Marilyn monroe biography summary organizer

Even though the roles were small, movie-goers as well as critics took notice. The next two years were filled with inconsequential roles in standard fare such as We're Not Married! Critics no longer ignored her, and both films' success at the box office was partly attributed to Monroe's growing popularity. Fox finally gave her a starring role in with Don't Bother to Knock.

It was a cheaply made B-movie, and although the reviews were mixed, many claimed that it demonstrated Monroe's ability and confirmed that she was ready for more leading roles. Monroe proved she could carry a big-budget film when she received star billing for Niagara in Movie critics focused on Monroe's connection with the camera as much as the sinister plot.

She played the part of an unbalanced woman of easy virtue who is planning to murder her husband. The lavish Technicolor comedy films established Monroe's "dumb blonde" on-screen persona. In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Monroe's turn as the gold-digging showgirl Lorelei Lee won her rave reviews, and the scene where she sings "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" has had an impact on popular culture, inspiring the likes of Madonna and Kylie Minogue.

In the Los Angeles premiere of the film, Monroe and co-star Jane Russell pressed their foot- and handprints in the cemented forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. She played a short-sighted dumb blonde, and even though the role was stereotype, critics took note of her comedic timing. Monroe got tired of the roles that Zanuck assigned her. Fox would not accede on her contract demands and insisted she return to start work on productions she considered inappropriate, such as The Girl in Pink Tights which was never filmed , The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.

Monroe refused to appear in these films and stayed in New York. As The Seven Year Itch raced to the top of the box office in the summer of , and with Fox starlets Jayne Mansfield and Sheree North failing to click with audience, Zanuck admitted defeat and Monroe triumphantly returned to Hollywood. A new contract was drawn up, giving Monroe an approval of the director as well as the option to act in other studios' projects.

The first film to be made under the contract was Bus Stop, directed by Joshua Logan. Monroe deliberately appeared badly made-up and non-glamorous. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for the performance and praised by critics. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times proclaimed: "Hold on to your chairs, everybody, and get set for a rattling surprise.

Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress. She struck me as being a much brighter person than I had ever imagined, and I think that was the first time I learned that intelligence and, yes brilliance have nothing to do with education. Monroe formed her own production company with friend and photographer Milton H. Marilyn Monroe Productions released its first and only film The Prince and the Showgirl in to mixed reviews.

Along with executive-producing the film, she starred opposite the acclaimed British actor Laurence Olivier , who directed it. Olivier got furious at her habit of being late to the set, as well as her dependency on her drama coach, Paula Strasberg. While Monroe's reputation in the film industry for being difficult grew, her performance was hailed by critics, especially in Europe, where she was handed the David di Donatello, the Italian equivalent of the Academy Award , as well as the French Crystal Star Award.

After shooting finished, Wilder publicly blasted Monroe for her difficult on-set behavior. Soon, however, Wilder's attitude softened, and he hailed her a great comedienne. Some Like It Hot is consistently rated as one of the best films ever made. Monroe's performance earned her a Golden Globe for best actress in musical or comedy. The New York Times proclaimed Monroe a "talented comedienne.

Monroe, Montand, and Cukor all considered the script subpar, yet Monroe was forced to shoot the picture because of her obligations to Twentieth Century-Fox. While the film was not a commercial or critical success, it included one of Monroe's legendary musical numbers, Cole Porter 's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy. Arthur Miller who later married her wrote what became her and her co-star Clark Gable 's last completed film, The Misfits.

The exhausting shoot took place in the hot Nevada desert. Monroe's tardiness became chronic and the shoot was troublesome. Despite this, Monroe, Gable and Montgomery Clift delivered performances that are considered excellent by contemporary movie critics. Monroe became friends with Clift, with whom she felt a deep connection. Gable said of Marilyn:.

Marilyn is a kind of ultimate. She is uniquely feminine. Everything she does is different, strange, and exciting, from the way she talks to the way she uses that magnificent torso. She makes a man proud to be a man. In April , Otto Preminger 's western River of No Return , the last film that Monroe had filmed prior to the suspension, was released.

