Biography of Marilyn Monroe | Model actress

High erotic myth of the twentieth century, the bitterness and frustration marked however sentimental and professional life.

On August 5, 1962, the American actress Marilyn Monroe, the great erotic myth of the fifties, was found dead at his home in Hollywood. Although the coroner ruled that the actress had committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills, the causes of his death are still unclear; some contradictions were found in the medical report of his tragic end. The professional difficulties and its rough sentimental life appeared to be at the origin of his death. In any case, the joviality and live unbridled and carefree that often had represented in the film and outside it is little correspond with the true profile of his life, marked by contradictions and complexes of a childhood and a youth miserable, followed after an overwhelming success that failed deal, even when he thought he found along with figures such as Arthur Miller, the stability and security which pursued throughout his life.

Marilyn Monroe in a 1953 image

Marilyn Monroe's real name, Norma Jean Baker (or Norma Jean Mortenson, his stepfather's last name), was born on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, in the U.S. State of California. Daughter of Gladys Baker, who never told him the identity of his father, his early childhood was very hard. Her mother left her in the hands of a friend marriage until he was seven years old; then he took her to live with him. But a year later, Gladys was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia paranoid, disease that then Marilyn would have been inherited, especially when it was placed by his frequent depressions. His childhood and adolescence passed between an orphanage (where he joined at the age of nine years and worked as a kitchen helper), the home of their grandparents and several families who adopted it. In one of these foster homes he apparently suffered sexual abuses by the head of the family when he was eight years.

Nothing was thinking that Norma Jean had a future career as an actress, not even the fact that his mother, an extremely attractive woman, had worked for a time as editor of negative in Consolidated Film Industries. Marked by emotional instability and poverty, at the age of sixteen, after leaving his studies, he worked in an aircraft building plant. In the same factory he met a mechanic for 21 years, James Dougherty, with whom he married on June 19, 1942 and who you would divorce four years later.

Model actress

That same year in 1946, a fashion photographer discovered and convinced her to make model. Thus, the still called Norma Jean began her career as a model under the supervision of the agent Emmeline Snively, who suggested him to change the color of his hair, which was Brown's birth, by the distinctive platinum blonde. During this time, Norma Jean performed a multitude of advertising campaigns, being very remembered which made to announce swimsuits. At the same time, his character restless and eager to always acquire new knowledge led her to take drama classes at the Hollywood Actor completo Lab and attend courses of literature at the University of Los Angeles (UCLA).

The face of the model started to be well known. Its innumerable advertising jobs made that in 1947 magnate Howard Hughes, owner of the film company RKO, offered you some testing of screen in order to know if I could give a play before a film camera; but Norma Jean chose to accept an offer from 20th Century Fox to work a few months as a supporting actress. He took part in three forgettable movies in which was not properly credited, and was then already verified the name change: Norma Jean became known as Marilyn Monroe. One of his first roles was appearing in a crowd; It was the film of Frederick Hugh Herbert Scudda Hoo! Scudda there!, with June Harver. In a moment of the film, Marilyn separating from the group to greet the main actress. This scene, however, then cut in the Assembly, and Marilyn recalled some years later: "a part of my back is visible in a plane, but no one knew it apart from me and some close friends."

A year after Fox refused to renew the contract, so it accepted a new one of similar characteristics in Columbia. For this company, he performed in the musical comedy Ladies of the chorus (1948), by Phil Karlson. Marilyn was a modest striptease dancer named Peggy Martin and sang two songs. To prepare for this role he received lessons of the musical director of the Columbia, Fred Karger, who believed that you maintained intimate relations. The following year, took part in what would be the penultimate film by the Marx Brothers more or less to the full (Groucho, Harpo and Chico), love canned (Love Happy), David Miller. In the film, Marilyn contoneó his hips with such grace that Groucho, who played detective Sam Grunion, expressed by her with their proverbial histrionismo a bustling desire.

