Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we are cracking
open the file on, well, perhaps the most enduring,
most complex and arguably the most analyzed person
of the 20th century. We are diving into the foundational
history, the contradictions and the explosive
legacy of Marilyn Monroe. It's a fascinating
challenge. This is a story that has been so thoroughly
mythologized. Right. The real woman, Norma Jean
Mortensen, she often just gets lost in the, I
guess, the platinum haze. Yeah, completely. Our
mission today is to move past that simple, dumb,
blonde caricature and really try to understand
the profound shrewdness, the relentless ambition.
And the struggle. And the deep abiding struggles
of the woman who engineered one of the biggest
cultural phenomena in history. And the success
she achieved in her, what, her brief 36 years
is just staggering. It's unbelievable. By the
time of her death in 1962, her films had already
grossed $200 million. We're talking about an
equivalent of nearly $2 billion today. She wasn't
just a movie star. She was, you know, alongside
figures like Elvis Presley and Mickey Mouse,
a true pillar of global popular culture. Exactly.
And we need to trace that dramatic path starting
from a truly unstable and traumatic childhood.
Through the highly disciplined, intentional creation
of the Marilyn persona, her revolutionary battles
with the Hollywood studio system. The entrenched
studio system. Right. And ultimately, her tragic
final years. It was a short life, but every single
year was packed with calculated defiance and
just. devastating personal conflict let's unpack
this you cannot understand the driving force
behind maryland without first really digging
into the profound insecurity and the emotional
isolation that defined norman jane she was born
on june 1st 1926 in los angeles and i mean right
from the start there was huge uncertainty about
who her father was and that really set the tone
for her whole life didn't it this search for
identity for belonging absolutely that's the
crux of her origin story It is. Her mother, Gladys
Pearl Baker, who was a film negative cutter at
the time, listed a man named Mortensen, misspelled
as Mortensen, as the father on the birth certificate.
But they weren't even together then. No. That
union had already ended well before Gladys became
pregnant. So biographers today, they widely suggest
the biological father was actually Charles Stanley
Gifford. Who was her boss, right? Her superior
in RKO Studios, yeah. and that relationship was
well it was basically confirmed by dna evidence
just a few years ago back in 2022. so she starts
her life surrounded by mystery instability and
kind of the shadow of the film industry itself.
And Gladys, by all accounts, was mentally and
financially unprepared to raise a child. Not
at all. And that led to this devastating pattern
of abandonment. Which is really the crucial context
here. It is. Norma Jean's earliest years, from
birth until about age seven, were spent with
evangelical Christian foster parents, the Bolanders,
out in Hawthorne. And that ended around 1933
when Gladys tried to sort of get her life together.
Yeah, she managed to buy a small house in Hollywood
and Norma Jean moved in with her. But this. A
brief attempt at normalcy just completely collapsed
in January 1934. That's when the instability
became institutional. That's when Gladys suffered
a severe mental breakdown. A very severe one.
She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
And committed. That's right. She was committed
to the Metropolitan State Hospital. And from
that moment on, she spent the rest of her life
constantly moving in and out of care. Which left
Norma Jean a legal ward of the state. And that
history, you know, of mental health struggles
and institutionalization, which Norma Jean saw
firsthand, it would tragically echo later in
Marilyn's own life. When she faced her own mental
health crises, yeah. Exactly. And what followed
was just this grueling, grim rotation of homes
and, well, documented trauma. That's awful. The
period immediately after her mother's commitment,
she lived with these lodgers, the Atkinsons.
And this is where many biographers believe she
first experienced sexual abuse. And the psychological
impact was immediate. Immediate and profound.
The trauma caused her to develop a severe stutter
and become incredibly withdrawn. Just a child.
Yeah. And by the summer of 1935, after these
brief, failed stays with a few different families,
Gladys' friend, Grace Goddard, placed Norma Jean
in the Los Angeles orphan's home. And even though
the institution itself was described as well
-run, a model institution, they called it. Right.
The feeling for Norma Jean must have been just
one of total abandonment. That feeling of being
disposable, of being shuffled around. I mean,
that defined her emotional landscape. And she
was only there for about a year and a half. Right.
Before Grace Goddard pulled her out. But the
message was clear. You're unwanted. And the rotation
didn't stop. No. She moved back in with the Goddards.
