- Wikipedia

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\"Norma Jeane\" redirects here. For other uses, see Norma Jean (disambiguation) and Marilyn Monroe (disambiguation).

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Marilyn Monroe
Monroe in 1953
Born	Norma Jeane Mortenson (1926-06-01)June 1, 1926 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Died	August 4, 1962(1962-08-04) (aged 36) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Barbiturate overdose
Burial place	Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Other names	Norma Jeane Baker
Occupations	Actress model singer
Years active	1945\u20131962
Works	List of roles and awards
Spouses	\n \n James Dougherty \n (m. 1942; div. 1946) \n \n Joe DiMaggio \n (m. 1954; div. 1955) \n \n Arthur Miller \n (m. 1956; div. 1961) \n
Mother	Gladys Pearl Baker
Relatives	Berniece Baker Miracle (half-sister)
Website	marilynmonroe.com
Signature

Marilyn Monroe (/\u02c8m\u00e6r\u0259l\u026an m\u0259n\u02c8ro\u028a/ MARR-\u0259-lin m\u0259n-ROH; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic \"blonde bombshell\" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2023) by the time of her death in 1962.^[1]\n

Born and raised in Los Angeles County, Monroe spent most of her childhood in a total of twelve foster homes and an orphanage before marrying James Dougherty at age sixteen. She was working in a factory during World War II when she met a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career, which led to short-lived film contracts with 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures. After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in late 1950. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and in the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. Monroe faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photographs prior to becoming a star, but the story did not damage her career and instead resulted in increased interest in her films.\n

By 1953, Monroe was one of the most marketable Hollywood stars. She had leading roles in the film noir Niagara, which overtly relied on her sex appeal, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, which established her star image as a \"dumb blonde\". The same year, her nude images were used as the centerfold and cover of the first issue of Playboy. Monroe played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, but felt disappointed when typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project but returned to star in The Seven Year Itch (1955), one of the biggest box office successes of her career.\n

When the studio was still reluctant to change Monroe's contract, she founded her own film production company in 1954 with her good friend, photographer Milton Greene. She dedicated 1955 to building the company and began studying method acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Later that year, Fox awarded her a new contract, which gave her more control and a larger salary. Her subsequent roles included a critically acclaimed performance in Bus Stop (1956) and her first independent production in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), for which she received a nomination for BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress. She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her role in Some Like It Hot (1959), a critical and commercial success. Her last completed film was the drama The Misfits (1961). \n

Monroe's troubled private life received much attention. Her marriages to retired baseball star Joe DiMaggio and to playwright Arthur Miller were highly publicized; both ended in divorce. On August 4, 1962, she died at age 36 of an overdose of barbiturates at her Los Angeles home. Her death was ruled a probable suicide. Long after her death, Monroe remains a pop culture icon,^[2] with the American Film Institute ranking her as the sixth-greatest female screen legend from the Golden Age of Hollywood.^[3]\n

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v t e Marilyn Monroe
\n Performances and accolades \n Death \n
Songs	\n \"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend\" \n \"Happy Birthday, Mr. President\" \n \"Heat Wave\" \n \"My Heart Belongs to Daddy\" \n \"That Old Black Magic\" \n \"You'd Be Surprised\" \n
Clothes	\n Pink dress \n White dress \n John F. Kennedy birthday dress \n
Popular culture	\n Marilyn Diptych (1962 painting) \n Gold Marilyn Monroe (1962 painting) \n Marilyn (1963 documentary) \n Shot Marilyns (1964 paintings) \n The Legend of Marilyn Monroe (1966 documentary) \n Marilyn Monroe portfolio (1967 prints) \n \"Candle in the Wind\" (1973 song) \n Goodbye, Norma Jean (1976 film) \n Marilyn (1980 opera) \n This Year's Blonde (1980 film) \n Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980 film) \n Insignificance (1985 film) \n Taxi (1988 pinball machine) \n Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn (1989 film) \n Marilyn and Me (1991 film) \n Calendar Girl (1993 film) \n Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996 film) \n Blonde (2001 film) \n Marilyn Forever Blonde (2007 play) \n Marilyn and Ella (2008 play) \n Forever Marilyn (2011 statue) \n My Week with Marilyn (2011 film) \n Love, Marilyn (2012 documentary) \n \"Marilyn Monroe\" (2012 song) \n The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe (2015 film) \n Norma Jeane Baker of Troy (2019 play) \n Blonde (2022 film) \n \"Nxde\" (2022 song) \n
Related	\n James Dougherty (first husband) \n Joe DiMaggio (second husband) \n Arthur Miller (third husband) \n Gladys Pearl Baker (mother) \n Berniece Baker Miracle (sister) \n John F. Kennedy document hoax \n The Last Sitting \n 12305 Fifth Helena Drive \n