With Groucho Marx in love preserved (1949)

Then got, already for the production company Metro Goldwyn Mayer, a brief paper but of utmost importance for its future as an actress: excellent thriller by John Huston in the asphalt jungle (The Asphalt Jungle, 1950), played with enough ease to Angela, the mistress of a gangster he ends up betraying. The ever-attentive Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who had begun his career as Director four years earlier, spared the young Marilyn and offered him another small but juicy role in his melodrama the naked Eva (All About Eve, 1950). In this film he played a superficial candidate actress in what could qualify as one of the first roles responding to the stereotype that it would later create it.

Shortly before, in 1949, Marilyn, which for a time he combined professions of actress and model, gave his first hit for the sake of celebrity to pose for a photo session whose outcome is still one of the most genuine images of a pin-up girl. It's the images showing roof shots Marilyn naked on a bed of red. Some of the photos appear in the same year in a calendar, and somewhat later, in 1953, one of them would be the cover of the first issue of the famous erotic magazine Playboy. This, undoubtedly, was a true event media, perhaps the first that can be compared to those who are today.

Meanwhile, the actress not abandoned his career in cinema. After making some not too outstanding secondary roles, in 1952 appeared in some titles of some importance, either by its directors, either by labour who played in them: encounters in the night (Clash by night), by Fritz Lang; We are not married (We're not married), Edmund Goulding; the episode made by Henry Koster to the collective film four pages of a life (O´Henry's Full House); and the film's intrigue fog in the soul (Don´t bother to knock), Roy Ward Baker, where he played the character of Nell Forbes very convincingly.

In fog in the soul (1952)

Marilyn was truly splendid in its role of Nell, a disturbed babysitter who had tried to commit suicide in the past and that desperate and half crazy after having lost his great love, disguises itself now with the jewels of his lady to seduce a sexy pilot. The girl that should take care of that night, Benny, thwarts his plans, by hallucinated girl threatening the first with gutting it with as much ease as a doll, and then he gags her and ties her to the bed. In this sadistic and deranged relation to small, Marilyn gave signs of a convincing cruelty which, at the time that unveiled its excellent dramatic qualities, perhaps brought him to the memory the horrors suffered during his own childhood. It was without doubt one of the best roles of his career.

Comedy star

But the really important film of that year was comedy of entanglement I feel rejuvenate (Monkey Business), Howard Hawks, the director who perhaps knew how to extract the best of Marilyn Monroe Billy Wilder and John Huston. In this comedy, true classic of the genre written by Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer and I.A.L. Diamond, was the role of a blonde and stupid Secretary along with two true monsters of the genus, Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers. The mastery of the Mise en scene and splendid dramatico-comica joinery in the film was what was in need of the career of Marilyn, which finally could prove himself further than the stupid that would be the character who interpreted. In addition, and as it would be later, was in the more or less pure comedy where the actress gave the best of myself.

In 1953 it was going to make the first three films in which his contribution was important. Firstly, Niagara , a film of suspense to the Hitchcock always efficient Henry Hathaway directed, but that was not the type of production for the actress. It is much more important, since it may be the title that marks the beginning of Marilyn Monroe as a star and as a sexual myth, gentlemen prefer blondes (Gentlemen prefer blondes), a new comedy, this musical time, Howard Hawks.

Gentlemen prefer blondes, based on an ingenious novel by Anita Loos, told the story of the confrontation of two Showgirls, a brunette, the turgid Jane Russell, and another blonde, Marilyn, trying to hunt down one of the most desired and rich of America solterones. In this film, replete with great gags and provocative musical numbers, Marilyn proved that he was, in addition to a good comedy actress, a remarkable singer and dancer, with a personal and very suggestive style. Indeed, the sought male character, played by Charles Coburn, finally chose to stay with Lorelei Lee, the blonde.

Marilyn in gentlemen prefer blondes
and How to marry a millionaire (1953)

The third work that made that year was a movie arguably quite similar, How to marry a millionaire (How to marry a millionaire), of Jean Negulesco, in which Marilyn and other two actresses, this time Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall, were about to conquer a millionaire at all costs. Not as exuberant nor rotunda as the previous one, was a film that exploited the disparity of physical characters of the three female performers in comedy, and therefore was a work very tailored to the skills of Marilyn Monroe. As a result of these stunning works, in 1954 the prestigious Golden Globe would be awarded for best actress.

