The golden girl of Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe, would have turned 100 today. She was the ultimate bombshell, most famously known for serenading President John F. Kennedy with a sultry rendition of “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” in 1962. Her white skirt billowing above a subway grate in The Seven Year Itch in 1955 went down in history as one of the most iconic moments in popular culture. But her glamorous and famous life ended abruptly at the age of 36. Yet her life was not always rosy. It began with her being born an illegitimate child, and her story has often been described as “Oliver Twist in girl’s clothing”. The icon had a story, and it was far from a happy one.
Born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, she was the daughter of Gladys Pearl Baker and a father she never met. According to reports, her father died three years after her birth. As her mother could not afford to raise her, Marilyn spent much of her childhood being shuttled between orphanages and foster homes. She often endured poverty, neglect and instability. Reports suggest that during this period she lived with 12 different foster families, and one foster parent even gave her empty liquor bottles to play with instead of dolls.
Marilyn Monroe as an infant (c. 1927) and with her first husband, James Dougherty, shortly after their marriage. The couple married when Monroe was 16 and divorced in 1946. (Photos: Wikimedia Commons)
According to The New York Times, “At another stage, she lived in a drought area with a family of seven. She spent two years in a Los Angeles orphanage, wearing a uniform she detested. By the time she was 9 years old, Norma Jeane had begun to stammer, an affliction rare among females.” She was also sexually abused while living in one of the foster homes.
Her mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was institutionalised in a psychiatric hospital in 1934. It was then that family friend Grace Goddard stepped in to care for her. In her unfinished autobiography, My Story, Marilyn wrote: “You could buy a sackful of old bread for 25 cents. Aunt Grace and I would stand in line for hours. When I looked up at her, she would grin at me and say, ‘Don’t worry, Norma Jeane. You’re going to be a beautiful girl when you grow up.'”
Postcard photo of Marilyn Monroe from her early modeling days, before achieving Hollywood stardom. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
For a girl who had spent much of her childhood moving between foster homes and orphanages, Hollywood an escape.
In an edited version of Last Talk With a Lonely Girl: Marilyn Monroe by Richard Meryman, first published in Life magazine on August 17, 1962, she was quoted as saying: “When I was five, I think, that’s when I started wanting to be an actress. I loved to play. I didn’t like the world around me because it was kind of grim, but I loved to play house. It was like you could make your own boundaries. It goes beyond house; you could make your own situations and you could pretend, and even if the other kids were a little slow on the imagining part, you could say, ‘Hey, what about if you were such and such, and I were such and such, wouldn’t that be fun?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, yes,’ and then I’d say, ‘Well, that will be a horse and this will be …'”
The universe would listen to her, and her childhood dream would get real. What began with modelling assignments soon opened the doors to Hollywood, and Norma Jeane would reinvent herself as Marilyn Monroe
She became a pin-up model in 1946. Her voluptuous figure, reportedly measuring 37-23-37, was considered the epitome of female beauty. She had soft platinum blonde hair, although it was not her natural colour. Naturally brunette, she also became known for her breathy, high-pitched voice. By early 1946, she had appeared on 33 magazine covers.
Marilyn Monroe. (Photos: Wikimedia Commons)
A star was born, and the world was besotted. She became the Goddess of Love, with fans sending her thousands of letters every week, many of them proposing marriage. Such was her popularity that it was said a man in Turkey slashed his wrist after watching her in How to Marry a Millionaire. He was reportedly driven to distraction.
According to an article published in Time on May 14, 1956: “The Communists have angrily denounced her as a capitalist trick to make the U.S. masses forget how miserable they really are. In Moji, Japan, her notorious nude photograph was hung in the municipal assembly building in an effort ‘to rejuvenate the assemblymen’. In the radiation control laboratory of the world’s first atomic submarine, a picture of Marilyn occupies a prominent place in the Table of Elements. She is the subject of more unprintable stories than anybody since the farmer’s daughter.”
A little girl whose childhood was spent moving between foster homes and orphanages grew up to become the most famous woman in the world. A century after her birth, Marilyn Monroe remains etched in the public imagination as the ultimate Hollywood fantasy.