She called it a " Z-grade cowboy movie in which the acting finished second to the scenery and the CinemaScope process", but it was popular with audiences. In September , Monroe began filming Billy Wilder 's comedy The Seven Year Itch , starring opposite Tom Ewell as a woman who becomes the object of her married neighbor's sexual fantasies. Although the film was shot in Hollywood, the studio decided to generate advance publicity by staging the filming of a scene in which Monroe is standing on a subway grate with the air blowing up the skirt of her white dress on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

The publicity stunt placed Monroe on international front pages, and it also marked the end of her marriage to DiMaggio. After filming for The Seven Year Itch wrapped up in November , Monroe left Hollywood for the East Coast, where she and photographer Milton Greene founded their own production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions MMP —an action that has later been called "instrumental" in the collapse of the studio system.

She took classes with Constance Collier and attended workshops on method acting at the Actors Studio , run by Lee Strasberg. Monroe continued her relationship with DiMaggio despite the ongoing divorce process; she was also rumored to have dated actor Marlon Brando. By the end of the year, Monroe and Fox signed a new seven-year contract, as MMP would not be able to finance films alone, and the studio was eager to have Monroe working for them again.

Monroe began by announcing her win over 20th Century-Fox. For the role, she learned an Ozark accent , chose costumes and makeup that lacked the glamor of her earlier films, and provided deliberately mediocre singing and dancing. Bus Stop was released in August and became a critical and commercial success. Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress.

Monroe also experienced other problems during the production. Her dependence on pharmaceuticals escalated and, according to Spoto, she had a miscarriage. After returning from England, Monroe took an month hiatus to concentrate on family life. In the end, Wilder was happy with Monroe's performance, saying: "Anyone can remember lines, but it takes a real artist to come on the set and not know her lines and yet give the performance she did!

She accepted the part solely because she was behind on her contract with Fox. While one report owes it to a suicide attempt, another claims that Monroe was feeling overcome with personal issues and telephoned psychoanalyst Marianne Kris, who committed her to the ward for "exhaustion". Four days after her arrival, DiMaggio helped get her released.

There was no empathy at Payne-Whitney — it had a very bad effect — they asked me after putting me in a 'cell' I mean cement blocks and all for very disturbed depressed patients except I felt I was in some kind of prison for a crime I hadn't committed. The inhumanity there I found archaic. They asked me why I wasn't happy there everything was under lock and key; things like electric lights, dresser drawers, bathrooms, closets, bars concealed on the windows — the doors have windows so patients can be visible all the time, also, the violence and markings still remain on the walls from former patients.

I answered: 'Well, I'd have to be nuts if I like it here'. I sat on the bed trying to figure if I was given this situation in an acting improvisation what would I do. So I figured, it's a squeaky wheel that gets the grease. I admit it was a loud squeak but I got the idea from a movie I made once called 'Don't Bother to Knock'. I picked up a light-weight chair and slammed it, and it was hard to do because I had never broken anything in my life—against the glass intentionally.

It took a lot of banging to get even a small piece of glass—so I went over with the glass concealed in my hand and sat quietly on the bed waiting for them to come in. The last film Monroe completed was John Huston 's film The Misfits , which Miller had written to provide her with a dramatic role. Monroe disliked that he had based her role partly on her life, and thought it inferior to the male roles.

She also struggled with Miller's habit of rewriting scenes the night before filming. It was the real thing. She would go deep down within herself and find it and bring it up into consciousness. Monroe and Miller separated after filming wrapped, and she obtained a Mexican divorce in January Geoff Andrew of the British Film Institute has called it a classic, [ ] Huston scholar Tony Tracy called Monroe's performance the "most mature interpretation of her career", [ ] and Geoffrey McNab of The Independent praised her "extraordinary" portrayal of the character's "power of empathy".

Monroe was next to star in a television adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham 's " Rain " for NBC , but the project fell through as the network did not want to hire her choice of director, Lee Strasberg. She underwent a cholecystectomy and surgery for her endometriosis, and spent four weeks hospitalized for depression. Monroe returned to the public eye in the spring of Despite medical advice to postpone the production, Fox began it as planned in late April.

