Marilyn monroe biography timeline designs

Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson, is remembered by many as one of the most iconic yet tragic actresses of the classical Hollywood period. Her public image is one that has become synonymous with the glamour of the midth century, while her scandals are discussed and remembered to this very day.

Marilyn&#;s image and legacy have lived on since her untimely death in , featuring in everything from modern works of art to movies and TV shows about her life. But it is easy to get lost in her public image that is so well remembered to this day.

Here, we look back at the life of one of the most iconic actresses of all time, telling the story of her life – from childhood to tragic end – in a series of remarkable photos.

Baby Norma

Norma Jeane Mortenson was born on 1 June at the Los Angeles County Hospital in California. It is unknown who her biological father was. She had a difficult childhood, with her mother and grandmother frequently confined to an asylum.

First marriage

Norma Jeane was 16 when she married her first husband, Jim Dougherty, who was her neighbour at that time. Her motivations for the marriage were partly caused by the desire to escape the orphanage. They divorced following World War Two, after being together for four years.

Modeling career

While working for a California munitions factory during World War Two, Marilyn was &#;discovered&#; by a photographer who helped her to become a successful model.

First steps in Hollywood

Norma Jeane Mortensen is born at Los Angeles General Hospital, Los Angeles, to Gladys Pearl Monroe Baker. Gladys Baker will spend much of her life in and out of mental institutions.

Nine-year-old Norma Jeane is sent to live at a Los Angeles orphanage. Marilyn later said of her childhood, “No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they are pretty, even if they aren’t.”

At 16 Norma Jeane escapes foster-home existence and marries a neighbor, a former football jock at Van Nuys High, named James Dougherty.

Jim is sent overseas. Norma Jeane begins work on an assembly line at the Radioplane Company. The winsome Mrs. Dougherty is photographed for a promotional piece on women in the war effort. This gets the attention of modeling agents.

Norma Jeane signs a contract with Twentieth Century–Fox and is rechristened Marilyn Monroe: Marilyn, after actress Marilyn Miller, and Monroe being a family name. She dyes her wavy brown hair blonde.

The Doughertys divorce.

Marilyn’s contract is dropped.

Marilyn signs with Columbia Pictures and will lend a decent singing voice to a musical, , only to be released after the one picture.

Marilyn meets a William Morris agent, the much-older Johnny Hyde, at a New Year’s party. Hyde falls in love with Marilyn, and his devotion will result in her landing two small but important film roles, in and the Academy Award– winning . Johnny Hyde dies of a heart attack, December 18,

Struggling to pay her bills, Marilyn poses nude for a calendar. The photos will be used in the launch of the publisher Hugh Hefner’s new magazine for men in December Marilyn Monroe is Playboy magazine’s first centerfold.

The rising star steps out on a date with the newly retired baseball legend Joe DiMaggio.

Marilyn gets her first Life magazine cover.

premieres. Marilyn’s turn as Rose, the sultry and murderous wife of the hapless George Loomis (Joseph Cotten) is h

Monroe was born as Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles in , and brought up by Christian foster parents because her mother Gladys was mentally unable to raise a child. She later became a ward of the state, living with allegedly abusive family friends, and then in an orphanage. Going to the cinema, Monroe recalled ‘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.”’ In , having had her picture taken working at a munitions factory, Monroe quit to become a model for the photographer, against the wishes of her first husband (a factory worker turned Marine whom she married aged sixteen). Here the self-construction began.

Fitting in with the pin-up figures of the day, straightening her hair and dyeing it blonde, and working harder than all her peers, Monroe became a regular feature on the covers of men’s magazines, under the name Jean Norman. The owner of the modelling agency put her onto an acting agency in , and she was signed by Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century Fox Pictures, assuming the name Marilyn Monroe (because she reminded an executive of Broadway star Marilyn Miller, and Monroe was Gladys’ maiden name) and creating the look of a platinum-blonde Rita Hayworth, undergoing a rhinoplasty and a gruelling exercise regime. By , Monroe had become a sex symbol, playing ‘the girl’ on screen, and pulling publicity stunts off-screen, from wearing revealing dresses to telling a journalist she wore no underwear, and beginning a highly-publicised relationship with Joe DiMaggio. By the next year, Monroe was a bankable Hollywood star. A trademark make-up look featured dark, arched brows, red lips and a beauty mark, and a trademark style consisted of revealing or tight dresses. All that, complete with her bouffant platinum hair, made her recognisable as the ‘blonde bombshell’ of Niagara and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, where she played

, Marilyn Monroe: Model to Actress; The Red Velvet Series of Nudes ()

In , year-old Monroe received $50 to pose nude for a Los Angeles photographer against a red velvet backdrop. Monroe had initially refused to pose until financial desperation led her to agree, according the Monroe biography &#;Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words.&#; &#;I was desperate,&#; Monroe explained. “What else could I do?” She insisted on anonymity and used the alias &#;Mona Monroe.&#;