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After spending most of her childhood in foster care, Monroe was forced to get married at a young age in order to avoid returning to orphanages. When World War II erupted, her husband was shipped to the South Pacific in 1944. Months later, photographer David Conover was capturing images of the female contribution to the war effort for Yank magazine when his eye was captured by a young Monroe. Calling her a "photographer's dream," Conover used her for that shoot and subsequently offered her more modeling jobs. Whether Monroe loved the camera more than the camera loved her is debatable.
When her husband returned, she divorced him in June of 1946. Born in Los Angeles, Marilyn Monroe emerged as the most famous woman of the 20th Century. Fitting, since it was at age 20 that Norma Jeane Mortenson walked into Twentieth Century Fox, conducted an interview on August 26, and was offered a contract. Her first studio contract paid her $125 a week. Hair dyed blonde and armed with a new name (borrowing Monroe from her grandmother), she starred in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and was subsequently voted "Best New Actress" in 1953 by Photoplay magazine. On January 14, 1954, Marilyn's world changed even more when she married baseball icon Joe DiMaggio at San Francisco's City Hall, divorcing nine months later. Marilyn was interested in being more than a sexy blonde; she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy for her role in Some Like It Hot. Two and a half years after marrying DiMaggio, she wed playwright Arthur Miller. At the 1962 Golden Globes, Monroe was awarded the World Film Favorite, further showing her global appeal. At the age of 36, Monroe was found dead in her home. Word of foul play was rampant, in large part due to her affair with the Kennedys and her involvement with the Mafia. Marilyn Monroe proved that where there's a will, there's a way. Née Norma Jean Mortenson, she overcame a childhood of abuse in foster homes, worked as a swimsuit model, and eventually became one of the most famous movie stars of all time. Her life was often regarded as a fairytale and her legendary marriage to baseball great Joe DiMaggio was the hallmark of this perception. Her performances in films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot confirmed she had as much talent as she did beauty. She even allegedly had affairs with President Kennedy and his attorney general, Bobby Kennedy. Her tragic death on August 5, 1962 was ruled a suicide by overmedication, which only intensified her perpetual allure and legendary status. Best quote: "Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature." Probably no other movie star-certainly no female one-has had her life as documented, discussed, and dissected. Her unhappy childhood has been well reported, as has her early work as a pinup model and her eventual signing by 20th Century-Fox. She was barely visible in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948), Ladies of the Chorus (1949), and A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950), but had a memorable bit opposite Groucho Marx in Love Happy (1949). She first turned heads with minor but well-crafted supporting roles (as mistresses) in two 1950 classics, All About Eve and The Asphalt Jungle It's difficult to pinpoint, at this late date, just who it was that first spotted the quiet blonde and saw in her a latent star quality that eluded others. (Certainly there are many whoclaimed to have recognized her talent.) In any event, her buildup began with better parts in Love Nest, Let's Make It Legal (both 1951), Clash by Night, We're Not Married and Monkey Business (all 1952). Though used most frequently as a sex object, it was clear that she had a sense of comedy and a magnetic screen presence. Her first leading role, as a psychotic baby-sitter in a 1952 programmer, Don't Bother to Knock identified Monroe as an emerging talent. She became a fullfledged star in 1953, shining as the murderous wife in Niagara the husbandhunting, not-so-dumb blonde in How to Marry a Millionaire and the delightfully scheming showgirl Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (performing the classic "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"). She showed some real fire in the Western River of No Return (1954), and resumed singing-and-dancing chores in There's No Business Like Show Business that same year. Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch (1955), a funny if mildly salacious comedy featuring Monroe as the lust object of bored husband Tom Ewell, included the classic scene in which the blond bombshell stands over a subway grating and has her skirt billowed by the breeze of a passing train. Her genuine sex appeal, wholesome yet somehow unattainable, made her a natural love goddess. (Her marriage to baseball hero Joe DiMaggio in 1954 completed the larger-than-life image.) Monroe, knowing that her star was on the ascent but keenly aware of her thespic limitations, studied with the New York guru of the Actors' Studio, Lee Strasberg, and subsequently gave a powerful performance as a hapless entertainer in Bus Stop (1956), and she took a flyer as producer of the unsuccessful The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), which teamed her with Laurence Olivier (who also directed)-and revealed no chemistry between the two. Wilder cast her as ukelelestrumming band singer Sugar Kane in his energetic 1920s farce Some Like It Hot (1959) and, in spite of well-publicized onthe-set tension, again got a delicious comic performance from her. Monroe, wracked by personal problems, insecurity, and self-induced health problems, only completed two more films:Let's Make Love (1960), an entertaining if unsubstantial movie costarring Yves Montand, and The Misfits (1961), a thoughtful and powerful drama written for her by her thenhusband Arthur Miller and directed by John Huston (who'd cast her eleven years earlier in The Asphalt Jungle). Again, there was more written about the film's troubled production than about the picture itself-it was said to have brought on costar Clark Gable's fatal heart attack-but it served Monroe well, with a substantial part that indicated her still-untapped potential. Her behavior became more and more erratic, and she was fired from Fox's 1962Something's Got to Give (which was revamped and filmed the next year asMove Over, Darling with Doris Day). Soon after she was found dead, from an "accidental overdose" of pills, though her alleged affairs with both John and Robert Kennedy have brought out foul-play conspiracists by the carload. In 1963 Fox released a compilation feature,Marilyn and a list of books and articles written about her would itself fill a book. Her tragic death-and troubled life-have inspired authors, songwriters, pop psychologists, and fervent fans, some of whom weren't alive during her heyday in the 1950s. She has also been portrayed-literally and symbolically-in a number of features and TV movies, most notably by Catherine Hicks in Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980, made for TV) and Theresa Russell in Insignificance (1985). It is obvious, however, that Monroe's many portrayers, and pretenders, can only hint at the natural charisma and sex appeal she projected.
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