But this second stay ended very quickly because
Grace's husband, Erwin Dockadard. allegedly molested
her oh so she was then bounced between relatives
and friends of grace for years never staying
anywhere long enough to feel rooted constant
emotional dislocation always dependent on the
kindness of strangers who i mean so often failed
her but amidst this grim reality the source material
points to the genesis of her entire career the
movies This is where we see the budding artist
using her imagination as really a crucial defense
mechanism. A refuge. A total refuge. She would
say, I didn't like the world around me because
it was kind of grim. When I heard that this was
acting, I said, that's what I want to be. And
she loved just sitting alone in the movie theater.
All day. Up front, where the screen felt huge
and immersive. She'd be there all day and into
the night. It was her only reliable escape from
the reality of her life. She was essentially
practicing her future career by observing the
glamour she was denied. Exactly. And this leads
us to the inevitable pressure cooker of 1942
and a decision that just irrevocably changed
her life. Marriage at age 16. A purely pragmatic,
almost desperate escape plan. Completely. Docodard's
company relocated him to West Virginia, and crucially,
California child protection laws prevented them
from taking Norma Jean out of state. So her only
alternative to going back to the state -run orphanage
was marriage. That was it. So she married their
neighbor, James Daugherty, a factory worker,
shortly after her 16th birthday in June 1942.
A marriage of pure necessity. Correct. She avoided
the institution, which was her immediate priority.
Right. But the source describes the marriage
as mismatched and profoundly limiting for her.
She later lamented to friends that she was dying
of boredom. It shows the stability. While she
wanted it, it wasn't enough to satisfy the fierce
ambition that was already stirring inside her.
And that marriage only lasted four years. But
it bought her the space and time she needed to
launch the next completely new phase of her life.
That boredom was interrupted very decisively
in 1944 when Daugherty enlisted in the Merchant
Marine. And shipped out to the Pacific. Yeah.
This moment of separation was the catalyst, wasn't
it? It gave Norma Jean the physical and professional
independence she craved. It was the moment she
realized she had agency. She moved in with her
in -laws, took a job at the radio plane company,
a munitions factory. I mean, the irony of working
in a factory, making aerial targets for the military.
only to become a global target of the media.
It is striking, isn't it? And it was at the factory
that she was discovered, purely by chance. Yes.
She met a photographer, David Conover, who was
shooting morale -boosting pictures of, you know,
attractive female workers for the U .S. Army
Air Force's first motion picture unit. But her
photos didn't even make it into the campaign.
No. But Conover recognized this unique photogenic
quality she had, and he encouraged her. And she
seized that opportunity with a force of will
that just completely contradicts that fragile
image we have of her. Oh, completely. She quit
the factory in January 1945, defying her husband
who was deployed, and his disapproving mother
moved out on her own and started modeling for
Conover and his friends. By August 1945, she
signed with the Blue Book Model Agency. And the
agency, they determined her figure was perfect
for pinup modeling. You know, the kind that was
popular with servicemen. Not high fashion. Not
high fashion, no. But she embraced this fully.
She understood the power of that specific type
of visual appeal. And this is when the true intentional
physical transformation began. This wasn't just,
you know, a casual dye job. Well, it was calculated.
She straightened her naturally curly brown hair
and dyed it platinum blonde. Wow. And the agency
owner, Emmeline Snevely, she attested that Marilyn
became almost frighteningly ambitious and disciplined.
She was no longer Norma Jean. She was creating
the prototype. By early 1946, she was appearing
on dozens of magazine covers, sometimes testing
out names like Jean Norman. The modeling success
opened the door to Hollywood. In June 1946, she
signed with an acting agency, which led to a
screen test at 20th Century Fox. And a Fox executive,
Ben Lyon, was impressed. He was. And they signed
her partly just to keep her away from RKO pictures.
Their head, Howard Hughes, was also interested
in her. And this led to the iconic name change
in August 1946. A fusion of old Hollywood glamour
and her own personal history. Marilyn was suggested
by Lyon because she reminded him of the star
Marilyn Miller. Right. And Monroe was her mother's
maiden name, a nod to her biological roots. The
moment that career path was set, the personal
life had to be cleared away. She divorced Doherty
in September 1946. He opposed her career path.
That commitment just speaks volumes. It really
shows she was already prioritizing her engineered
future over her past and any kind of fleeting
stability. And she then spent her first six months
at Fox just intensively studying acting, singing,
dancing. She studied at the Actors Laboratory
Theater. Right, where she found her first taste
of what real acting in a real drama could be.
