Marilyn Monroe Biography | Who is Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson) was an American actress, model, and singer. She was famously known for playing comic “blonde bombshell” characters. She overcame her difficult childhood to become one of the world’s biggest icon of female beauty, fame and sex in the 1950s.
Although she was a top-billed actress for only a decade, her films grossed $200 million by the time of her unexpected death in 1962. Almost a century later, she continues to be a major popular culture icon. She is widely regarded as one of most influential figures in American culture. She also became an iconic figure of Hollywood glamour and fashion.
Marilyn Monroe Real Name |
Monroe’s real name is Norma Jeane Mortenson.
Marilyn Monroe Age At Death
Marilyn was born on 1st June 1926. She was only 36 years old by the time of her unexpected death in 1962.
Marilyn Monroe Spouse | Marilyn Monroe Husbands | Marilyn Monroe Marriage
Much has been said about Marilyn’s love life. She was rumored to have dated lots of famous men. Some of them include Paul Newman, Tony Curtis, and then-actor Ronald Reagan. She however had other relationships.
Marilyn Monroe’s Photo
Marilyn Monroe Family | Marilyn Monroe Parents
She was the third born child of Gladys Pearl Baker (née Monroe, 1902–1984). Gladys was the daughter of two poor Midwesterners who migrated to California. She married John Newton Baker, at the age of 15, and had two children by him. John Newton Baker was 9 years older than her. Their two children were; Robert (1917–1933) and Berniece (born 1919). She filed for divorce in 1921, and after the divorce Baker took the children with him to his native Kentucky. Following the divorce, Gladys worked as a film negative cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. In 1924, she married her second husband, Martin Edward Mortensen, but they separated only some months later and divorced in 1928. Though she uses Baker as her surname, the identity of Monroe’s father is unknown.
Marilyn Monroe Quotes
Here are some of Marilyn Monroe’s quotes you wouldn’t want to miss.
- “The most unsatisfactory men are those who pride themselves on their virility and regard sex as if it were some form of athletics at which you can win cups. It is a woman’s spirit and mood a man has to stimulate in order to make sex interesting. The real lover is the man who can thrill you just by touching your head or smiling into your eyes or by just staring into space.”
- “Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn’t that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.”
- “Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer.”
- “If I’m a star, then the people made me a star.”
- “I always felt insecure and in the way, but most of all I felt scared. I guess I wanted love more than anything else in the world.”
- “A woman can’t be alone. She needs a man. A man and a woman support and strengthen each other. She just can’t do it by herself.”
- “In Hollywood a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You’re judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood’s a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty.”
- “With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.”
- “I want to grow old without facelifts… I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I’ve made. Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.”
- “Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don’t have that?”
- “I won’t be satisfied until people want to hear me sing without looking at me. Of course, that doesn’t mean I want them to stop looking.”
- “I think that sexuality is only attractive when it’s natural and spontaneous.”
- “I’m a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they’ve made of me– and that I’ve made of myself– as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman’s and I can’t live up to it.”
- “When it comes down to it, I let them think what they want. If they care enough to bother with what I do, then I’m already better than them.”
Marilyn Monroe Death | How Did Marilyn Manson Die
In the early morning hours of Sunday, August 5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead of a barbiturate overdose at her 12305 Fifth Helena Drive home in Los Angeles, California. Prior to her death, she had suffered from mental illness and substance abuse for several years. She spent the last day of her life, on Saturday 4th August at her home in Brentwood.
It was her housekeeper Eunice Murray who noticed that Monroe had locked herself in her bedroom and was unresponsive. Her death was officially ruled a probable suicide by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, based on precedents of her overdosing and being prone to mood swings and suicidal idealization. As no evidence of foul play found, it was ruled that it was not an accidental overdose. After all there was a large amount of barbiturates she had ingested. Her funeral was held on August 8 at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, where she was interred at the Corridor of Memories.
There are however a number of conspiracy theories that have have been developed concerning her untimely death.
The first one being that probably the Kennedy’s killed her! She died just two-and-a-half months after she was invited to perform a “Happy Birthday” song at President John F Kennedy’s 45th birthday on 19 May 1962 at Madison Square Garden. In 2007, Australian filmmaker Philippe Mora discovered a partially redacted FBI document that suggests Robert Kennedy, also said to have had an affair with Monroe like his more famous brother, may have been complicit in a plot to “induce” her suicide.
As many theories have proffered before, the FBI file infers the alleged plot was carried out to silence Monroe, who had threatened to reveal her affairs with the Kennedy brothers. Monroe was also thought to be a liability, allegedly keeping records of conversations detailing highly confidential government information in a “little red book”.
The second theory is discussed in new documentary ‘Unacknowledged by conspiracy’ theorist Dr Steven Greer, who claims Monroe was murdered by the CIA because she knew the truth about Roswell and planned to reveal all. In the film, Greer produces what he says is a classified CIA memo written just two days before Monroe’s death.
In the alleged memo that Greer believes refers to the storied Roswell UFO crash in New Mexico in 1947, JFK is said to have told Monroe he witnessed evidence of “things from outer space” at a secret air base.
“We have a number of smoking gun documents, including a wiretap of Marilyn Monroe the day before she died, which has never been declassified,” Greer writes. “She was threatening to hold a press conference to tell the world what Jack Kennedy had told her during pillow talk about having seen debris from an extraterrestrial vehicle at what the document calls a ‘secret air base’. She was murdered for this.”
