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| Birth Name(s) : Norma Jean Baker |
Date of Birth: June 1, 1926 |
| Status:
N/A
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Partner:
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| Profession:
Actor/Model |
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Full Marilyn Monroe Biography
Norma Jean Baker's life has been dissected, documented and discussed more than nearly any other celebrity. Accounts of her childhood are saddening and the ending isn't much happier.
Barely surviving a childhood of abandonment and near-rape, Norma Jean left cruel memories behind as she sauntered her way into hearts across North America. A string of husbands and feature films such as "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1953), "The Seven Year Itch" (1955) and "Bus Stop" (1956) promoted her popularity and reputation as a sexy heartbreaker. She enjoyed tremendous success and decided to change her name to Marilyn Monroe in 1946.
Frequent absenteeism from the set caused her to be fired from a couple of films and studios stopped taking a chance on her because it would cost them thousands of dollars in delays. Marilyn's career spiralled downwards and she retreated into seclusion at her L.A. home. She was found dead of a drug overdose on August 5, 1962 at age 36. She had only made 30 feature films, but her legendary status will remain with film history forever. |
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Additional Marilyn Monroe Biography
Monroe's maternal grandparents were Otis Elmer Monroe and Della Mae Hogan. Her mother, Gladys Pearl Monroe, was born in Porfirio Diaz, Mexico, now known as Piedras Negras, on May 27, 1902 where the family had gone, so Otis could work on the railroad. The family returned to California where Gladys's brother Otis was born in 1905. Their father, suffering from syphilis that had invaded his brain, died in 1909 in Southern California State Hospital in San Bernardino County. Gladys married Jasper Baker in May 1917 and had two children, Robert Kermit Baker (born January 24, 1918) and Berniece Baker (Miracle) (born July 30, 1919). They were both born in Los Angeles. After Gladys and Jasper divorced, he took the children and moved to Kentucky, where he had been born, according to Miracle's book My Sister Marilyn. Gladys moved there to be near her children but later returned to Los Angeles.
After Gladys returned to Los Angeles, she married Martin Edward Mortenson (1897-1981) on October 11, 1924. They divorced six months into their marriage, according to My Sister Marilyn. Martin's father, also named Martin, was born in Haugesund, Norway, and had immigrated to the United States about 1880 where he married Stella Higgins. Their son was born in Vallejo, California.
In 1948, in a six-month stint at Columbia Pictures, she starred in Ladies of the Chorus, but the low-budget musical was not a success and Monroe was dropped yet again. She then met one of Hollywood's top agents, Johnny Hyde, who had Fox re-sign her after MGM turned her down. Darryl F. Zanuck, the vice-president of Fox, was not convinced of Monroe's potential, but because of Hyde's persistence, she gained supporting parts in the Marx Brothers film Love Happy (1949), and in Fox's All About Eve and MGM's The Asphalt Jungle (both 1950). Even though the roles were small, moviegoers as well as critics took notice. Hyde also arranged for her to have minor plastic surgery on her nose and chin, adding that to earlier dental surgery.
Monroe stayed in New York. As The Seven Year Itch raced to the top of the box office in the summer of 1955, and with Fox starlets Jayne Mansfield and Sheree North failing to click with audiences, Zanuck admitted defeat and Monroe returned to Hollywood. A new contract was drawn up, giving Monroe approval of the director as well as the option to act in other studios' projects.
After Some Like It Hot, Monroe shot Let's Make Love directed by George Cukor and co-starring Yves Montand. Monroe was forced to shoot the picture because of her obligations to Twentieth Century-Fox. While the film was not a commercial or critical success, it included one of Monroe's legendary musical numbers, Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy".
Arthur Miller wrote what became her and her co-star Clark Gable's last completed film, The Misfits. The exhausting shoot took place in the hot Nevada desert. Monroe, Gable and Montgomery Clift delivered performances that are considered excellent by contemporary movie critics. Tabloid magazines blamed Gable's death of a heart attack on Monroe, claiming she had given him a hard time on the set. Gable, however, insisted on doing his own stunts and was a heavy smoker. After Gable's death, Monroe attended the baptism of his son.
Monroe returned to Hollywood to resume filming on the George Cukor comedy Something's Got to Give, a never-finished film that has become legendary for problems on the set and proved a costly debacle for Fox. In May 1962, she made her last significant public appearance, singing Happy Birthday, Mr. President at a televised birthday party for President John F. Kennedy.
Monroe conducted a lengthy interview with Life, in which she expressed how bitter she was about Hollywood labeling her as a dumb blonde and how much she loved her audience. She also did a photo shoot for Vogue and began discussing a future film project with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, according to the Donald Spoto biography.
His sister wrote in the December 1952 Modern Screen Magazine that Dougherty left Monroe because she wanted to pursue modeling. He admitted to A&E Network that his mother asked him to marry her and told Lifetime in 1996 that he cut off her allotment after being served with divorce papers. The 1999 Christie's auction of Monroe's estate revealed that she kept nothing from Dougherty except their divorce decree.
On June 29, 1956, Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller, whom she first met in 1951, in a civil ceremony in White Plains, New York. City Court Judge Seymour Robinowitz presided over the hushed ceremony in the law office of Sam Slavitt (the wedding had been kept secret from both the press and the public). Nominally raised as a Christian, she converted to Judaism before marrying Miller. After she finished shooting The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier, the couple returned to the United States from England and discovered she was pregnant. However, she suffered from endometriosis, and the pregnancy was found to be ectopic. A subsequent pregnancy ended in miscarriage.
Miller's screenplay for The Misfits, a story about a despairing divorcée, was meant to be a Valentine gift for his wife, but by the time filming started in 1960 their marriage was beyond repair. A Mexican divorce was granted on January 24, 1961. On February 17, 1962, Miller married Inge Morath, one of the Magnum photographers recording the making of The Misfits. |
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