She was, in her own words, hooked. But her coaches
at the time, they still thought she was too shy,
too insecure for the big screen. They did. They
often preferred the, you know, the technical
polish of the old studio system to her raw emotionality.
And this is key. She was initially considered
a weak actress. Very weak. Her early contracts,
first at Fox, then later at Columbia Pictures,
they were short -lived precisely because the
head of Fox, Daryl F. Zanuck, he just didn't
see her potential at first. Yet she continued
to study diligently. Constantly. She worked closely
with a drama coach named Natasha Laitz until
1955. She was always trying to improve the craft
that Hollywood seemed determined to deny her.
Okay, so let's talk about the defining moment
that launched her from aspiring contract player
to... A household name. The calendar scandal.
Which she handled with just incredible strategic
skill. The nude calendar scandal, yeah. Yeah.
After her Columbia contract ended in 1949, she
was genuinely broke. Desperately. Completely.
She posed for a set of artistic nude photographs
for Tom Kelly for $50. She's the pseudonym Mona
Monroe. $50. Just to pay the rent. Mm -hmm. So
fast forward to March 1952. She's starting to
gain traction and the press breaks the story.
This should have been a career ending crisis
in conservative 1950s America. And this is where
the shrewdness of Marilyn Monroe truly emerges.
Fox and Monroe handled this masterfully. Instead
of denying it. Which would have led to an immediate
witch hunt. Yeah. She and her team decided to
preempt the damage by admitting she had posed,
but stressing she had been completely broke and
desperate at the time. So she framed it as a
story of survival. A working class girl doing
what she had to do to eat. Exactly. And that
strategy immediately gained her public sympathy.
She was relatable, you know, not just some decadent
star. And crucially, it dramatically increased
public interest in her films. It turned a potential
disaster into a massive marketing win. A huge
one. Suddenly, she was getting top billing, featured
on the cover of Life magazine as the talk of
Hollywood. They dubbed her the cheesecake queen
turned. box office smash. And at the same time,
she was actively fighting the pigeonhole that
she had just created. Right. While she was earning
titles like Miss Cheesecake of 1951, she was
studying with serious teachers like Michael Chekhov
and the mime Lotte Gosselaar. And she demonstrated
this range early in 1952. She took roles that
explicitly contradicted the bombshell image.
She did. Like playing a fish cannery worker in
the film Noir Clash by Night. which earned her
positive reviews. And a mentally disturbed babysitter
in the psychological thriller Don't Bother to
Knock. She was desperately trying to show Hollywood
there was more depth beneath the platinum exterior.
But this era also saw the beginning of her infamous
reputation for being difficult. The lateness,
forgetting lines, demanding retakes. People often
reduce this to just simple diva behavior, but
it's more complex. It's a very complex reaction.
Biographers now recognize it as a combination
of crippling stage fright, low self -esteem fueled
by years of rejection, and her perfectionism.
Which manifested as anxiety. And perhaps most
significantly, it stemmed from her deep dislike
of the lack of creative control on film sets,
especially when directors were condescending
or dismissive. And we also see the start of her
attempts to self -medicate. turning to barbiturates,
amphetamines, and alcohol to cope with chronic
insomnia and anxiety. The severe addiction issues
didn't fully take hold for a few more years,
though. It's essential context, though. As writers
like Sarah Churchwell noted, some of this difficult
behavior was also a necessary defense mechanism
against the condescension and sexism she endured.
It was an early, disorganized attempt to assert
control in a system designed to exploit and discard
her. So 1953 was the year Marilyn Monroe became
an absolute global force. Absolutely. She solidified
the blonde bombshell persona and became one of
Hollywood's most bankable performers. Complete
with the trademark look, those dark arched brows,
the pale skin, red lips, and that iconic beauty
mark. And the films from this year are the very
definition of that bombshell persona. First,
there was the film Noir Niagara. Which overtly
relied on her sex appeal. It featured scenes
that were considered, I mean, truly shocking
for the era. Oh, yeah. Her character's body covered
only by a sheet or a towel. And the studio marketed
that aggressively. They used the iconic 30 -second
long shot of her walking with that distinctive
hip sway as the core of the marketing campaign.
It was a successful gamble. Women's clubs protested
the film as immoral, but audiences just flocked
to it. The New York Times review commented dryly
that The Falls and Miss Monroe are something
to see. noting that while she might not be the
perfect actress at this point, she can be seductive
even when she walks. The walk itself became a
globally recognized piece of performance art.
She immediately followed that up with Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes. Which cemented the dumb blonde
persona, where she played the gold -digging Lorelei
Lee. This was the film that truly launched her
into the stratosphere, wasn't it? It was. Fast,
eclipsing Betty Grable. who had been Fox's biggest
blonde star in the 40s. Her performance of Diamonds
Are a Girl's Best Friend is legendary. It's still
considered the definitive cinematic portrayal
of that trope. And then came How to Marry a Millionaire,
co -starring Grable and Lauren Bacall. This was
a massive technical and commercial win. It was
only the second film ever released in CinemaScope,
showcasing her on this giant immersive screen.
And it became her biggest... box office success
up to that point. She was declared the top 10
money -making star for both 1953 and 1954. Fox
historian Aubrey Solomon called her the studio's
greatest asset alongside the new CinemaScope
technology. But wait, if she was the studio's
greatest asset, generating billions in today's
dollars, how was she being paid? Because the
sources suggest she was being exploited financially.
Massively exploited. Her original 1950 contract
paid her far, far less than others of her stature.
That's the typical studio system contract, right?
Long -term, high volume. And low control. On
top of the financial constraints, studio head
Daryl F. Zunuck actively disliked her. He referred
to her simply as the body. And he resisted giving
her any serious dramatic roles, cementing the
typecast she hated. Exactly. And this exploitation
even extended into her personal imagery. In December
1953, Hugh Hefner launched Playboy using her.
Without her consent. He featured her 1949 nude
photos as the centerfold and cover of the very
first issue, and she did not consent to that
publication. Her image was being used to launch
a cultural revolution without her permission
or payment. It perfectly illustrates her lack
of control over her own image despite her fame.
That brings us to the boiling point in January
1954 when Fox suspended her for refusing to shoot
the musical comedy The Girl in Pink Tights. She
was drawing a line in the sand. And this is where
we see her strategic brilliance emerge under
immense pressure. She understood that she needed
a distraction, a huge counter narrative to fight
the negative publicity. So she married retired
baseball star Joe DiMaggio on January 14, 1954.
The American sweetheart and the retired baseball
legend. An instantly high -profile marriage.
It was a perfect piece of public relations. And
she followed it up with the most improbable honeymoon
imaginable. A trip to Japan combined with a USO
show in Korea. Where she sang for over 60 ,000
US Marines over four days in freezing temperatures.
Wow. DiMaggio reportedly hated the entire spectacle.
He couldn't stand the sight of other men looking
at her. But the strategy worked. She generated
this enormous positive publicity wave that she
leveraged perfectly against the studio suspension.
It was a short -term win. She settled with Fox.
They promised a new contract, and she agreed
to star in The Seven -Year Itch in 1955. And
that production gave us perhaps the most iconic
image of her career. The subway great scene on
Lexington Avenue. They staged that whole thing
right out in the open in Manhattan, attracting
nearly 2 ,000 spectators. Which put her instantly
on international front pages. It was pure, raw
publicity. But here's where it gets really interesting.
That sheer, massive display of public attention.
That crystallization of her sex symbol status.
It was a catnip for the press, but it was absolutely
poison for her already troubled relationship
with DiMaggio. The union was defined by his extreme
jealousy and documented physical abuse. The public
triumph marked the immediate end of her marriage.
So the highest peak of her fame led directly
to a devastating personal collapse. She filed
for divorce in October 1954. And after finishing
the seven -year itch, she made her defining revolutionary
power move against the studio system itself.
She left Hollywood. Moved to New York. And with
photographer Milton Green, she founded Marilyn
Monroe Productions, or MMP, in late 1954. This
wasn't just a vanity project. This was a direct,
calculated assault on the standard studio contract.
It changed everything. Standard contracts locked
actors into seven -year terms where the studio
owned their image, controlled their roles, and
dictated their salary. And Monroe, by forming
her own company, she unilaterally asserted that
she was no longer under contract to Fox. Right,
and that she would choose her projects. This
action, historians agree, was instrumental in
the eventual collapse of the studio system. She
basically set the precedent for star independence.
She did. She clearly stated she was tired of
the same old sex roles. And she spent 1955 immersing
herself in serious acting, studying method acting
under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Where
she grew very close to Lee and his wife, Paula.
This was another layer of her strategic reinvention.
She embraced the Strasbergs, who became her crucial
new influences. And method acting, which was
still relatively new and often ridiculed by Hollywood.
Right. It required actors to confront and use
their emotional traumas in their performance.
For Norma Jean, who had decades of unresolved
trauma, this was deeply compelling. But also
incredibly destructive. And by the end of 1955,
Fox capitulated. The studio simply couldn't afford
to let their greatest asset remain a revolutionary
in New York. They had no choice but to negotiate
on her terms. The new seven -year contract was
revolutionary for the time. $400 ,000 for four
films. A massive increase. Plus the right to
choose her own projects, directors, and cinematographers.
And the freedom to make one MMP film for every
completed Fox film. Time magazine acknowledged
this stunning victory. They called her a shrewd
businesswoman. She not only survived the system,
she publicly beat it. So having won the professional
war, she began 1956 by formalizing her identity.
She legally changed her name to Marilyn Monroe
on February 23rd. But this entire period is really
defined by her push into intellectual circles,
specifically her marriage to playwright Arthur
Miller in June 1956. This was the ultimate collision
of high culture and low culture. The union the
media immediately nicknamed Egghead Weds Hourglass.
And this marriage wasn't just a personal choice,
was it? It was a conscious statement about her
intellectual aspirations. And her desire to be
taken seriously beyond the confines of Hollywood
glamour. And the studio, Fox, actually urged
her to end the affair because Miller was being
investigated by the FBI for alleged communism.
The political context here is vital. This was
the era of the House Un -American Activities
Committee, HUAC. And Miller had been subpoenaed.
The studio was terrified of being associated
with blacklisted individuals fearing financial
disaster. But Monroe refused to back down. It
was a tremendous act of loyalty and political
defiance. And the FBI, because of her association
with Miller, even opened a file on her. Though
they concluded her leftist views, if she held
them, were not actively used by the Communist
Party. She was searching for a deeper connection,
a stability that Hollywood couldn't offer. And
she converted to Judaism to be part of Miller's
family, explicitly identifying with the Jewish
people as a... dispossessed group. That shows
her searching for identity and solidarity. But
this conversion was significant geopolitically.
Egypt banned all her films until their divorce
in 1961. Wow. Yeah. Her first film under that
new powerful contract marked a true triumph as
a serious actress. Bus stop in 1956. This was
the test case for the new serious Marilyn. She
played Cherie, a complex, vulnerable saloon singer.
With an Ozark accent and intentionally non -glamorous
costume. And the director, Joshua Logan, who
had been skeptical, was completely converted
by her performance. He compared her talent to
that of Charlie Chaplin in her ability to blend
comedy and profound tragedy. That critical reception
must have been profoundly validating for her.
Immense. Bosley Crowther, one of the most powerful
critics of the era, proclaimed, Hold on to your
chairs, everybody, and get set for a rattling
surprise. Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself
an actress. And she got a Golden Globe nomination.
She had achieved the serious recognition she'd
been fighting for since she first enrolled in
the Actors Laboratory. She had. But the fight
for respect was far from over, as evidenced by
the absolute spectacular conflict that defined
her first independent MMP production. The Prince
and the Showgirl. 1957. co -starring and directed
by the venerable Sir Lawrence Olivier. The tension
was immediate and historic. It was a clash between
the old theatrical guard and the new method vulnerability.
Olivier, who viewed her talent as entirely physical,
patronized her on set. He said, all you have
to do is be sexy. And Monroe, armed with her
new contract and her method training, she retaliated.
She retaliated by being deliberately late and
uncooperative. It was a professional declaration
of war against the condescension of the established
elite. A conscious pushback. She explicitly stated
to the press that if you don't respect your artists,
they can't work well. Right. She was fighting
for the respect that her talent demanded. However,
this professional struggle came at a crippling
personal cost. Her pharmaceutical dependence
increased dramatically. And she suffered a miscarriage
during the grueling shoot. Yet, despite the on
-set conflict and all that chaos, the film itself
was critically acclaimed. Especially in Europe,
yeah. It earned her a BAFTA nomination and the
David DiDonatello Award. The irony is that the
chaos produced great art. Hmm. And following
the shoot, she took an 18 -month hiatus. She
suffered intense personal losses during that
time, including an ecopic pregnancy and another
miscarriage, likely linked to her chronic endometriosis.
We see just how serious her physical struggles
were, given that she actually had a clause in
her new contract allowing her time off during
her period. Her body was failing her under the
pressure of the career she had engineered. She
was also briefly hospitalized for a barbiturate
overdose during this time, showing the incredible
fragility beneath the professional successes.
And she even bought out Milton Green's share
of MMP. After they disagreed on how to run the
company, yeah. Proving she was determined to
maintain that hard -won professional control,
even if it meant isolating herself. Despite the
struggle, she returned to Hollywood for the greatest
commercial and critical success of her career.
Some Like It Hot, 1959. Billy Wilder's cross
-dressing comedy. And she initially resisted
the role of Sugarcane. She did. She viewed it
as yet another iteration of the dumb blonde part
she hated. So why did she take it? She only accepted
after Miller encouraged her, and she was offered
a substantial 10 % cut of the Thurm's profits.
So she would financially benefit from the typecasting
she was forced to endure. Exactly. And the production
for this film became legendary for its difficulty.
The stories from the set are absolute Hollywood
lore. Famously so. She was often hours late,
sometimes requiring dozens of takes for simple
scenes. Tony Curtis famously compared... kissing
her to kissing Hitler because of the endless
retakes. Kissing Hitler, I mean, that's vicious,
but it tells you so much about the chaos. How
did Wilder manage to extract genius out of a
set that was, by all accounts, hellish? Wilder,
despite his frustration, he recognized her unique
quality. He noted that even though she didn't
know her lines, she delivered a performance that
just transcended the text. She had an ineffable
magical quality on screen. That no amount of
studio discipline could replace. So what does
this all mean? She's difficult, but the result
was undeniable magic. Precisely. The film was
a massive Critical and commercial hit. It earned
her the Golden Globe for Best Actress. Variety
called her a comedian with that combination of
sex appeal and timing that just can't be beat.
It was the ultimate commercially successful expression
of the persona she had created. Even as the personal
cost continued to mount. After some like it hot,
the success momentum began to falter noticeably.
Her next project, Let's Make Love in 1960, was
done only to fulfill her Fox contract, suffered
major delays, and was marked by a widely reported
affair with co -star Yves Montand. Critics were
unimpressed. Bosley Crowther found her rather
untidy and lacking her old Monroe dynamism. was
also unsuccessful at the box office. And crucially,
she lost the role of Holly Golightly in Breakfast
at Tiffany's. Yeah, because producers feared
she would complicate the production. That's a
sign that her reputation for being unpredictable
was now actively destroying her career opportunities.
Her last completed film, The Misfits from 1961,
was written by Arthur Miller specifically for
her as a dramatic vehicle. Which sounds like
an emotionally charged environment already, even
before cameras started rolling. An emotional
disaster zone. Filmed in the oppressive Nevada
desert heat, the entire production was plagued
by personal trauma. Her marriage to Miller was
ending. He was already openly involved with the
on -set photographer. Anna Moreau resented the
character of Rosalyn. Which was partly based
on her own vulnerabilities, yeah. She struggled
constantly with Miller rewriting scenes the night
before filming, leaving her incapable of memorizing
new dialogue. And her health crisis was just
spiraling out of control during the shoot. Her
health crisis was severe and impossible to hide.
She was dealing with intense pain from gallstones,
and her drug addiction was so acute that she
was regularly receiving high doses of barbiturates.
The anecdotes from the set are terrifying. They
are. Makeup artists had to apply her makeup while
she was sleeping under the influence of the drugs.
Filming had to be halted entirely so she could
spend a week in a hospital detox to stabilize.
Despite all the chaos and the personal collapse,
what was the ultimate critical judgment on her
performance in The Misfits? Her coworkers and
the director, John Huston, they recognized the
raw truth in her acting. Houston said that when
she was acting, she was not pretending to an
emotion. It was the real thing. But initial reviews
were mixed. They were. Some critics, like Crowther,
called her completely blank and unfathomable.
But modern critics now regard it as the most
mature interpretation of her career. And the
film is a classic. It was a performance fueled
by her real -life breakdown. Following the film,
She divorced Miller in January 1961 and spent
that year focused almost entirely on her health,
undergoing surgeries and hospitalization for
depression. And she faced devastating setbacks
even in her treatment. Right. She was admitted
to the prestigious Payne -Whitney Psychiatric
Clinic. It was mistakenly placed on a ward for
psychosis, locked in a padded cell. That environment
was terrifying and re -traumatizing for her,
echoing her mother's institutional history. It
was. But the kindness of her past stepped in
in a very surprising reversal. Her second ex
-husband, Joe DiMaggio, rushed in, secured her
release, and helped move her to a more suitable
center. This act of care, this fierce protective
friendship, it contrasts so sharply with the
brief, tempestuous abuse of marriage they had
years earlier. It shows how deep the bond of
their shared history ran. It did. She then purchased
her famous home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, 12305
5th Helena Drive, and returned to work in 1962
for Fox's ill -fated Something's Gotta Give.
A disastrous attempt at a comeback, plagued by
suspicion and hostility. She was already sick
with something. sinusitis before filming began,
but Fox was highly suspicious and pressured her
to continue. They choose her faking illness.
Yeah. They were especially keen to scapegoat
her because the studio was hemorrhaging money
due to the spiraling costs and delays on the
epic production of Cleopatra. The famous non
-film public appearance came in May 1962. Yes,
the happy birthday, Mr. President moment for
JFK at Madison Square Garden. She wore that stunning,
sheer, skin -tight, rhinestone -covered dress.
And this highly visible break from the set further
enraged the Fox executives who viewed it as a
gross professional dereliction of duty. Shortly
after, she generated her final piece of strategic
publicity, filming a nude swimming pool scene
for Something's Gotta Give. This was a deliberate
act of image control, seizing the narrative back
from the studio. It made her the first major
star to pose nude at the height of their career,
generating enormous global buzz. But the studio
was out of patience. Completely. When she took
yet another sick leave, Fox fired her on June
7th and sued her for a huge $750 ,000. And the
production shut down because her co -star, Dean
Martin, refused to make the film with anyone
else. Forcing Fox to completely halt the project
and openly blame Monroe in the press. Yet even
in the immediate aftermath of this firing, she
was still so valuable that Fox regretted the
decision. And was actively negotiating a new
contract with her, including plans for a biopic
of Jean Harlow when she died. They knew they
could not replace her. Which brings us to the
tragic conclusion. August 4th, 1962. She was
found dead at age 36 in her Brentwood home by
her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, at around 3 a
.m. And the circumstances were immediately suspicious
due to the delay in calling the police. Her psychiatrist,
Ralph Greenson, and physician were called first.
When the police were finally notified around
4 to 5 a .m., she was found nude in bed. Covered
by a sheet, her hand clamped around the telephone
receiver. The cause of death was definitively
ruled as acute arbitrate poisoning. Specifically,
several times, the lethal limit of chloral hydrate
and pentobarbital found in her blood and liver.
And due to the extremely high dosage, the ruling
was a probable suicide. Mm -hmm. Her doctors
reported a history of severe fears, depressions.
unpredictable mood changes and previous overdose
attempts. Her death was global front page news.
It created immediate and widespread shock. It
is truly chilling that the suicide rate in Los
Angeles reportedly doubled that month. Her death
unleashed this massive public outpouring of grief
and speculation. It did. And Joe DiMaggio arranged
the private funeral, pointedly barring most of
Hollywood, believing they were directly responsible
for her demise. And while conspiracy theories
about murder or accidental overboast proliferated
for decades. Right. A major threshold investigation
by the L .A. County District Attorney in 1982
found no credible evidence of foul play, confirming
the original probable suicide ruling. We have
traced the professional path she carved, but
now we have to step back and look at the image
she engineered and why it resonated so powerfully
in 1950s America. This persona was deliberately
and brilliantly crafted by Monroe and Fox for
the post -war male gaze. Serving as a replacement
for the aging Betty Grable and offering a new
accessible form of sexuality. And she consciously
aligned herself with the ultimate 1930s bombshell,
Jean Harlow. She even hired Harlow's hairstylist.
And her persona focused entirely on the blonde
stereotypes. The dumbness, the naivete, the sexual
availability. And even the artificiality. all
delivered with that breathy, childish voice and
signature double entendres or Monroeisms. Those
Monroeisms were a critical part of the branding,
weren't they? Oh, yeah. When she was famously
asked what she had on in the nude photo shoot,
her reply, I had the radio on, projected an innocence
that made her overt sexuality seem natural and
without danger. This contrasted sharply with
the dangerous, mysterious femme fatales of the
1940s. She embodied a specific version of the
American dream. She did. Her carefully cultivated
stories of rising from a working -class, broken
childhood made her seem far more accessible,
the ideal playmate, than her contemporary, the
sophisticated, upper -class blonde Grace Kelly.
Monroe stood for a brand of classless glamour
available to anyone using American cosmetics,
nylons, and peroxide. She became the physical
symbol of Populux and American consumer culture
itself. But the expert consensus is clear. The
image of the dumb blonde was the biggest, most
successful piece of acting she ever pulled off.
That and the ultimate contradiction. Biographers
like Sarah Churchwell and Lois Banner are definitive.
The biggest myth is that she was dumb. The second
is that she was fragile. The third is that she
couldn't act. She was incredibly smart, highly
literate, and exceptionally tough. You had to
be to manipulate, defy, and eventually defeat
the mighty studio system. And she constantly
signaled that self -awareness to her audience.
She parodied the sex symbol status she was forced
to maintain. She learned from Mae West's methods,
that ability to be laughing at or mocking her
own sexuality, that self -awareness is key to
her genius. Think of the line she insisted be
added to her dialogue in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
I can be smart when it's important, but most
men don't like it. That single line is a brilliant
self -aware critique of the 1950s gender politics
that defined her career. Culturally, she was
massive, virtually a household name for sex perceived
as a specifically American icon compared to hot
dogs, apple pie or baseball. And while the public
saw the bombshell, she was deeply interested
in politics and intellectual pursuits. She was
a registered Democrat, openly admired Abraham
Lincoln, seeing him as a paternal figure she
never had. and actively questioned Robert F.
Kennedy about civil rights issues. It demonstrates
her serious intellectual engagement far beyond
what her public image suggested. Finally, let's
look at her legacy as an actress. The complexity
of her career continues to divide critics decades
later. It does. Some, like David Thompson, found
her body of work insubstantial, or, as Pauline
Kael put it, relying on turning cheesecake into
acting. But other powerful voices like Roger
Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum argue she was magical
on screen. A talented comedian who, quote, subtly
subverted the sexist content of her material.
Rosenbaum suggested that the difficulty people
had in discerning her intelligence was actually
rooted in the ideology of the repressive era
she worked in. Her intelligence was simply too
threatening to be acknowledged alongside her
overwhelming sexuality. Exactly. And the brand,
of course, endures. She remains a hugely valuable
licensed brand from Chanel to absolute vodka.
Her conflicted image, the sex symbol versus the
troubled victim, ensures she remains central
to discussions about fame, feminism, and mass
media. Her Los Angeles home was even designated
a historic cultural monument in 2024. She truly
is the eternal shapeshifter. What an incredible,
condensed journey through a life defined by extraordinary
extremes. The sheer force of will it took Norma
Jean to not only survive an unstable childhood,
but to achieve the global fame of Marilyn Monroe.
And then to fight tooth and nail for control
of that persona. It's astonishing. She leveraged
her sexuality to gain power and autonomy, only
to be profoundly damaged by the very public machinery
she helped elevate and ultimately attempted to
dismantle. The complexity of her duality just
cannot be overstated. She was simultaneously
a hyper -aware producer of her own iconic image,
the shrewd businesswoman who used MMP to beat
Fox, and a profoundly damaged individual struggling
with severe addiction and debilitating mental
health challenges. All rooted in her. childhood
trauma. Right. Her genius lay in her ability
to synthesize high culture through her associations
with figures like Arthur Miller and Lee Strasberg
with the most potent symbols of low culture and
pinup glamour. She mastered the performance of
celebrity before anyone else. It's a devastating
arc that makes you wonder about the future she
was aiming for, especially given the seriousness
of her final professional negotiations. And if
we connect this to the bigger picture of her
final years, founding MMP, winning control, signing
a new contract, and actively seeking serious
dramatic roles like the Jean Harlow biopic, this
raises an important question for you to think
about. Had Marilyn Monroe lived beyond 36, could
the shrewd businesswoman have completely overthrown
the dumb blonde persona, redefining her legacy
in the 1960s as a serious dramatic force, much
as she had redefined her contract status in the
1950s? We leave that for you to mull over.