Converted in less than a year in one of the most dazzling of the Hollywood film firmament, January 14, 1954 married the legendary baseball player Joe DiMaggio, one of the first American sportsmen whose popularity was comparable to a movie star. The wedding was one of the hottest social events of that year, but only a few months later, on 27 October, DiMaggio and Marilyn divorced. Despite this, and according to the testimony of friends of the actress, Joe DiMaggio was three husbands who had, the only one he really wanted.

Joe DiMaggio

Cinematically speaking, 1954 was not a great year when compared with the preceding or the following. He participated in two titles; the first was a peculiar cross between melodrama and the western directed by Otto Preminger, River of no return (River of no return), a good film with Robert Mitchum in which Marilyn shone not especially coprotagonizado. The second, the musical limelight lights (There's no business like show business), by Walter Lang, resulted from a level much lower than that which he had starred the previous year.

At the Summit

Despite the professional success that had obtained in a short time, his personal life was nothing satisfactory. In addition to the recent failure of sentimental with DiMaggio, it did not stop fighting to prove that he was more than just beautiful a face and a figure. The more became a sex symbol, most tried to not to succumb to the conformist image projecting. The harassment to which he was subjected by managers of the producers was consistent. If in his films she attracted the man with his body and his innocent charm, in life he boasted of not agreeing to never sleep with producers and heads of studies, something that surely would have given things to get better roles, especially in the early days of his career.

On the other hand, its ingrained complex intellectual nullity, probably caused by having abandoned studies, soon led to new activities. In 1955, for example, he attended the prestigious Actors Studio New York to take classes with Lee Strasberg. Induced by Strasberg, he studied psychoanalysis in order to know more about itself and bring out their interpretive potential. Strasberg, a generous man, treated her like a father and offered him to intervene in the Center Theater sessions, starring in works such as a streetcar named desire, Tenessee Williams, and Anna Christie, Eugene O´Neill. These details were mocked by certain Hollywood environments that thicket in viewing it as an actress whose only valuable attribute was that of awakening an irrepressible attraction in men.

The two films in which intervened then, although excellent, presented the character should be interpreted as someone with more than one parallel with that other Marilyn's real life. Both the temptation to live up (The seven year itch, 1955), Billy Wilder, as in Bus Stop (1956), Joshua Logan, Marilyn carried out two great interpretations. But the general public, instead of changing the idea that the actress was looking at his interpretive capacity, it still encasillaba more, since they were Roles similar to the image that the studies had given her.

Marilyn Monroe at the temptation to live up (1955)
and in Bus Stop (1956)

The usual pressure to which it was subjected to a great Star, the contempt that felt that they professed him some industry professionals and discontent with its own did not take long to make a dent in Marilyn. Her behavior during filming was more troublesome everyday, with frequent tardiness, excuses for untimely absences and bad relationships with actors and technicians. Around this time he began to take periods of rest in clinics because of depressions that increasingly more frequently it was engulfed.

However, still being in the eye of the storm, being the favorite subject of the press; but it was also frustrating. He accepted an interview waiting that any journalist is interested by his intellectual concerns, so reading or the kind of movies that you would like to interpret, but the only thing that was systematically were gross issues of vanity. Some of your answers then became famous, as when he said that he did not use underwear or that sleeping just got Chanel n. 5. So, unconsciously or not, the own Marilyn ended up contributing to consolidating the perception people had of it.

New directions

1956 was a pivotal year in his life, now that on 29 June he married playwright Arthur Miller, for what had previously converted to Judaism. This link was more surprising if it is fit for the public and the press that the DiMaggio. Miller, writer and dramatist seriously, from the Jewish intellectual elite, openly left-wing ideological positions, was married with a woman who was supposed to be the antithesis: superficial, frivolous without ideas and who regularly appeared on the covers of the yellow press. And who augured her worst, were right, this third and final marriage was a new personal failure. The carefree and naive Marilyn Monroe not recognized with the innermost circle of New York intellectuals that unfolded Miller, and while were not divorced until January 1961, they soon distanced irretrievably.

Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe

Meanwhile, Marilyn had launched a new project that caused the suspicion of the heads of the studios: his own production company. Tired of the abuse and contempt, in 1957 traveled to Great Britain to star in and produce the Prince and the Showgirl (The Prince and the Showgirl), new more dramatic variation on the theme of gentlemen prefer blondes and How to marry a millionaire. As director and partner his Marilyn chose the Shakespearean and very British Laurence Olivier. Filming was, as usual, it came to be turbulent, with clashes with Olivier, delay, pills and alcohol. Curiously the critics, who already had its good do as dramatic actress in Bus Stop, was unanimous in stating that spontaneity and charm of Marilyn had eclipsed Olivier, although he was merciless with the film.

Returning to the United States, returned to arise problems, insecurities and fears of Marilyn: a marriage that no longer worked; a few studies increasingly refractory to hire, strange that this might seem given their immense popularity; new depressions; new stays at sanatoriums or clinics of rest, and two new factors, or at least more pointed: consumption of alcohol and pills, barbiturates especially.

In the Prince and the Showgirl (1957)

In his next film, with skirts and it hot (Some like it hot, 1959), brilliant and scathing comedy about love and transsexualism when returned to direct Billy Wilder, the shooting became a real torture. In his memoirs, Wilder would remember him as the most traumatic experience of her career because of the unpredictable behavior of the actress, that he never arrived at the time or, simply, I had to repeat up to 65 times a plane that was only one sentence. However, and thank you in some way to the good chemistry he had with the other two main actors, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, the end result was satisfactory; the work of Marilyn would be awarded in 1960 with a new Golden Globe, this time in the category of best actress in a comedy or musical.

In 1960, the billionaire co-starred the French actor Yves Montand of George Cukor film (Let´s make love). But with a common approach in the Filmography of Monroe (humble girl but with eagerness of overcoming that finds love in a rich man), Cukor printed the argument a greater dramatic accent. It was a production sumptuous, correctly carried out, and with a good work of the main couple, but there was still something altogether not finished work. During filming, Monroe and Montand had a romance that wasn't major. Marilyn fell in love with the actor, but for Montand it was nothing more than an adventure. Once again, the most desirable woman in the world couldn't or had difficulties to retain a love.

A sad end

His last appearance in film, barring the incomplete and not released Cukor film Something´s got to give, was the best work of those who did Marilyn Monroe for many critics and fans. Rebel lives (The Misfits, 1961), John Huston and scripted by the still-husband of Marilyn, Arthur Miller, was an elegiac, touched with the rare quality of the unrepeatable, film linking especially delicate personal moments on the screen to three great actors, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe, three stars were also going through for various reasons. A story of losers, so the taste of Huston, who in a last twilight will find at least one place to relax and share their experiences with someone. Intense and emotional, perhaps this paper was the best gift that could do to Marilyn Arthur Miller, with who is would divorce shortly after, the day 21 January 1961, just a week before the premiere of rebel lives. Her heartfelt interpretation of the divorcee Roslyn Taber, who finds a new love in the character that embodies Gable, returned to be highlighted in 1962 with a new Golden Globe.

Rebel lives (1961)

The last months of the life of Marilyn presented a series of dark areas that probably never reach to clarify, as his relationship with the then President of United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who tested it seems intimate nature, or later with his brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, in which some signs can be made to think that it was only friendship. In any case, both names appeared then and still appear today in the matter of the death by suicide of the actress, who died on August 5, 1962, due to an overdose of barbiturates at his home in Brentwood, California.

At 3 o'clock in the morning, Mrs Murray, his housekeeper, found her in bed in a strange position, with the phone strongly clinging on one of his hands and the lights on. An empty bottle of Nembutal up bedside witnessing massive ingestion of pills by the star. The forensic doctor certified his death and expressed his belief that it was a suicide. In later years, a genuine scandal industry, which it would form part of the yellow press, the extreme right and a Norman Mailer ruined and desperately needed money, they tirelessly speculated about the relationship between his death and the Kennedy brothers.

It was not the first time that he had ingested an overdose of barbiturates, combined with alcohol: exactly the same had happened in the spring of last year, shortly after the separation of Miller and the premiere of rebel lives. The police, strangely, did not reveal the name of the substance that had taken Marilyn, and seized and refused to make public the audio tapes of the telephone company that calls he made the night of his death were recorded. This did no more than confirm suspicions that Marilyn called someone for help, someone whose high public positions were not allowed to confront the scandal that would have been embroiled in similar issue.

