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Marilyn Monroe - Biography |
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Probably the most celebrated of all
actresses, Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Mortenson on June 1, 1926,
in Los Angeles General Hospital. Prior to her birth, Marilyn's father
bought a motorcycle and headed north to San Francisco, abandoning the
family in Los Angeles. Marilyn grew up not knowing for sure who her father
really was. Her mother, Gladys, had entered into several relationships,
further confusing her daughter as to who it was who fathered her.
Afterward, Gladys gave Norma Jean (Marilyn) the name of Baker, a boyfriend
she had before Mortenson. Poverty was a constant companion to Gladys and
Norma. Gladys, who was extremely attractive and worked for RKO Studios as
a film cutter, suffered from mental illness and was in and out of mental
institutions for the rest of her life, and because of that Norma Jean
spent time in foster homes. When she was nine she was placed in an
orphanage where she was to stay for the next two years. Upon being
released from the orphanage, she went to yet another foster home. In 1942,
at the age of 16, Norma Jean married 21-year-old aircraft plant worker
James Dougherty. The marriage only lasted four years, and they divorced in
1946. By this time Marilyn began to model swimsuits and bleached her hair
blonde. Various shots made their way into the public eye, where some were
eventually seen by RKO Pictures head'Howard Hughes (I)'. He offered
Marilyn a screen test, but an agent suggested that 20th Century-Fox would
be the better choice for her, since it was a much bigger and more
prestigious studio. She was signed to a contract at $125 per week for a
six-month period and that was increased by $25 per week at the end of that
time when her contract was lengthened.
Her first film was in 1947 with a bit part in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim
(1947). Her next production was not much better, a bit in the eminently
forgettable Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948). Two of the three brief scenes
she appeared wound up on the cutting room floor. Later that same year she
was given a somewhat better role as Evie in Dangerous Years (1947).
However, Fox declined to renew her contract, so she went back to modeling
and acting school.
Columbia Pictures then picked her up to play Peggy Martin in Ladies of the
Chorus (1948), where she sang two numbers. Notices from the critics were
favorable f0r her, if not the film, but Columbia dropped her. Once again
Marilyn returned to modeling. In 1949 she appeared in United Artists' Love
Happy (1949). It was also that same year she posed nude for the now famous
calendar shot which was later to appear in Playboy magazine in 1953 and
further boost her career. She would be the first centerfold in that
magazine's long and illustrious history. The next year proved to be a good
year for Marilyn. She appeared in five films, but the good news was that
she received very good notices for her roles in two of them, The Asphalt
Jungle (1950) from MGM and All About Eve (1950) from Fox. Even though both
roles were basically not much mor than bit parts, movie fans remembered
her ditzy but very sexy blonde performance.
In 1951, Marilyn got a fairly sizable role in Love Nest (1951). The public
was now getting to know her and liked what it saw. She had an intoxicating
quality of volcanic sexuality wrapped in an aura of almost childlike
innocence. In 1952, Marilyn appeared in Don't Bother to Knock (1952), in
which she played a somewhat mentally unbalanced babysitter. Critics didn't
particularly care for her work in this picture, but she made a much more
favorable impression later in the year in Monkey Business (1952), where
she was seen for the first time as a platinum blonde, a look that became
her trademark. The next year she appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1953) as Lorelei Lee. It was also the same year she began dating the
baseball great Joe DiMaggio.
Marilyn was now a genuine box-office drawing card. Later, she appeared
with Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall and Rory Calhoun in How to Marry a
Millionaire (1953). Although her co-stars got the rave reviews, it was the
sight of Marilyn that really excited the audience, especially the male
members. On January 14, 1954, Marilyn wed DiMaggio, then proceeded to film
There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). That was quickly followed
by The Seven Year Itch (1955), which showcased her considerable comedic
talent and contained what is arguably one of the most memorable moments in
cinema history: Marilyn standing above a subway grating and the wind from
a passing subway blowing her white dress up.
By October of 1954, Marilyn announced her divorce from DiMaggio. The union
lasted only eight months. In 1955 she was suspended by Fox for not
reporting for work on How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955). It was her
second suspension, the first being for not reporting for the production of
"The Girl In Pink Tights". Both roles went to others. Her work was slowing
down, due to her habit of being continually late to the set, her illnesses
(whether real or imagined) and generally being unwilling to cooperate with
her producers, directors, and fellow actors.
In Bus Stop (1956), however, Marilyn finally showed critics that she could
play a straight dramatic role. It was also the same year she married
playwright, Arthur Miller (they divorced in 1960). In 1957 Marilyn flew to
Britain to film The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) which proved less than
impressive critically and financially. It made money, but many critics
panned it for being slow-moving. After a year off in 1958, Marilyn
returned to the screen the next year for the delightful comedy, Some Like
It Hot (1959) with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. The film was an absolute
smash hit, with Curtis and Lemmon pretending to be females in an all-girl
band, so they can get work. This was to be Marilyn's only film for the
year.
