulnerable kid. Murder to work with because she was scared to death of acting - even when she became a big movie actress. We had a hell of a time getting her out of the dressing room. When it was five o'clock , it got irritating: 'C'mon, Marilyn, we want to go home!' She was a movie animal. Something happened between the lens and the film. Nobody knew what the hell it was. On the set, you'd think: 'Oh, this is impossible; you can't print this.' You'd see it, and she's got everyone backed off the screen. Olivier said the same thing. She had that phenomenal something! Nobody knows what it is, but she had it. She certainly was never a professional actress. She always had a coach with her, lurking in the background, giving her signals. And she could never remember three words in a row - so it was all piece-work. Beyond all the technical deficiencies, she was a nice girl. We got along fine.".Her mother, Gladys Pearl (Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, to American parents from Indiana and Missouri, and was a film-cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. Marilyn's biological father has been established through DNA testing as Charles Stanley Gifford, who had been born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the state; he was of English descent. From his side, she was descended from religious leader Anne Marbury-Hutchinson, from whom she is related to Lucretia Rudolph (wife of President James A. Garfield), Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, and George W. Bush.When budding actresses Shelley Winters and Marilyn were roommates in the late 1940s in Hollywood, Shelley said that one day she had to step out and asked Marilyn to "wash the lettuce" for a salad they were to share for dinner. When Shelley got back to the apartment, (Marilyn was apparently new to the art of cooking) had the leaves of lettuce in a small tub of soapy water and was scrubbing them clean. She had not heard of the phrase before either, or did not know it's true meaning.In 1999, a make-up kit that she personally owned, sold for $266,500.Aside from her birth name of Norma Jeane Mortenson, she was baptized and mainly known throughout her life as Norma Jeane Baker. During her modeling days she was also known as Norma Jeane Dougherty (her first marriage name), and also as Jean Norman. When she signed with 20th Century-Fox, studio casting executive Ben Lyon had first chosen the name Carol Lind as her stage name, although she disliked that. Eventually she chose her mother's maiden name of Monroe. Three names were drawn up as possible stage names. The first was Norma Jeane Monroe, although that sounded awkward; the second was Jean Monroe, and the third was Marilyn Monroe, the latter first name being chosen by Lyon who thought Norma Jeane resembled famed stage actress Marilyn Miller. Norma Jeane liked Jean Monroe, for it preserved some of her name, but Lyon convinced her that Marilyn Monroe sounded more alliterative and so it was chosen.In order to fall asleep quicker and stay asleep longer she often mixed champagne with sleeping pills.According to the book "Flesh and Fantasy" Monroe perfected a Vaseline-based lip gloss.Although Monroe's famous nude calender grossed $750,000, the actress only got $50 and a bad cold out of it.Her lifelong bouts with depression and self-destruction took their toll during filming The Seven Year Itch (1955). She frequently muffed scenes and forgot her lines, leading to sometimes as many as 40 takes of a scene before a satisfactory result was produced. Her constant tardiness and behavioral problems made the budget of the film swell to $1.8 million, a high price for the time. The film still managed to make a nice profit. The classic shot of her dress blowing up around her legs as she stands over a subway grating in this film was originally shot on Manhattan's Lexington Avenue at 52nd St., On Wednesday, September 15th, 1954, at 1:00 a.m. Five thousand onlookers whistled and cheered through take after take as Marilyn repeatedly missed her lines. This occurred in presence of an increasingly embarrassed and angry Joe DiMaggio (her husband at the time; the nine-month-old marriage officially ended during the shooting of this film). The original footage shot on that night in New York never made it to the screen; the noise of the crowd had made it unusable. Director Billy Wilder re-shot the scene on the 20th Century-Fox lot, on a set replicating Lexington Avenue, and got a more satisfactory result. However, it took another 40 takes for Marilyn to achieve the famous scene. Amazingly, her very narrow spike heels don't get stuck or break in the subway grating, although this was a universal problem at the time for the countless women wearing that very popular style heel in New York City in that era. An important promotional campaign was released for this mainstream motion picture, including a 52-foot-high cutout of Marilyn (from the blowing dress scene) erected in front of Loews State Theater, in New York City's Times Square. The movie premiere was on June 1, 1955, which was also her 29th birthday.Interred at Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California, USA, in the Corridor of Memories, crypt #24. |
| Trademarks: |
Platinum blonde hair
Beauty mark on cheek |
| Quotes: |
I love a natural look in pictures. I like people with a feeling one way or another - it shows an inner life. I like to see that there's something going on inside them.
<br />
<hr>
My problem is that I drive myself... I'm trying to become an artist, and to be true, and sometimes I feel I'm on the verge of craziness, I'm just trying to get the truest part of myself out, and it's very hard. There are times when I think, 'All I have to be is true'. But sometimes it doesn't come out so easily. I always have this secret feeling that I'm really a fake or something, a phony.
<br />
<hr>
[on living with the Bolenders when she was a little girl] They were terribly strict. They didn't mean any harm . . . it was their religion. They brought me up harshly.
<br />
<hr>
[on meeting Joe DiMaggio for the first time] I was surprised to be so crazy about Joe. I expected a flashy New York sports type, and instead I met this reserved guy who didn't make a pass at me right away! He treated me like something special. Joe is a very decent man, and he makes other people feel decent, too.
<br />
<hr>
[on why Joe DiMaggio didn't accompany her on one of her USO tours] Joe hates crowds and glamor. |
| Salaries: |
Something's Got to Give (2001) - $100 -500K
<br />
<hr>
The Misfits (1961) - $300,000
<br />
<hr>
Some Like It Hot (1959) - $300,000 + 10% gross over $4,000,000
<br />
<hr>
Bus Stop (1956) - $100,000 + $500/week ex |
| Job title: |
Actress,Writer,Music Department |
| Others works: |
(1950) TV commercial: Union Oil Royal Triton gasoline.
Released many records. Most of the time it was music from some of her movies. Her biggest hits are "Diamond's Are A Girl's Best Friend", "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" |
| Spouse: |
Arthur Miller (June 29, 1956 - January 20, 1961) (divorced)Joe DiMaggio (January 14, 1954 - October 31, 1955) (divorced)James Dougherty (June 19, 1942 - September 13, 1946) (divorced) |
| Children: |
No Children |
| Parents: |
Gladys Baker
unknown |
| Relatives: |
Berniece Baker Miracle (Half Sibling)
Robert Kermitt Baker (Half Sibling)
Laurie Oldenst?l (Cousin) |
|
