Norma Jeane was a child who lived from orphanage to orphanage while her mother remained confined in various mental health institutions. She never knew who her father was; she only had the vague idea that he resembled Clark Gable. At 16, she began to write the story that would eventually transform her into Marilyn Monroe, an absolute icon of 20th-century popular culture, and the origin of a cultural machine that remains active a century later.

She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, but the world knew her as Marilyn Monroe, who died on August 4, 1962. She was a woman who was reborn several times:

when she married for the first time to avoid returning to the orphanage;

when a photographer discovered her;

when she dyed her hair platinum blonde;

when she left behind the name Norma Jeane and became Marilyn Monroe;

when she spoke her first words on screen.

She was even reborn in death, because that’s when a legend was cemented that continues to fascinate. She was already an icon, a sex symbol, and one of the brightest and most popular stars in the world.

Few figures have inspired so many books, films, paintings, fashion designs, photographs, documentaries, television series, and countless marketing campaigns. An entire cultural, creative, and commercial industry has developed around her image and a life that, in many ways, anticipated the constant scrutiny to which public figures are subjected today on social media. Media obsession and private life transformed into spectacle.

Marilyn Monroe is one of the most photographed, imitated, pursued, and scrutinized people, and one of those who arouses the most interest. An ordinary woman who made herself in a man’s world by seizing every opportunity that fate offered, building a career as brilliant professionally as it was somber in her personal and emotional life.

Truman Capote described her as An Adorable Creature, the title he gave to his profile of her, in which he described her as a fragile woman, in his book Music for Chameleons.

Marilyn in her debut

She entered the film industry at 21. It was 1947. It was in Dangerous Years, and her name didn’t appear in the credits. She had a small role as a waitress in a roadside diner where one of the film’s key characters greets her, and then her voice as Evie is heard for the first time:

“Hello, small change”.

The young man invites her out.

“No, I’m very tired”.

He persists. But he receives in response a quick glance and a curt phrase as she walks away:

“Look, this tray is heavy”.

And Evie disappears into the crowd and the noise of the diner.

She made twenty-two films. She was never nominated for an Oscar, but she won two Golden Globes: Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for Some Like It Hot in 1960, and the honorary Henrietta Award in 1962 as World’s Favorite Actress.

Few believed in her and tried to pigeonhole her as the beautiful, seductive, and ditzy blonde. But she was smarter than they were, and her career reveals how the Hollywood studio system worked, how she fought to be taken seriously as an actress, and how she created her own production company to gain independence.

Personally, her story isn’t so happy: she married three times: at 16 to police officer James Dougherty (1942-1946) to avoid returning to the orphanage, as he was going to fight in World War II; to baseball star Joe DiMaggio (from January to October 1954); and to playwright Arthur Miller (1956-1961).

Marilyn Beyond the Movies

Marilyn Monroe transcended the world of cinema and conquered the popular imagination.

Her life changed when, just after turning 16 in 1942, she told her neighbor and police officer James Dougherty, “I love you! Now my life is perfect”. These were her words after getting married.

It was her way of escaping the orphanage and banishing, if only for a time, the feeling of abandonment that had marked her childhood.

Her mother was institutionalized for schizophrenia, and she didn’t know who her father was…

There is a photograph in which Norma Jeane smiles, loves, is not alone, and doesn’t suspect that this shortcut to happiness will lead her to become one of the most desired women in the world, a beauty icon, a movie star with a name she had never dreamed of. And with a sadness and a longing for love and protection that would never leave her heart. But the summer of her wedding promises something else entirely:

“Look at their faces!

The bride’s, pale and luminous as mother-of-pearl except for her cheeks, delicately made up with rouge. Her eyes were like dancing flames. Her perfect doll-like face was framed by dark blonde hair, shining like captured sunbeams, styled partly in ringlets and partly in braids made by the bride’s own mother and intertwined with lilies of the valley over which floated the bridal veil, light and airy as a breath of air. In the small church, one could breathe the sweet and nostalgic innocence of the lilies of the valley, that scent I will remember for the rest of my life, the scent of happiness made real. And the fear that my heart would stop and God would take me into his bosom”.

This is narrated by Joyce Carol Oates (New York, 1938) in her novel Blonde, where she recreates the life of Marilyn Monroe, blending real and fictional events.

That photo, brimming with happiness, is the prelude to her pursuit of her dream, to happiness, and to disaster. It’s the path chosen by a shy, insecure, perfectionist woman, longing to be loved and recognized as a good actress.

In 1945, at 19, Norma Jeane was already a pin-up model. It was a sketch of what she would become, and she made the first key decision on her road to stardom:

She straightened her hair and dyed it blonde.

In the summer of 1946, she made her second decision: to change her name, after signing her first contract in Hollywood. The name Marilyn was suggested by Ben Lyon, an executive at 20th Century-Fox, inspired by the actress Marilyn Miller; and Monroe was Norma Jeane’s idea, to reclaim and honor her mother’s maiden name.

Thus, Marilyn Monroe was born.