In 1960 Marilyn appeared in George Cukor's Let's Make Love (1960), with
Tony Randall and Yves Montand. Again, while it made money, it was
critically panned as stodgy and slow-moving. The following year Marilyn
made what was to be her final film. The Misfits (1961), which also proved
to be the final film for the legendary Clark Gable, who died later that
year of a heart attack. The film was popular with critics and the public
alike.
In 1962 Marilyn was chosen to star in Fox's Something's Got to Give
(1962). Again, her absenteeism caused delay after delay in production,
resulting in her being fired from the production in June of that year. It
looked as though her career was finished. Studios just didn't want to take
a chance on her because it would cost them thousands of dollars in delays.
She was only 36.
Marilyn made only 30 films in her lifetime, but her legendary status and
mysticism will remain with film history forever. |
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Marilyn Monroe - Personal Quotes |
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"I love a natural look in
pictures. I like people with a feeling one way or another - it shows
an inner life. I like to see that there's something going on inside
them."
"My problem is that I drive myself... I'm trying to become an
artist, and to be true, and sometimes I feel I'm on the verge of
craziness, I'm just trying to get the truest part of myself out, and
it's very hard. There are times when I think, 'All I have to be is
true'. But sometimes it doesn't come out so easily. I always have
this secret feeling that I'm really a fake or something, a phony."
"They were terribly strict. They didn't mean any harm...it was their
religion. They brought me up harshly." - on living with the
Bolenders when she was a little girl
"I was surprised to be so crazy about Joe. I expected a flashy New
York sports type, and instead I met this reserved guy who didn't
make a pass at me right away! He treated me like something special.
Joe is a very decent man, and he makes other people feel decent
too." - on meeting Joe DiMaggio for the first time
"Joe hates crowds and glamour." - explaining why Joe DiMaggio didn't
come on one of her USO tours
"My marriage didn't make me sad, but it didn't make me happy either.
My husband and I hardly spoke to each other. This wasn't because we
were angry. We had nothing to say. I was dying of boredom." - on why
she divorced James Dougherty
"I didn't want to give up my career, and that's what Joe wanted me
to do most of all." - on why her marriage to Joe DiMaggio couldn't
work
"I want to be a big star more than anything. It's something
precious."
"Jean Harlow was my idol." - on her favorite actress, the first
platinum blonde
"The world around me then was kind of grim. I had to learn to
pretend in order to - I don't know - block the grimness. The whole
world seemed sort of closed to me... [I felt] on the outside of
everything, and all I could do was to dream up any kind of pretend
game." - on drifting in and out of orphanages when she was little
"Grace McKee arranged the marriage for me, I never had a choice.
There's not much to say about it. They couldn't support me, and they
had to work out something. And so I got married." - on her early
marriage to James Dougherty
"I'm not interested in money, I just want to be wonderful."
"A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold
night."
"Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die,
young, but then you'd never complete your life, would you? You'd
never wholly know yourself..."
"A dollar for your thoughts..."
"I've been on a calendar, but never on time."
"No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All
little girls should be told they're pretty, even if they aren't."
"In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her
hairdo. You're judged by how you look, not by what you are.
Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for
kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down
the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty."
"Dogs never bite me. Just humans."
"Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature."
"Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, Fame. If it goes by,
I've always known it was fickle."
"I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was
talented or even beautiful, but because I never had belonged to
anything or anyone else."
"People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of
mirror instead of a person. They didn't see me, they saw their own
lewd thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the
lewd one."
"A sex-symbol becomes a thing, I just hate being a thing. But if I'm
going to be a symbol of something I'd rather have it sex than some
other things we've got symbols of."
"The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool
themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was.
Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with
them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't. When they found
this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them---and fooling
them."
"To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no
foundation. But I'm working on the foundation."
"If I had observed all the rules, I'd never have gotten anywhere."
"I want to grow old without face-lifts... I want to have the courage
to be loyal to the face that I have made."
"It's often just enough to be with someone. I don't need to touch
them. Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You're not
alone."
"I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of
the image they've made of me and that I've made of myself, as a sex
symbol. Men expect so much, and I can't live up to it."
"It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well,
who does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe? They feel fame gives them
some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you,
you know, of any kind of nature - and it won't hurt your feelings."
"Fame is fickle, and I know it. It has it's compensations but it
also has it's drawbacks, and I've experienced them both."
"My illusions didn't have anything to do with being a fine actress.
I knew how third rate I was. I could actually feel my lack of
talent, as if it were cheap clothes I was wearing inside. But my
God, how I wanted to learn, to change, to improve!"
"If I play a stupid girl, and ask a stupid question, I've got to
follow it through. What am I supposed to do, look intelligent?"