President " on stage at President John F. Monroe next filmed a scene for Something's Got to Give in which she swam naked in a swimming pool. This was the first time that a major star had posed nude at the height of their career. Fox soon regretted its decision and reopened negotiations with Monroe later in June; a settlement about a new contract, including recommencing Something's Got to Give and a starring role in the black comedy What a Way to Go!

Her housekeeper Eunice Murray was staying overnight at the home on the evening of August 4, She saw light from under Monroe's bedroom door but was unable to get a response and found the door locked. Murray then called Monroe's psychiatrist Ralph Greenson , who arrived at the house shortly after and broke into the bedroom through a window.

He found a nude Monroe dead in her bed, covered by a sheet, with her hand clamped around a telephone receiver. At a. Monroe died between p. It could have been an accident, because I had just talked to her a short time before. She told me what she had planned to do, she had just bought a new house and she was working on the curtains of the windows.

She had so many things to look forward to and she was so happy. Monroe's sudden death was front-page news in the United States and Europe. Her funeral, held at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery on August 8, was private and attended by only her closest associates. I love you. In the following decades, several conspiracy theories , including murder and accidental overdose, have been introduced to contradict suicide as the cause of Monroe's death.

The s had been the heyday for actresses who were perceived as tough and smart—such as Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Stanwyck —who had appealed to women-dominated audiences during the war years. From the beginning, Monroe played a significant part in the creation of her public image, and towards the end of her career exerted almost full control over it.

In her films, Monroe usually played "the beautiful blonde girl", who is defined solely by her gender. Monroe often wore white to emphasize her blondness and drew attention by wearing revealing outfits that showed off her figure. Although Monroe's screen persona as a dim-witted but sexually attractive blonde was a carefully crafted act, audiences and film critics believed it to be her real personality.

This became a hindrance when she wanted to pursue other kinds of roles, or to be respected as a businesswoman. The biggest myth is that she was dumb. The second is that she was fragile. The third is that she couldn't act. She was far from dumb, although she was not formally educated, and she was very sensitive about that. But she was very smart indeed—and very tough.

She had to be both to beat the Hollywood studio system in the s. Such a good actress that no one now believes she was anything but what she portrayed on screen. Biographer Lois Banner writes that Monroe often subtly parodied her sex symbol status in her films and public appearances, [ ] and that "the 'Marilyn Monroe' character she created was a brilliant archetype, who stands between Mae West and Madonna in the tradition of twentieth-century gender tricksters.

According to Dyer, Monroe became "virtually a household name for sex" in the s and "her image has to be situated in the flux of ideas about morality and sexuality that characterised the Fifties in America", such as Freudian ideas about sex, the Kinsey report , and Betty Friedan 's The Feminine Mystique Dyer has also argued that Monroe's blonde hair became her defining feature because it made her "racially unambiguous" and exclusively white just as the civil rights movement was beginning, and that she should be seen as emblematic of racism in twentieth-century popular culture.

Monroe was perceived as a specifically American star, "a national institution as well known as hot dogs, apple pie, or baseball" according to Photoplay. If America was to export the democracy of glamour into post-war, impoverished Europe, the movies could be its shop window Marilyn Monroe, with her all American attributes and streamlined sexuality, came to epitomise in a single image this complex interface of the economic, the political, and the erotic.

By the mids, she stood for a brand of classless glamour, available to anyone using American cosmetics, nylons and peroxide. Twentieth Century-Fox further profited from Monroe's popularity by cultivating several lookalike actresses, such as Jayne Mansfield and Sheree North. I don't mean that in the obvious way—the perhaps too obvious way. I don't think she's an actress at all, not in any traditional sense.

What she has—this presence, this luminosity, this flickering intelligence—could never surface on the stage. It's so fragile and subtle, it can only be caught by the camera. It's like a hummingbird in flight: only a camera can freeze the poetry of it. The Smithsonian Institution has included her on their list of " Most Significant Americans of All Time", [ ] and both Variety and VH1 have placed her in the top ten in their rankings of the greatest popular culture icons of the twentieth century.

