Logo of Life magazine

Cover art for the original incarnation of Life, 27 January 1910 issue, illustration by Coles Phillips.

Life generally refers to three American magazines:

• A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name.
• A weekly news magazine launched by Luce in 1936, with a strong emphasis on photojournalism. Life was published weekly until 1972; as an intermittent "special" until 1978; and as a monthly from 1978 to 2000.^[1]
• A weekly newspaper supplement published by Time Inc. from 2004 to 2007 and included in some American newspapers.
• A website, life.com, from March 2009 to Jan. 2012, a joint venture with Getty Images under the name See Your World, LLC.
• Jan. 30, 2012 launched as a photo channel on Time.com

The Life founded in 1883 was similar to Puck and was published for 53 years as a general-interest light entertainment magazine, heavy on illustrations, jokes and social commentary. It featured some of the greatest writers, editors and cartoonists of its era, including Charles Dana Gibson, Norman Rockwell, and Harry Oliver. During its later years, this magazine offered brief capsule reviews (similar to those in The New Yorker) of plays and movies currently running in New York City, but with the innovative touch of a colored typographic bullet appended to each review, resembling a traffic light: green for a positive review, red for a negative one, amber for mixed notices.

The Luce Life was the first all-photographic American news magazine, and it dominated the market for more than 40 years. The magazine sold more than 13.5 million copies a week at one point and was so popular that President Harry S. Truman, Sir Winston Churchill and General Douglas MacArthur all serialized their memoirs in its pages. Luce purchased the rights to the name from the publishers of the first Life but sold its subscription list and features to another magazine; there was no editorial continuity between the two publications.

Perhaps one of the best-known pictures printed in the magazine was Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photograph of a nurse in a sailor’s arms, snapped on August 27, 1945, as they celebrated VJ Day in New York City. The magazine's place in the history of photojournalism is considered its most important contribution to publishing.

Life was wildly successful for two generations before its prestige was diminished by economics and changing tastes. Since 1972, Life has twice ceased publication and resumed in a different form, before ceasing once again with the issue dated April 20, 2007. The brand name continues on the Internet and in occasional special issues.^[1][2]

Humor and general interest magazine[link]

Life

A cover of the earlier Life magazine from 1911
Editor	George Cary Eggleston
Former editors	Robert E. Sherwood
Categories	Humor, General interest
Weekly
Publisher	Clair Maxwell
Total circulation (1920)	250,000
First issue	January 4, 1883
Final issue	November 1936
Country	United States
Based in	New York City
Language	English

Life was founded January 4, 1883, in a New York City artist's studio at 1155 Broadway as a partnership between John Ames Mitchell and Andrew Miller. Mitchell would hold a seventy-five percent interest in the magazine with the remainder by Miller. Both men would retain their holdings until their deaths.^[3] Miller served as secretary-treasurer of the magazine and was very successful managing the business side of the operation. Mitchell, a 37-year-old illustrator who used a $10,000 inheritance to invest in the weekly magazine, served as its publisher. Mitchell created the first Life nameplate with cupids as mascots; he later drew its masthead of a knight leveling his lance at the posterior of a fleeing devil. Mitchell took advantage of a revolutionary new printing process using zinc-coated plates, which improved the reproduction of his illustrations and artwork. This edge helped because Life faced stiff competition from the bestselling humor magazines Judge and Puck, which were already established and successful. Edward Sandford Martin was brought on as Life’s first literary editor; the recent Harvard graduate was a founder of the Harvard Lampoon.

The motto of the first issue of Life was, “While there’s Life, there's hope.” The new magazine set forth its principles and policies to its readers: “We wish to have some fun in this paper... We shall try to domesticate as much as possible of the casual cheerfulness that is drifting about in an unfriendly world... We shall have something to say about religion, about politics, fashion, society, literature, the stage, the stock exchange, and the police station, and we will speak out what is in our mind as fairly, as truthfully, and as decently as we know how.”^[4]

The magazine was a success and soon attracted the industry’s leading contributors. Among the most important was Charles Dana Gibson. Three years after the magazine was founded, the Massachusetts native sold Life his first contribution for $4: a dog outside his kennel howling at the moon. Encouraged by a publisher who was also an artist, Gibson was joined in Life’s early days by such well-known illustrators as Palmer Cox (creator of the Brownie), A. B. Frost, Oliver Herford, and E. W. Kemble. Life attracted an impressive literary roster too: John Kendrick Bangs, James Whitcomb Riley, and Brander Matthews all wrote for the magazine at the turn of the century.

However, Life also had its dark side. Mitchell was sometimes accused of outright anti-Semitism. When the magazine blamed the theatrical team of Klaw & Erlanger for Chicago’s grisly Iroquois Theater Fire in 1903, a national uproar ensued. Life’s drama critic, James Stetson Metcalfe, was barred from the 47 Manhattan theatres controlled by the so-called Theatrical Syndicate. His magazine hit back with terrible cartoons of grotesque Jews with enormous noses.

Life became a place that discovered new talent; this was particularly true among illustrators. In 1908 Robert Ripley published his first cartoon in Life, 20 years before his Believe It or Not! fame. Norman Rockwell’s first cover for Life, "Tain’t You", was published May 10, 1917. Rockwell's paintings were featured on Life’s cover 28 times between 1917 and 1924. Rea Irvin, the first art director of The New Yorker and creator of Eustace Tilley, got his start drawing covers for Life.

Just as pictures would later become Life’s most compelling feature, Charles Dana Gibson dreamed up its most celebrated figure. His creation, the Gibson Girl, was a tall, regal beauty. After her early Life appearances in the 1890s, the Gibson Girl became the nation’s feminine ideal. The Gibson Girl was a publishing sensation and earned a place in fashion history.

This version of Life took sides in politics and international affairs, and published fiery pro-American editorials. Mitchell and Gibson were incensed when Germany attacked Belgium; in 1914 they undertook a campaign to push America into the war. Mitchell’s seven years spent at Paris art schools made him partial to the French; there wasn’t a shred of unbiased coverage of the war. Gibson drew the Kaiser as a bloody madman, insulting Uncle Sam, sneering at crippled soldiers, and even shooting Red Cross nurses. Mitchell lived just long enough to see Life’s crusade result in the U. S. declaration of war in 1917.

Following Mitchell’s death in 1918, Gibson bought the magazine for $1 million. But the world was a different place for Gibson’s publication. It was not the Gay Nineties where family-style humor prevailed and the chaste Gibson Girls wore floor-length dresses. World War I had spurred changing tastes among the magazine-reading public. Life’s brand of fun, clean, cultivated, humor began to pale before the new variety: crude, sexy, and cynical. Life struggled to compete on newsstands with such risqué rivals.

1922 cover, "The Flapper" by F. X. Leyendecker

In 1920 Gibson tapped former Vanity Fair staffer Robert E. Sherwood to be editor. A World War I veteran and member of the Algonquin Round Table, Sherwood tried to inject sophisticated humor onto the pages. Life published Ivy League jokes, cartoons, flapper sayings and all-burlesque issues. Beginning in 1920 Life undertook a crusade against Prohibition. It also tapped the humorous writings of Frank Sullivan, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, Franklin Pierce Adams and Corey Ford. Among the illustrators and cartoonists were Ralph Barton, Percy Crosby, Don Herold, Ellison Hoover, H. T. Webster, Art Young and John Held, Jr.

Despite such all-star talents on staff, Life had passed its prime, and was sliding toward financial ruin. The New Yorker, debuting in February 1925, copied many of the features and styles of Life; it even raided its editorial and art departments. Another blow to Life’s circulation came from raunchy humor periodicals such as Ballyhoo and Hooey, which ran what can be termed outhouse gags. Esquire joined Life’s competitors in 1933. A little more than three years after purchasing Life, Gibson quit and turned the decaying property over to publisher Clair Maxwell and treasurer Henry Richter. Gibson retired to Maine to paint and lost active interest in the magazine, which he left deeply in the red.

Life had 250,000 readers in 1920.^{[citation needed]} But as the Jazz Age rolled into the Great Depression, the magazine lost money and subscribers. By the time Maxwell and Editor George Eggleston took over, Life had switched from publishing weekly to monthly. The two men went to work revamping its editorial style to meet the times, and in the process it did win new readers. Life struggled to make a profit in the 1930s when Henry Luce pursued purchasing it.

Announcing the death of Life, Maxwell declared: “We cannot claim, like Mr. Gene Tunney, that we resigned our championship undefeated in our prime. But at least we hope to retire gracefully from a world still friendly.”

For Life’s final issue in its original format, 80-year-old Edward Sandford Martin was recalled from editorial retirement to compose its obituary. He wrote, “That Life should be passing into the hands of new owners and directors is of the liveliest interest to the sole survivor of the little group that saw it born in January 1883... As for me, I wish it all good fortune; grace, mercy and peace and usefulness to a distracted world that does not know which way to turn nor what will happen to it next. A wonderful time for a new voice to make a noise that needs to be heard!”^[4]

Weekly news magazine[link]

Life

Cover of the June 19, 1944 issue of Life with Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. The issue contained 10 frames from the Normandy landing by Robert Capa.
Editor-in-chief	Edward Kramer Thompson
Categories	News
Weekly (1936–1970) Monthly (1978–2000)
Publisher	Henry Luce
Total circulation (1937)	1,000,000
First issue	November 23, 1936
Final issue	May 2000
Company	Time Inc.
Country	United States
Based in	New York City
Language	English
Website	http://www.life.com
ISSN	0024-3019

In 1936 publisher Henry Luce paid $92,000 to the owners of Life magazine because he sought the name for Time Inc. Wanting only the old Life’s name in the sale, Time Inc. sold Life’s subscription list, features, and goodwill to Judge. Convinced that pictures could tell a story instead of just illustrating text, Luce launched Life on November 23, 1936. The third magazine published by Luce, after Time in 1923 and Fortune in 1930, Life gave birth to the photo magazine in the U.S., giving as much space and importance to pictures as to words. The first issue of Life, which sold for ten cents (approximately USD $1.48 in 2007, see Cost of Living Calculator) featured five pages of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s pictures.

When the first issue of Life magazine appeared on the newsstands, the U.S. was in the midst of the Great Depression and the world was headed toward war. Adolf Hitler was firmly in power in Germany. In Spain, General Francisco Franco’s rebel army was at the gates of Madrid; German Luftwaffe pilots and bomber crews, calling themselves the Condor Legion, were honing their skills as Franco’s air arm. Italy under Benito Mussolini annexed Ethiopia. Luce ignored tense world affairs when the new Life was unveiled: the first issue depicted the Fort Peck Dam in Montana photographed by Margaret Bourke-White.

19 West 31st Street

The format of Life in 1936 was an instant classic: the text was condensed into captions for 50 pages of pictures. The magazine was printed on heavily coated paper that cost readers only a dime. The magazine’s circulation skyrocketed beyond the company’s predictions, going from 380,000 copies of the first issue to more than one million a week four months later.^[5] It spawned many imitators, such as Look, which was founded just a year later in 1937, and folded in 1971.

