Marilyn monroe childhood
Marilyn Monroe
American actress and model (–)
"Norma Jeane" redirects here.
For other uses, see Norma Jean (disambiguation) and Marilyn Monroe (disambiguation).
Marilyn Monroe (MARR-ə-lin mən-ROH; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, &#;&#; August 4, ) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the s and early s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution.
She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $&#;million (equivalent to $2 billion in ) by the time of her death in [1]
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 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.
Marylin monroe biography Marilyn Monroe (born June 1, , Los Angeles, California, U.S.—found dead August 5, , Los Angeles) was an American actress who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful films during the s.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.
By , 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 for refusing a film project but returned to star in The Seven Year Itch (), one of the biggest box office successes of her career.
When the studio was still reluctant to change Monroe's contract, she founded her own film production company in with her good friend, photographer Milton Greene. She dedicated 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 () and her first independent production in The Prince and the Showgirl (). She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her role in Some Like It Hot (), a critical and commercial success. Her last completed film was the drama The Misfits ().
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, , 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, with the American Film Institute ranking her as the sixth-greatest female screen legend from the Golden Age of Hollywood.[3]
Life and career
– Childhood and first marriage
Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson[a] at Los Angeles General Hospital on June 1, Her mother, Gladys Pearl Baker (née Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico[7] to a poor Midwestern family who migrated to California at the turn of the century.
At age 15, Gladys had married John Newton Baker, an abusive man nine years her senior. They had two children together, Robert and Berniece. She successfully filed for divorce and sole custody of her two oldest in , but Baker kidnapped the children soon after and moved with them to his native Kentucky.
Monroe was not told that she had a sister until she was 12,[12] and they met for the first time in when Monroe was 17 or Following the divorce, Gladys worked as a film negative cutter at Consolidated Film Industries.[14] Her second marriage occurred in when she married Martin Edward Mortensen, but they separated just months later and divorced in [14][b] In , DNA testing indicated that Monroe's father was Charles Stanley Gifford,[19][20][21] a co-worker of Gladys, with whom she had an affair in , though until then, her father was thought to be Mortensen.[22] Monroe had two other half-siblings from Gifford's marriage with his first wife; a sister, Doris Elizabeth, and a brother, Charles Stanley.[23]
Although Gladys was mentally and financially unprepared for a child, Monroe's early childhood was stable and happy.
Gladys placed her daughter with evangelical Christian foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender in the suburban town of Hawthorne. She also lived there for six months, until she was forced to move back to the city for employment. She then began visiting her daughter on weekends. In the summer of , Gladys bought a small house in Hollywood with a loan from the Home Owners' Loan Corporation and moved seven-year-old Monroe in with her.
They shared the house with lodgers, actors George and Maude Atkinson and their daughter, Nellie. In January , Gladys had a mental breakdown and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. After several months in a rest home, she was committed to the Metropolitan State Hospital. She spent the rest of her life in and out of hospitals and was rarely in contact with Monroe.
Monroe became a ward of the state, and her mother's friend Grace Goddard took responsibility over her and her mother's affairs.
For the next 16 months, Monroe continued living with the Atkinsons, and may have been sexually abused during this time.[c] Always a shy girl, she developed a stutter and became withdrawn.
In the summer of , she briefly stayed with Grace and her husband Erwin "Doc" Goddard and two other families. In September , Grace placed her in the Los Angeles Orphans Home #2, Hollygrove.[40][41][42] The orphanage was "a model institution" and was described in positive terms by her peers, but Monroe felt abandoned.
Encouraged by the orphanage staff, who thought that Monroe would be happier living in a family, Grace became her legal guardian in , but did not take her out of the orphanage until the summer of Monroe's second stay with the Goddards lasted only a few months because Doc allegedly molested her, though these claims are disputed.[46] She then lived for brief periods with her relatives and Grace's friends and relatives in Los Angeles and Compton.
Monroe's childhood experiences first made her want to become an actress:
I didn't like the world around me because it was kind of grim When I heard that this was acting, I said that's what I want to be Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I'd sit all day and way into the night.
Up in front, there with the screen so big, a little kid all alone, and I loved it.[49]
Monroe found a more permanent home in September , when she began living with Grace's aunt Ana Lower in Sawtelle. Monroe was enrolled at Emerson Junior High School and went to weekly Christian Science services with Lower.
She excelled in writing and contributed to the school newspaper, but was otherwise a mediocre student. Owing to the elderly Lower's health problems, Monroe returned to live with the Goddards in Van Nuys in about early [53] That same year, she began attending Van Nuys High School, where she met factory worker James Dougherty, five years her senior.
Marilyn monroe biography book: Who Was Marilyn Monroe? Actress Marilyn Monroe overcame a difficult childhood to become one of the world's biggest and most enduring sex symbols. Her films grossed more than $ million.
At the age of 15, she began dating him.[56][57][58][59] Monroe had been harboring a crush on Dougherty, who had been class president and football captain during his days at school.[58]
In , the company that employed Doc Goddard relocated him to West Virginia.
California child protection laws prevented the Goddards from taking Monroe out of state, and she faced having to return to the orphanage. To prevent this, Grace Goddard approached Dougherty's mother, Ethel, with the proposition that Dougherty marry Monroe.[62] Ethel agreed, and the two told Monroe and Dougherty their idea.
Both were rather skeptical: Dougherty thought Monroe was rather young to marry, and Monroe was nervous.[63] On one occasion, Monroe approached Grace with the idea that they marry as friends instead of consummating their marriage, but Grace replied, "Don't worry, you'll learn."[58]
Monroe married Dougherty on June 19, , just after her 16th birthday, at the home of family friends named the Howells.[63] Though neither the Goddards or Monroe's mother attended the wedding, the Bolenders and their daughter, Nancy, were in attendance.
"I remember the winding staircase in the living room and all of us just staring at the top of the stairs until she appeared," Nancy later recalled. "What a beautiful bride."[58] Monroe subsequently dropped out of high school and became a housewife.[63] After the wedding, they honeymooned at a lake in Ventura County, California, then moved into a studio apartment in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, where they lived a calm, idyllic life.[62][65] Dougherty later recalled that despite the circumstances they married under, he and Monroe "loved each other madly" and that being married "was like being on a honeymoon for a year."[65] However, according to biographer Donald Spoto, Monroe found herself and Dougherty mismatched, and later said she was "dying of boredom" during the marriage.
The first problems in their marriage appeared in late , when Monroe and Dougherty attended a dance at the Catalina Casino ballroom. That night, Monroe was a popular dancing partner, while Dougherty was relatively ignored. Jealous, he told her that they were leaving. When Monroe told him she might go back to the dance alone, he told her that she would not be allowed to come home if she did.[59] In , Dougherty enlisted in the Merchant Marine and was stationed on Santa Catalina Island, where Monroe moved with him.
– Modeling, divorce, and first film roles
In April , Dougherty was shipped out to the Pacific, where he remained for most of the next two years.
Monroe, who had previously been having doubts about having children, begged him for a baby before he left.[63] That same year, Monroe met her sister, Berniece Baker Miracle, and her husband, Paris, for the first time. They continued to stay in touch throughout Monroe's career.[68]
After Dougherty left, Monroe moved in with Dougherty's parents and began a job at the Radioplane Company, a munitions factory in Van Nuys, to help the war effort.
Best marilyn monroe biography
Marilyn Monroe (born June 1, , Los Angeles, California, U.S.—found dead August 5, , Los Angeles) was an American actress who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful films during the s.In late , she met photographer David Conover, who had been sent by captain Ronald Reagan,[69] then working in the U.S. Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit, to the factory to shoot morale-boosting pictures of female workers. Although none of her pictures were used, she quit working at the factory in January and began modeling for Conover and his friends.[72] Defying her deployed husband and his disapproving mother, she moved on her own and signed a contract with the Blue Book Model Agency in August [63]
The agency deemed Monroe's figure more suitable for pin-up than high fashion modeling, and she was featured mostly in advertisements and men's magazines.
She straightened her naturally curly brown hair and dyed it platinum blonde, on advice from a modeling agency.[76] According to Emmeline Snively, the agency's owner, Monroe quickly became one of its most ambitious and hard-working models; by early , she had appeared on 33 magazine covers for publications such as Pageant, U.S.
Camera, Laff, and Peek. As a model, Monroe occasionally used the pseudonym Jean Norman.
