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Marilyn Monroe Biography

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Monroe, Marilyn (1 June 1926-5 Aug. 1962), film actress and sex symbol, was born Norma Jeane Mortensen (and was also known as Norma Jeane Baker in her youth) in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Gladys Monroe Baker Mortensen, a film cutter, who was unmarried when she gave birth to Monroe (her father has never been positively identified). Gladys Mortensen was an avid movie fan, but Monroe spent very little time with her often unstable mother. Within two weeks of her birth, Monroe was placed in the first of what would be a succession of foster homes, guardianships, and orphanages. This experience convinced her that she was a "mistake," a person easily abandoned. Given an insecure childhood that included the trauma of sexual molestation and an early marriage (to James Dougherty in 1942; they were divorced in 1946) arranged in part to prevent her return to an orphanage, it is a testament to Monroe's tenacity, personal strength, and resilience that she managed to achieve the heights in her career that she did.
Her marriage to Dougherty compelled Monroe to quit high school, and her lack of formal education furthered her sense of inadequacy. While her husband served in the merchant marine during World War II, Monroe found a job inspecting parachutes at the Radioplane Company (1944-1945). Army photographers who had arrived at the plant to take commercial and military pictures of female war workers discovered her. From this first successful posing arose Monroe's fabled "love affair" with the camera (particularly with still photography). She was sensual and at ease before the camera, and her direct sexuality--mingled with her beauty, her innocence, and her now lightened blonde hair--accounted for her popularity with photographers and filmmakers.
At age twenty Monroe had her first screen test, signed a contract with 20th Century-Fox, and adopted her stage name of

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