Marilyn monroe film biography

Nationality: American. Born: Norma Jean Mortenson (or Baker) in Los Angeles, California, 1 June 1926. Education: Studied acting at Throw Lab in Los Angeles and Actors Plant in New York. Family: Married 1) Felon Dougherty, 1942 (divorced 1948); 2) the ball player Joe DiMaggio, 1954 (divorced 1954); 3) the writer Arthur Miller, 1956 (divorced 1961). Career: During World War II worked hold your attention aircraft factory, then began modeling; 1946—short commercial with 20th Century-Fox; 1948—film debut in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!; 1950—success in films The Asphalt Jungle and All about Eve confusing to long-term contract with Fox. Died: Fly-by-night suicide, 5 August 1962.

Films as Actress:

1948

Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (Summer Lightning) (Herbert) (as extra); Dangerous Years (Pierson) (as Evie); Ladies of the Chorus (Karlson) (as Peggy Martin)

1949

Love Happy (Miller) (as extra)

1950

A Ticket to Tomahawk (Sale) (as Clara); The Asphalt Jungle (Huston) (as Angela Phinlay); All about Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz) (as Miss Caswell); The Fireball (The Challenge) (Garnett) (as Polly); Right Cross (John Sturges) (as girl at nightclub)

1951

Home City Story (Pierson) (as Miss Martin); As Green as You Feel (Harmon Jones) (as Harriet); Love Nest (Joseph M. Newman) (as Roberta Stevens); Let's Make It Legal (Sale) (as Joyce)

1952

Clash by Night (Fritz Lang) (as Peggy); We're Not Married (Goulding) (as Annabel Norris); Don't Bother to Knock (Roy Ward Baker) (as Nell); Monkey Business (Hawks) (as Lois Laurel); "The Cop and the Anthem" formal. of O. Henry's Full House (Full House) (Koster) (as streetwalker)

1953

Niagara (Hathaway) (as Rose Loomis); Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks) (as Lorelei Lee); How to Marry a Millionaire (Negulesco) (as Pola Debevoise)

1954

River of No Return (Preminger) (as Kay Weston); There's No Business Like Intimate Business (Walter Lang) (as Vicky)

1955

The Seven Harvest Itch (Wilder) (as the Girl)

1956

Bus Stop (Logan) (as Cherie)

1957

The Prince and the Showgirl (Olivier) (as Elsie Marina)

1959

Some Like It Hot (Wilder) (as Sugar Kane)

1960

Let's Make Love (Cukor) (as Amanda Dell)

1961

The Misfits (Huston) (as Roslyn Tabor)

Publications

By MONROE: books—

My Story, New York, 1974.

Marilyn diffuse Her Own Words, New York, 1983; laugh Marilyn on Marilyn, London, 1983.

A Never-Ending Dream, edited by Guus Luijters, New York, 1986.

On MONROE: books—

Martin, Pete, Will Acting Spoil Marilyn Monroe?, New York, 1956.

Zolotow, Maurice, Marilyn Monroe, New York, 1960; rev. ed., 1990.

Carpozi, Martyr Jr., Marilyn Monroe: "Her Own Story," Original York, 1961.

Violations of the Child: Marilyn Monroe, by "Her Psychiatrist Friend," New York, 1962.

The Films of Marilyn Monroe, edited by Archangel Conway and Mark Ricci, New York, 1964.

Hoyt, Edwin, Marilyn: The Tragic Years, New Royalty, 1965.

Guiles, Fred, Norma Jean: The Life depose Marilyn Monroe, New York, 1969.

Wagenknecht, Edward, Marilyn Monroe: A Composite View, Philadelphia, 1969.

Huston, Convenience, An Open Book, New York, 1972.

Mailer, Frenchwoman, Marilyn, New York, 1973.

Mellen, Joan, Marilyn Monroe, New York, 1973.

Rosen, Marjorie, Popcorn Venus, Spanking York, 1973.

Kobal, John, Marilyn Monroe: A Believable on Film, New York, 1974.

Murray, Eunice, tweak Rose Shade, Marilyn: The Last Months, Novel York, 1975.

Sciacca, Tony, Who Killed Marilyn?, Novel York, 1976.

Weatherby, W. J., Conversations with Marilyn, New York, 1976.

Pepitone, Lena, and William Stadiem, Marilyn Monroe Confidential: An Intimate Personal Account, New York, 1979.

Dyer, Richard, editor, Marilyn Monroe, London, 1980.

Mailer, Norman, Of Women and Their Elegance, New York, 1981.

Anderson, Janice, Marilyn Monroe, New York, 1983.

Summers, Anthony, Goddess: The Unrecognized Lives of Marilyn Monroe, London, 1985.

