name	Edgar Bergen
birth name	Edgar John Berggren
birth date	February 16, 1903
birth place	Chicago, Illinois, United States
death date	September 30, 1978
death place	Paradise, Nevada, United States
spouse	Frances Westerman (1945-1978)
years active	1930-1978 }}

Edgar John Bergen (February 16, 1903 – September 30, 1978) was an American actor and radio performer, best known as a ventriloquist.

Early life

Bergen was born Edgar John Berggren in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Swedish immigrants Nilla Svensdotter (née Osberg) and Johan Henriksson Berggren. He grew up in Decatur, Michigan. He taught himself ventriloquism from a pamphlet when he was 11. A few years later, he commissioned Chicago woodcarver Theodore Mack to sculpt a likeness of a rascally Irish newspaperboy he knew. The head went on a dummy named Charlie McCarthy, who became Bergen's lifelong sidekick. At age 16, he went to Chicago, where he attended Lake View High School and worked at a silent movie house. He gave his first public performance at Waveland Avenue Congregational Church which was located on the northeast corner of Waveland and Janssen. He lived across the street from the church. In 1965, he gave that church a generous contribution, a thoughtful letter, and a photograph of himself which had been requested by the minister and was displayed in the church's assembly room which was dedicated to Bergen.

''The Chase and Sanborn Hour''

His first performances were in vaudeville, at which point he legally changed his last name to the easier-to-pronounce "Bergen". He worked in one-reel movie shorts, but his real success was on the radio. He and Charlie were seen at a New York party by Elsa Maxwell for Noël Coward, who recommended them for an engagement at the famous Rainbow Room. It was there that two producers saw Bergen and Charlie perform. They then recommended them for a guest appearance on Rudy Vallée's program. Their initial appearance (December 17, 1936) was so successful that the following year they were given their own show, as part of ''The Chase and Sanborn Hour''. Under various sponsors (and two different networks), they were on the air from May 9, 1937 to July 1, 1956. The popularity of a ventriloquist on radio, when one could see neither the dummies nor his skill, surprised and puzzled many critics, then and now. Even knowing that Bergen provided the voice, listeners perceived Charlie as a genuine person, but only through artwork rather than photos could the character be seen as truly lifelike. Thus, in 1947, Sam Berman caricatured Bergen and McCarthy for the network's glossy promotional book, ''NBC Parade of Stars: As Heard Over Your Favorite NBC Station''.

Bergen's skill as an entertainer, especially his characterization of Charlie, carried the show (many of which have survived). Bergen's success on radio was paralleled in the United Kingdom by Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews (''Educating Archie'').

For the radio program, Bergen developed other characters, notably the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd and the man-hungry Effie Klinker. The star remained Charlie, who was always presented as a highly precocious child (albeit in top hat, cape, and monocle) a debonair, girl-crazy, child-about-town. As a child and a wooden one at that, Charlie could get away with double entendre which were otherwise impossible under broadcast standards of the time.

:Charlie: "May I have a kiss good-bye?" :Dale Evans: "Well, I can't see any harm in that!" :Charlie: "Oh. I wish you could. A harmless kiss doesn't sound very thrilling."

Charlie's feud with W. C. Fields was a regular feature of the show.

:W.C. Fields: "Well, Charlie McCarthy, the woodpecker's pinup boy!"

:Charlie: "Well, if it isn't W.C. Fields, the man who keeps Seagram's in business!"

:W.C. Fields: "I love children. I can remember when, with my own little unsteady legs, I toddled from room to room." :Charlie: "When was that? Last night?"

:W.C. Fields: "Quiet, Wormwood, or I'll whittle you into a venetian blind." :Charlie: "Ooh, that makes me shutter!"

:W.C. Fields: "Tell me, Charles, is it true that your father was a gate-leg table?" :Charlie: "If it is, your father was under it."

:W.C. Fields: "Why, you stunted spruce, I'll throw a japanese beetle on you." :Charlie: "Why, you bar-fly you, I'll stick a wick in your mouth, and use you for an alcohol lamp!"

:Charlie: "Pink elephants take aspirin to get rid of W. C. Fields."

:W.C. Fields: "Step out of the sun Charles. You may come unglued." :Charlie: "Mind if I stand in the shade of your Nose?"

Bergen was not the most technically skilled ventriloquist Charlie McCarthy frequently twitted him for moving his lips but Bergen's sense of comedic timing was superb, and he handled Charlie's snappy dialogue with aplomb. Bergen's wit in creating McCarthy's striking personality and that of his other characters was the making of the show. Bergen's popularity as a ventriloquist on radio, where the trick of "throwing his voice" was not visible, suggests his appeal was primarily the personality he applied to his characters.

