She’s still the World’s Goddess, the Gold Standard for desirable women, her image familiar and identifiable to billions, and we wish her a Happy Birthday on
NATIONAL MARILYN MONROE DAY!
Born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, the future Marilyn Monroe had a troubled childhood, the daughter of a mentally unstable Mom and a father who deserted her before their child was a year old.
She was in and out of orphanages and foster homes until she was a teenager, when she found herself in a marriage to a merchant seaman during World War 2 to avoid being remanded to State Custody.
While working in a munitions factory, she was photographed for War Bond publicity shots, and that led to a modeling career, when she first dyed her brown hair to her trademark blazing blonde.
The next thing you know she’s signed to your standard 6-picture starlet deal with 20th Century Fox Studios, where they changed her name and trained her, and by the 1950s Marilyn Monroe was the biggest movie star in the world, and by far the most popular pinup image.
But she was more than a sex symbol, she was a personality, the wide eyed innocent and world-weary survivor wrapped up in one, her emotions an open book, her vulnerability somehow her armor.
Married and divorced from world-famous men who’s fame she eclipsed, she was pursued by presidents and superstars, but plagued by depression and loneliness. She died of an overdose of sleeping pills at only 36, and the world was stunned, as if a family member had suddenly passed.
Marilyn Monroe never grew old and stout, or grey and wrinkled or hoarse of voice, and remains for her adoring public forever young, forever desirable, forever loved.
•Suggested Activities: Watching “Some Like It Hot” and “Bus Stop.”