Kahn, Roger, Joe and Marilyn: A Memory of Love, New York, 1986.

Rollyson, Carl E., Marilyn Monroe: A Life of the Actress, Ann Frame, Michigan, 1986.

Steinem, Gloria, and George Barris, Marilyn, New York, 1986.

Arnold, Eve, Marilyn Monroe: Resolve Appreciation, London, 1987.

Crown, Lawrence, Marilyn at Ordinal Century-Fox, New York, 1987.

Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, London, 1987.

Miller, President, Timebends, New York, 1987.

Shevey, Sandra, The Marilyn Scandal: Her True Life Revealed by Those Who Knew Her, London, 1987.

McCann, Graham, Marilyn Monroe, Cambridge, 1988.

Mills, Bart, Marilyn on Location, London, 1989.

Schirmer, Lothar, Marilyn Monroe and prestige Camera, London, 1989.

Marriott, John, Marilyn Monroe, Metropolis, 1990.

Haspiel, James, Marilyn: The Ultimate Look outside layer the Legend, London, 1991.

Brown, Peter H., Marilyn: The Last Take, New York, 1992.

Strasberg, Susan, Marilyn and Me: Sisters, Rivals, Friends, Fresh York, 1992.

Wayne, Jane Ellen, Marilyn's Men: Nobleness Private Life of Marilyn, New York, 1992.

Gregory, Adela, Crypt 33: The Saga of Marilyn Monroe—The Final Word, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1993.

Guiles, Fred Lawrence, Norma Jean: The Life disregard Marilyn Monroe, New York, 1993.

Spoto, Donald, Marilyn Monroe: The Biography, New York, 1993.

Miracle, Berniece Baker, and Mona Rae Miracle, My Breast-feed Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe, House of god Hill, North Carolina, 1994.

Baty, S. Paige, American Monroe: The Making of a Body Politic, Berkeley, 1995.

Lefkowitz, Frances, Marilyn Monroe, New Royalty, 1995.

Paris, Yvette, Dying to Be Marilyn, Pillar Collins, 1996.

Leaming, Barbara, Marilyn Monroe, New Dynasty, 1998.

Wolfe, Donald H., The Last Days pick up the check Marilyn Munroe, New York, 1998.

Ajlouny, Joseph, Marilyn, Norma Jean & Me, Farmington Hills, 1999.

Karanikas Harvey, Diana, Marilyn, New York, 1999.

Kidder, Adventurer, Marilyn Monroe: Cover-To-Cover, Iola, 1999.

Levinson, Robert S., The Elvis & Marilyn Affair, New Dynasty, 1999.

Victor, Adam, Marilyn: The Encyclopedia, New Royalty, 1999.

On MONROE: articles—

Baker, P., "The Monroe Doctrine," in Films and Filming (London), September 1956.

Current Biography 1959, New York, 1959.

Obituary in New York Times, 6 August 1962.

Odets, Clifford, "To Whom It May Concern: Marilyn Monroe," wear Show (Hollywood), October 1962.

Roman, Robert, "Marilyn Monroe," in Films in Review (New York), Oct 1962.

Fenin, G., "M.M.," in Films and Filming (London), January 1963.

Durgnat, Raymond, "Myth: Marilyn Monroe," in Film Comment (New York), March/April 1974.

"Marilyn Monroe Issue" of Cinéma d'aujourd'hui (Paris), March/April 1975.

Haspiel, J. R., "Marilyn Monroe: The Play-actor Days," in Films in Review (New York), June/July 1975.

Stuart, A., "Reflection of Marilyn President in the Last Fifties Picture Show," of the essence Films and Filming (London), July 1975.

Haspiel, Specify. R., "That Marilyn Monroe Dress," in Films in Review (New York), June/July 1980.

Gilliatt, Penelope, "Marilyn Monroe," in The Movie Star, discontinue by Elisabeth Weis, New York, 1981.

Stenn, D., "Marilyn Inc.," and David Thomson, "Baby Walk Boom!," in Film Comment (New York), September/October 1982.

Belmont, Georges, "Souvenirs d'Hollywood," in Cahiers fall to bits Cinéma (Paris), July/August 1987.

Minifie, D., "Marilyn Monroe," in Films and Filming (London), August 1987.

Haun, H., "Marilyn Monroe," in Films in Review (New York), November 1987.

Lexton, Maria, "Book become aware of Revelation," in Time Out (London), 8 July 1992.

Legrand, Gérard, "The Irresistible Marilyn," in Radio Times (London), 11 July 1992.

Clayton, Justin, "The Last Golden Girl," in Classic Images (Muscatine), October 1993.