Life got its own building at 19 West 31st Street, a Beaux-Arts architecture jewel built in 1894 and considered of "outstanding significance" by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission. Later it moved editorial offices to 9 Rockefeller Plaza.

Success[link]

Luce pulled a stringer for Time, Edward Kramer Thompson, to become assistant picture editor in 1937. From 1949–1961 he was the managing editor and editor in chief, until his retirement in 1970. His influence was significant during the magazine’s heyday - roughly from 1936 until the mid-1960s. Thompson was known for the free rein he gave his editors, particularly a “trio of formidable and colorful women: Sally Kirkland, fashion editor; Mary Letherbee, movie editor; and Mary Hamman, modern living editor."^[6]

In August 1942, writing of labor and racial unrest in Detroit, Life warned that "the morale situation is perhaps the worst in the U. S. ... It is time for the rest of the country to sit up and take notice. For Detroit can either blow up Hitler or it can blow up the U. S."^[7] Mayor Edward J. Jeffries was outraged: "I'll match Detroit's patriotism against any other city's in the country. The whole story in Life is scurrilous ... I’d just call it a yellow magazine and let it go at that."^[8] The article was considered so dangerous to the war effort that it was censored from copies of the magazine sold outside North America.^[9]

When the U. S. entered the war in 1941, so did Life. By 1944 not all of Time and Life's forty war correspondents were men; six were newswomen: Mary Welsh Hemingway, Margaret Bourke-White, Lael Tucker, Peggy Durdin, Shelley Smith Mydans, Annalee Jacoby, and Jacqueline Saix, an Englishwoman whose name is usually omitted (she and Welsh are the only women listed in Time's publisher's letter, May 8, 1944, as being part of the magazine's team) reported on the war for the company.

Life was pro-American and backed the war effort each week. In July 1942, Life launched its first art contest for soldiers and drew more than 1,500 entries, submitted by all ranks. Judges sorted out the best and awarded $1,000 in prizes. Life picked sixteen for reproduction in the magazine. Washington’s National Gallery agreed to put 117 on exhibition that summer. Life, in its patriotism, also supported the military's efforts to document the war with artists. When Congress forbid the Military from using government money to fund artists in the field, Life privatized much of the programs hiring some of the same artists who were fired by the Military. Many works created by the Life artists were turned over to the DOD and its art programs, such as the United States Army Art Program, on December 7, 1960.^[10]

The magazine employed the distinguished war photographer Robert Capa. A veteran of Collier's magazine, Capa was among the first wave of the D-Day invasion in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. A notorious controversy at the Life photography darkroom ensued after a mishap ruined dozens of Capa's photos that were taken during the beach landing; the magazine claimed in its captions that the photos were fuzzy because Capa's hands were shaking. He denied it; he later poked fun at Life by titling his memoir Slightly Out of Focus. In 1954, Capa was killed while working for the magazine while covering the First Indochina War after stepping on a landmine. Life photographer Bob Landry also went in with the first wave at D-Day, "but all of Landry's film was lost, and his shoes to boot."^[11]

Each week during World War II the magazine brought the war home to Americans; it had photographers in all theaters of war, from the Pacific to Europe. The magazine was so iconic that it was imitated in enemy propaganda using contrasting images of Life and Death.^[12]

In May 1950 the council of ministers in Cairo banned Life from Egypt, forever. All issues on sale were confiscated. No reason was given, but Egyptian officials expressed indignation over the April 10, 1950, story about King Farouk of Egypt, entitled the "Problem King of Egypt". The government considered it insulting to the country.

Life in the 1950s earned a measure of respect by commissioning work from top authors. After Life's publication in 1952 of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, the magazine contracted with the author for a 4,000-word piece on bullfighting. Hemingway sent the editors a 10,000-word article, following his last visit to Spain in 1959 to cover a series of contests between two top matadors. The article was republished in 1985 as the novella The Dangerous Summer.^[13]

In February 1953, just a few weeks after leaving office, President Harry S. Truman announced that Life magazine would handle all rights to his memoirs. Truman said it was his belief that by 1954 he would be able to speak more fully on subjects pertaining to the role his administration played in world affairs. Truman observed that Life editors had presented other memoirs with great dignity; he added that Life also made the best offer.

Dorothy Dandridge was the first African American woman to appear on the cover of the magazine in November 1954.

In 1957, R. Gordon Wasson, the vice president of J.P.Morgan, published an article in Life extolling the virtues of magic mushrooms.^[14] This prompted Albert Hofmann to isolate psilocybin in 1958 for distribution by Sandoz alongside LSD in the U.S., further raising interest in LSD in the mass media.^[15] Following Wasson's report, Timothy Leary visited Mexico to experience the mushrooms.

Life's motto became, "To see Life; see the world." In the post-war years it published some of the most memorable images of events in the United States and the world. It also produced many popular science serials such as The World We Live In and The Epic of Man in the early 1950s. The magazine continued to showcase the work of notable illustrators, including Alton S. Tobey, whose many contributions included the cover for a 1958 series of articles on the history of the Russian Revolution.

The magazine was losing readers as the 1950s drew to a close. In May 1959 it announced plans to reduce its regular newsstand price to 19 cents a copy from 25 cents. With the increase in television sales and viewership, interest in news magazines was waning. Life would need to reinvent itself.

The Sixties and the end of an era[link]

In the 1960s the magazine was filled with color photos of movie stars, President John F. Kennedy and his family, the war in Vietnam, and the Apollo program. Typical of the magazine’s editorial focus was a long 1964 feature on actress Elizabeth Taylor and her relationship to actor Richard Burton. Reporter Richard Meryman Jr. traveled with Taylor to New York, California, and Paris. Life ran a 6,000-word first-person article on the screen star. “I’m not a ‘sex queen’ or a ‘sex symbol,’ “ Taylor said. “I don’t think I want to be one. Sex symbol kind of suggests bathrooms in hotels or something. I do know I’m a movie star and I like being a woman, and I think sex is absolutely gorgeous. But as far as a sex goddess, I don’t worry myself that way... Richard is a very sexy man. He’s got that sort of jungle essence that one can sense... When we look at each other, it’s like our eyes have fingers and they grab ahold... I think I ended up being the scarlet woman because of my rather puritanical up bringing and beliefs. I couldn’t just have a romance. It had to be a marriage.”^[16]

In the 1960s, the magazine’s photographs featured those by Gordon Parks. “The camera is my weapon against the things I dislike about the universe and how I show the beautiful things about the universe,” Parks recalled in 2000. “I didn’t care about Life magazine. I cared about the people,” he said.^[17]

On March 25, 1966, Life had the drug LSD, which was still not criminalized, as its cover story.^[18]

In March 1967 Life won the 1967 National Magazine Award, chosen by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The prestigious award paid tribute to the stunning photos coming out of the war in Southeast Asia, such as Henri Huet’s riveting series of a wounded medic that were published in January 1966. Increasingly, the photos that Life was printing of the war in Vietnam were searing images of death and loss.

However, despite the accolades the magazine continued to win, and publishing America’s mission to the moon in 1969, circulation was lagging. It was announced in January 1971 that Life would reduce its circulation from 8.5 million to 7 million in an effort to offset shrinking advertising revenues. Exactly one year later, Life cut its circulation from 7 million to 5.5 million beginning with the January 14, 1972, issue, publisher Gary Valk announced. Life was reportedly not losing money, but its costs were rising faster than its profits. Life lost credibility with many readers when it supported Clifford Irving, whose fraudulent autobiography of Howard Hughes was revealed as a hoax in January 1972. The magazine had purchased serialization rights to Irving's manuscript.

Industry figures showed that some 96 percent of Life's circulation went to mail subscribers, with only 4 percent coming from the more profitable newsstand sales. Valk was at the helm as publisher when hundreds lost their jobs. The end came when the weekly Life magazine shut down on December 8, 1972.

From 1972 to 1978, Time Inc. published ten Life Special Reports on such themes as “The Spirit of Israel”, “Remarkable American Women” and “The Year in Pictures”. With a minimum of promotion, those issues sold between 500,000 and 1 million copies at cover prices of up to $2.

As a monthly (1978–2000)[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (November 2010)

In 1978, Life re-emerged as a monthly, and with this resurrection came a new, modified logo. Although still the familiar red rectangle with the white type, the new version was larger, and the lettering was closer together and the box surrounding it was smaller. (This "new" larger logo would be used on every issue until July 1993.)

Life continued for the next 22 years as a moderately successful general interest news features magazine. In 1986, it decided to mark its 50th anniversary under the Time Inc. umbrella with a special issue showing every Life cover starting from 1936, which of course included the issues that were published during the six-year hiatus in the 1970s. The circulation in this era hovered around the 1.5 million-circulation mark. The cover price in 1986 was $2.50. The publisher at the time was Charles Whittingham; the editor was Philip Kunhardt. Life also got to go back to war in 1991, and it did so just like in the 1940s. Four issues of this weekly Life in Time of War were published during the first Gulf War.

Hard times came to the magazine once again, and in February 1993 Life announced the magazine would be printed on smaller pages starting with its July issue. This issue would also mark the return of the original Life logo.

Also at this time, Life slashed advertising prices 34 percent in a bid to make the monthly publication more appealing to advertisers. The magazine reduced its circulation guarantee for advertisers by 12 percent in July 1993 to 1.5 million copies from the current 1.7 million. The publishers in this era were Nora McAniff and Edward McCarrick; Daniel Okrent was the editor. Life for the first time was the same trim size as its longtime Time Inc. sister publication, Fortune.

The magazine was back in the national consciousness upon the death in August 1995 of Alfred Eisenstaedt, the Life photographer whose pictures constitute some of the most enduring images of the 20th century. Eisenstaedt’s photographs of the famous and infamous — Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, Marilyn Monroe, Ernest Hemingway, the Kennedys, Sophia Loren — won him worldwide renown and 86 Life covers.

In 1999 the magazine was suffering financially, but still made news by compiling lists to round out the 20th Century. Life editors ranked its Most Important Events of the Millennium. This list has been criticized for being overly focused on Western achievements. The Chinese, for example, had invented type four centuries before Gutenberg, but with thousands of ideograms, found its use impractical. Life also published a list of the 100 Most Important People of the Millennium. This list, too, was criticized for focusing on the West. Also, Thomas Edison's number one ranking was challenged since there were others whose inventions (the Internal combustion engine, the automobile, electricity-making machines, for example) had greater impact than Edison's. The top 100 most important people list was further criticized for mixing world-famous names, such as Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur, and Leonardo da Vinci, with numerous Americans largely unknown outside of the United States (18 Americans compared to 13 Italians and French, 11 English).

