Happy Birthday Marilyn Monroe!🎁
Today, I’m celebrating what would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 91st birthday💋
Marilyn Monroe was the most famous woman in the world. An actress, model, singer and sex symbol and more. She is my favourite actress, and the reason why I love Old Hollywood.
Born, Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles, California on June 1 1926, her unstable childhood was similar to that of an orphan. Norma Jeane would never know her father, and her mother, Gladys Pearl Baker, suffered from mental illness throughout her whole life.
Shortly after Norma Jeane’s birth, Gladys was mentally and financially unstable and put Norma Jeane with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender. Gladys would try to visit her often. This would be the happiest and most stable time of Norma Jeane’s childhood. By 1933, the Bolender’s wanted to adopt Norma Jeane, but Glady’s refused. She bought a house in Hollywood, and she and her daughter lived there together, and went to the movies. Months later, Gladys suffered from a mental breakdown, and was institutionalised. She spent the rest of her life in and out of hospitals.
Gladys’ best friend Grace Mckee took care of Glady’s affairs. In the next four years, Norma Jeane lived with several foster families or in orphanages. During her foster time, Norma Jeane was sexually abused. She developed a stutter, made few friends, and kept to herself. She received few visitors, except for Grace. Grace gave Norma Jeane makeovers and took her out to the movies. These moments would prove vital and inspiring to the young Norma Jeane. Grace introduced Norma Jeane to the glamour, escapism and the stars of Hollywood, in particular the blonde bombshell, Jean Harlow.
“ 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.” -Marilyn Monroe
Grace became Norma Jeane’s legal guardian in 1936, and took Norma out of the orphanage in 1937. For a time she also lived with Grace’s aunt Ana Lower, whom she loved very much, but moved back with Grace. However when Grace’s husband’s work required the family to relocate to West Virginia with his company, California laws banned Norma Jeane from leaving the state. She was faced with the possibility of returning to the orphanage age 15. To avoid the orphanage she married her 21-year-old neighbour James Dougherty, shortly after her 16th birthday.
During World War ll, Norma Jeane worked in Radioplane Munitions Factory to participate in the war effort and to earn her own income. In 1944, photographer David Conover, was sent by the U.S. Army Air Forces’ First Motion Picture Unit to the factory to shoot morale-boosting pictures of female workers. By the time she was 12, Norma Jeane had blossomed into a voluptuous beauty and received attention from boys and men, however she was taunted by jealous girls and women.
In 1945, Norma Jeane quit working at the factory, and signed at Blue Book Model Agency. She occasionally used the name Jean Norman when working, and had her curly brunette hair straightened and dyed blonde to make her more employable. By early 1946, she had appeared on 33 magazine covers. In a few years, she would be the most photographed woman in the world.
Marilyn was then given a screen test and a standard 6-month contract at Twentieth Century Fox, and she and Dougherty divorced. She underwent electrolysis for her hairline as well as minor surgeries, and became a platinum blonde. She was given the Marilyn after the broadway performer Marilyn Miller, and she chose Monroe after her mother’s maiden name. And so Marilyn Monroe was born.
After small sometimes non-speaking parts, Marilyn landed a major role in the B-movie musical Ladies of the Chorus in 1948. Although the film was not a success, Marilyn showcased her skills as an actress, singer and dancer, as well as beauty starlet. In 1950 she played two minor roles in the critically and commercially successful films All About Eve and The Asphalt Jungle.
In 1952, Marilyn starred in Clash by Night and Don’t Bother To Knock. Both films gave her the opportunity to play a dramatic role. During this time she began a relationship with baseball star Joe DiMaggio, and they married in 1954. The troubled marriage would last only 9 months, but they would remain friends until Marilyn's death.
While her popularity began to rise, global stardom would not come until the 1953 film noir Niagara. Marilyn played a beautiful femme fatale, and she emerged as a sex symbol. Her tight clothing and low cut dresses also contributed to her status, and she developed a reputation for being late. Marilyn then played a ‘dumb blonde’, gold digger in two films in 1953. In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes she starred alongside Jane Russell whom she had a fantastic on-screen partnerships and would get along with famously. The film is also famous for containing the icon Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend musical number.
In the same year, she starred in How To Marry A Millionaire with Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable. Both films were hugely successful and Marilyn was box office magic. However, during this time, she battled with Fox studios for better roles, more money and input into her own films, costars and directors. This would lead to the creation of her own film company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, with her friend and photographer Milton Greene. The company would make the comedy The Prince and The Showgirl starring Marilyn alongside Laurence Olivier.
However, Marilyn’s greatest role was in the 1954 comedy The Seven Year Itch, famous for featuring one of the most iconic scenes in movie history, the subway grate scene. The stunt garnered mass publicity and attention and led to the end of her marriage to a jealous and controlling Joe DiMaggio.
Marilyn’s success and popularity continued to flourish, but she yearned to be a ‘real actress’ and played her first dramatic role since Niagara, in my favourite of her films, and her greatest dramatic performance in Bus Stop in 1956. The Saturday Review of Literature wrote that Marilyn’s performance “effectively dispels once and for all the notion that she is merely a glamour personality” She received a Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination for her praised performance as Cherie. That year she also married American playwright Arthur Miller, and made The Prince and the Showgirl in England.
In 1958, she co-starred with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in the critically acclaimed Some Like It Hot. In Billy Wilder’s 1959 comedy, Marilyn played a dumb blonde to her dismay, however it is perhaps her most famous film. The production was tumultuous as Marilyn forgot her lines, demanded re-takes and suffered a miscarriage during filming.
While Some Like It Hot was a success, Marilyn’s career began to decline as did her health and her marriage. Her husband Arthur Miller wrote the film The Misfits specifically for her. The script was disappointing and degrading to Marilyn, and the production of the film was disastrous. The script was constantly rewritten, Marilyn and her co-star Montgomery Clift’s health were deteriorating, and the director John Huston’s gambling was uncontrollable.
Marilyn’s marriage to Arthur Miller ended during filming, and they divorced in 1961 after 5 years of marriage. The Misfits was a commercial failure, and the last film for both Marilyn Monroe and her idol Clark Gable.
“She stood for life. She radiated life. In her smile hope was always present. She glorified in life, and her death did not mar this final image. She had become a legend in her own time, and in her death, took her place among the myths of our century.” –Film historian John Kobal on Marilyn Monroe
On August 5 1962, Marilyn Monroe died at the age of 36. She was filming a new comedy for FOX, and never looked better.
Marilyn Monroe was a tremendously talented and giving woman. She achieved fame and stardom, but was never taken seriously for her craft. She longed for family, love and acceptance. Her outstanding beauty eclipsed her talent as an actress, singer, dancer, model and much more, and her kind, caring heart continues to inspire the world. Marilyn is still idolised, emulated, adored, missed and celebrated today, more than any other. Happy Birthday Marilyn, and thank you so much❤❤❤
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