Marilyn Monroe Role Model

Marilyn Monroe is one of the most recognized faces in the world. She is known as a role model to a few but a famous actor, model, and sex symbol to others in this generation. Over forty years after her death, Marilyn’s life and death is still a question to many, and years of her life became a blur as she began being a famous sex symbol in the world. She never had a stable childhood or adulthood, and within a career span of sixteen years, her life suddenly came to a halt at the age of thirty-six. Monroe starred in a large number of successful motion pictures during the late 1940s and early 1960s. Numerous factors influenced and shaped Marilyn Monroe’s life into a short irrational distortion.

Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, California. She went by many names. “Aside from her birth name of Norma Jeane Mortenson, she was baptized and mainly known as Norma Jeane Baker, and during her modeling days she was also known as Norma Jeane Dougherty (her

first marriage name), and as Jean Norman. When she signed with 20th Century-Fox, studio casting executive Ben Lyon had first chosen the name Carol Lind as her stage name, although she disliked that, and eventually she chose her mother’s maiden name of Monroe. Three names were drawn as possible stage names, and she first was Norma Jeane Monroe, although that sounded awkward; the second was Jean Monroe, and the third was Marilyn Monroe, the latter first name chosen by Lyon who thought Norma Jeane resembled famed stage actor Marilyn Miller. Norma Jeane liked Jean Monroe, for it preserved some of her name, but Lyon convinced her that Marilyn Monroe sounded more alliterative and so it was chosen.” (IMDb 6). “The first time she signed an autograph as Marilyn Monroe, she had to ask how to spell it. She didn’t know where to put the “I” in “Marilyn”.” (IMDb 5). Marilyn’s father, Martin Edward Mortensen, abandoned her family, and her mother, Gladys Pearl Baker, became mentally ill, widowed, and abandoned Marilyn to a sequence of foster homes. While at the LA Orphans’ Home, Marilyn paid a nickel a month for working in the kitchen, and at sixteen years of age, she worked in an aircraft plant.

While working at the aircraft plant at the age 16, she married a 21- year- old aircraft plant worker named James Dougherty, and this marriage lasted four years. James Dougherty soon joined the Merchant Marines and then sent to the South Pacific, and when he returned in 1946, Marilyn soon had to make the hard choice between her marriage with James and her career. Marilyn divorced James in June of 1946. In the early 1952, she met the baseball star, Joe DiMaggio, and she was 25 and he was 37 at the time. In January of 1954, Marilyn married Joe DiMaggio, and this marriage on lasted from 14 January 1954 to 31 October 1955, but Joe and Marilyn remained close friends. Marilyn soon married Arthur Miller. This marriage only last from 29 June 1956 to 20 January 1961, and Marilyn then married Arthur again, and “Became pregnant twice (in July 1957 and November 1958) during her marriage to Arthur Miller; on both occasions she suffered miscarriages.”

While Marilyn Monroe was divorcing many of her spouses, she had a career going for herself. Marilyn Monroe’s career as an actor spanned for 16 years, and she made 29 films, 24 in the first 8 years of her career (Biography 1). Within those 16 years, “She found it almost impossible to learn lines, and took 60 takes to deliver the line “It’s me, Sugar”, in Some Like it Hot.” (Biography 2). “Her lifelong bouts with depression and self-destruction took their toll during filming The Seven Year Itch (1955). She frequently muffed scenes and forgot her lines, leading to constant tardiness and behavioral problems made the budget of the swell to $1.8 million, a high price for the time. (IMDb 7). She was one of the first women to run a production company.

Marilyn Monroe, which was an actor and a model, died at such young age, and she found dead in her home at the age of 36 in 1962.

“According to the funeral directors, Marilyn died sometime between 9:30pm and 11:30pm.” (IMDb 2). “Many of her friends believed she was murdered.” (Biography 10). “She found with a phone in one hand, and her body was completely nude with her face down, on her bed.” (IMDb 4). “It is reported the housekeeper and Marilyn’s personal secretary and press agent, Pat Newcombe, were cooperating in the plan to induce suicide.” (Mysterious Universe 3). “On the day of Marilyn’s death, said the FBI’s source, Robert Kennedy checked out of the Beverly Hills Hotel and flew from Los Angeles International Airport via Western Airlines to San Francisco, where he checked into the St. Francis Hotel; the owner of the hotel being a Mr. London, a friend of Robert Kennedy. From there, Kennedy phoned Peter Lawford “to find out if Marilyn was dead yet.” (Mysterious Universe

3).

As we all know, Marilyn Monroe never had a stable life, and she went through a lot to get the fame she has today. While never having stable parents, she went to many foster homes, and she went through many trials. Even many years after her death, Marilyn is known to have the fame of being a sex symbol for many generations, she always fought with her internal critic, and she fought with perfectionism. The life of this young woman is to always be remembered by history, and Marilyn Monroe’s life always to be a mystery.