Marilyn Monroe biograhpy and movie guide
Marilyn Monroe is one of the most celebrated, popular, photogenic and enduring screen legends in Hollywood's history. Her mythical status has transcended into that of an American cultural icon. An eternal symbol of sensuality and glamour, her star shone bright yet all too briefly. Contrary to common belief, the ”sexiest woman of the century” was not another famed dumb blonde - her IQ was 168, considerably higher than John F. Kennedy's IQ of 129.
Norma Jean
Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1st, 1926 in Los Angeles, California to Gladys Baker (née Monroe, 1902-1984), who used to work as a film cutter in a Hollywood movie studio. According to her birth certificate, the fictitious Edward Mortenson was listed as her father. Some time after the birth of her daughter Norma Jean, her third child (her other two children had been kidnapped by her former husband and taken to Kentucky where he remarried) who was baptized Norma Jean Baker, the emotionally fragile and financially unstable Gladys Baker who had been deserted by the father of the baby girl, suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to a mental institution.
After All, ”Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”
That same year, Marilyn Monroe was teamed with Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall in the first wide screen comedy How to Marry A Millionaire, directed by Jean Negulesco. Cast as Pola Debevoise, whose logic was as fuzzy as her eyesight, Monroe played once again the dumb blonde.
As charming neighbor in The Seven Year Itch.
Based on a successful Broadway comedy written by George Axelrod, Billy Wilder's 1955 production of the The Seven Year Itch solidified Monroe's status as America's leading sex siren. Co-starring a hilarious Tom Ewell, the story concerned the middle aged husband's funny efforts to seduce his highly desirable upstairs neighbor. As the neighbor with no name, Marilyn was willingly playing into the notion that her on-screen persona and off-screen personality were one and the same. The line between reality and fantasy became increasingly blurred. In the iconic skirt scene ( where she stood over the subway crating and the wind blew up her skirt), Monroe understood her white cocktail dress would be blowing up and upon noticing in the mirror that one could see through her panties, she put on a second pair of panties. For New Yorkers watching the endless retakes of Monroe it was the greatest show on earth, but it did not sit well with Joe DiMaggio. This public display was in fact a celebration of her tremendous sexual and professional power.
What might interest you next:
became first the personification of the young rebel and then – after his tragic early death – also a myth.
→ James Dean biography and greatest movies
is known for her ravishing beauty and innate theatrical sense and ludic yet effervescent personality with her characteristic illness-derived mood swings.
→ Vivien Leigh biography and greatest movies