EARLY LIFE
Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Mortenson in Los Angeles on June 1, 1926. Her mother was emotionally unstable and frequently confined to an asylum, so Norma Jean was reared by a succession of foster parents and in an orphanage.
At the age of 16, Norma Jean married a fellow worker in an aircraft factory, James Doughty but they divorced a few years later.
Norma Jean Mortenson was athletic. In the early 1940s, she studied weightlifting with a former Olympic champion named Howard Corrington.
MODELLING CAREER
Norma Jean Mortenson was discovered while building drone aircraft at Radioplane Company in 1944 and signed a contract with the Blue Book Model Agency in August 1945.
 |
| Monroe photographed by David Conover while she was still working at the Radioplane factory in 1944 |
Ronald Reagan sent out the army photographer, David Conover, who first discovered Norma Jean Mortenson.
Pictures from Norma Jean's first photoshoot in 1946 sold for $352,000 (£225,000) in 2011. According to the auction catalog, the images "captured a sweet, girlish and natural beauty yet to be transformed into the epitome of female glamour’."
In 1946 Mortenson signed a short-term contract with 20th Century Fox, taking as her screen name Marilyn Monroe. She appeared in two small film roles during the contract and was let go after a year.
 |
| Monroe in a studio publicity photo taken when she was a contract player at 20th Century-Fox in 1947. |
Robert Kennedy was killed in the Ambassador Hotel, the same hotel that housed Marilyn Monroe's first modelling agency.
FILM CAREER
After two short-lived film contracts, Monroe was signed by 20th Century-Fox in 1951. The next year, the scandalous nude photographs of her taken in 1949 were featured in a popular calendar. One of them was also featured in the inaugural issue of Playboy magazine in 1953.
She became one of the most bankable Hollywood actresses with starring roles in comedies such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), and The Seven Year Itch (1955).
 |
| Monroe in 1952 |
Disappointed in being typecast and underpaid, Monroe formed her own production company in 1955 and successfully fought for a better contract with Fox.
She received critical acclaim for her performances in Bus Stop (1956) and Some Like It Hot (1959), winning a Golden Globe for Best Actress for the latter.
Marilyn Monroe had a strained relationship with Laurence Olivier on The Prince And The Showgirl (1957), which he directed. It’s said she never forgave him for saying to her on set: "Try to be sexy."
Monroe needed 47 takes to get the phrase "It's me, Sugar" right in Some Like it Hot. She kept switching from "Sugar, it's me" to "It's Sugar, me" and the director, Billy Wilder, had to write the line on a blackboard.
Marilyn Monroe was so terrified of acting in front of cameras that she broke out in a rash all over her body whenever she did.
Her last completed film was the 1961 drama The Misfits.
 |
| Marilyn Monroe, in her final completed film, The Misfits |
Marilyn Monroe, began filming her last movie Something’s Got To Give in April 1962, but she was fired for absenteeism on June 7, 1962 and sued her for breach of contract, with the studio demanding $750,000 in damages.
PERSONAL LIFE
Monroe's first hiusband, James Dougherty, later became a detective in the LAPD. He forbidden by his second wife from going to see any of the Hollywood star’s films.
Marilyn Monroe published an article in the January 1953 edition of Motion Picture and Television Magazine called "Wolves I Have Known." She writes of the creepy harassment she received from photographers, producers and screen writers who tried to take advantage of new and aspiring actresses.
Marilyn Monroe married her second husband, baseball star Joe DiMaggio on January 14, 1954. DiMaggio's jealousy meant their relationship was fraught and possibly violent. Just nine months after the wedding, the actress told a court her husband had become "cold and indifferent" and a divorce was granted. Their union had lasted just 274 days
Marilyn Monroe secretly married Jewish playwright Arthur Miller in the court house of a New York suburb on June 29, 1956. Only two witnesses and a photographer attended the civil ceremony. The bride, who wore a sweater and a creased skirt, had said she would not care for a Grace Kelly-style white wedding.
Monroe converted to Judaism before the wedding and had a second, Jewish ceremony on July 1. One newspaper greeted their nuptials with the headline "Egghead Weds Hourglass."
As a result of of Marilyn Monroe's conversion to Judaism, Egypt placed a ban on all the films she appeared in.
Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were granted a divorce in Mexico on the grounds of ‘incompatibility’, after less than five years of marriage, on January 24, 1961.
Marilyn Monroe had a higher IQ (163) than that of Albert Einstein (160).
Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
Monroe was so paranoid about sweat and spots that she washed her face up to 15 times a day.
Marilyn Monroe married her second husband, baseball star Joe DiMaggio on January 14, 1954. DiMaggio's jealousy meant their relationship was fraught and possibly violent. Just nine months after the wedding, the actress told a court her husband had become "cold and indifferent" and a divorce was granted. Their union had lasted just 274 days
 |
| With second husband Joe DiMaggio. |
Marilyn Monroe secretly married Jewish playwright Arthur Miller in the court house of a New York suburb on June 29, 1956. Only two witnesses and a photographer attended the civil ceremony. The bride, who wore a sweater and a creased skirt, had said she would not care for a Grace Kelly-style white wedding.
Monroe converted to Judaism before the wedding and had a second, Jewish ceremony on July 1. One newspaper greeted their nuptials with the headline "Egghead Weds Hourglass."
As a result of of Marilyn Monroe's conversion to Judaism, Egypt placed a ban on all the films she appeared in.
Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were granted a divorce in Mexico on the grounds of ‘incompatibility’, after less than five years of marriage, on January 24, 1961.
 |
| With third husband Arthur Miller at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, 1957 |
Marilyn Monroe had a higher IQ (163) than that of Albert Einstein (160).
Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
Monroe was so paranoid about sweat and spots that she washed her face up to 15 times a day.
She suffered from Endometriosis, a condition that causes severe pain due to uterine lining growing throughout the body. Monroe had multiple surgeries for it and couldn't carry any of her much wanted pregnancies to term.
Marilyn Monroe was such an animal lover that her first husband recalled her trying to bring a cow into her house to get it out of the rain.
Monroe had a beloved Maltese terrier who was given to her by Frank Sinatra; he'd acquired the pooch from Natalie Wood's mother. In a nod to the singer's supposed mob connections, she mischievously named him Mafia, or Maf for short. The cute English dog became her inseparable companion in her last years.
Troubled by mental health and addiction problems, Monroe was found dead by her housekeeper in her Los Angeles home at age 36 in the early morning hours of August 5, 1962. Empty bottles of pills, prescribed to treat her depression, were littered around the room. After a brief investigation, Los Angeles police concluded that her death was "caused by a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode of death is probable suicide."
Joe Di Maggio claimed Marilyn Monroe's body after her suicide, and arranged her funeral, paying for her casket and crypt. The funeral took place at 1:00pm on August 8, 1962, at the Mortuary Chapel on the grounds of Westwood Memorial Cemetery.
Joe DiMaggio wept over the body of Marilyn Monroe at her funeral and kissed her on the forehead. He refused to allow any movie stars to attend the ceremony, saying: "if it hadn’t been for some of her friends, she wouldn’t be where she is now."
For twenty years after the death of Marilyn Monroe, Di Maggio had a half-dozen red roses placed at her crypt three times a week.
Marilyn Monroe left most of her estate to her acting coach Lee Strasberg. When Strasberg died in 1982, his wife Anna, who had never known Monroe inherited her estate. In 1999 she auctioned off Monroe's personal belongings for $14 million.
Hugh Hefner owned the burial vault next to Marilyn at the Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles. He had a rose delivered to Marilyn Monroe's grave every day.
Source Daily Mirror
Marilyn Monroe was such an animal lover that her first husband recalled her trying to bring a cow into her house to get it out of the rain.
Monroe had a beloved Maltese terrier who was given to her by Frank Sinatra; he'd acquired the pooch from Natalie Wood's mother. In a nod to the singer's supposed mob connections, she mischievously named him Mafia, or Maf for short. The cute English dog became her inseparable companion in her last years.
DEATH
Troubled by mental health and addiction problems, Monroe was found dead by her housekeeper in her Los Angeles home at age 36 in the early morning hours of August 5, 1962. Empty bottles of pills, prescribed to treat her depression, were littered around the room. After a brief investigation, Los Angeles police concluded that her death was "caused by a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode of death is probable suicide."
 |
| Front page of the New York Daily Mirror on August 6, 1962 |
Joe DiMaggio wept over the body of Marilyn Monroe at her funeral and kissed her on the forehead. He refused to allow any movie stars to attend the ceremony, saying: "if it hadn’t been for some of her friends, she wouldn’t be where she is now."
For twenty years after the death of Marilyn Monroe, Di Maggio had a half-dozen red roses placed at her crypt three times a week.
Marilyn Monroe left most of her estate to her acting coach Lee Strasberg. When Strasberg died in 1982, his wife Anna, who had never known Monroe inherited her estate. In 1999 she auctioned off Monroe's personal belongings for $14 million.
Hugh Hefner owned the burial vault next to Marilyn at the Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles. He had a rose delivered to Marilyn Monroe's grave every day.
Source Daily Mirror
No comments:
Post a Comment