Through Snively, Monroe signed a contract with an acting agency in June After an unsuccessful interview at Paramount Pictures, she was given a screen-test by Ben Lyon, a 20th Century-Fox executive. Head executive Darryl F.
Zanuck was unenthusiastic about it, but he gave her a standard six-month contract to avoid her being signed by rival studio RKO Pictures.[d] Monroe's contract began in August , and she and Lyon selected the stage name "Marilyn Monroe". The first name was picked by Lyon, who was reminded of Broadway star Marilyn Miller; the surname was Monroe's mother's maiden name.
However, the studio was reluctant to hire Monroe, a married woman, for fear she would become pregnant.[83][84] In September , she traveled to Las Vegas to divorce Dougherty.[85][86] Though Monroe wanted to continue the relationship unmarried, Dougherty refused.[86]
Monroe spent her first six months at Fox learning acting, singing, and dancing, and observing the film-making process.
Her contract was renewed in February , and she was given her first film roles, bit parts in Dangerous Years () and Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! ().[e] The studio also enrolled her in the Actors' Laboratory Theatre, an acting school teaching the techniques of the Group Theatre; she later stated that it was "my first taste of what real acting in a real drama could be, and I was hooked".
Despite her enthusiasm, her teachers thought her too shy and insecure to have a future in acting, and Fox did not renew her contract in August She returned to modeling while also doing occasional odd jobs at film studios, such as working as a dancing "pacer" behind the scenes to keep the leads on point at musical sets.
Monroe was determined to make it as an actress, and continued studying at the Actors' Lab.
She had a small role in the play Glamour Preferred at the Bliss-Hayden Theater, but it ended after a couple of performances. To network, she frequented producers' offices, befriended gossip columnist Sidney Skolsky, and entertained influential male guests at studio functions, a practice she had begun at Fox. She also became a friend and occasional sex partner of Fox executive Joseph M.
Schenck, who persuaded his friend Harry Cohn, the head executive of Columbia Pictures, to sign her in March [94]
At Columbia, Monroe's look was modeled after Rita Hayworth and her hair was bleached platinum blonde. She began working with the studio's head drama coach, Natasha Lytess, who would remain her mentor until Her only film at the studio was the low-budget musical Ladies of the Chorus (), in which she had her first starring role as a chorus girl courted by a wealthy man.
She also screen-tested for the lead role in Born Yesterday (), but her contract was not renewed in September Ladies of the Chorus was released the following month and was not a success.
– Breakthrough years
When her contract at Columbia ended, Monroe returned again to modeling.
She shot a commercial for Pabst beer and posed for artistic nude photographs by Tom Kelley for John Baumgarth[99] calendars, using the name 'Mona Monroe'. Monroe had previously posed topless or clad in a bikini for other artists including Earl Moran, and felt comfortable with nudity.[f] Shortly after leaving Columbia, she also met and became the protégée and mistress of Johnny Hyde, the vice president of the William Morris Agency.
Through Hyde, Monroe landed small roles in several films,[g] including two critically acclaimed works: Joseph Mankiewicz's drama All About Eve () and John Huston's film noir The Asphalt Jungle ().
Monroe was nervous and starstruck to be performing alongside Bette Davis in the former film, often forgetting her lines, demanding multiple takes, and arriving late. However, in , the often-critical Davis praised Monroe's performance, saying, "Oh, I knew she had a long way to go. Definitely, no question, I knew she was going to make it.
She was a very ambitious girl, [and] knew what she wanted [and was] very serious about itI thought she had talent."[]
Despite her screen time being only a few minutes in the latter, she gained a mention in Photoplay and according to biographer Donald Spoto "moved effectively from movie model to serious actress".
In December , Hyde negotiated a seven-year contract for Monroe with 20th Century-Fox. According to its terms, Fox could opt not to renew the contract after each year. Hyde died of a heart attack only days later, which left Monroe devastated. In , Monroe had supporting roles in three moderately successful Fox comedies: As Young as You Feel, Love Nest, and Let's Make It Legal.
According to Spoto all three films featured her "essentially [as] a sexy ornament", but she received some praise from critics: Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described her as "superb" in As Young As You Feel and Ezra Goodman of the Los Angeles Daily News called her "one of the brightest up-and-coming [actresses]" for Love Nest.