From then on, Marilyn ceased to belong solely to the world of film. Each movie expanded her persona; Each magazine cover amplified her image; each book and documentary magnified a figure who was no longer just an actress, but a cultural phenomenon.

Marilyn in her films

The prelude was her debut film, Dangerous Years, in 1947.

Three years later, in 1950, she began to shine with her roles in her first two major studio films: The Asphalt Jungle, directed by John Huston, and All About Eve, by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Two years later, in 1952, she secured her place in film history when she was named It Girl of the Year and began to solidify her status as a sex symbol.

The following year was pivotal. In 1953, she released three films that would shape her future and define her image and her diverse acting range: Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and How to Marry a Millionaire.

At 33, in 1959, she achieved her dream of being considered a good actress under the direction of Billy Wilder by starring in Some Like It Hot, alongside Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon.

In 1961, her last film, The Misfits, was released, again directed by John Huston, alongside Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift. It was a drama in which critics recognized her talent.

The following year, on August 4, 1962, she was found dead in her Los Angeles home. The medical report indicated acute barbiturate intoxication. Speculation began, and suspicion fell on the Kennedy brothers: John (President of the United States) and Robert (Attorney General).

Marilyn in the Media

The magazines and publications of the film world quickly discovered the public’s fascination with Marilyn Monroe. Journalists and photographers began to hound her day and night. Every move, every word, every film shoot, every romance. Sales skyrocketed whenever she graced the cover. That’s when the gossip and celebrity press took off. The coverage of her life foreshadowed what was to come.

Her death, on August 4, 1962, ignited interest, and her name only deepened the mystery and the legend. Speculation about her life, her romances, her death. An expanding universe that only continues to grow.

Marilyn in the Books

In bookstores, Marilyn found a new life. Biographies, profiles, essays, novels, and even editions of her writings fill a few shelves in any library. These works summarize her life:

Capote’s Portrait: An Adorable Creature, in Music for Chameleons.

Marilyn, by Norman Mailer.

Blonde, by Joyce Carol Oates.

The Seducers, by James Ellroy.

Last Sessions with Marilyn, by Michel Schneider.

Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and His Friend Marilyn Monroe, by Andrew O’Hagan.

Marilyn Monroe, by Norman Mailer with photographs by Bert Stern.

Marilyn Monroe: When You Grow Up You’ll Be Rich and Famous (Conversations), by George Barris.

And Fragments and Essences: Poems, Personal Notes, Letters, by Marilyn Monroe.

Marilyn in Documentaries and Films

The camera continued to follow her even after death. Various audiovisual works attempt to decipher her story.

The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unreleased Tapes, by Emma Cooper (2022). An investigation based on previously unreleased audio recordings and numerous testimonies that seek to explain what happened on the night of August 4, 1962, when the actress was found dead in her home.

Reframed: Marilyn Monroe, by Karenn McGann (2022). This miniseries explores her more feminine side and how Monroe was a woman ahead of her time.

The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, by Laurie Collyer (2015). This four-hour miniseries, based on the book by J. Randy Taraborrelli, constructs a portrait through the stories of some of the women who surrounded and knew the actress, beginning with her mother.

Love, Marilyn, by Liz Garbus (2012). It is perhaps the most artistic, sensitive, and intimate portrait of Monroe. It is based on her diaries and the non-fiction book Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters. Marilyn, edited by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment.

Norma Jean and Marilyn, by Tim Fywell (1996). About success and excess. It is a film based on the book Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe by Anthony Summers (1985).

Marilyn in Art

Painting, photography, and advertising have all attempted to capture the real and mythical world of the collective imagination surrounding Marilyn Monroe, along with the power her image wields.

Andy Warhol is the star in this regard. His diptych of the actress and the Shot Marilyns series are proof of her enduring status as a pop icon. The series takes its name from the fact that the artist Dorothy Podber entered Warhol’s Factory and shot all four panels of the silkscreen print, which were displayed one behind the other, creating a hole in the same spot. She called it a happening, but Warhol attempted to partially repair the damage. The photograph corresponds to an image of the actress in the film Niagara.

A century after her birth, Marilyn Monroe remains frozen in time, in her own words and as a self-portrait, as captured by Truman Capote in A Lovely Creature:

“MARILYN: You remember I told you that if someone asked you what Marilyn Monroe was really like… well, what would you say? (His tone was inappropriate, mocking, but also serious: he wanted a sincere answer.) I bet you’d say I’m stupid. A sentimental fool.

TC: Of course. But I’d also say…

(The light was fading. Marilyn seemed to vanish with it, to blend into the sky and the clouds, to dissolve into the distance. I wanted to raise my voice above the cries of the seagulls and call her back: Marilyn! Why did it all have to end like this, Marilyn? Why does life have to be so terrible?)

TC: I’d say…

MARILYN: I can’t hear you.

TC: I’d say you’re a lovely creature”.

The actress ceased to belong to Hollywood long ago: she is now a realm of popular culture that continues to generate stories, images, and interpretations. She is Marilyn Monroe, who remains what she always seemed to be: a real woman trapped within a myth impossible to extinguish.

All articles from our English edition are available HERE

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