v t e Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture \u2013 Musical or Comedy
1950\u20131975	\n Judy Holliday (1950) \n June Allyson (1951) \n Susan Hayward (1952) \n Ethel Merman (1953) \n Judy Garland (1954) \n Jean Simmons (1955) \n Deborah Kerr (1956) \n Kay Kendall / Taina Elg (1957) \n Rosalind Russell (1958) \n Marilyn Monroe (1959) \n Shirley MacLaine (1960) \n Rosalind Russell (1961) \n Rosalind Russell (1962) \n Shirley MacLaine (1963) \n Julie Andrews (1964) \n Julie Andrews (1965) \n Lynn Redgrave (1966) \n Anne Bancroft (1967) \n Barbra Streisand (1968) \n Patty Duke (1969) \n Carrie Snodgress (1970) \n Twiggy (1971) \n Liza Minnelli (1972) \n Glenda Jackson (1973) \n Raquel Welch (1974) \n Ann-Margret (1975) \n
1976\u20132000	\n Barbra Streisand (1976) \n Diane Keaton / Marsha Mason (1977) \n Ellen Burstyn / Maggie Smith (1978) \n Bette Midler (1979) \n Sissy Spacek (1980) \n Bernadette Peters (1981) \n Julie Andrews (1982) \n Julie Walters (1983) \n Kathleen Turner (1984) \n Kathleen Turner (1985) \n Sissy Spacek (1986) \n Cher (1987) \n Melanie Griffith (1988) \n Jessica Tandy (1989) \n Julia Roberts (1990) \n Bette Midler (1991) \n Miranda Richardson (1992) \n Angela Bassett (1993) \n Jamie Lee Curtis (1994) \n Nicole Kidman (1995) \n Madonna (1996) \n Helen Hunt (1997) \n Gwyneth Paltrow (1998) \n Janet McTeer (1999) \n Ren\u00e9e Zellweger (2000) \n
2001\u2013present	\n Nicole Kidman (2001) \n Ren\u00e9e Zellweger (2002) \n Diane Keaton (2003) \n Annette Bening (2004) \n Reese Witherspoon (2005) \n Meryl Streep (2006) \n Marion Cotillard (2007) \n Sally Hawkins (2008) \n Meryl Streep (2009) \n Annette Bening (2010) \n Michelle Williams (2011) \n Jennifer Lawrence (2012) \n Amy Adams (2013) \n Amy Adams (2014) \n Jennifer Lawrence (2015) \n Emma Stone (2016) \n Saoirse Ronan (2017) \n Olivia Colman (2018) \n Awkwafina (2019) \n Rosamund Pike (2020) \n Rachel Zegler (2021) \n Michelle Yeoh (2022) \n Emma Stone (2023) \n Demi Moore (2024) \n

v t e Arthur Miller
Plays	\n No Villain \n They Too Arise \n Honors at Dawn \n The Golden Years (radio play) \n That They May Win \n The Man Who Had All the Luck \n All My Sons \n Death of a Salesman \n An Enemy of the People (adapted) \n The Crucible \n A View from the Bridge \n A Memory of Two Mondays \n After the Fall \n Incident at Vichy \n The Price \n The Creation of the World and Other Business \n The Archbishop's Ceiling \n The American Clock \n Up from Paradise \n Elegy for a Lady \n Some Kind of Love Story \n The Ride Down Mt. Morgan \n The Last Yankee \n Broken Glass \n Mr. Peters' Connections \n Resurrection Blues \n Finishing the Picture \n
Prose	\n Focus \n Homely Girl: A Life \n
Screenplays	\n The Hook (1947) \n Let's Make Love (1960) \n The Misfits (1961) \n Death of a Salesman (1985) \n Everybody Wins (1990) \n The Crucible (1996) \n
Related	\n Marilyn Monroe (second wife) \n Inge Morath (third wife) \n Rebecca Miller (daughter) \n Joan Copeland (sister) \n Arthur Miller: Writer (2017 documentary) \n Willy Loman (character) \n