Despite the many biographies and books that have been written (including his autobiography, appeared posthumously in 1974), on her in that has been able to perceive that another Marilyn which does not conform to the topic, still continues to appear in the first place, or in a prominent place, in all sorts of more or less frivolous rankings: in 1995 was voted by the readers of the British magazine Empire as the film actress sexiest of all the times; the same magazine, in 1997, placed her as the eighth star of the largest all-time cinema (male and female); and in 1999, the American People Magazine considered the woman most sexy of the century.

The temptation to live up (1955)

In short, despite strenuous attempts that Marilyn Monroe took place in life to be considered differently to as I saw her, hardly will disappear never of the collective imagination as one of the erotic icons of the 20th century. The image of the temptation to live above, with white blouse and pleated skirt which rise you and wave as it passes over a vent of the NYC subway, has been inextricably linked to his name. His disappearance in full youth, and at the Summit of his fame as an actress and as a living erotic myth, did nothing more than increase the legend.

Chronology of Marilyn Monroe

1926	Born in Los Angeles June 1.
1942	She married James Dougherty, who four years later would be divorce
1946	He began to work in advertising model. He studied acting at the Hollywood Actor completo Lab.
1947	First appearances on the big screen. It adopts the name of Marilyn Monroe.
1948	He made his debut as a supporting actress in Ladies of the chorus and in love preserved.
1949	Increases your popularity to pose for a series of erotic photographs, which four years later would be cover of Playboy Magazine.
1950	Participate with minor roles in the asphalt jungle and Eva naked.
1952	He made one of his best works in fog in the soul, Roy Ward Baker. Wheel with Howard Hawks I feel to rejuvenate, the first of its popular comedies.
1953	Wheel Niagara, Henry Hathaway, and triumphs worldwide with new comedies: the musical gentlemen prefer blondes, Howard Hawks, and How to marry a millionaire, of Jean Negulesco
1954	She marries baseball player Joe DiMaggio, he divorced the same year. It coprotagoniza the western River of no return and the musical limelight lights.
1955	It deepens the interpretation in the Actors Studio of Lee Strasberg and is involved in some of their theatrical productions. Wheel with Billy Wilder temptation lives up.
1956	Stars in Bus Stop, Joshua Logan. She marries playwright Arthur Miller.
1957	He stars in and produces in England the film the Prince and the Showgirl, along with Laurence Olivier.
1958	His depression and addiction to alcohol and barbiturates are accentuated.
1959	Wheel with Billy Wilder with skirts and crazy.
1960	It coprotagoniza the billionaire, George Cukor. Gets the Golden Globe with skirts and crazy.
1961	He is divorced from Arthur Miller. Wheel with John Huston rebel lives, his latest film.
1962	He received a Golden Globe for rebel lives. He died in Los Angeles on August 5.

Filmography of Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn was not an extraordinary performer, but as an actress, was equipped with a particular magnetism and his contribution to several memorable films was essential. Films like gentlemen prefer blondes (Gentlemen prefer blondes, 1953), Howard Hawks, or with skirts and crazy (Some like it hot, 1959), Billy Wilder, remain in the memory of any film buff. In the same way, some sequences of which starred are among most reproduced passages from the history of cinema. The scene temptation lives up that the wind that escapes from a subway vent raises the skirt of the blonde actress, discovering his legs, has been imitated many times, as in the woman in red, starring Kelly LeBrock, and has recovered on endless occasions for ads.

Marilyn Monroe

His first roles in the film allowed him to obtain sufficient success that producers be fixed therein, by the breakdown posed by its beauty with respect to models accepted in the 1940s. After several minor roles, he knew how to take advantage of the opportunity provided by John Huston, who directed her in the role of Angela, the false "niece" from one much older than she, gangster prodigal in infantile and provocative gestures, which ends by naively betraying his protector, in the asphalt jungle (1950).

Marilyn Monroe was truly at the level that is required, so it can be said that this role was his consecration, and allowed him to get a small role in Eva naked (1950), Joseph l. Mankiewicz. On the contrary, the only thing memorable related to his appearance in the great film by Fritz Lang meeting at night (1952), with Barbara Stanwyck, was that the future big star was for the first time wearing blue jeans.