Hundreds of books have been written about Monroe. She has been the subject of numerous films, plays, operas, and songs, and has influenced artists and entertainers such as Andy Warhol and Madonna. Monroe's enduring popularity is tied to her conflicted public image. Owing to the contrast between her stardom and troubled private life, Monroe is closely linked to broader discussions about modern phenomena such as mass media, fame, and consumer culture.

Monroe remains a cultural icon , but critics are divided on her legacy as an actress. David Thomson called her body of work "insubstantial" [ ] and Pauline Kael wrote that she could not act, but rather "used her lack of an actress's skills to amuse the public. She had the wit or crassness or desperation to turn cheesecake into acting—and vice versa; she did what others had the 'good taste' not to do".

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Marilyn monroe biography summary organizer

Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. American actress and model — For other uses, see Norma Jean disambiguation and Marilyn Monroe disambiguation. Los Angeles, California , U. James Dougherty. Joe DiMaggio. Arthur Miller. Main article: Death of Marilyn Monroe. Monroe third from left with actors on the filming set of The Exterminating Angel during her visit to Mexico in February , one of her last media appearances.

One of Monroe's last photoshoots by George Barris , 23 days before her death , July Screen persona and reception. Main article: Marilyn Monroe performances and awards. However, there's no evidence that Gable ever met or knew Monroe's mother, Gladys, who developed psychiatric problems and was eventually placed in a mental institution.

As an adult, Monroe would maintain that one of her earliest memories was of her mother trying to smother her in her crib with a pillow. Monroe had a half-sister, to whom she was not close; they met only a half-dozen times. Monroe dreamt of becoming an actress like Jean Harlow and Lana Turner. When her husband was sent to the South Pacific, she began working in a munitions factory in Van Nuys, California.

It was there that she was first discovered by a photographer. By the time Dougherty returned in , Monroe had a successful career as a model. That year, she signed her first movie contract. With the contract came a new name and image; she began calling herself "Marilyn Monroe" and dyed her hair blonde. At first, Monroe wasn't initially considered to be star acting material.

Her acting career didn't really take off until a few years later. With her breathy voice and hourglass figure, she would soon become one of Hollywood's most famous actresses. She proved her skill by winning various honors and attracting large audiences to her films. Monroe became a much-admired international star despite chronic insecurities regarding her acting abilities.

She suffered from pre-performance anxiety that sometimes made her physically ill and was often the root cause of her legendary tardiness on film sets, which was so extreme that it often infuriated her co-stars and crew. Throughout her career, Monroe was signed and released from several contracts with film studios. By the early s, however, Monroe's professional and personal life seemed to be in turmoil following unsuccessful relationships.

Monroe's most notable films include:. Monroe's small part in John Huston's crime drama The Asphalt Jungle was her first movie to garner her a lot of attention. In , Monroe delivered a star-making turn in Niagara , as a young married woman out to kill her husband with help from her lover. The emerging sex symbol was paired with another bombshell, Jane Russell , for the hit musical comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Monroe continued to find success in a string of light comedic fares, such as How to Marry a Millionaire, with Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall. The three women set out to find millionaires to marry in the film, but they find true love instead. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.

Monroe was born, Norma Jeane Mortenson, in June Her mother Gladys had a turbulent mental state and struggled to cope with bringing up her children. For the first six years, Marilyn was brought up by foster parents, Albert and Ida Bolender in the town of Hawthorne, California. Her mother then tried to take back Marilyn, but she suffered a mental breakdown and Marilyn was moved between different orphanages and foster homes.

The traumatic childhood made her shy and reserved. Just after her 16th birthday, in , Monroe married her year-old, next-door neighbour Jimmy Dougherty. Marilyn became a housewife, but the couple were not close, and Monroe reports being bored. They split up shortly after. Marilyn Monroe appearing in Yank Army Weekly. To earn a living, Marilyn took a job at a local munitions factory in Burbank, California.

It was here that Marilyn got her first big break. Photographer David Conover was covering the munitions factory to show women at work for the War effort.