Her popularity with audiences was also growing: she received several thousand fan letters a week, and was declared "Miss Cheesecake of " by the army newspaper Stars and Stripes, reflecting the preferences of soldiers in the Korean War.
In February , the Hollywood Foreign Press Association named Monroe the "best young box office personality".[] In her private life, Monroe had a short relationship with director Elia Kazan and also briefly dated several other men, including director Nicholas Ray and actors Yul Brynner and Peter Lawford.[] In early , she began a highly publicized romance with retired New York Yankees baseball star Joe DiMaggio, one of the most famous sports personalities of the era.
Monroe found herself at the center of a scandal in March , when she revealed publicly that she had posed for a nude calendar in The studio had learned about the photos and that she was publicly rumored to be the model some weeks prior, and together with Monroe decided that to prevent damaging her career it was best to admit to them while stressing that she had been broke at the time.
The strategy gained her public sympathy and increased interest in her films, for which she was now receiving top billing. In the wake of the scandal, Monroe was featured on the cover of Life magazine as the "Talk of Hollywood", and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper declared her the "cheesecake queen" turned "box office smash".[] Three of Monroe's films—Clash by Night, Don't Bother to Knock and We're Not Married!—were released soon after to capitalize on the public interest.
Despite her newfound popularity as a sex symbol, Monroe also wished to showcase more of her acting range.
She had begun taking acting classes with Michael Chekhov and mime Lotte Goslar soon after beginning the Fox contract, and Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock showed her in different roles. In the former, a drama starring Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Fritz Lang, she played a fish cannery worker; to prepare, she spent time in a fish cannery in Monterey.
She received positive reviews for her performance: The Hollywood Reporter stated that "she deserves starring status with her excellent interpretation", and Variety wrote that she "has an ease of delivery which makes her a cinch for popularity".[] The latter was a thriller in which Monroe starred as a mentally disturbed babysitter and which Zanuck used to test her abilities in a heavier dramatic role.
Marilyn monroe biography hollywood Marilyn Monroe () Model, actress, singer and arguably one of the most famous women of the twentieth century. Monroe has become an iconic representative of fame and female beauty. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in American culture.It received mixed reviews from critics, with Crowther deeming her too inexperienced for the difficult role,[] and Variety blaming the script for the film's problems.[]
Monroe's three other films in continued with her typecasting in comedic roles that highlighted her sex appeal.
In We're Not Married!, her role as a beauty pageant contestant was created solely to "present Marilyn in two bathing suits", according to its writer Nunnally Johnson. In Howard Hawks's Monkey Business, in which she acted opposite Cary Grant, she played a secretary who is a "dumb, childish blonde, innocently unaware of the havoc her sexiness causes around her".
In O. Henry's Full House, with Charles Laughton she appeared in a passing vignette as a nineteenth-century street walker. Monroe added to her reputation as a new sex symbol with publicity stunts that year: she wore a revealing dress when acting as Grand Marshal at the Miss America Pageant parade, and told gossip columnist Earl Wilson that she usually wore no underwear.
By the end of the year, gossip columnist Florabel Muir named Monroe the "it girl" of [][]
During this period, Monroe gained a reputation for being difficult to work with, which would worsen as her career progressed. She was often late or did not show up at all, did not remember her lines, and would demand several re-takes before she was satisfied with her performance.
Her dependence on her acting coaches—Natasha Lytess and then Paula Strasberg—also irritated directors. Monroe's problems have been attributed to a combination of perfectionism, low self-esteem, and stage fright. She disliked her lack of control on film sets and never experienced similar problems during photo shoots, in which she had more say over her performance and could be more spontaneous instead of following a script.[] To alleviate her anxiety and chronic insomnia, she began to use barbiturates, amphetamines, and alcohol, which also exacerbated her problems, although she did not become severely addicted until According to Sarah Churchwell, some of Monroe's behavior, especially later in her career, was also in response to the condescension and sexism of her male co-stars and directors.
Biographer Lois Banner said that she was bullied by many of her directors.
Rising star
Monroe starred in three movies that were released in and emerged as a major sex symbol and one of Hollywood's most bankable performers.[] The first was the Technicolorfilm noirNiagara, in which she played a femme fatale scheming to murder her husband, played by Joseph Cotten.
