Marilyn Monroe Research Paper

Marilyn Monroe was originally named Norma Jean Baker and did not legally change her name to Marilyn Monroe until 1956. Norma Jean Baker was not the name on her birth certificate. Her given name on her birth certificate was Norma Jeane Mortenson. Marilyn Monroe’s career allowed her to live a very fulfilling life. However, on August 5, 1962, she was found lying on her bed, naked and lifeless. This tragic image is not how Marilyn Monroe started off her career. She began by doing movies, and later became a sex symbol to many men. After becoming famous, she found an addiction-drugs. She is an example of a woman who lived through many rough experiences, both as a child and an adult. The intensity of her adulthood, personally and publically, ended

As Monroe’s career grew, she became a devoted student of the “Method,” a theory of acting. She studied at the hands of Lee Strasberg, head of the famous Actors Studio in New York, where other acting role models such as Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift also sharpened their craft (“Marilyn Monroe”). As she finished with school and her career began, her husband was sent to war. “During World War II (1939-1945), Monroe worked at the Radioplane Company Factory in Burbank, California. She began modeling and posing for pinups at this time” (“Marilyn Monroe”). Monroe began thinking her career was coming to an end. However, in June 1962 Monroe was affected by a serious career setback when Fox studio dismissed her from the movie Something’s Got to Give for unjustifiable absences and then sued her for half a million dollars (“Norma Jean

Lasting only nine months, the marriage crumpled in the face of Monroe’s continued hunger for acting wealth, and DiMaggio’s greediness and inability to receive her Hollywood image as sex symbol to millions of other men (“Marilyn Monroe”). Most people knew her only for her acting at first. Then, she later became the sex symbol for many men. When nude shots of her from a 1949 calendar popped up again in 1951, her fame rolled out (“Marilyn Monroe”). However, efforts to conquer her splashy sex symbol image were annoyed (“Norma Jean Baker”). Unfortunately, Marilyn Monroe died at a very early age in life. In 1962, at age thirty-six and after accomplishing only twenty-nine films, Marilyn Monroe died. She left an aftermath as one of the most identifiable movie stars and powerful cultural images in American History (“Marilyn Monroe”). She died in Hollywood of a drug overdose on August 5,1962, two months after being eliminated from the production of Something’s Got to Give (“Marilyn Monroe”). “The actress died of a barbiturates overdose in her Brentwood home; she is buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Cemetery in Los Angeles.” (“Norma Jean