It appeared that the money-losing magazine was just hanging on to make it into the 21st century, and it almost did. In March 2000, Time Inc. announced it would cease regular publication of Life with the May issue, seven months before the century's end. “It’s a sad day for us here,” Don Logan, chairman and chief executive of Time Inc., told CNNfn.com. “It was still in the black,” he said, noting that Life was increasingly spending more to maintain its monthly circulation level of approximately 1.5 million. “Life was a general interest magazine and since its reincarnation, it had always struggled to find its identity, to find its position in the marketplace,” Logan said.^[19] The magazine also farewelled its core subject: in 1936 its first issue featured a baby named George Story with the headline "Life Begins" and over the years it updated its readers about the course of his life as he married, had children and pursued a career as a journalist. When Time announced its closure in March, George soon then died from heart failure on June 4, 2000. The final issue of Life was appropriately titled "A Life Ends".^[20]

For Life subscribers, remaining subscriptions were honored with other Time Inc. magazines, such as Time. And in January 2001, these subscribers received a special, Life-sized format of "The Year in Pictures" edition of Time magazine, which was in reality a Life issue disguised under a Time logo on the front. (Newsstand copies of this edition were actually published under the Life imprint.)

While citing poor advertising sales and a rough climate for selling magazine subscriptions, Time Inc. executives said a key reason for closing the title in 2000 was to divert resources to the company’s other magazine launches that year, such as Real Simple. Later that year, its parent company, Time Warner, struck a deal with the Tribune Company for Times Mirror magazines that included Golf, Ski, Skiing, Field & Stream, and Yachting. Life was not around when AOL and Time Warner announced their $184 billion merger, the largest corporate merger in history, which was finalized in January 2001.^[21]

Life was absent from the U.S. market for only a few months, when it began publishing special newsstand "megazine" issues on topics such as 9/11 and the Holy Land in 2001. These issues, which were printed on thicker paper, were more like softcover books than magazines.

Newspaper supplement (2004–07)[link]

Beginning in October 2004, it was revived for a second time. Life resumed weekly publication as a free supplement to U.S. newspapers. Life went into competition for the first time with the two industry heavyweights, Parade and USA Weekend. At its launch, it was distributed with more than 60 newspapers with a combined circulation of approximately 12 million. Among the newspapers to carry Life: the Washington Post, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Time Inc. made deals with several major newspaper publishers to carry the Life supplement, including Knight Ridder and the McClatchy Company.

This version of Life retained its trademark logo but sported a new cover motto, “America’s Weekend Magazine.” It measured 9½ x 11½ inches and was printed on glossy paper in full-color. On September 15, 2006, Life was just 19 pages. The editorial content contained one full-page photo, of actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and one three-page, seven-photo essay, of Kaiju Big Battel.

This era of Life lasted less than three years. On March 24, 2007, Time Inc. announced that it would fold the magazine as of April 20, 2007, although it would keep the web site.^[1][2]

Partnership with Google[link]

On November 18, 2008, Google began hosting an archive of the magazine's photographs, as part of a joint effort with Life.^[22] Many images in this archive were never published in the magazine.^[23] The archive is accessible through Google image search (see Life photo archive hosted by Google). Also, the full archive of the issues of the main run (1936–1972) is available through Google Book Search (see Google Books).

Online presence[link]

Life.com launched March 31, 2009 and closed Jan. 30, 2012. The site, a joint venture between Getty Images and Life magazine, offered millions of photographs from their combined collections.^[24] Life.com is now a redirect to a small photo channel on Time.com. Life.com also maintains Tumblr^[25] and Twitter^[26] accounts.

Contributors[link]

Well-known contributors since 1936 have included:

See also[link]

• List of defunct American periodicals

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Life (magazine)

• Life.com official site
• Over 20K Original Issues in Stock
• Full Life magazine issues from 1936 thru 1972
• Le magazine Life, la chronique de l'Amérique
• Life photo archive hosted by Google
• Life covers at CoverBrowser
• Magazine Data File: Life (1883)
• Online archive of the covers from Life, the humor magazine (1883–1936)
• Index to Life Issues with Swing Dance Content
• The Year 1947 in Life Magazine
• Photo of a young girl yawning at former President George W. Bush that was included their "2009 Pictures of the Year"

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Clint Mansell
Mansell with the Sonus Quartet, playing in Union Chapel, London, 20 July 2009
Background information
Birth name	Clinton Darryl Mansell
Born	(1963-01-07) 7 January 1963 (age 49)
Origin	Coventry, England
Genres	Classical Contemporary classical Electronic Alternative
Occupations	Musician, composer
Years active	1981–present
Associated acts	Pop Will Eat Itself
Website	clintmansell.com
Notable instruments
Music sample
Clint Mansell – "Lux Æterna" noicon

Clinton Darryl "Clint" Mansell, (born 7 January 1963) is an English musician, composer, and former lead singer and guitarist of the band Pop Will Eat Itself.

After the disbanding of Pop Will Eat Itself in 1996, Mansell was introduced to film scoring when director Darren Aronofsky, hired him to score his debut film, π.^[1] Mansell then wrote the score for the next Aronofsky film, Requiem for a Dream, which has been well received.^[2] Its main composition "Lux Aeterna" has become extremely popular, appearing in a wide variety of advertisements and film trailers.^[3][4][5]

Mansell's composition for The Fountain was nominated for Best Original Score at the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards. His other notable film scores include Moon, Smokin' Aces, The Wrestler, and Black Swan.

Career[link]

Pop career[link]

Mansell was the lead singer and guitarist of Pop Will Eat Itself. When PWEI signed to Nothing Records, Mansell became close friends with Trent Reznor,^[6] and he performed backing vocals on the 1999 album The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails.

Soundtrack composer[link]

Mansell's score for Darren Aronofsky's π was followed up by his score for Aronofsky's next film, Requiem for a Dream, which became a cult hit.^[1] Since their first collaboration in 1996, Mansell has composed the music to every Aronofsky film.^[7]

Other notable achievements include the theme for the film The Hole, the music for the pilot episode of CSI: NY, and the score for Aronofsky's later films The Fountain, which was nominated for Best Original Score in the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards, and The Wrestler.^[8] Mansell has also contributed the score to HBO's Voyeur. His most recent work has been on the soundtrack for Black Swan in 2010.^[9] and the video game Mass Effect 3^[10][11]

Film trailers[link]

The trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers contained a rearranged version of the track "Lux Æterna", using a full orchestra and choir.^[3] The piece, named "Requiem for a Tower", was recorded especially for the trailer.^[3] The orchestration was arranged by Simone Benyacar, Dan Nielsen, and Veigar Margeirsson.^[3]

"Lux Æterna" has since become popular, with both the original and the "Requiem for a Tower" version having appeared in a wide variety of advertisements and trailers, including the trailer for the Red Sox–Yankees games in the 2007 Major League Baseball season, and trailers for the films Zathura, The Da Vinci Code,^[4] Sunshine, Babylon A.D. and the TV series Lost and Top Gear. It was also used on Sky Sports News and as the theme for Soccer Saturday from 2007–2009. In 2006, the theme was used in EuroSport LIVE trailers. The theme was also used by America's Got Talent as an introduction of the judges before being changed slightly. The new variant is now a regular piece on the show.

The piece "Death Is the Road to Awe" from the score for The Fountain was featured in a trailer for the 2007 film I Am Legend, and the trailer for the film The Mist, as well as the trailer for the film Frost/Nixon, and toward the end of 2007 The Final Cut trailer for Blade Runner.

Mansell's theme tune for sci-fi movie Moon also appears on the trailer for the film The Iron Lady.^[12]

Scoring credits[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Clint Mansell at the Internet Movie Database
• Mansell at Yahoo Movies
• Mansell at Rotten Tomatoes^{[dead link]}
• Interview focusing on Pop Will Eat Itself
• The Wrestler Score review
• Two and a Half Questions with Clint Mansell on Headphone Commute (2009)

Marilyn Monroe
File:Eisenstaedt-Monroe-1953.jpg Portrait by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1953
Born	Norma Jeane Mortenson (1926-06-01)June 1, 1926 Los Angeles, California, United States
Died	August 5, 1962(1962-08-05) (aged 36) Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, United States
Cause of death	Barbiturate overdose
Resting place	Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Westwood, Los Angeles
Other names	Norma Jeane Baker Norma Jeane Dougherty Norma Jeane DiMaggio
Occupation	Actress, model, singer, film producer
Years active	1947–1962
Notable work(s)	Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, River of No Return, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, The Misfits
Religion	Pentecostal (1926–1956), Judaism (1956–1962)
Spouse	James Dougherty (m. 1942–1946) «start: (1942)–end+1: (1947)»"Marriage: James Dougherty to Marilyn Monroe" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Marilyn_Monroe) (divorced) Joe DiMaggio (m. 1954–1954) «start: (1954)–end+1: (1955)»"Marriage: Joe DiMaggio to Marilyn Monroe" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Marilyn_Monroe) (divorced) Arthur Miller (m. 1956–1961) «start: (1956)–end+1: (1962)»"Marriage: Arthur Miller to Marilyn Monroe" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Marilyn_Monroe) (divorced)
Signature

Norma Jeane Mortensen Baker (June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962), professionally recognized as Marilyn Monroe,^[1] was an American actress, model, and singer, who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s and early 1960s.^[2]

After spending much of her childhood in foster homes, Monroe began a career as a model, which led to a film contract in 1946 with Twentieth Century-Fox. Her early film appearances were minor, but her performances in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve (both 1950) drew attention to her. By 1953, Monroe had progressed to a leading role in Niagara (1953), a melodramatic film noir that dwelt on her seductiveness. Her "dumb blonde" persona was used to comic effect in subsequent films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and The Seven Year Itch (1955). Limited by typecasting, Monroe studied at the Actors Studio to broaden her range. Her dramatic performance in Bus Stop (1956) was hailed by critics and garnered a Golden Globe nomination. Her production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, released The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), for which she received a BAFTA Award nomination and won a David di Donatello award. She received a Golden Globe Award for her performance in Some Like It Hot (1959). Monroe's last completed film was The Misfits, co-starring Clark Gable with screenplay by her then-husband, Arthur Miller.

The final years of Monroe's life were marked by illness, personal problems, and a reputation for unreliability and being difficult to work with. The circumstances of her death, from an overdose of barbiturates, have been the subject of conjecture. Though officially classified as a "probable suicide", the possibility of an accidental overdose, as well as of homicide, have not been ruled out. In 1999, Monroe was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. In the decades following her death, she has often been cited as both a pop and a cultural icon as well as the quintessential American sex symbol.^[3][4][5]

Family and early life[link]

Birth certificate of Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926.

