1. Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroewasborn Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles,
California. Her mother was a film-cutter at RKO Studios who, widowed and
mentally ill, abandoned her to sequence of foster homes. She was almost
smothered to death at two, nearly raped at six. At nine, the LA Orphans' Home
paid her a nickel a month for kitchen work while taking back a penny every
Sunday for church. At sixteen, she worked in an aircraft plant and married a man
she called Daddy; he went into the military, she modeled, they divorced in 1946.
She owned 200 books (including Tolstoy, Whitman, Milton), listened to Beethoven
records, studied acting at the Actors' lab in Hollywood, and took literature courses
at UCLA downtown. 20th Century Fox gave her a contract but let it lapse a year
later. In 1948, Columbia gave her a six-month contract, turned her over to coach
Natasha Lytess and featured her in the B movie Ladies of the Chorus (1948) in
which she sang three numbers : "Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy", "Anyone Can
Tell I Love You" and "The Ladies of the Chorus" with Adele Jergens (dubbed by
Virginia Rees) and others. Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw her in a small part in La jungla
de asfalto (1950) and put her in Eva al desnudo (1950), resulting in 20th Century re-
signing her to a seven-year contract. Niágara (1953) and Los caballeros las
prefieren rubias (1953) launched her as a sex symbol superstar.
She was married three times, with James Dougherty, Joe DiMaggio and Arthur
Miller and attributed engagements with brothers Bobby and John Kennedy. He
died on August 5, 1962 due to an overdoseof barbiturates, in circumstances never
clarified.