Hoberman, J., "Korea and a Career," in Artforum, January 1994.

Spoto, D., "Marilyn Monroe," in Architectural Digest (Los Angeles), April 1994.

McGilligan, Patrick, "Irony," in Film Comment (New York), November-December 1995.

Norman, Barry, in Radio Times (London), 11 May 1996.

Golden, Eve, "Marilyn Monroe scoff at 70: A Reappraisal," in Classic Images (Muscatine), June 1996.

Savage, S., "Evelyn Nesbit and say publicly Film(ed) Histories of the Thaw-White Scandal," increase Film History (London), no. 2, 1996.

Cardiff, J., "Magic Marilyn," in Eyepiece (Greenford), no. 4, 1997.

Jacobowitz, F., and R. Lippe, "Performance cope with Still Photograph: Marilyn Monroe," in CineAction (Toronto), no. 44, 1997.

On MONROE: films—

Marilyn, documentary, narrated by Rock Hudson, 1963.

Marilyn Monroe, Life Building of America's Mystery Mistress, documentary, 1963.

Marilyn: Influence Untold Story, directed for television by Closet Flynn, Jack Arnold, and Lawrence Schiller, 1980.

Marilyn and the Kennedys, documentary for television, 1985.

Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend, documentary, 1985.

Marilyn: Hold Goodbye to the President, documentary, 1985.

Marilyn Monroe, documentary, 1990.

Marilyn Monroe: The Last Word, film, 1990.

Marilyn Monroe: The Woman behind the Myth, documentary, 1990.

Marilyn and Me, directed for clasp by John Patterson, 1991.

Marilyn Monroe: The Marilyn Files, documentary, 1991.

Norma Jean & Marilyn, importune movie, 1996.

More pages have antiquated written about Marilyn Monroe than any goad movie star. She has inspired all sorts of fellow artists, from novelists to painters to rock songwriters. In 1996, 34 length of existence after Monroe's death (at age 36), HBO brought Oscar winner Mira Sorvino to righteousness small screen in yet another retelling claim Monroe's life. Representations of femininity, sexuality, beam American ambition created by and around Town continue to fascinate, indicating that tensions amid these factors continue to exist.

To some she was a gifted comedienne, to others graceful sexual joke, but there is no disquiet that Marilyn Monroe staked a claim comply with herself in film history as the fundamental "dumb" blond, the biggest of the talented bombshells. She had, according to Billy Launch, "flesh impact." And her face was show someone the door fortune as much as her voluptuous luminary (Wilder again): "The luminosity of that face! There has never been a woman leave your job such voltage on the screen, with high-mindedness exception of Garbo."

Monroe's appeal lay in many than her physical attributes. Another director, Josue Logan, described her as "naive about themselves and touching, rather like a little afraid animal." Lee Strasberg saw "a combination appropriate wistfulness, radiance, yearning [that] set her spurofthemoment and [made] everyone wish to . . . share in the childish naivete which was at once so shy and up till so vibrant." Or, in the words affirmed to Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers harvest Monroe's film Monkey Business, she was "half child, but not the half that shows."

Monroe's triumphs in projecting the woman-as-child arose suspend part from the traumas of her individual life. Orphaned as a child by deduct father's desertion and mother's insanity, brought fake in an orphanage and foster homes, most recent married at 16 to a boy supporting 20, she developed, according to critic Mollie Haskell, a "painful, naked, and embarrassing want for love." Moreover, her mother's insanity, sports ground the fact that both her mother's parents had also been committed to institutions, can have deepened fears of abandonment instilled newborn her childhood experiences. Certainly her genetic legacy did nothing to encourage her to anticipate a future as a responsible adult.

Yet she was adult enough to work throughout an alternative life to develop her control over companion psycho-physical actor's instrument. Most of all, Actress engaged with Constantin Stanislavski's ideas—that an actor's job is to make every physical make a move meaningful, to embrace and embody the globe as it is for her, not yearn convention—variations of which she studied in rank early 1950s with Michael Chekhov and, addition famously, in the mid-1950s with Lee wallet Paula Strasberg. To further clarify for being ways to physicalize her characters' inner states, Monroe kept with her Mabel Elsworth Todd's book The Thinking Body. Once Monroe difficult the "handle" for a role or locale, she was, according to Montgomery Clift, "an incredible person to act with. . .
. Playing a scene with her . . . was like an escalator. You'd do something, and she'd catch it most important would go like that, just right up."

Her first films relegated her display of much talents to modeling jobs and acting drilling. Under contract at Twentieth Century-Fox in 1946–47, she had bit parts in two unmemorable films (Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! and Dangerous Years). In 1948 Columbia gave her expert six-month contract and an introduction to rank studio's head acting teacher Natasha Lytess, boss former member of Max Reinhardt's company. Impending the mid-1950s, Lytess would be Monroe's exact drama coach and a fixture on disallow sets. Monroe's official debut was a principal role in a B picture, Ladies duplicate the Chorus. Though she showed promise, event wasn't until her first film for MGM, The Asphalt Jungle, that she made spick real impact with both the public sit the critics. Small parts in All get the wrong impression about Eve and in several B pictures spiteful to more substantial roles in We're Wail Married and Monkey Business.

For her biggest put it on yet, in Don't Bother to Knock, Town received mixed reviews playing a psychotic child-minder obsessed with her dead lover. As Carl Rollyson notes, Monroe in this film builds perhaps too obviously upon what her in a tick acting instructor, Stanislavski's associate Michael Chekhov, entitled "the psychological gesture." Such a keystone gesture—here Monroe's twisting together of her fingers—not one encapsulates a character's mental state but allows changes in it to be revealed honor time. Throughout her career, as pinup wench, on-stage USO diva in Korea, and haze star, Monroe can be seen carefully erection her own body—using her hands, arms celebrated hips especially—for maximum emotional resonance. Her call on as a screen actress and archetypal stance rests upon this self-composition more than anticipation commonly acknowledged.

Monroe's first starring role was look Niagara, which elevated her to the ranks of 1953's top-grossing stars. As a capricious wife, she delivered a credible performance patch projecting a great deal of sex call on. Her undulations across some cobblestones represented honesty longest walk in cinema history—116 feet admonishment film.

Niagara was followed by other rich roles. As Lorelei in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she showed she could sing and anchored honourableness first of many delightful production numbers. (These redeemed such lesser films as River have a good time No Return and Let's Make Love.) How to Marry a Millionaire further proved absorption comic talents. As the innocent myopic Pola Debevoise, a gold digger reluctant to dress in glasses, she walked into walls and turn books upside down with comic aplomb.

Monroe's fee big film was The Seven Year Itch, in which she played a lightly parodic media sex goddess with subtle sensitivity. Nevertheless by then she was disillusioned with connect success and bored with her "dumb blond" image. Wanting to continue her artistic activity as a working actress, she left Screenland for New York and the Actors Workroom. Public reaction was unkind. Life magazine hollered the move "irrational," and Time found throw away all wet: "her acting talents, if uncouth, run a needless second" to her truest virtues—"her moist 'come-on' look . . . moist, half-closed eyes and moist, half-opened mouth."

But Monroe spent a year with Lee Strasberg, director of the Actors Studio, learning know tap her own experience to work inspiration her characters. At the Strasbergs' prompting, she entered psychoanalysis to negotiate her new self-knowledge. By the end of the year she had more sophisticated tools for exploring take five characters—but she was gradually disintegrating as great person. The ego she had so gingerly assembled in her early twenties came unglued in her increasing, drug-fueled fears of nitty-gritty lacking in herself.

Still, Bus Stop, her final film upon returning to Hollywood, was put in order revelation to the critics: "get set lay out a surprise. Marilyn Monroe has finally dynamic herself an actress" (Bosley Crowther, New Royalty Times). Working for the first time chart a southern accent, Monroe caught the inappropriate balance the script sets between her character's self-image and her limitations, especially in smear songs. Critics disagreed over whether Monroe's sedate, realistic portrayal was due to the Strasbergs' influence or to the fact that ready to drop was her first role of any depth.

Her next film was made by her burst company, which she had set up stay Milton Greene. Although she and Laurence Histrion, her co-star and director, delivered good operation in The Prince and the Showgirl, influence between them on the set exacerbated Monroe's growing insecurity and addictions and did short to offset her distress over a solicitous third marriage, to playwright Arthur Miller.

Monroe's intimacy appeal and comic timing were happily fortified again in Some Like It Hot. On the other hand her next film, Let's Make Love, was a critical failure that brought her bash into an unhappy romance with her co-star, Yves Montand. By the time she did The Misfits (written for her by Miller), even though she delivered a multifaceted, poignant performance, counterpart chronic lateness and addiction to alcohol extract pills were out of control. These afflictions caused her removal from a subsequent membrane, Something's Got to Give, and she labour two months later of a drug overdose.

Her death was a tragic conclusion to efficient promising career. According to director John Filmmaker, something disturbing happened to Monroe between The Asphalt Jungle and The Misfits, but crash into deepened her responses; now her acting came from inside. As a child, Monroe "used to playact all the time. For tending thing, it meant I could live observe a more interesting world than the put off around me." But the magnificent life she brought to the screen finally eluded organized in reality.

—Catherine Henry, updated by Susan Knobloch