On posing nude for the calendar in 1949: "My sin has been no more
than I have written, posing for the nude because I desperately
needed fifty dollars to get my car out of hock."
"An actor is supposed to be a sensitive intrument. Isaac Stern takes
good care of his violin. What if everyone jumped on his violin?"
"There was my name up in lights. I said 'God, somebody's made a
mistake!' But there it was in lights. And I sat there and said,
'Remember, you're not a star.' Yet there it was up in lights."
"Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an
actress, they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to
learn my craft, they laugh. Somehow they don't expect me to be
serious about my work."
"I was never used to being happy, so that wasn't something I ever
took for granted. I did sort of think, you know, marriage did that.
You see, I was brought up differently from the average American
child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy
- that's it, successful, happy, and on time."
"You know, when you grow up you can get kind of sour, I mean, that's
the way it can go."
"Wouldn't it be nice to be like men and get notches in your belt and
sleep with most attractive men and not get emotionally involved?"
"I used to think as I looked at the Hollywood night, 'There must be
thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a
movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the
hardest.'"
"The trouble with censors is they worry if a girl has cleavage. They
ought to worry if she hasn't any."
"I used to say to myself, 'What the devil have you got to be proud
about, Marilyn Monroe?' And I'd answer, 'Everything, everything.'"
On stardom: "It scares me. All those people I don't know, sometimes
they're so emotional. I mean, if they love you that much without
knowing you, they can also hate you the same way."
"Goethe said, 'Talent is developed in privacy, ' you know?And it's
really true. There is a need for aloneness which I don't think most
people realize for an actor. It's almost having certain kinds of
secrets for yourself that you'll let the whole world in on only for
a moment, when you're acting."
"Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I
believe... I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity."
"I've never dropped anyone I believed in."
On John F. Kennedy: "It would be so nice to have a president who
looks so young and good-looking."
"I restore myself when I'm alone. A career is born in public --
talent in private."
"Talent is developed in privacy... but everybody is always tugging
at you. They'd all like sort of a chunk at you. They'd kind of like
to take pieces out of you."
"I want to be an artist... not an erotic freak. I don't want to be
sold to the public as a celluloid aphrodisiacal."
"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay a million dollars for a
kiss... and fifty cents for your soul."
(About Montgomery Clift): He's the only person I know that is in
worse shape than I am.
"I've never liked the name Marilyn. I've often wished that I had
held out that day for Jean Monroe. But I guess it's too late to do
anything about it now."
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything."
"A smart girl leaves before she is left." |
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Marilyn Monroe - Filmography |
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Something's Got to Give (1962)
.... Ellen Wagstaff Arden
The Misfits (1961) .... Roslyn Taber
Let's Make Love (1960) .... Amanda Dell
... aka The Billionaire
... aka The Millionaire
Some Like It Hot (1959) .... Sugar Kane Kowalczyk
The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) .... Elsie Marina
Bus Stop (1956) .... Cherie
... aka The Wrong Kind of Girl
The Seven Year Itch (1955) .... The Girl
There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) .... Vicky
Hoffman/Vicky Parker
... aka Irving Berlin's There's No Business Like Show Business (UK:
complete title) (USA: complete title)
River of No Return (1954) .... Kay Weston
How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) .... Pola Debevoise
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) .... Lorelei Lee
... aka Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (USA: complete title)
Niagara (1953) .... Rose Loomis
O. Henry's Full House (1952) .... Streetwalker (The Cop and the
Anthem)
... aka Full House (UK)
Monkey Business (1952) .... Miss Lois Laurel
... aka Be Your Age
... aka Howard Hawks' Monkey Business (USA: complete title)
Don't Bother to Knock (1952) .... Nell Forbes
We're Not Married! (1952) .... Annabel Jones Norris
Clash by Night (1952) .... Peggy
Let's Make It Legal (1951) .... Joyce Mannering
Love Nest (1951) .... Roberta 'Bobbie' Stevens
As Young as You Feel (1951) .... Harriet
Home Town Story (1951) .... Iris Martin
Right Cross (1950) (uncredited) .... Dusky Ledoux
All About Eve (1950) .... Miss Caswell
The Fireball (1950) .... Polly
... aka The Challenge
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) .... Angela Phinlay
A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950) (uncredited) .... Clara
Love Happy (1949) .... Grunion's Client
Ladies of the Chorus (1948) .... Peggy Martin
Green Grass of Wyoming (1948) (unconfirmed)
Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948) (uncredited) .... Girl in Canoe (lake
scenes)/Girl Exiting Church
... aka Summer Lightning (UK)
You Were Meant for Me (1948) (unconfirmed)
Dangerous Years (1947) .... Evie |
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Marilyn Monroe - Related Links |
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Wikipedia: Marilyn Monroe
YouTube: Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe at Babemania.com
Top Celebrities Sites:
The Celebrity
Cafe |
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