Marilyn Monroe was born on June 1, 1926, in the Los Angeles County Hospital^[6] as Norma Jeane Mortenson (soon after changed to Baker), the third child born to Gladys Pearl Baker (née Monroe) (May 27, 1902 – March 11, 1984).^[7] Monroe's birth certificate names the father as Martin Edward Mortensen with his residence stated as "unknown".^[8] The name Mortenson is listed as her surname on the birth certificate, although Gladys immediately had it changed to Baker, the surname of her first husband and which she still used. Martin's surname was misspelled on the birth certificate leading to more confusion on who her actual father was. Gladys Baker had married a Martin E. Mortensen in 1924, but they had separated before Gladys' pregnancy.^[9] Several of Monroe's biographers suggest that Gladys Baker used his name to avoid the stigma of illegitimacy.^[10] Mortensen died at the age of 85, and Monroe's birth certificate, together with her parents' marriage and divorce documents, were discovered. The documents showed that Mortensen filed for divorce from Gladys on March 5, 1927, and it was finalized on October 15, 1928.^[11][12] Throughout her life, Marilyn Monroe denied that Mortensen was her father.^[9] She said that, when she was a child, she had been shown a photograph of a man that Gladys identified as her father, Charles Stanley Gifford. She remembered that he had a thin mustache and somewhat resembled Clark Gable, and that she had amused herself by pretending that Gable was her father.^[9][13]

Gladys was mentally unstable and financially unable to care for the young Norma Jeane, so she placed her with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, California, where she lived until she was seven. One day, Gladys visited and demanded that the Bolenders return Norma Jeane to her. Ida refused, she knew Gladys was unstable and the situation would not benefit her young daughter. Gladys pulled Ida into the yard, then quickly ran back to the house and locked herself in. Several minutes later, she walked out with one of Albert Bolender's military duffel bags. To Ida's horror, Gladys had stuffed a screaming Norma Jeane into the bag, zipped it up, and was carrying it right out with her. Ida charged toward her, and their struggle split the bag apart, dumping out Norma Jeane, who wept loudly as Ida grabbed her and pulled her back inside the house, away from Gladys.^[14] In 1933, Gladys bought a house and brought Norma Jeane to live with her. A few months later, Gladys began a series of mental episodes that would plague her for the rest of her life. In My Story, Monroe recalls her mother "screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly removed to the State Hospital in Norwalk.

Norma Jeane was declared a ward of the state. Gladys's best friend, Grace McKee, became her guardian. It was Grace who told Monroe that someday she would become a movie star. Grace was captivated by Jean Harlow, and would let Norma Jeane wear makeup and take her out to get her hair curled. They would go to the movies together, forming the basis for Norma Jeane's fascination with the cinema and the stars on screen. When Norma Jeane was 9, McKee married Ervin Silliman "Doc" Goddard in 1935, and subsequently sent Monroe to the Los Angeles Orphans Home (later renamed Hollygrove), followed by a succession of foster homes.^[15] While at Hollygrove, several families were interested in adopting her; however, reluctance on Gladys' part to sign adoption papers thwarted those attempts. In 1937, Monroe moved back into Grace and Doc Goddard's house, joining Doc's daughter from a previous marriage. Due to Doc's frequent attempts to sexually assault Norma Jeane, this arrangement did not last long.

Grace sent Monroe to live with her great-aunt, Olive Brunings in Compton, California; this was also a brief stint ended by an assault (some reports say it was sexual)--one of Olive's sons had attacked the now middle-school-aged girl. Biographers and psychologists have questioned whether at least some of Norma Jeane's later behavior (i.e., hypersexuality, sleep disturbances, substance abuse, disturbed interpersonal relationships), was a manifestation of the effects of childhood sexual abuse in the context of her already problematic relationships with her psychiatrically ill mother and subsequent caregivers.^[16][17] In early 1938, Grace sent her to live with yet another one of her aunts, Ana Lower, who lived in Van Nuys, another city in Los Angeles County. Years later, she would reflect fondly about the time that she spent with Lower, whom she affectionately called "Aunt Ana". She would explain that it was one of the only times in her life when she felt truly stable. As she aged, however, Lower developed serious health problems.

In 1942, Monroe moved back to Grace and Doc Goddard's house. While attending Van Nuys High School, she met a neighbor's son, James Dougherty (more commonly referred to as simply "Jim"), and began a relationship with him.^[18][19][20] Several months later, Grace and Doc Goddard decided to relocate to Virginia, where Doc had received a lucrative job offer. Although it was never explained why, they decided not to take Monroe with them. An offer from a neighborhood family to adopt her was proposed, but Gladys rejected the offer. With few options left, Grace approached Dougherty's mother and suggested that Jim marry her so that she would not have to return to an orphanage or foster care, as she was two years below the California legal age. Jim was initially reluctant, but he finally relented and married her in a ceremony arranged by Ana Lower. During this period, Monroe briefly supported her family as a homemaker.^[18][21] In 1943, during World War II, Dougherty enlisted in the Merchant Marine. He was initially stationed on Santa Catalina Island off California's west coast, and Monroe lived with him there in the town of Avalon for several months before he was shipped out to the Pacific. Frightened that he might not come back alive, Monroe begged him to try and get her pregnant before he left. Dougherty disagreed, feeling that she was too young to have a baby, but he promised that they would revisit the subject when he returned home. Subsequently, Monroe moved in with Dougherty's mother.

Career[link]

Early work: 1945–1947[link]

Mrs James Dougherty, June 26, 1945

While Dougherty served in the Merchant Marine, his wife began working in the Radioplane Munitions Factory, mainly spraying airplane parts with fire retardant and inspecting parachutes. During that time, David Conover of the US Army Air Forces' 1st Motion Picture Unit noticed her and snapped a series of photographs, none of which appeared in Yank magazine,^[22] although some still claim this to be the case. He encouraged her to apply to The Blue Book Modeling Agency. She signed with the agency and began researching the work of Jean Harlow and Lana Turner. She was told that they were looking for models with lighter hair, so Norma Jeane bleached her brunette hair a golden blonde.

Norma Jeane became one of Blue Book's most successful models; she appeared on dozens of magazine covers. Her successful modeling career brought her to the attention of Ben Lyon, a 20th Century Fox executive, who arranged a screen test for her. Lyon was impressed and commented, "It's Jean Harlow all over again."^[23] She was offered a standard six-month contract with a starting salary of $125 per week. Lyon did not like the name Norma Jeane and chose "Carole Lind" as a stage name, after Carole Lombard and Jenny Lind, but he soon decided it was not an appropriate choice. Monroe was invited to spend the weekend with Lyon and his wife Bebe Daniels at their home. It was there that they decided to find her a new name. Following her idol Jean Harlow, she decided to choose her mother's maiden name of Monroe. Several variations such as Norma Jeane Monroe and Norma Monroe were tried and initially "Jeane Monroe" was chosen. Eventually, Lyon decided Jeane and variants were too common, and he decided on a more alliterative sounding name. He suggested "Marilyn", commenting that she reminded him of Marilyn Miller. Monroe was initially hesitant because Marilyn was the contraction of the name Mary Lynn, a name she did not like.^{[citation needed]} Lyon, however, felt that the name "Marilyn Monroe" was sexy, had a "nice flow", and would be "lucky" due to the double "M"^[24] and thus Norma Jeane Baker took the name Marilyn Monroe.

Her first movie role was an uncredited part as a telephone operator in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim in 1947, starring Betty Grable.^[25] She won a brief role that same year in Dangerous Years and extra appearances in the western film Green Grass of Wyoming starring Peggy Cummins and the musical film You Were Meant for Me starring Jeanne Crain and Dan Dailey. She also won a three-scene role as Betty in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!, but before the film's release her part was cut-down to a brief one-line scene.^[26] Monroe's latest three films would not be released until 1948, which was months after her contract had ended in late 1947.

Breakthrough: 1948–1951[link]

In 1948, Monroe signed a six-month contract with Columbia Pictures and was introduced to the studio's head drama coach Natasha Lytess, who became her acting coach for several years.^[27] She starred in the low-budget musical Ladies of the Chorus (1948). Monroe was capitalized as one of the film's bright spots, and the film enjoyed only moderate success.^[28] During her short stint at Columbia, studio head Harry Cohn softened her appearance somewhat by correcting a slight overbite she had.

After the release of the poorly reviewed Ladies of the Chorus and being dropped by Columbia, Monroe had to struggle to find work. She particularly wanted film work, and when the offers didn't come, she returned to modeling. In 1949, she caught the eye of photographer Tom Kelley, who convinced her to pose nude. Monroe was laid out on a large fabric of red silk and posed for countless shots. She was paid $50 and signed the model release form as "Mona Monroe". This was the only time that Monroe was paid for her nude posing.

in The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Soon thereafter she had a small role in the Marx Brothers film Love Happy (1949). Monroe impressed the producers, who sent her to New York to feature in the film's promotional campaign.^[29] Love Happy brought Monroe to the attention of the talent agent, Johnny Hyde, who agreed to represent her. After signing on with Hyde, Monroe had brief roles in three films: A Ticket to Tomahawk, Right Cross, and The Fireball all in which were released in 1950 and brought no attention to Monroe's career. Hyde soon thereafter arranged for her to audition for John Huston, who cast her in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer drama The Asphalt Jungle as the young mistress of an aging criminal. Her performance brought strong reviews,^[29] and was seen by the writer and director, Joseph Mankiewicz. He accepted Hyde's suggestion to cast Monroe in a small comedic role in All About Eve as Miss Caswell, an aspiring actress, described by another character as a student of "The Copacabana School of Dramatic Art". Mankiewicz later commented that he had seen an innocence in her that he found appealing, and that this had confirmed his belief in her suitability for the role.^[30] Following Monroe's success in these roles, Hyde negotiated a seven-year contract for her with 20th Century Fox, shortly before his death in December 1950.^[31] It was at some time during this 1949–1950 period that Hyde arranged for her to have a slight bump of cartilage removed from her somewhat bulbous nose which further softened her appearance and accounts for the slight variation in look she had in films after 1950.