It is also believed that Mafias were hired to silence Monroe
John Alexander Baker, author of Marilyn Monroe: Alive in 1984? believes Monroe’s death was staged and her psychiatrist, Dr Ralph Greenson, committed her to a mental institution in New Brunswick, Canada because of a breakdown she experienced due to the threats on her life. Monroe stayed at the institution for 20 years without being recognized, before being released.
According to the book outline, Baker says he picked up a hitchhiker in Nova Scotia in 1984 who claimed to be Monroe, now a “homeless, frightened, paranoid schizophrenic”. She told him of her days as a former movie star, and Baker was taken by her resemblance to Monroe, as well as the similarity in her singing voice.Baker admits the woman’s mental state would make her story hard to believe for most, but says, “I believe 99 percent that she really was who she claimed to be.”
Marilyn Monroe Movies
Dangerous Years (1947)
Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948)
Ladies of the Chorus (1948)
Love Happy (1949)
A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
All About Eve (1950)
The Fireball (1950)
Right Cross (1951)
Home Town Story (1951)
As Young as You Feel (1951)
Love Nest (1951)
Let’s Make It Legal (1951)
Clash by Night (1952)
We’re Not Married! (1952)
Don’t Bother to Knock (1952)
Monkey Business (1952)
O. Henry’s Full House (1952)
Niagara (1953)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
River of No Return (1954)
There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954)
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Bus Stop (1956)
The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Let’s Make Love (1960)
The Misfits (1961)
Something’s Got to Give (1962 – unfinished)
Marilyn Monroe Statue | Marilyn Monroe Famous Photo
The giant statute of Marilyn Monroe known as Forever Marilyn was designed by Seward Johnson in 2011. It is a representation of one of the most famous images of Monroe, taken from Billy Wilder’s film The Seven Year Itch. It weighs 15000 kgs(34000 pounds) and is 26-foot-tall (7.9 M). The Seven-Year Itch, with the figure capturing the instant a blast of air from a NYC subway grate raises her white dress.
It was vandalized 3 times in August and september 2011 including being splashed with red paint. Before it was moved to the corner of Palm Canyon Drive and Tahquitz Canyon Way in Palm Springs, California, in 2012, the statute was displayed at Pioneer Court part of the Magnificent Mile section of Chicago. It was given a farewell sendoff during the Palm Springs Village Fest on March 27, 2014, and was then relocated to the 42-acre Grounds for Sculpture (GFS) in Hamilton, New Jersey as part of a 2014 retrospective honoring Seward Johnson.
Due to its popularity, the statue remained on display at the GFS until September 2015, after the official end of the retrospective. In 2016 it was displayed in Rosalind Park in the Australian city of Bendigo. In 2018, the statue was displayed at Latham Park in Stamford, Connecticut as part of a large public art exhibition honoring the works of Seward Johnson. When it was placed in Stamford the statue sparked international controversy
with complaints arising due to her appearing to flash her underwear at the First Congressional Church.
Marilyn Monroe Statue
Marilyn Monroe Facts | Things To Know About Marilyn Monroe
- Monroe found it impossible to learn lines. It took her 60 takes to deliver the line “It’s me, Sugar,” in Some Like It Hot.
- After her mother was institutionalized, Monroe became an orphan. She had 11 sets of foster parents throughout her childhood and teenage years.
- It’s well-known Monroe was commonly casted as a dumb blonde — she hated this. She was, in fact, very intelligent, and had an IQ of 168.
- While married to Miller, Monroe attempted to have a baby. She unfortunately suffered an ectopic pregnancy and a miscarriage.
- Her weight fluctuated so much during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl that the costume designer had to create identical dresses in several sizes.
- Monroe’s funeral was open casket. She wore an apple green Pucci dress and a platinum wig.
- In 1950, her agent talked her into and paid for her to have two plastic surgeries: a tip rhinoplasty and a chin implant.
- Monroe wrote her autobiography My Story at the height of her career. The autobiography was not published until a decade after she passed.
- Veronica Hamel purchased Monroe’s house in 1972. She said that when she was renovating she came across an extensive system of wire-taps.
- While she was filming Let’s Make Love, her no-shows added 28 days, adding $1 million to the budget.
Marilyn Monroe Net Worth
Marilyn Monroe had an approximated net worth of $20 million. Her films have grossed more than $200 million worldwide.
Marilyn Monroe Song | Marilyn Monroe Songs
- Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend
- Happy Birthday, Mr. President
- Heat Wave (Irving Berlin song)
- I Wanna Be Loved by You
- Lazy (Irving Berlin song)
- My Heart Belongs to Daddy
- Runnin’ Wild (1922 song)
- Thanks for the Memory
- That Old Black Magic
- You’d Be Surprised
Marilyn Monroe Accomplishments | Marilyn Monroe Legacy
She inspired a lot of emotions from lust to pity, from envy to remorse. No other star has ever inspired such a wide range of emotion. The American Film Institute named her the sixth greatest female screen legend in American film history. Art historian Gail Levin stated that Monroe may have been “the most photographed person of the 20th century”. She was included by The Smithsonian Institution on their list of “100 Most Significant Americans of All Time”. Both Variety and VH1 have placed her in the top ten in their rankings of the greatest popular culture icons of the twentieth century. She has been the subject of films, plays, operas, and songs, and has influenced artists and entertainers such as Andy Warhol and Madonna. Many books, in hundreds have been also been written about Monroe. Her enduring popularity is linked to her conflicted public image, an image that has remained a valuable brand. Great companies like Mercedes-Benz have used it for advertising. She remains a sex symbol, beauty icon and one of the most famous stars of classical Hollywood cinema. However most critics are divided on her legacy.