The following movies, mainly comedies, catapulted her to fame. Marilyn was, indeed, the great interpreter of comedies of the 1950s: the irresistible object of desire received a flurry of siphon in their round buttocks in I feel rejuvenate (Howard Hawks, 1952), that part of her anatomy that was also stuck in the bulls-eye of a boat in gentlemen prefer blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953).

In the filming of gentlemen prefer blondes
(with Jane Russell) and the temptation to live up

In How to marry a millionaire (Jean Negulesco, 1953), embroidering his phenomenal, ambitious and myopic silly role, but in temptation lives up (Billy Wilder, 1955) where his overwhelming erotic nature becomes enduring myth in such famous scenes like the one in which an accidental wind bare legs or the other that is discovered that it refreshes your underwear in the fridge.

Billy Wilder also directed Marilyn with skirts and crazy, where Tony Curtis, which then rudely said that kissing Marilyn Monroe was like kissing Hitler intervened. On the contrary, the director justified continuous delays with which came to work the star, behavior that was gaining all sorts of feuds to become habitual: "was often late to filming, but not because the sheets stuck to you." It was because it was forcing herself to arise in the study. All the time felt upset emotionally."

With Tony Curtis in skirts and crazy (1959)

However, the result was a film that marked the birth of the new American comedy, which exceeded the tradition of Frank Capra to equip itself with a greater dose of critical acidity. With a sarcasm that is reminiscent of Eric von Stroheim, in the comedy equivocal situations that cause funny moments, occur but the American way of life that already exhibits is not so idyllic; the characters are bitter pessimism that Billy Wilder known to instill in them. Marilyn Monroe, in a comfortable role of showgirl, worthily complemented the work of Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, two musicians who are forced to escape from Chicago by witnessing the violence of a band of gangsters, and that sign in the Orchestra of Marilyn Monroe dressed as women. In reference to the contribution of the unstable Marilyn, Wilder was emphatic: "When you finished with Marilyn, although you've reached forty outlets and you've endured their delays, you were with something unique and inimitable".

During the filming of the billionaire (1960), Marilyn had a romance with the male protagonist he shared with her the head of the cartel, Yves Montand, who was by then married to the actress Simone Signoret. In fact, Star relationships with Arthur Miller, who had married in 1956, were deteriorating is to forced marches, although the playwright was preparing, as a cynical Epitaph, a script for showcasing of his wife, The Misfits (rebel lives) with John Huston directed.

Rebel lives (1961)

It was perhaps this film more rugged of all few shot Marilyn, torn apart by the imminent divorce, which became effective in January 1961. The operator of the film was a such Inge Morath, who was married to Arthur Miller in February of the following year. Before even rolling the foreground, the film was attacked by the press because of his progressive argument. All the darts were thrown inclementemente against Marilyn, who had been admitted to a psychiatric late 1960 and who was even accused of the death of Clark Gable, occurred immediately after the end of filming. This while seen in their right perspective, the work of Marilyn in this film has been considered the best of his career: was able to draw a role of symbolic nature which, on the other hand, perhaps anticipating their own failure to perfection.

When you remove the life directed by George Cukor, a musical comedy with Cyd Charisse and Dean Martin who was graduating left unfinished Somethings got to give and Marilyn appeared to bathing naked in a swimming pool. The scene came to be rolled, and photographs showing her donning a blue bathrobe have become justly famous.

Filmography

1947	You were meant for me Scudda Hoo! Scudda there! Dangerous years
1948	Ladies of the chorus
1949	Love canned
1950	A ticket to Tomahawk Right cross The asphalt jungle Eva naked The fireball
1951	Let´s make it legal Love nest As young as you feel Home town story
1952	Meeting in the night Fog soul We are not married Four pages of life I feel to rejuvenate
1953	Niagara Gentlemen prefer blondes How to marry a millionaire
1954	River of no return Limelight lights
1955	The temptation to live up
1956	Bus Stop
1957	The Prince and the Showgirl
1959	With skirts and crazy
1960	The billionaire
1961	Rebel lives

River of no return (1954)

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas