Best Quotes

Marilyn Monroe
Norma Jean Baker endured a fatherless childhood of sexual abuse and poverty and was put in a string of
orphanages and foster homes after mother Gladys Baker (nee Monroe), who suffered mental illness, was
institutionalised.
She was born on 1 June 1926 in the Los Angeles County Hospital, the third child of Gladys Baker. She lived with a number
of foster parents, as her mother was mentally unstable, until her mum's best friend Grace Mckee became her guardian.
Mckee was inspired by Jean Harlow and allowed the nine-year-old Norma to wear makeup and curl her hair until McKee
married and sent Norma to an orphanage. She was then sent to live with her great aunt Olive Brunings and it is thought
that Norma was sexually assaulted by Olive's son, which some biographers have claimed led to her later behaviour,
including substance abuse. At 16, she escaped her old life by marrying a 21-year-old aircraft plant worker, Jim
Dougherty, who she divorced four years later. By this time she had begun modelling bathing suits and, after bleaching
her hair blonde, posed for pin-ups and glamour photos.
Howard Hughes tried to get her a screen test but was beaten to the punch by 20th Century-Fox, who signed her to a
contract - at $125 per week for six months - and changed her name to Marilyn Monroe. After appearing in small parts in
films including 'Love Happy' and 'All About Eve', Monroe found fame in 1953 with 'Niagara', 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'
and 'How To Marry a Millionaire'. That same year, she began dating baseball player Jo DiMaggio, and a nude spread of
her appeared in the debut issue of Playboy magazine. Monroe had hit stardom.The nude spread caused a scandal with her
studio so she agreed to admit she had posed for the photo as she was struggling to pay her rent. The resulting publicity
created some sympathy for the struggling actress.
Page 124
Dogs never bite me. Just humans.
Monroe's work began to slow down but, after undergoing psychoanalysis, critics praised her acting in 1956 film 'Bus
Stop'. She married playwright Arthur Miller the same year, divorcing him four years on. In the meantime, she fell prey
to alcohol and pills, and suffered two miscarriages. After a year off in 1958, Marilyn returned to the silver screen for
smash comedy, 'Some Like It Hot'. In 1960, she appeared in 'Let's Make Love', with Yves Montand, with whom she had an
affair. 'The Misfits', written by husband Miller, was to be her final film. Work was interrupted by exhaustion, and she
was then fired from 'Something's Got to Give' for not turning up for filming.
On 19 May 1962, the actress attended the early birthday celebration of John F Kennedy at Madison Square Gardens and
sang 'Happy Birthday Mr President' in a now iconic manner. She went into seclusion and on 5 August 1962, she was found
dead at her home of an overdose of sleeping pills, aged 36. The verdict was suicide but has always been disputed, with
countless conspiracy theories triggered by alleged affairs with brothers John F and Robert Kennedy.
Abhi Sharma