MARILYN MONROE, THE MOST POPULER SEX SYMBOLS IN 1950S



Name: Norma Jeane Mortenson aka Norma Jeane Baker aka Marilyn Monroe

Date of Birth: June 1, 1926

Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California, U.S.

Zodiac: Gemini

Died: August 5, 1962 (aged 36)

Cause of Death: Barbiturate overdose

Occupation(s): Actress, Model, Singer

Father: Edward Mortenson

Mother: Gladys Pearl Baker (1902-1984)

Sibling(s):
  • Berniece Baker Miracle (sister)
  • Robert Kermitt Baker (brother)

Spouse(s):
  • James Dougherty (m.1942-1946)‎
  • Joe DiMaggio (m.1954-1955)‎
  • Arthur Miller (m. 1956-1961)

Filmography:
  • 1947 Dangerous Years as Evie
  • 1948 Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! as Betty
  • 1948 Ladies of the Chorus as Peggy Martin
  • 1949 Love Happy as Grunion's client
  • 1950 A Ticket to Tomahawk as Clara
  • 1950 The Asphalt Jungle as Angela Phinlay
  • 1950 All About Eve as Miss Claudia Caswell
  • 1950 The Fireball as Polly
  • 1950 Right Cross as Dusky Le Doux
  • 1951 Home Town Story as Iris Martin
  • 1951 As Young as You Feel as Harriet
  • 1951 Love Nest as Roberta Stevens
  • 1951 Let's Make It Legal as Joyce Mannering
  • 1952 Clash by Night as Peggy
  • 1952 We're Not Married! as Annabel Jones Norris
  • 1952 Don't Bother to Knock as Nell Forbes
  • 1952 Monkey Business as Lois Laurel
  • 1952 O. Henry's Full House as Streetwalker
  • 1953 Niagara as Rose Loomis
  • 1953 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as Lorelei Lee
  • 1953 How to Marry a Millionaire as Pola Debevoise
  • 1954 River of No Return as Kay Weston
  • 1954 There's No Business Like Show Business as Victoria Hoffman
  • 1955 The Seven Year Itch as The Girl
  • 1956 Bus Stop as Cherie
  • 1957 The Prince and the Showgirl as Elsie Marina
  • 1959 Some Like It Hot as Sugar Cane Kowalczyk
  • 1960 Let's Make Love as Amanda Dell
  • 1961 The Misfits as Roslyn Taber

Some facts you might never know about Marilyn Monroe:
  1. Marilyn Monroe was born as Norma Jeane Mortenson. Her last name was taken from her mother's second husband 'Mortensen' but it was misspelled in her birthday certificate as 'Mortenson'.
  2. Monroe went by many names. On her birthday certificate, she was Norma Jeane Mortenson while she was baptised as Norma Jeane Baker. As a model, she was known as Jean Normann and Mona Monroe. She started calling herself 'Marilyn Monroe' in 1946, which was derived from 'Marilyn', the 1920s performer Marilyn Miller, and 'Monroe', her mother's maiden name. 
  3. Monroe's mother, Gladys Pearl Baker, told her that her father was actually Gladys' boss named Charles Gifford. However, Monroe never met him and never know who her father actually was.
  4. Working as a film cutter at Consolidated Film Industries, a Hollywood film lab, Gladys Baker thought herself to be incapable of raising the child. Therefore, she left Norma Jeane with various foster families. 
  5. When Monroe was seven, her mother bought a house and brought the girl back to live with her. A few months later, however, her mother suffered from a nervous breakdown and had to be institutionalized. It forced Monroe to live with 11 different sets of foster families afterwards. 
  6. Monroe did not have an easy childhood. She confessed that she had been abused by several different people during her years in foster care, two of whom were the son of a great-aunt she lived with for a while and Ervin "Doc" Goddard, the man Grace McKee married during one of Monroe's stays at her home.
  7. In 1942, Monroe's foster family, Ervin "Doc" Goddard got a job in another city and planned to move his family there. However, they were either unable or unwilling to take Monroe with them so they left her becoming a ward of the state again and arranged her, who was 16 at that time, to marry a neighbor, James Doughterty (21). They married in 1942 but separated in 1946.
  8. Monroe's second marriage, with Joe DiMaggio, lasted for only eight months. There were many things contributed to their divorced, the last straw of which was DiMaggio's objections to her exposing too much of herself in 'The Seven Year Itch' where the skirt of her white dress billowing up. They fought over it and DiMaggio got physical which made Monroe filed for divorce on the grounds of 'Mental Cruelty'. Despite their divorce, DiMaggio continued to be there when Monroe needed him. Even after her death, he was in charge of her funeral and arranged to have roses sent to her crypt three times a week for 20 years.  
  9. Monroe had a thing for intellectual men, It is proved by her marrying the intellectual Arthur Miller in 1956. In their five years of marriage, they had faced a series of hardships, including Monroe's miscarriages, depressions, and drugs abuse as well as Miller's investigations of communist sympathies. They divorced in 1961 on the ground of 'Incompatibility'.
  10. At the age of 18, Monroe became a Christian scientist but later in her life, she took part in alternative spirituality, one of which was the philosophy by Rudolf Steiner 'Anthroposophy'. In 1956, before she married Arthur Miller, Monroe converted to Judaism. 
  11. Monroe was not well educated. She didn’t graduate from high school and didn’t even know how to spell her name. When she first signed an autograph as ‘Marilyn Monroe’, she didn’t know where to put the ‘I’.
  12. The actor and future U.S. president, Ronald Reagan, played a big role in Monroe's entry into modeling and show business. Being a captain in the Army's 1st Motion Picture Unit, he ordered photographer David Conover to shoot pictures of pretty girls contributing to the war effort. The beauty of the 19-year-old Norma Jeane Dougherty has drawn his attention and she was offered to take portfolio shots and encouraged to sign with the Blue Book Modeling Agency, who later advised that she dye her brown hair blonde. The work had led Monroe to sign contract with Twentieth Century Fox (1946-1947) and Columbia Pictures (1948). 
  13. Becoming popular with several roles in Hollywood comedies, Monroe faced a scandal after her nude photos were revealed. The story did not ruin her career but it increased people's interests in her films instead.  Soon after that, she landed lead roles in 'Noir Niagara', which focused on her sex appeal, as well as 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' and 'How to Marry a Millionaire', which established a 'dumb blonde' as her star image. 
  14. Despite her fame, Monroe never won any Academy Award. She only won a Golden Globe Award for her role in ‘Some Like It Hot’. During her acting career, she only made 33 films. 
  15. In 1946, after signing her first film contract with Twentieth Century Fox, Monroe reportedly had a plastic surgery on her nose and chin.
  16. Monroe made Ella Fitzgerald a star. When Ella was not able to sing at the Hollywood club ‘Mocambo’ because she was black, Monroe stepped into help by compromising with the owner. If he allowed Ella to perform at the club, Monroe would be sitting at the front row every night to watch her performance. They made a deal and Ella was catapulted into the limelight.
  17. On August 5, 1962, Monroe, at the age of 36, was found dead naked with a phone in her hand and face-down on her bed by Dr. Ralph Greenson, her psychiatrist. Based on the toxicology report, she died because of  acute barbiturate poisoning. Some conspiracy theories, however, suggested that she was murdered instead of committing suicide.
  18. Monroe’s funeral was attended by only 31 close family and friends. She was dressed in her favorite outfit, a pale green Pucci dress with matching chiffon scarf and a wig.

Photos of Marilyn Monroe:



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