By then, Monroe and her make-up artist Allan "Whitey" Snyder had developed her "trademark" make-up look: dark arched brows, pale skin, "glistening" red lips and a beauty mark. According to Sarah Churchwell, Niagara was one of the most overtly sexual films of Monroe's career. In some scenes, Monroe's body was covered only by a sheet or a towel, considered shocking by contemporary audiences.Niagara's most famous scene is a second long shot behind Monroe where she is seen walking with her hips swaying, which was used heavily in the film's marketing.
When Niagara was released in January , women's clubs protested it as immoral, but it proved popular with audiences.
While Variety deemed it "clichéd" and "morbid", The New York Times commented that "the falls and Miss Monroe are something to see", as although Monroe may not be "the perfect actress at this point she can be seductive—even when she walks".[][] Monroe continued to attract attention by wearing revealing outfits, most famously at the Photoplay Awards in January , where she won the "Fastest Rising Star" award.
A pleated "sunburst" waist-tight, deep décolleté gold lamé dress designed by William Travilla for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but barely seen at all in the film, was to become a sensation.[] Prompted by such imagery, veteran star Joan Crawford publicly called the behavior "unbecoming an actress and a lady".
While Niagara made Monroe a sex symbol and established her "look", her second film of , the satirical musical comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, cemented her screen persona as a "dumb blonde".
Marilyn monroe biography Marilyn Monroe (/ ˈmærəlɪn mənˈroʊ / MARR-ə-lin mən-ROH; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, – August 4, ) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the s and early s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution.Based on Anita Loos' novel and its Broadway version, the film focuses on two "gold-digging" showgirls played by Monroe and Jane Russell. Monroe's role was originally intended for Betty Grable, who had been 20th Century-Fox's most popular "blonde bombshell" in the s; Monroe was fast eclipsing her as a star who could appeal to both male and female audiences.
As part of the film's publicity campaign, she and Russell pressed their hand and footprints in wet concrete outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in June.Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was released shortly after and became one of the biggest box office successes of the year. Crowther of The New York Times and William Brogdon of Variety both commented favorably on Monroe, especially noting her performance of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"; according to the latter, she demonstrated the "ability to sex a song as well as point up the eye values of a scene by her presence".[][]
In September, Monroe made her television debut in the Jack Benny Show, playing Jack's fantasy woman in the episode "Honolulu Trip".
She co-starred with Grable and Lauren Bacall in her third movie of the year, How to Marry a Millionaire, released in November. It featured Monroe as a naïve model who teams up with her friends to find rich husbands, repeating the successful formula of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It was the second film ever released in CinemaScope, a widescreen format that Fox hoped would draw audiences back to theaters as television was beginning to cause losses to film studios.
Despite mixed reviews, the film was Monroe's biggest box office success at that point in her career. Unlike on the sets of other films, Monroe got along well with her costars, particularly Grable, who reportedly found Monroe a delightful person to hang out with.[]
Monroe was listed in the annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll in both and ,[] and according to Fox historian Aubrey Solomon became the studio's "greatest asset" alongside CinemaScope.
Monroe's position as a leading sex symbol was confirmed in December , when Hugh Hefner featured her on the cover and as centerfold in the first issue of Playboy; Monroe did not consent to the publication. The cover image was a photograph taken of her at the Miss America Pageant parade in , and the centerfold featured one of her nude photographs.
– Conflicts with 20th Century-Fox and marriage to Joe DiMaggio
Monroe had become one of 20th Century-Fox's biggest stars, but her contract had not changed since , so that she was paid far less than other stars of her stature and could not choose her projects.
Her attempts to appear in films that would not focus on her as a pin-up had been thwarted by the studio head executive, Darryl F. Zanuck, who had a strong personal dislike of her and did not think she would earn the studio as much revenue in other types of roles. Under pressure from the studio's owner, Spyros Skouras, Zanuck had also decided that Fox should focus exclusively on entertainment to maximize profits and canceled the production of any "serious films".
In January , he suspended Monroe when she refused to begin shooting yet another musical comedy, The Girl in Pink Tights. This was front-page news, and Monroe immediately took action to counter negative publicity. At the 11th Golden Globe Awards