Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane, came into the world in Los Angeles in 1926. Her childhood was almost a process of being tossed about again and again by fate: the identity of her father was a mystery, her mother was long troubled by mental illness and unable to raise her, and so she drifted from one foster home and orphanage to another. This early lack of belonging and security ran like an undertone through the whole of her later life beneath the glamorous surface.

At sixteen, to avoid being sent back into the foster system, she married a neighbourhood young man early. During World War II she went to work in a munitions factory, but was spotted by a photographer during a publicity shoot, which unexpectedly opened the door to the modelling world. After her divorce she poured all her energy into being in front of the camera, dyed her hair the iconic blonde, gave herself a brand-new name — Marilyn Monroe — and thereby stepped onto the screen.

Entering the 1950s, she quickly moved from supporting roles into the spotlight. "Niagara" fixed her screen image in the public mind, and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "The Seven Year Itch" were hit after hit — especially the scene of her white dress billowing over a subway grate, which became almost a visual symbol of an entire era. She was crowned the number-one sex symbol and her name spread across the world, yet she was also pinned firmly into the position of being looked at and consumed.

Monroe, however, was not content to be merely an object of the gaze. She founded a production company bearing her own name to gain control over her roles; she also entered New York's Actors Studio, studying method acting under renowned teachers, longing to be taken seriously as a genuine actress. "Some Like It Hot" in 1959 won her a Golden Globe, proving that her exceptional gift for comedy was no accident.

Her private life was likewise repeatedly scrutinized under the spotlight — her brief but sensational marriage to baseball star Joe DiMaggio, and her union with and separation from playwright Arthur Miller, kept her constantly at the center of the storm. At the same time, anxiety, insomnia, and drug dependence eroded her steadily, and in the later part of her career she was repeatedly set back by health problems.

In August 1962, Monroe, only 36, was found dead in her Los Angeles home; officials ruled it connected to a drug overdose, but the many accounts and rumours surrounding her death have never subsided. Her life was brief and intense, yet grew ever more dazzling after her death: as one of the twentieth century's most recognizable symbols of pop culture and of the feminine image, she has been depicted again and again by generation after generation of artists, becoming the eternal face of Hollywood's Golden Age.