v t e Time 100: The Most Important People of the 20th Century
Leaders & revolutionaries	\n David Ben-Gurion \n Winston Churchill \n Mahatma Gandhi \n Mikhail Gorbachev \n Adolf Hitler \n Ho Chi Minh \n Pope John Paul II \n Ruhollah Khomeini \n Martin Luther King Jr. \n Vladimir Lenin \n Nelson Mandela \n Mao Zedong \n Ronald Reagan \n Eleanor Roosevelt \n Franklin D. Roosevelt \n Theodore Roosevelt \n Margaret Sanger \n Margaret Thatcher \n Unknown Tiananmen Square rebel \n Lech Wa\u0142\u0119sa \n
Artists & entertainers	\n Louis Armstrong \n Lucille Ball \n The Beatles \n Marlon Brando \n Coco Chanel \n Charlie Chaplin \n Le Corbusier \n Bob Dylan \n T. S. Eliot \n Aretha Franklin \n Martha Graham \n Jim Henson \n James Joyce \n Pablo Picasso \n Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein \n Bart Simpson \n Frank Sinatra \n Steven Spielberg \n Igor Stravinsky \n Oprah Winfrey \n
Builders & titans	\n Stephen Bechtel Sr. \n Leo Burnett \n Willis Carrier \n Walt Disney \n Henry Ford \n Bill Gates \n Amadeo Giannini \n Ray Kroc \n Est\u00e9e Lauder \n William Levitt \n Lucky Luciano \n Louis B. Mayer \n Charles E. Merrill \n Akio Morita \n Walter Reuther \n Pete Rozelle \n David Sarnoff \n Juan Trippe \n Sam Walton \n Thomas J. Watson Jr. \n
Scientists & thinkers	\n Leo Baekeland \n Tim Berners-Lee \n Rachel Carson \n Albert Einstein \n Philo Farnsworth \n Enrico Fermi \n Alexander Fleming \n Sigmund Freud \n Robert H. Goddard \n Kurt G\u00f6del \n Edwin Hubble \n John Maynard Keynes \n Leakey family \n Jean Piaget \n Jonas Salk \n William Shockley \n Alan Turing \n Francis Crick & James Watson \n Ludwig Wittgenstein \n Wright brothers \n
Heroes & icons	\n Muhammad Ali \n The American G.I. \n Lady Diana Spencer \n Anne Frank \n Billy Graham \n Che Guevara \n Edmund Hillary & Tenzing Norgay \n Helen Keller \n Kennedy family \n Bruce Lee \n Charles Lindbergh \n Harvey Milk \n Marilyn Monroe \n Emmeline Pankhurst \n Rosa Parks \n Pel\u00e9 \n Jackie Robinson \n Andrei Sakharov \n Mother Teresa \n Bill W. \n

Authority control databases $\"Edit$
International	ISNI 2 VIAF FAST WorldCat
National	Germany United States France BnF data Japan Italy Australia Czech Republic Russia Spain 2 Romania 2 Portugal Netherlands Norway Taiwan Latvia Croatia Chile Greece Korea Sweden Poland Israel Finland Catalonia
Academics	CiNii
Artists	ULAN MusicBrainz KulturNav FID
People	Trove Deutsche Biographie Deutsche Synchronkartei DDB
Other	IdRef NARA SNAC Te Papa (New Zealand)

Life and career

1926\u20131943: Childhood and first marriage

1944\u20131948: Modeling, divorce, and first film roles

1949\u20131952: Breakthrough years

1953: Rising star

1954\u20131955: Conflicts with 20th Century-Fox and marriage to Joe DiMaggio

1956\u20131959: Critical acclaim and marriage to Arthur Miller

1960\u20131962: Career decline and personal difficulties

Death and funeral

Screen persona and reception

Filmography

Legacy

Notes

References

Sources

External links

Marilyn Monroe

What happened with Marilyn Monroe on 4 August, 1962

4 August, 1962