Marilyn Monroe Essay

“In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You're judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty. “– Marilyn Monroe. (Monroe qtd by Lewis 1) You think you know someone by the way they may appear or come off to people surrounding them, but looks can be deceiving. Between the media and tabloids Marilyn Monroe was always under the “microscope” being examined just as any other actors are. Marilyn was being manipulated into something that she was not instead of what she used to be, just plain Norma Jeane. She was a beautiful woman being seen as just an object of sex.
Marilyn Monroe who was born Norma Jeane Baker had an uneasy childhood that later on brought stress upon her career and love life. As a child, Monroe never met her father and her mother was soon hospitalized for being mentally ill. She was in and out of foster care until 1937, until a family friend and her husband, Grace and Doc Goodard, took Marilyn in until 1942. Doc had to transfer jobs so they had to leave Marilyn behind putting her back into foster care (Biography.com 1). Monroe sought a way to get out of foster care, and that was to wed her then boyfriend Jimmy Dougherty, who was a merchant marine (1).When Dougherty got sent off to the South Pacific; Marilyn went to work in a munitions factory in Burbank where she was first discovered by a photographer (1).

When Dougherty came back in 1946, Monroe had already kick started her career by modeling for her factory. Marilyn began to focus on her career more than before when she started to have a strong urge to become an actress. Her marriage ended, while on the positive side her movie career had just begun. Marilyn signed her first movie contract, which changed her life considerably. She created her new name and image; this was when Marilyn Monroe was born. Although her career did not really blossom until the 1950s, her part in John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle which was a crime drama, gave her the attention that she had been craving (Biography.com 1). From then on, Monroe was known to do nothing but the best work. In 1953, Monroe made a star-making turn in Niagara, a drama (1).Soon after, she was paired with Jane Russell, an American film actress and one of Hollywood’s leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s, (Bio 1). in Gentleman Prefer Blondes, her first musical comedy. After the movie was a magnificent hit, Monroe began to go on with her strike of success with comical movies. With her breath-taking image, Marilyn became what people considered “… a much-admired international star” (Biography.com 1). Marilyn’s career began to have a domino effect; in movie after movie, she was finding success. Just like a row of dominos, eventually it comes to an end whether it is positive or negative.
Marilyn eventually got tired of the “dumb blonde” roles and moved to New York City to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors’ Studio (Biography.com 1). She returned to the screen there on after in the dramatic comedy Bus Stop, which she received great praise for. In 1959, Monroe performed in a popular comedy, Some like It Hot which earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy. Her most memorable and last performance was The Misfits (1961), adventure drama. Just a year later, Marilyn was offered a role in Something’s Got to Give but was dismissed for missing too many days. According to the Norton Book of Interviews, Marilyn claimed that she was always late when doing a role because she felt as though it took her longer than others to get ready for the day (435). Also, that when she was well rested and pampered that she was in her best character. But the media thought otherwise and even made a clear assumption that Marilyn was indeed ill (Biography.com 1). She was suffering from

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Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe