MARILYN MONROE
Marilyn Monroe was born on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, with the name of Norma Jeane Mortenson. Her mother Gladys, who is a mentally unstable woman, calls her this in homage to her favorite actresses: Norma Talmadge and Jeane Harlow.
The little girl does not have a father and, for a good part of her childhood, she alternates stays in orphanages or with temporary families with turbulent returns home. When doctors diagnose her mother with schizophrenia, Norma Jeane is taken into custody by the state: her legal guardian is Gladys' best friend, Grace McKee, a film archivist at Columbia Pictures.
She will be the one to fascinate the girl about cinema and, a few years later, to enroll her in her high school where she will meet her first husband James Dougherty.
The wedding, celebrated in 1942, lasted only 4 years, a period of time in which Norma posed for the photographer André De Dienes, who sent her shots to Emmeline Snively, director of the most important advertising agency in Hollywood.Snively convinces her to make her blonde.
For the future diva, the relationship with the cinema began right at the end of her marriage, when, in 1946, she was put under contract by Fox.
In the same year she changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.
Her debut in front of the camera took place in 1947 with The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, in which she had an exclusively vocal role. Brief appearances in negligible films and a contract with Columbia Pictures followed.
However, Hollywood immediately forgets about her and, following her dismissal again, wants her back to join the Marx Brothers in Night on the Rooftops. This film brings her luck, because it puts her in contact with her talent scout who will introduce her to John Huston, her director in The Asphalt Jungle.
In this period, however, Marilyn Monroe made headlines above all for a naked photo of her included in a sexy calendar and destined to be the centerpiece of the first issue of Playboy.The beginning of the 1950s was a turbulent time for her, marked by a suicide attempt. Her first starring film was: Your Mouth Burns (1952), which attracted mixed reviews.
The unanimous approval comes thanks to Niagara, in which Marilyn plays the part of a femme fatale. We are in 1953, the year that marks the beginning of the myth for the film star, the roles are pouring in.
Monroe also sings and dances, and no one will forget her numbers in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the beautiful bespectacled young lady she plays in How to Marry a Millionaire.
The making of the latter coincides with her marriage to baseball champion Joe Di Maggio.
Despite good intentions, the union turns out to be difficult and the separation comes after 9 months, during which Marilyn shoots the sexiest scene of her career, that of the white dress lifted by the subway wind in The Seven Year Itch ( 1955).
She moved to New York, where she attended the Actor's Studio and she met playwright Arthur Miller, whom she married in 1956.
This is certainly the happiest period of the diva's stormy existence, which she gets a Golden Globe nomination for Bus Stop.
Between 1960 and 1962 Marilyn's mental condition worsened again. She manages to act in The Misfits, but she is instead kicked off the set of Something Gotta Give: Monroe definitively falls into the vortex of depression.
On August 5, 1962 she was found lifeless, without clothes and with the telephone receiver in her hand in her bedroom. The doctor speaks of suicide due to an overdose of barbiturates, but something doesn't add up in the reconstruction of events, so much so that even today the death of Marilyn Monroe is one of Hollywood's unsolved mysteries.
The little girl does not have a father and, for a good part of her childhood, she alternates stays in orphanages or with temporary families with turbulent returns home. When doctors diagnose her mother with schizophrenia, Norma Jeane is taken into custody by the state: her legal guardian is Gladys' best friend, Grace McKee, a film archivist at Columbia Pictures.
She will be the one to fascinate the girl about cinema and, a few years later, to enroll her in her high school where she will meet her first husband James Dougherty.
The wedding, celebrated in 1942, lasted only 4 years, a period of time in which Norma posed for the photographer André De Dienes, who sent her shots to Emmeline Snively, director of the most important advertising agency in Hollywood.Snively convinces her to make her blonde.
For the future diva, the relationship with the cinema began right at the end of her marriage, when, in 1946, she was put under contract by Fox.
In the same year she changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.
Her debut in front of the camera took place in 1947 with The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, in which she had an exclusively vocal role. Brief appearances in negligible films and a contract with Columbia Pictures followed.
However, Hollywood immediately forgets about her and, following her dismissal again, wants her back to join the Marx Brothers in Night on the Rooftops. This film brings her luck, because it puts her in contact with her talent scout who will introduce her to John Huston, her director in The Asphalt Jungle.
In this period, however, Marilyn Monroe made headlines above all for a naked photo of her included in a sexy calendar and destined to be the centerpiece of the first issue of Playboy.The beginning of the 1950s was a turbulent time for her, marked by a suicide attempt. Her first starring film was: Your Mouth Burns (1952), which attracted mixed reviews.
The unanimous approval comes thanks to Niagara, in which Marilyn plays the part of a femme fatale. We are in 1953, the year that marks the beginning of the myth for the film star, the roles are pouring in.
Monroe also sings and dances, and no one will forget her numbers in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the beautiful bespectacled young lady she plays in How to Marry a Millionaire.
The making of the latter coincides with her marriage to baseball champion Joe Di Maggio.
Despite good intentions, the union turns out to be difficult and the separation comes after 9 months, during which Marilyn shoots the sexiest scene of her career, that of the white dress lifted by the subway wind in The Seven Year Itch ( 1955).
She moved to New York, where she attended the Actor's Studio and she met playwright Arthur Miller, whom she married in 1956.
This is certainly the happiest period of the diva's stormy existence, which she gets a Golden Globe nomination for Bus Stop.
Between 1960 and 1962 Marilyn's mental condition worsened again. She manages to act in The Misfits, but she is instead kicked off the set of Something Gotta Give: Monroe definitively falls into the vortex of depression.
On August 5, 1962 she was found lifeless, without clothes and with the telephone receiver in her hand in her bedroom. The doctor speaks of suicide due to an overdose of barbiturates, but something doesn't add up in the reconstruction of events, so much so that even today the death of Marilyn Monroe is one of Hollywood's unsolved mysteries.