In 1951, Monroe enrolled at University of California, Los Angeles, where she studied literature and art appreciation.^[32] Afterward Monroe had minor parts in four films: the low-budget drama Home Town Story with Jeffrey Lynn, and three comedies: As Young as You Feel with Monty Woolley and Thelma Ritter; Love Nest with June Haver and William Lundigan; and Let's Make It Legal with Claudette Colbert and Macdonald Carey, all of which were filmed on a moderate budget and only became mildly successful.^[33] In March 1951, she appeared as a presenter at the 23rd Academy Awards ceremony.^[34] In 1952, Monroe appeared on the cover of Look magazine wearing a Georgia Tech sweater as part of an article celebrating female enrollment to the school's main campus. In the early 1950s, Monroe unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Daisy Mae in a proposed Li'l Abner television series based on the Al Capp comic strip, but the effort never materialized.^[35]

Leading films: 1952–1955[link]

In March 1952, Monroe faced a possible scandal when one of her nude photos from her 1949 session with photographer Tom Kelley was featured in a calendar. The press speculated about the identity of the anonymous model and commented that she closely resembled Monroe. As the studio discussed how to deal with the problem, Monroe suggested that she should simply admit that she had posed for the photograph but emphasize that she had done so only because she had no money to pay her rent.^[36] She gave an interview in which she discussed the circumstances that led to her posing for the photographs, and the resulting publicity elicited a degree of sympathy for her plight as a struggling actress.^[36]

She made her first appearance on the cover of Life magazine in April 1952, where she was described as "The Talk of Hollywood".^[37] The following year, she was photographed by noted Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, considered "The father of photojournalism."^[38][39] He photographed Monroe on the patio of her Hollywood home. Many of the images from that sitting have been reproduced in numerous subsequent publications and by Life magazine.^[40][41] Monroe was pleased with his images of her, later telling him, "You made a palace out of my patio."^[42]

Stories of her childhood and upbringing portrayed her in a sympathetic light: a cover story for the May 1952 edition of True Experiences magazine showed a smiling and wholesome Monroe beside a caption that read, "Do I look happy? I should—for I was a child nobody wanted. A lonely girl with a dream—who awakened to find that dream come true. I am Marilyn Monroe. Read my Cinderella story."^[43] It was also during this time that she began dating baseball player Joe DiMaggio. A photograph of DiMaggio visiting Monroe at the 20th Century Fox studio was printed in newspapers throughout the United States, and reports of a developing romance between them generated further interest in Monroe.^[44]

Four films in which Monroe featured were released beginning in 1952. She had been lent to RKO Studios to appear in a supporting role in Clash by Night, a Barbara Stanwyck drama, directed by Fritz Lang.^[45] Released in June 1952, the film was popular with audiences, with much of its success credited to curiosity about Monroe, who received generally favorable reviews from critics.^[46]

With Keith Andes in Clash by Night (1952)

With Ginger Rogers and Cary Grant

This was followed by two films released in July, the comedy We're Not Married!, and the drama Don't Bother to Knock. We're Not Married! featured Monroe as a beauty pageant contestant. Variety described the film as "lightweight". Its reviewer commented that Monroe was featured to full advantage in a bathing suit, and that some of her scenes suggested a degree of exploitation.^[47] In Don't Bother to Knock she played the starring role^[48] of a babysitter who threatens to attack the child in her care. The downbeat melodrama was poorly reviewed, although Monroe commented that it contained some of her strongest dramatic acting.^[48] Monkey Business, a successful comedy directed by Howard Hawks starring Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers, was released in September and was the first movie in which Monroe appeared with platinum blonde hair.^[49] In O. Henry's Full House for 20th Century Fox, released in August 1952, Monroe had a single one-minute scene with Charles Laughton, yet she received top billing alongside him and the film's other stars, including Anne Baxter, Farley Granger, Jean Peters and Richard Widmark.

Darryl F. Zanuck considered that Monroe's film potential was worth developing and cast her in Niagara, as a femme fatale scheming to murder her husband, played by Joseph Cotten.^[50] During filming, Monroe's make-up artist Whitey Snyder noticed her stage fright (that would ultimately mark her behavior on film sets throughout her career); the director assigned him to spend hours gently coaxing and comforting Monroe as she prepared to film her scenes.^[51] Reviews of the film dwelled on her sexuality, while noting that her acting was imperfect.^[52]

As Rose in Niagara

Performing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell putting signatures, hand and foot prints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on June 26, 1953

Much of the critical commentary following the release of the film focused on Monroe's overtly sexual performance,^[50] and a scene which shows Monroe (from the back) making a long walk toward Niagara Falls received frequent note in reviews.^[53] After seeing the film, Constance Bennett reportedly quipped, "There's a broad with her future behind her."^[54] Whitey Snyder also commented that it was during preparation for this film, after much experimentation, that Monroe achieved "the look, and we used that look for several pictures in a row ... the look was established."^[53] While the film was a success, and Monroe's performance had positive reviews, her conduct at promotional events sometimes drew negative comments. Her appearance at the Photoplay awards dinner in a skin-tight gold lamé dress was criticized. Louella Parsons' newspaper column quoted Joan Crawford discussing Monroe's "vulgarity" and describing her behavior as "unbecoming an actress and a lady".^[55] Monroe had previously received criticism for wearing a dress with a neckline cut almost to her navel when she acted as Grand Marshall at the Miss America Parade in September 1952.^[56] A photograph from this event was used on the cover of the first issue of Playboy in December 1953, with a nude photograph of Monroe, taken in 1949, inside the magazine.^[57]

Monroe next replaced Betty Grable in the musical film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) co-starring Jane Russell and directed by Howard Hawks. Her role as Lorelei Lee, a gold-digging showgirl, required her to act, sing, and dance. The two stars became friends, with Russell describing Monroe as "very shy and very sweet and far more intelligent than people gave her credit for".^[58] She later recalled that Monroe showed her dedication by rehearsing her dance routines each evening after most of the crew had left, but she arrived habitually late on set for filming. Realizing that Monroe remained in her dressing room due to stage fright, and that Hawks was growing impatient with her tardiness, Russell started escorting her to the set.^[59]

At the Los Angeles premiere of the film, Monroe and Russell pressed their hand- and footprints in the cement in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Monroe received positive reviews and the film grossed more than double its production costs.^[60] Her rendition of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" became associated with her. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes also marked one of the earliest films in which William Travilla dressed Monroe. Travilla dressed Monroe in eight of her films including Bus Stop, Don't Bother to Knock, How to Marry a Millionaire, River of No Return, There’s No Business Like Show Business, Monkey Business, and The Seven Year Itch.^[61] How to Marry a Millionaire was a comedy about three models scheming to attract wealthy husbands. The film teamed Monroe with Betty Grable (who she replaced in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and Lauren Bacall, and was directed by Jean Negulesco.^[62] The producer and scriptwriter, Nunnally Johnson, said that it was the first film in which audiences "liked Marilyn for herself [and that] she diagnosed the reason very shrewdly. She said that it was the only picture she'd been in, in which she had a measure of modesty... about her own attractiveness."^[63]

Monroe's films of this period established her "dumb blonde" persona and contributed to her popularity. In 1953 and 1954, she was listed in the annual "Quigley Poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars", which was compiled from the votes of movie exhibitors throughout the United States for the stars that had generated the most revenue in their theaters over the previous year.^[64] "I want to grow and develop and play serious dramatic parts. My dramatic coach, Natasha Lytess, tells everybody that I have a great soul, but so far nobody's interested in it." Monroe told the New York Times.^[65] She saw a possibility in 20th Century Fox's upcoming film, The Egyptian, but was rebuffed by Darryl F. Zanuck who refused to screen test her.^[66]

Instead, she was assigned to the western River of No Return, opposite Robert Mitchum. Director Otto Preminger resented Monroe's reliance on Natasha Lytess, who coached Monroe and announced her verdict at the end of each scene. Eventually Monroe refused to speak to Preminger, and Mitchum had to mediate.^[67] Of the finished product, she commented, "I think I deserve a better deal than a grade Z cowboy movie in which the acting finished second to the scenery and the CinemaScope process."^[68] In late 1953 Monroe was scheduled to begin filming The Girl in Pink Tights with Frank Sinatra. When she failed to appear for work, 20th Century Fox suspended her.^[69]

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell's cements photographed in 2011

International success: 1954–1957[link]

Marilyn Monroe, appearing with the USO, poses for soldiers in Korea after a performance at the 3rd U.S. Inf. Div. area, February 17, 1954.

Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were married in San Francisco on January 14, 1954. They traveled to Japan soon after, combining a honeymoon with a business trip previously arranged by DiMaggio. For two weeks she took a secondary role to DiMaggio as he conducted his business, having told a reporter, "Marriage is my main career from now on."^[70] Monroe then traveled alone to Korea where she performed for 13,000 American Marines over a three-day period. She later commented that the experience had helped her overcome a fear of performing in front of large crowds.^[71]

Returning to Hollywood in March 1954, Monroe settled her disagreement with 20th Century Fox and appeared in the musical There's No Business Like Show Business. The film failed to recover its production costs^[68] and was poorly received. Ed Sullivan described Monroe's performance of the song "Heat Wave" as "one of the most flagrant violations of good taste" he had witnessed.^[72] Time magazine compared her unfavorably to co-star Ethel Merman, while Bosley Crowther for The New York Times said that Mitzi Gaynor had surpassed Monroe's "embarrassing to behold" performance.^[73] The reviews echoed Monroe's opinion of the film. She had made it reluctantly, on the assurance that she would be given the starring role in the film adaptation of the Broadway hit The Seven Year Itch.^[74]

An iconic image entered popular culture.^[75]

in The Seven Year Itch (1955)

One of Monroe's most notable film roles was shot in September 1954, a skirt-blowing key scene for The Seven Year Itch on Lexington Avenue at 52nd Street in New York City. In it, she stands with her co-star, Tom Ewell, while the air from a subway grating blows her skirt up. A large crowd watched as director Billy Wilder ordered the scene to be refilmed many times. Joe DiMaggio was reported to have been present and infuriated by the spectacle.^[76] After a quarrel, witnessed by journalist Walter Winchell, the couple returned to California where they avoided the press for two weeks, until Monroe announced that they had separated.^[77] Their divorce was granted in November 1954.^[78] The filming was completed in early 1955, and after refusing what she considered to be inferior parts in The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing and How to Be Very, Very Popular, Monroe decided to leave Hollywood on the advice of Milton Greene. The Seven Year Itch was released and became a success, earning an estimated $8 million.^[79] Monroe received positive reviews for her performance and was in a strong position to negotiate with 20th Century Fox.^[79] On New Year's Eve 1955, they signed a new contract which required Monroe to make four films over a seven-year period. The newly formed Marilyn Monroe Productions would be paid $100,000 plus a share of profits for each film. In addition to being able to work for other studios, Monroe had the right to reject any script, director or cinematographer she did not approve of.^[80][81]

Milton Greene had first met Monroe in 1953 when he was assigned to photograph her for Look magazine. While many photographers tried to emphasize her sexy image, Greene presented her in more modest poses, and she was pleased with his work. As a friendship developed between them, she confided to him her frustration with her 20th Century Fox contract and the roles she was offered. Her salary for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes amounted to $18,000, while freelancer Jane Russell was paid more than $100,000.^[82] Greene agreed that she could earn more by breaking away from 20th Century Fox. He gave up his job in 1954, mortgaged his home to finance Monroe, and allowed her to live with his family as they determined the future course of her career.^[83]

On April 8, 1955, veteran journalist Edward R. Murrow interviewed Greene and his wife Amy, as well as Monroe, at the Greenes' home in Connecticut on a live telecast of the CBS program Person to Person. The kinescope of the telecast has been released on home video.^[84]

Truman Capote introduced Monroe to Constance Collier, who gave her acting lessons. She felt that Monroe was not suited to stage acting, but possessed a "lovely talent" that was "so fragile and subtle, it can only be caught by the camera". After only a few weeks of lessons, Collier died.^[85] Monroe had met Paula Strasberg and her daughter Susan on the set of There's No Business Like Show Business,^[86] and had previously said that she would like to study with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. In March 1955, Monroe met with Cheryl Crawford, one of the founders of the Actors Studio, and convinced her to introduce her to Lee Strasberg, who interviewed her the following day and agreed to accept her as a student.^[87]

In May 1955, Monroe started dating playwright Arthur Miller; they had met in Hollywood in 1950 and when Miller discovered she was in New York, he arranged for a mutual friend to reintroduce them.^[88] On June 1, 1955, Monroe's birthday, Joe DiMaggio accompanied Monroe to the premiere of The Seven Year Itch in New York City. He later hosted a birthday party for her, but the evening ended with a public quarrel, and Monroe left the party without him. A lengthy period of estrangement followed.^[89][90] Throughout that year, Monroe studied with the Actors Studio, and found that one of her biggest obstacles was her severe stage fright. She was befriended by the actors Kevin McCarthy and Eli Wallach who each recalled her as studious and sincere in her approach to her studies, and noted that she tried to avoid attention by sitting quietly in the back of the class.^[91] When Strasberg felt Monroe was ready to give a performance in front of her peers, Monroe and Maureen Stapleton chose the opening scene from Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, and although she had faltered during each rehearsal, she was able to complete the performance without forgetting her lines.^[92] Kim Stanley later recalled that students were discouraged from applauding, but that Monroe's performance had resulted in spontaneous applause from the audience.^[92] While Monroe was a student, Lee Strasberg commented, "I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of actors and actresses, and there are only two that stand out way above the rest. Number one is Marlon Brando, and the second is Marilyn Monroe."^[92]

The first film to be made under the contract and production company was Bus Stop directed by Joshua Logan. Logan had studied under Constantin Stanislavski, approved of method acting, and was supportive of Monroe.^[93] Monroe severed contact with her drama coach, Natasha Lytess, replacing her with Paula Strasberg, who became a constant presence during the filming of Monroe's subsequent films.^[94]

Monroe's dramatic performance as Chérie in Bus Stop (1956), a saloon singer with little talent, marked a departure from her earlier comedies.

In Bus Stop, Monroe played Chérie, a saloon singer with little talent who falls in love with a cowboy, Beauregard "Bo" Decker, played by Don Murray. Her costumes, make-up and hair reflected a character who lacked sophistication, and Monroe provided deliberately mediocre singing and dancing. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times proclaimed: "Hold on to your chairs, everybody, and get set for a rattling surprise. Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress." In his autobiography, Movie Stars, Real People and Me, director Logan wrote, "I found Marilyn to be one of the great talents of all time... she struck me as being a much brighter person than I had ever imagined, and I think that was the first time I learned that intelligence and, yes, brilliance have nothing to do with education." Logan championed Monroe for an Academy Award nomination and complimented her professionalism until the end of his life.^[95] Though not nominated for an Academy Award,^[96] she received a Golden Globe nomination.

In The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), Monroe co-starred with Laurence Olivier, who also directed the film.

Bus Stop was followed by The Prince and the Showgirl directed by Laurence Olivier, who also co-starred. Prior to filming, Olivier praised Monroe as "a brilliant comedienne, which to me means she is also an extremely skilled actress". During filming in England he resented Monroe's dependence on her drama coach, Paula Strasberg, regarding Strasberg as a fraud whose only talent was the ability to "butter Marilyn up". He recalled his attempts at explaining a scene to Monroe, only to hear Strasberg interject, "Honey—just think of Coca-Cola and Frank Sinatra."^[97] Olivier later commented that in the film "Marilyn was quite wonderful, the best of all."^[98] Monroe's performance was hailed by critics, especially in Europe, where she won the David di Donatello, the Italian equivalent of an Academy Award, as well as the French Crystal Star Award. She was also nominated for a BAFTA. It was more than a year before Monroe began her next film. During her hiatus, she summered with Miller in Amagansett, New York. She suffered a miscarriage on August 1, 1957.^[99][100]

With her co-star Don Murray in the 1956 20th Century Fox comedy film Bus Stop

Last films: 1958–1962[link]

In Some Like It Hot (1959)

With Miller's encouragement she returned to Hollywood in August 1958 to star in Some Like It Hot. The film was directed by Billy Wilder and co-starred Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Wilder had experienced Monroe's tardiness, stage fright, and inability to remember lines during production of The Seven Year Itch. However her behavior was now more hostile, and was marked by refusals to participate in filming and occasional outbursts of profanity.^[101] Monroe consistently refused to take direction from Wilder, or insisted on numerous retakes of simple scenes until she was satisfied.^[102] She developed a rapport with Lemmon, but she disliked Curtis after hearing that he had described their love scenes as "like kissing Hitler".^[103] Curtis later stated that the comment was intended as a joke.^[104] During filming, Monroe discovered that she was pregnant. She suffered another miscarriage in December 1958, as filming was completed.^[105]

Some Like it Hot became a resounding success, and was nominated for six Academy Awards. Monroe was acclaimed for her performance and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Wilder commented that the film was the biggest success he had ever been associated with.^[106] He discussed the problems he encountered during filming, saying "Marilyn was so difficult because she was totally unpredictable. I never knew what kind of day we were going to have ... would she be cooperative or obstructive?"^[107] He had little patience with her method-acting technique and said that instead of going to the Actors Studio "she should have gone to a train-engineer's school ... to learn something about arriving on schedule."^[108] Wilder had become ill during filming, and explained, "We were in mid-flight—and there was a nut on the plane."^[109] In hindsight, he discussed Monroe's "certain indefinable magic" and "absolute genius as a comic actress."^[107]

By this time, Monroe had only completed one film, Bus Stop, under her four-picture contract with 20th Century Fox. She agreed to appear in Let's Make Love, which was to be directed by George Cukor, but she was not satisfied with the script, and Arthur Miller rewrote it.^[110] Gregory Peck was originally cast in the male lead role, but he refused the role after Miller's rewrite; Cary Grant, Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner and Rock Hudson also refused the role before it was offered to Yves Montand.^[111] Monroe and Miller befriended Montand and his wife, actress Simone Signoret, and filming progressed well until Miller was required to travel to Europe on business. Monroe began to leave the film set early and on several occasions failed to attend, but her attitude improved after Montand confronted her. Signoret returned to Europe to make a film, and Monroe and Montand began a brief affair that ended when Montand refused to leave Signoret.^[112] The film was not a critical or commercial success.^[113]

Monroe's health deteriorated during this period, and she began to see a Los Angeles psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson. He later recalled that during this time she frequently complained of insomnia, and told Greenson that she visited several medical doctors to obtain what Greenson considered an excessive variety of drugs. He concluded that she was progressing to the point of addiction, but also noted that she could give up the drugs for extended periods without suffering any withdrawal symptoms.^[114] According to Greenson, the marriage between Miller and Monroe was strained; he said that Miller appeared to genuinely care for Monroe and was willing to help her, but that Monroe rebuffed while also expressing resentment towards him for not doing more to help her.^[115] Greenson stated that his main objective at the time was to enforce a drastic reduction in Monroe's drug intake.^[116]

Monroe in her final completed film, The Misfits (1961)

In 1956, Arthur Miller had briefly resided in Nevada and wrote a short story about some of the local people he had become acquainted with, a divorced woman and some aging cowboys. By 1960 he had developed the short story into a screenplay, and envisaged it as containing a suitable role for Monroe. It became her last completed film. The Misfits, directed by John Huston and starring Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter. Shooting commenced in July 1960, with most taking place in the hot Northern Nevada desert.^[117] Monroe was frequently ill and unable to perform, and away from the influence of Dr. Greenson, she had resumed her consumption of sleeping pills and alcohol.^[116] A visitor to the set, Susan Strasberg, later described Monroe as "mortally injured in some way,"^[118] and in August, Monroe was rushed to Los Angeles where she was hospitalized for ten days. Newspapers reported that she had been near death, although the nature of her illness was not disclosed.^[119] Louella Parsons wrote in her newspaper column that Monroe was "a very sick girl, much sicker than at first believed", and disclosed that she was being treated by a psychiatrist.^[119] Monroe returned to Nevada and completed the film, but she became hostile towards Arthur Miller, and public arguments were reported by the press.^[120] Making the film had proved to be an arduous experience for the actors; in addition to Monroe's distress, Montgomery Clift had frequently been unable to perform due to illness, and by the final day of shooting, Thelma Ritter was in hospital suffering from exhaustion. Gable, commenting that he felt unwell, left the set without attending the wrap party.^[121] Monroe and Miller returned to New York on separate flights.^[122]

Within ten days Monroe had announced her separation from Miller, and Gable had died from a heart attack.^[123] Gable's widow, Kay, commented to Louella Parsons that it had been the "eternal waiting" on the set of The Misfits that had contributed to his death, though she did not name Monroe. When reporters asked Monroe if she felt guilty about Gable's death, she refused to answer,^[124] but the journalist Sidney Skolsky recalled that privately she expressed regret for her poor treatment of Gable during filming and described her as being in "a dark pit of despair".^[125] Monroe later attended the christening of the Gables' son, at the invitation of Kay Gable.^[125] The Misfits received mixed reviews, and was not a commercial success, though some praised the performances of Monroe and Gable.^[125] Despite on-set difficulties, Gable, Monroe, and Clift delivered performances that modern movie critics consider superb.^[126] Many critics regard Gable's performance to be his finest, and Gable, after seeing the rough cuts, agreed.^[127] Monroe received the 1961 Golden Globe Award as "World Film Favorite" in March 1962, five months before her death. Directors Guild of America nominated Huston as best director. The film is now regarded as a classic. Huston later commented that Monroe's performance was not acting in the true sense, and that she had drawn from her own experiences to show herself, rather than a character. "She had no techniques. It was all the truth. It was only Marilyn."^[125]

During the following months, Monroe's dependence on alcohol and prescription medications began to take a toll on her health, and friends such as Susan Strasberg later spoke of her illness.^[128] Her divorce from Arthur Miller was finalized in January 1961, with Monroe citing "incompatibility of character",^[128] and in February she voluntarily entered the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. Monroe later described the experience as a "nightmare".^[129] She was able to phone Joe DiMaggio from the clinic, and he immediately traveled from Florida to New York to facilitate her transfer to the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. She remained there for three weeks. Illness prevented her from working for the remainder of the year; she underwent surgery to correct a blockage in her Fallopian tubes in May, and the following month underwent gallbladder surgery.^[130] She returned to California and lived in a rented apartment as she convalesced.

Monroe in 1962

In 1962, Monroe began filming Something's Got to Give, which was to be the third film of her four-film contract with 20th Century Fox. It was to be directed by George Cukor, and co-starred Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse. She was ill with a virus as filming commenced, and suffered from high temperatures and recurrent sinusitis. On one occasion she refused to perform with Martin as he had a cold, and the producer Henry Weinstein recalled seeing her on several occasions being physically ill as she prepared to film her scenes, and attributed it to her dread of performing. He commented, "Very few people experience terror. We all experience anxiety, unhappiness, heartbreaks, but that was sheer primal terror."^[131]

On May 19, 1962, she attended the early birthday celebration of President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, at the suggestion of Kennedy's brother-in-law, actor Peter Lawford. Monroe performed "Happy Birthday" along with a specially written verse based on Bob Hope's "Thanks for the Memory". Kennedy responded to her performance with the remark, "Thank you. I can now retire from politics after having had 'Happy Birthday' sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way."^[132] (also see entry Happy Birthday, Mr. President)

Monroe returned to the set of Something's Got to Give and filmed a sequence in which she appeared nude in a swimming pool. Commenting that she wanted to "push Liz Taylor off the magazine covers", she gave permission for several partially nude photographs to be published by Life. Having only reported for work on twelve occasions out of a total of 35 days of production,^[131] Monroe was dismissed. The studio 20th Century Fox filed a lawsuit against her for half a million dollars,^[133] and the studio's vice president, Peter Levathes, issued a statement saying "The star system has gotten way out of hand. We've let the inmates run the asylum, and they've practically destroyed it."^[133] Monroe was replaced by Lee Remick, and when Dean Martin refused to work with any other actress, he was also threatened with a lawsuit.^[133] Following her dismissal, Monroe engaged in several high-profile publicity ventures. She gave an interview to Cosmopolitan and was photographed at Peter Lawford's beach house sipping champagne and walking on the beach.^[134] She next posed for Bert Stern for Vogue in a series of photographs that included several nudes.^[134] Published after her death, they became known as 'The Last Sitting'. Richard Meryman interviewed her for Life, in which Monroe reflected upon her relationship with her fans and her uncertainties in identifying herself as a "star" and a "sex symbol". She referred to the events surrounding Arthur Miller's appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956, and her studio's warning that she would be "finished" if she showed public support for him, and commented, "You have to start all over again. But I believe you're always as good as your potential. I now live in my work and in a few relationships with the few people I can really count on. Fame will go by, and, so long, I've had you fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experienced, but that's not where I live."^[135]

In the final weeks of her life, Monroe engaged in discussions about future film projects, and firm arrangements were made to continue negotiations on Something's Got to Give.^[136] Among the projects was a biography of Jean Harlow filmed two years later unsuccessfully with Carroll Baker. Starring roles in Billy Wilder's Irma la Douce^[137] and What a Way to Go! were also discussed; Shirley MacLaine eventually played the roles in both films. Kim Novak replaced her in Kiss Me, Stupid, a comedy in which she was to star opposite Dean Martin. A film version of the Broadway musical, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, and an unnamed World War I-themed musical co-starring Gene Kelly were also discussed, but the projects never materialized due to her death.^[136] Her dispute with 20th Century Fox was resolved, her contract was renewed into a $1 million two-picture deal, and filming of Something's Got to Give was scheduled to resume in early fall 1962. Marilyn, having fired her own agent and MCA in 1961, managed her own negoiations as President of Marilyn Monroe Productions. Also on the table was an Italian four-film deal worth 10 million giving her script, director, and co-star approval.^[138] Allan "Whitey" Snyder who saw her during the last week of her life, said Monroe was pleased by the opportunities available to her, and that she "never looked better [and] was in great spirits".^[136]

Marilyn Monroe's Hollywood Walk of Fame star photographed in 2011 from 1960

Death and aftermath[link]

The crypt of Marilyn Monroe (2005)

On August 5, 1962, LAPD police sergeant Jack Clemmons received a call at 4:25 am from Dr. Ralph Greenson, Monroe's psychiatrist, proclaiming that Monroe was found dead at her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California.^[139] She was 36 years old. At the subsequent autopsy, eight milligram per cent of chloral hydrate and 4.5 milligram percent of Nembutal were found in her system,^[140] and Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los Angeles County Coroners office recorded cause of death as "acute barbiturate poisoning", resulting from a "probable suicide".^[141] Many theories, including murder, circulated about the circumstances of her death and the timeline after the body was found. Some conspiracy theories involved John and Robert Kennedy, while other theories suggested CIA or Mafia complicity. It was reported that the last person Monroe called was the President.^[142][143]

On August 8, 1962, Monroe was interred in a crypt at Corridor of Memories #24, at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Lee Strasberg delivered the eulogy. Joe DiMaggio took control of the funeral arrangements which consisted of only 31 close family and friends. Police were also present to keep the press away.^[144] Her casket was solid bronze and was lined with champagne colored silk.^[145] Allan “Whitey” Snyder did her make-up which was supposedly a promise made in earlier years if she were to die before him.^[145] She was wearing her favorite green Emilio Pucci dress.^[145] In her hands was a small bouquet of pink teacup roses.^[145] For the next 20 years, red roses were placed in a vase attached to the crypt, courtesy of DiMaggio.^[144]

In August 2009, the crypt space directly above that of Monroe was placed for auction^[146] on eBay. Elsie Poncher plans to exhume her husband and move him to an adjacent plot. She advertised the crypt, hoping "to make enough money to pay off the $1.6 million mortgage" on her Beverly Hills mansion.^[147] The winning bid was placed by an anonymous Japanese man for $4.6 million,^[148] but the winning bidder later backed out "because of the paying problem". In 1992, Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, who never met Monroe, bought the crypt immediately to the left of hers at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.^[147] He affirmed that the initial success of his magazine directly correlated with Monroe.^{[citation needed]}

Administration of estate[link]

Monroe's Brentwood home (1992)

In her will, Monroe stated she would leave Lee Strasberg her personal effects, which amounted to just over half of her residuary estate, expressing her desire that he "distribute [the effects] among my friends, colleagues and those to whom I am devoted".^[149] Instead, Strasberg stored them in a warehouse, and willed them to his widow, Anna, who successfully sued Los Angeles–based Odyssey Auctions in 1994 to prevent the sale of items consigned by the nephew of Monroe's business manager, Inez Melson. In October 1999, Christie's auctioned the bulk of Monroe's effects, including those recovered from Melson's nephew, netting an amount of $13,405,785. Subsequently, Strasberg sued the children of four photographers to determine rights of publicity, which permits the licensing of images of deceased personages for commercial purposes. The decision as to whether Monroe was a resident of California, where she died and where her will was probated,^[150] or New York, which she considered her primary residence, was worth millions.^[151]

On May 4, 2007, a New York judge ruled that Monroe's rights of publicity ended at her death.^{[152][153][154]} In October 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 771.^[155] The legislation, supported by Anna Strasberg and the Screen Actors Guild, established that non-family members may inherit rights of publicity through the residuary clause of the deceased's will, provided that the person was a resident of California at the time of death.^[156][157] In March 2008, the United States District Court in Los Angeles ruled that Monroe was a resident of New York at the time of her death, citing the statement of the executor of her estate to California tax authorities, and a 1966 sworn affidavit by her housekeeper.^[158] The decision was reaffirmed by the United States District Court of New York in September 2008.^[159]

In July 2010, Monroe's Brentwood home was put up for sale by Prudential California Realty. The house was sold for $3.6 million.^[160] Monroe left to Lee Strasberg an archive of her own writing—diaries, poems, and letters, which Anna discovered in October 1999. In October 2010, the documents were published as a book, Fragments.^[161][162]

Personal life[link]

Relationships[link]

Monroe had three marriages, all of which ended in divorce. The first was to James Dougherty, the second to Joe DiMaggio, and lastly to Arthur Miller. It is claimed she was briefly married to writer Robert "Bob" Slatzer. She is alleged to have had affairs with both John and Robert Kennedy. Marlon Brando, in his autobiography Songs My Mother Taught Me, claimed that he had had a relationship with her, and enduring friendship lasting until her death. She also suffered two miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy during her three marriages.^[163][164]

Monroe married James Dougherty on June 19, 1942, at the home of Chester Howell in Los Angeles. As a result of her modeling career, he began to lose interest in her and stated that he did not approve of her new job. Monroe then decided to divorce Dougherty. The marriage ended when he returned from overseas in 1946. In The Secret Happiness of Marilyn Monroe and To Norma Jeane with Love, Jimmie, he claimed they were in love, but dreams of stardom lured her away. In 1953, he wrote a piece called "Marilyn Monroe Was My Wife" for Photoplay, in which he claimed that she threatened to jump off the Santa Monica Pier if he left her. She was reported to have been furious and explained in 1956 interview that she confessed to having attempted suicide during the marriage and stated that she felt trapped and bored by Dougherty, even blaming their marriage on her foster mother.^[165] In her autobiography, explaining the sudden dissolution of their marriage, Monroe stated,

"My marriage didn't make me sad, but it didn't make me happy either. My husband and I hardly spoke to each other. This wasn't because we were angry. We had nothing to say. I was dying of boredom."^[166]

Doc Goddard had plans to publish extra details about the marriage, citing that he hoped to clear up rumors about an arranged marriage, but decided against the publication at the last minute.^[167] In the 2004 documentary Marilyn's Man, Dougherty made three new claims: that he invented the "Marilyn Monroe" persona; studio executives forced her to divorce him; and that he was her true love and her "dedicated friend for life".

Monroe eloped with Joe DiMaggio at San Francisco City Hall on January 14, 1954. In 1951, DiMaggio saw a photograph of Monroe alongside Chicago White Sox players Joe Dobson and Gus Zernial, prompting him to request a date with her in 1952. Of their initial meeting, Monroe wrote in My Story that she did not have a desire to know him, as she had feared a stereotypical jock.

Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe staying at Imperial Hotel in Tokyo on their honeymoon (1954)

During their honeymoon in Japan, she was asked to visit Korea as part of the USO. She performed ten shows in four days for over 100,000 servicemen. Maury Allen quoted New York Yankees PR man Arthur Richman that Joe told him that the marriage went wrong from then. On September 14, 1954, Monroe filmed the famed skirt-blowing scene for The Seven Year Itch in front of New York's Trans-Lux Theater. Bill Kobrin, then Fox's east coast correspondent, told the Palm Springs Desert Sun in 1956 that it was Billy Wilder's idea to turn the shoot into a media circus, and that the couple had a "yelling battle" in the theater lobby.^[168] She filed for divorce on grounds of mental cruelty nine months after the wedding.

In February 1961, Monroe was admitted to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. She contacted DiMaggio, who secured her release. She later joined him in Florida, where he was serving as a batting coach at the New York Yankees' training camp. Bob Hope jokingly dedicated Best Song nominee The Second Time Around to them at the 1961 Academy Awards. According to Allen, on August 1, 1962, DiMaggio—alarmed by how Monroe had fallen in with people he considered detrimental to her well-being—quit his job with a PX supplier to ask her to remarry him. After Monroe's death, DiMaggio claimed her body and arranged her funeral. For 20 years, he had a half-dozen red roses delivered to her crypt three times a week. In 2006, DiMaggio's adopted granddaughters auctioned the bulk of his estate, which featured two letters Monroe penned to him and a photograph signed "I love you, Joe, Marilyn."^[169]

On June 29, 1956, Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller, in a civil ceremony in White Plains, New York. Monroe met Miller in 1950. During this filming of Bus Stop, the relationship between Monroe and Miller had developed, and although the couple were able to maintain their privacy for almost a year, the press began to write about them as a couple,^[170] often referred to as "The Egghead and The Hourglass".^[171] In reflecting on his courtship of Monroe, Miller wrote, "She was a whirling light to me then, all paradox and enticing mystery, street-tough one moment, then lifted by a lyrical and poetic sensitivity that few retain past early adolescence."^[172]

The reports of their romance were soon overtaken by news that Miller had been called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee to explain his supposed communist affiliations. Called upon to identify communists he was acquainted with, Miller refused and was charged with contempt of Congress. He was acquitted on appeal.^[173] During the investigation, Monroe was urged by film executives to abandon Miller, rather than risk her career but she refused, later branding them as "born cowards".^[173]

The press began to discuss an impending marriage, but Monroe and Miller refused to confirm the rumor. In June 1956, a reporter was following them by car, and as they attempted to elude him, the reporter's car crashed, killing a female passenger. Monroe became hysterical upon hearing the news, and their engagement was announced, partly in the expectation that it would reduce the excessive media interest they were being subjected to.^[171]

John F. Kennedy (with his back to the camera), Robert Kennedy, and Marilyn Monroe, May 19, 1962

City Court Judge Seymour D. Robinowitz presided over the hushed ceremony in the law office of Sam Slavitt. (The wedding had been kept secret from both the press and the public.) Monroe and Miller wed again two days later in a Jewish ceremony before a small group of guests. Rabbi Robert E. Goldburg, a Reform rabbi at Congregation Mishkan Israel, presided over the ceremony.^[174] Their nuptials were celebrated at the home of Miller's literary agent, Kay Brown, in Westchester County, New York. Some 30 friends and relatives attended the hastily arranged party.

Nominally baptised and raised as a Pentecostal Christian but before her 1956 conversion (to Judaism),^[175] Monroe laughingly rejected Jane Russell's conversion attempts during the 1953 filming of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, saying, "Jane tried to convert me (to religion) and I tried to introduce her to Freud".^[176] She did convert to Judaism before marrying Miller.^{[177][178][179][180]}

Less than two weeks after the wedding, the Millers flew to London, where they were greeted at Parkside House by Laurence Olivier and wife Vivien Leigh. Monroe created chaos among the normally staid British press. After she finished shooting The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier, the couple returned to the United States from England and discovered she was pregnant. Tony Curtis, her co-star from Some Like It Hot, claims he got Monroe pregnant during their on-off affair that was rekindled during the filming of Some Like It Hot in 1959, while she was still married to Arthur Miller.^{[181][182][183][184]}

Miller's screenplay for The Misfits, a story about a despairing divorcée, was meant to be a Valentine gift for his wife, but by the time filming started in 1960 their marriage was beyond repair. A Mexican divorce was granted on January 24, 1961, in Ciudad Juarez by Francisco José Gómez Fraire. On February 17, 1962, Miller married Inge Morath, one of the Magnum photographers recording the making of The Misfits. In January 1964, Miller's play After The Fall opened, featuring a beautiful and devouring shrew named Maggie. Simone Signoret noted in her autobiography the morbidity of Miller and Elia Kazan resuming their professional association "over a casket". In interviews and in his autobiography, Miller insisted that Maggie was not based on Monroe. However, he never pretended that his last Broadway-bound work, Finishing the Picture, was not based on the making of The Misfits. He appeared in the documentary The Century of the Self, lamenting the psychological work being done on her before her death.

On May 19, 1962, Monroe made her last significant public appearance, singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" at a birthday party for President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden. The dress that she wore to the event, specially designed and made for her by Jean Louis, sold at an auction in 1999 for $1.26 million.^[185] Monroe reportedly had an affair with President John F. Kennedy. JFK's reputed mistress Judith Exner, in her 1977 autobiography, also wrote about an affair that she said the president and Monroe had.^[186]

Journalist Anthony Summers examines the issue of Monroe's relationships with the Kennedy brothers at length in two books: his 1993 biography of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, entitled Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, and his 1985 biography of Monroe, entitled Goddess. In the Hoover book, Summers concludes that Monroe was in love with President Kennedy and wanted to marry him in the early 1960s; that she called the White House frequently; and that, when the married President had to break off their affair, Monroe became even more depressed, and then turned to Robert Kennedy, who visited Monroe in Los Angeles the day that she died.^[187]

Patricia Seaton Lawford, the fourth wife of actor Peter Lawford, also deals with the Monroe-Kennedy matters in her 1988 biography of Peter Lawford, entitled The Peter Lawford Story. Lawford's first wife was Patricia Kennedy Lawford, a sister of John and Robert; Lawford was very close to the Kennedy family for over a decade, including the time of Monroe's death. In 1997, documents purporting to prove a coverup of a relationship between JFK and Monroe were discovered to be fraudulent.^[188]

Psychoanalysis[link]

Monroe had a long experience with psychoanalysis. She was in analysis with Margaret Herz Hohenberg, Anna Freud, Marianne Rie Kris, Ralph S. Greenson (who found Monroe dead), and Milton Wexler.^[189]

Politics[link]

In Monroe's last interview she pleaded with a reporter to end the article with the following quote:

"What I really want to say: That what the world really needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, laborers, Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers. Please don’t make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe."^[190]

Monroe was friends with Ella Fitzgerald and helped Ella in her career. Ella Fitzgerald later recounted,

I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt ...it was because of her that I played the Mocambo, a very popular nightclub in the '50s. She personally called the owner of the club, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. She told him—and it was true, due to Marilyn's superstar status—that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman—a little ahead of her times. And she didn’t know it.^[191]

Political discussions were recounted with Robert Kennedy as to policy towards Cuba, and President Kennedy. The latter said to have taken place at a luncheon with the Peter Lawfords. She was very pleased, as she had asked the President a lot of socially significant questions concerning the morality of atomic testing.^[192] Monroe supported the Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy.^[193]

While in Mexico in 1962, she openly associated with Americans who were identified by the FBI as communists, such as Frederick Vanderbilt Field. The daughter of Monroe's last psychiatrist, Joan Greenson, said that Monroe was “passionate about equal rights, rights for blacks, rights for the poor. She identified strongly with the workers."^[192]

Portrayals[link]

Monroe has been portrayed by:

• Misty Rowe in Goodbye Norma Jeane (a highly fictionalized telling of Marilyn's early years) (1976)
• Lorenzo Ferrero in the opera Marilyn (1979)
• Catherine Hicks in Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980)
• Constance Forslund in This Year's Blonde (1980)
• Susan Griffiths in a fictionalized biopic Marilyn & Me (1991)
• Melody Anderson in Marilyn & Bobby: Her Final Affair (1993)
• Natalie Portman's character briefly impersonates Monroe in full costume and sings the opening lines of "Happy Birthday" as part of a modified game of charades in The Professional (1994).
• By Ashley Judd as the younger Marilyn (who constantly appears as an illusion to the older Marilyn thorought the film), and by Mira Sorvino as the older Marilyn in a movie about a fictional account of Monroe's life called Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996)
• Mariah Carey in her music video "I Still Believe" (1998)
• Barbara Niven in The Rat Pack (1998)
• Poppy Montgomery in Blonde (2001)
• Holly Beavon in James Dean (2001)
• Sophie Monk in The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004)
• Charlotte Sullivan in The Kennedys (2011)
• Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn (2011)
• Naomi Watts will portray Monroe in another adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' book in a film also called Blonde (2012). It is unknown if it will premiere on TV or be released to theaters.
• Susan Griffiths is a Marilyn Monroe impersonator who has portrayed Monroe, or an intentional look-alike, in several films and television series, including the 1994 film Pulp Fiction (a look-alike waitress), Quantum Leap, Dark Skies, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Timecop.
• Suzie Kennedy impersonated Marilyn Monroe in the Italian movie Io & Marilyn (2009) and in the episode Who Killed Marilyn Monroe? (2003) of the TV series Revealed
• Megan Hilty, later Uma Thurman and finally Katharine McPhee, in the TV series Smash. Hilty plays the role of Ivy Lynn, a veteran actress who receives the role of Marilyn in the fictional musical based on her life entitled "Bombshell." Thurman plays the role of Rebecca Duvall, a movie actress who later obtains the role after it's decided they need a star to get the musical off the ground. McPhee plays the role of Karen Cartwright, a chorus girl who becomes Duvall's understudy and finally lands the role by the end of the first season. (2012)
• Laura Aikin in Robin de Raaff's opera, Waiting for Miss Monroe (2012)^[194]

Filmography[link]

Uncompleted films[link]

Television appearances[link]

As Herself

Songs[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

• 1951 Henrietta Award: The Best Young Box Office Personality
• 1952 Photoplay Award: Fastest Rising Star of 1952
• 1952 Photoplay Award: Special Award
• 1952 Look American Magazine Achievement Award: Most Promising Female Newcomer of 1952
• 1953 Golden Globe Henrietta Award: World Film Favorite Female.
• 1953 Sweetheart of The Month (Playboy)
• 1953 Photoplay Award: Most Popular Female Star
• 1954 Photoplay Award for Best Actress: for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire
• 1956 BAFTA Film Award nomination: Best Foreign Actress for The Seven Year Itch
• 1956 Golden Globe nomination: Best Motion Picture Actress in Comedy or Musical for Bus Stop
• 1958 BAFTA Film Award nomination: Best Foreign Actress for The Prince and the Showgirl
• 1958 David di Donatello Award (Italian): Best Foreign Actress for The Prince and the Showgirl
• 1959 Crystal Star Award (French): Best Foreign Actress for The Prince and the Showgirl
• 1960 Golden Globe, Best Motion Picture Actress in Comedy or Musical for Some Like It Hot
• 1962 Golden Globe, World Film Favorite: Female
• Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame 6104 Hollywood Blvd.
• 1999 she was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute in their list AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars.

See also[link]

	Los Angeles portal
	Biography portal

• Marilyn Monroe in popular culture
• Berniece Baker Miracle, Monroe's half-sister
• John F. Kennedy document hoax

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marilyn Monroe

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Marilyn Monroe

• Marilyn Monroe at the Internet Movie Database
• Marilyn Monroe at the TCM Movie Database
• Marilyn Monroe at AllRovi
• Works by or about Marilyn Monroe in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Gallery: Marilyn Monroe: Life and Times—Life magazine
• "What Really Killed Marilyn", article by Clare Boothe Luce for Life, 7 August 1964.
• "Marilyn!", essay by Dan Callahan for Alt Screen on the occasion of a retrospective at BAMcinématek

References[link]