Bergen and McCarthy are sometimes credited with "saving the world" because, on the night of October 30, 1938, when Orson Welles performed his ''War of the Worlds'' radio play hoax that panicked many listeners, most of the American public had instead tuned in to Bergen and McCarthy on another station and never heard Welles' play. Conversely, it has also been theorized that Bergen inadvertently contributed to the hysteria. When the musical portion of Bergen's show, ''The Chase and Sanborn Hour'', aired approximately 12 minutes into the show, many listeners switched stations and found the ''War of the Worlds'' presentation already underway with a realistic sounding reporter detailing terrible events.

Ray Noble was the musical director and composer and teenage singer Anita Gordon provided the songs on his show. Gordon was said to have been discovered by Charlie, who had a crush on her.

''The Charlie McCarthy Show''

In 1949, Bergen went to CBS, with a new weekly program, ''The Charlie McCarthy Show'', sponsored by Coca-Cola.

Comic strip

In addition to his work as a ventriloquist, Bergen was also an actor and comic strip creator. He established the syndicated comic strip ''Mortimer & Charlie'', which ran in newspapers from July 1939 to May 1940, illustrated first by Ben Batsford and then by Carl Buettner. Chase Craig is also believed to have had an uncredited role in the creation of the strip. The comic strip's writer was uncredited, but some of the gags certainly were lifted from the hit radio show.

Films

As an actor, Bergen portrayed the shy Norwegian suitor in ''I Remember Mama'' (1948). He also appeared in ''Captain China'' (1949) and ''Don't Make Waves'' (1965). Bergen and his alter-ego McCarthy appeared together with top billing in several films, including the Technicolor extravaganza ''The Goldwyn Follies'' (1938), opposite the Ritz Brothers. That year they also appeared in ''You Can't Cheat an Honest Man'' with W. C. Fields. At the height of their popularity in 1938, Bergen was presented an Honorary Oscar (in the form of a wooden Oscar statuette) for his creation of Charlie McCarthy.

Other film roles for the team include ''Look Who's Laughing'' (1941) and ''Here We Go Again'' (1942), both with Fibber McGee and Molly. Later, Bergen and McCarthy were featured in ''Fun and Fancy Free'' (1947) and much later in ''The Muppet Movie'' (1979). Bergen died shortly after completing his scenes in the latter film, marking it as his final public appearance. The film was subsequently dedicated to him.

Although his regular series never made the transition to television, Bergen made numerous appearances on the medium during his career. In a filmed Thanksgiving special, billed as his TV debut, sponsored by Coca-Cola on CBS in 1950, the new character Podine Puffington was introduced. This saucy Southern belle was as tall as a real woman, in contrast to Bergen's other sit-on-the-knee sized characters. Bergen also hosted the television game show ''Do You Trust Your Wife?'' in 1956-'57, later succeeded, in a daytime edition, by Johnny Carson. Bergen appeared in the Christmas 1957 episode of NBC's ''The Gisele MacKenzie Show''. In 1958 Bergen apppeared with his 12 year old daughter Candice on an episode of ''You Bet Your Life'' starring Groucho Marx. In 1959, he appeared in the second episode entitled "Dossier" of the NBC espionage series ''Five Fingers'' starring David Hedison. On May 21, 1959, he guest starred with Charlie McCarthy on NBC's ''The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford.''

Bergen continued to appear regularly on television during the 1960s. He guest starred as Charlie in the 1960 episode "Moment of Fear" of CBS's ''The DuPont Show with June Allyson''. He did a stint as one of the ''What's My Line?'' mystery guests on the popular Sunday night CBS series. His colleague Paul Winchell happened to be a panel member during that episode. He also appeared on the NBC interview program ''Here's Hollywood''.

Bergen appeared as Grandpa Walton in the original Waltons movie, ''The Homecoming: A Christmas Story'' (1971). The part was played by Will Geer in the subsequent series. Throughout the run of ''The Waltons''—which took place in the late 1930s through the 1940s—the voices of Bergen and Charlie McCarthy were sporadically heard from the Walton family's radio, as family members regularly tuned in for that program.

Family

In 1941, Bergen met Frances Westerman after a radio program when he was 39 and she was 19. Westerman, who had graduated from Los Angeles High School the year before, was in the audience of Bergen's radio program as the guest of a member of his staff. Sitting in the front row, the young fashion model's legs caught Bergen's attention and he asked to meet her. The two were married in Mexico after years of long distance courtship, on June 28, 1945. On May 9, 1946 Frances gave birth to the future actress Candice Bergen, whose first performances were on Bergen's radio show. They were also the parents of film and television editor Kris Bergen, born October 12, 1961. Edgar and Frances were together until his death in 1978 at age 75

On September 30, 1978, Bergen died in his sleep of kidney disease in Las Vegas, Nevada, at age 75. Bergen died at Caesar's Palace Hotel, just three days after opening, Wednesday September 27, at Caesar's for a two-week engagement that was to be part of his farewell to show business. It was in mid-September that he had announced that he was retiring after 56 years in show business and sending his monocled, top-hatted partner to the Smithsonian Institution.

Today, the iconic wooden Charlie McCarthy rests in Washington D.C.'s Smithsonian Institution. Bergen was interred with his parents (who are buried under their true surname of 'Berggren'), in Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California. Edgar Bergen's wife of 33 years, Frances Westerman Bergen, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, on October 2, 2006, aged 84, from undisclosed causes. She is also buried in Inglewood Cemetery. In 1990, Bergen was elected to the Radio Hall of Fame, the same year that ''The Charlie McCarthy Show'' was selected as an honored program. A message in the closing credits dedicates ''The Muppet Movie'' (which featured Edgar and Charlie in their last screen appearance) to the memory and magic of Edgar. In 1991, the United States Postal Service honored him with a 29-cent commemorative stamp.

References

Further reading

Bergen, Candice. ''Knock Wood''.

Grams, Jr., Martin. "''The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show'': An Episode Guide and Brief History"

Strickler, Dave. ''Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index.'' Cambria, California: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1

Funni, Arthur. Thesis: ''The Radio Years of Bergen and McCarthy''. Margaret Herrick Library, 2000.

Listen to

Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy's first show for The Chase And Sanborn Hour 1937-05-09 (01) Guest: Ann Harding, with a new introduction.

Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy 1942-05-03 Guest: Judy Garland

External links

Ventriloquists in Old Time Radio

Knock On Wood: An Insider's View of Belly Speaking

Category:1903 births Category:1978 deaths Category:1930s American radio programs Category:1940s American radio programs Category:1950s American radio programs Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients Category:American film actors Category:American people of Swedish descent Category:American radio actors Category:Burials at Inglewood Park Cemetery Category:Deaths from renal failure Category:Peabody Award winners Category:National Radio Hall of Fame inductees Category:People from Van Buren County, Michigan Category:Vaudeville performers Category:Ventriloquists Category:Ventriloquists' dummies

de:Edgar Bergen es:Edgar Bergen eo:Edgar Bergen fr:Edgar Bergen ru:Берген, Эдгар sh:Edgar Bergen fi:Edgar Bergen sv:Edgar Bergen

Official name	Bergen
Settlement type	City
Pushpin map	Norway
Image shield	Bergen komm.svg
Dot map caption	Location of Bergen in Norway
Coordinates region	NO
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name	Norway
Subdivision type1	Municipality
Subdivision name1	Bergen
Subdivision type2	County
Subdivision name2	Hordaland
Subdivision type3	District
Subdivision name3	Western Norway
Leader title	Mayor
Leader name	Gunnar Bakke
Established title	Established
Established date	1070
Area total km2	465
Area urban km2	94.03
Area metro km2	2755
Population as of	2011
Population total	00}}

|| , || ) / * 100 round 3}}% || style="font-size: 75%"|Statistics Norway - Population per 1 April 2011 and population changes during 1st quarter of 2011. Hordaland. |population_density_km2 = auto |population_metro = 00}} || , || ) / * 100 round 3}}% || style="font-size: 75%"|Statistics Norway - Population per 1 April 2011 and population changes during 1st quarter of 2011. Hordaland. |population_density_metro_km2 = auto |population_urban = 00}} || , || ) / * 100 round 3}}% || style="font-size: 75%"|Statistics Norway - Minor growth in urban settlements |population_density_urban_km2 = auto | population_demonym = Bergenser | demographics_type1 = Ethnic groups | demographics1_footnotes = | demographics1_title1 = Norwegians | demographics1_info1 = 87.6% | demographics1_title2 = Poles | demographics1_info2 = 1.3% | demographics1_title3 = Iraqis | demographics1_info3 = 0.6% | demographics1_title4 = Vietnamese | demographics1_info4 = 0.4% | demographics1_title5 = Chilean | demographics1_info5 = 0.4% |timezone = CET |utc_offset = +1 |timezone_DST = CEST |utc_offset_DST = +2 |twin1 = Asmara |twin1_country = Eritrea |twin2 = Gothenburg |twin2_country = Sweden |twin3 = Newcastle upon Tyne |twin3_country = United Kingdom |twin4 = Seattle |twin4_country = United States |twin5 = Turku |twin5_country = Finland |twin6 = Aarhus |twin6_country = Denmark |coordinates_display = display=inline,title | latd = 60 | latm = 23 | lats = 22 | latNS=N | longd = 5 | longm = 19 |longs = 48 |longEW=E |postal_code = 0301 |website = http://www.bergen.kommune.no }}

Bergen () is the second largest city in Norway with a population of 00}} as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of 00}} as of , .

Bergen is located in the county of Hordaland on the south-western coast of Norway. It is an important cultural hub in its region, recognized as the unofficial capital of Western Norway and sometimes also referred to as the Atlantic coast capital of Norway. The city was one of nine European cities honoured with the title of European Capital of Culture in the Millennium year.

History

The city of Bergen, traditionally thought to have been founded by king Olav Kyrre, son of Harald Hardråde in 1070 AD, four years after the Viking Age ended. Modern research has, however, discovered that a trading settlement was established already during the 1020s or 1030s. It is considered to have replaced Trondheim as Norway's capital in 1217, and that Oslo became the ''de jure'' capital in 1299. Towards the end of the 13th century, Bergen became one of the Hanseatic League's most important bureau cities.

The main reason for Bergen's importance was the trade with dried cod from the northern Norwegian coast, which started around 1100. By the late 14th century, Bergen had established itself as the centre of the trade in Norway. The Hanseatic merchants lived in their own separate quarter of town, where Middle Saxon was used, enjoying exclusive rights to trade with the northern fishermen that each summer sailed to Bergen. Today, Bergen's old quayside, Bryggen is on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Site.

The city has throughout its history been plagued with numerous great city fires. In 1198, the Bagler-faction set fire on the city in connection with a battle against the Birkebeiner faction during the civil war. In 1248, ''Holmen'' and ''Sverresborg'' burned, and 11 churches were destroyed. In 1413 another fire struck the city, and 14 churches were destroyed. In 1428 the city was plundered by pirates on a mission for the Hanseatic League, the same who was responsible for burning down Munkeliv Abbey in 1455. In 1476, ''Bryggen'' burned down in a fire started by a drunk trader. In 1582, another fire hit the city centre and ''Strandsiden''. In 1675, 105 buildings burned down in ''Øvregaten''. In 1686 a new great fire hit ''Strandsiden'', destroying 231 city blocks and 218 boathouses. The greatest fire to date happened in 1702 when 90 percent of the city was burned to ashes. In 1751, there was a great fire at ''Vågsbunnen''. In 1756, a new fire at ''Strandsiden'' burned down 1,500 buildings, and further great fires hit ''Strandsiden'' in 1771 and 1901. In 1916, 300 buildings burned down in the city centre, and in 1955 parts of ''Bryggen'' burned down.

In 1349, the Black Death was inadvertently brought to Norway by the crew of an English ship arriving in Bergen. In the 15th century, the city was several times attacked by the Victual Brothers, and in 1429 they succeeded in burning the royal castle and much of the city. In 1536, the King of the country was able to force the Saxon merchants to become Norwegian citizens, or else to return home, heralding a decline in the Saxon influence. In 1665, the city's harbour was the site of the Battle of Vågen, between English ships on the one side and Dutch ships supported by the city's garrison on the other.

Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, Bergen remained one of the largest cities in Scandinavia, and was Norway's biggest city until the 1830s, when the capital city of Oslo became the largest. Bergen retained its monopoly of trade with Northern Norway until 1789.

During World War II, Bergen was occupied on the first day of the German invasion on 9 April 1940, after a brief fight between German ships and the Norwegian coastal artillery. On 20 April 1944, during the German occupation, the Dutch cargo ship ''Voorbode'' anchored off the Bergenhus Fortress, loaded with over 120 tons of explosives, blew up, killing at least 150 people and damaging historic buildings. The city was subject to some Allied bombing raids, aiming at German naval installations in the harbour. Some of these caused Norwegian civilian casualties numbering about 100.

Bergen was separated from Hordaland as a county of its own in 1831. It was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The rural municipality of Bergen landdistrikt was merged with Bergen on 1 January 1877. The rural municipality of Årstad was merged with Bergen on 1 July 1915. The rural municipalities of Arna, Fana, Laksevåg, and Åsane were merged with Bergen on 1 January 1972. The city lost its status as a separate county on the same date. Bergen is now a municipality in Norway, in the county of Hordaland.

In 1972, Bergen was unified with the neighbouring municipalities, of Arna, Fana, Laksevåg, and Åsane, abolishing its county status and setting its present boundaries.

Toponymy

The Old Norse forms of the name were ''Bergvin'' and ''Bjørgvin'' (and in Icelandic and Faroese the city is still called ''Björgvin''). The first element is ''berg'' (n) or ''bjørg'' (f), which translates to ''mountain''. The last element is ''vin'' (f), which means a new settlement where there used to be a pasture or meadow. The full meaning is then 'the meadow among the mountains'. A suitable name: Bergen is often called 'the city among the seven mountains'. It was the playwright Ludvig Holberg who felt so inspired by the seven hills of Rome, that he decided that his home town must be blessed with a corresponding seven mountains - and locals still argue which seven they are.

In 1918, there was a campaign to reintroduce the Norse form ''Bjørgvin'' as the name of the city. This was turned down - but as a compromise the name of the diocese was changed to ''Bjørgvin bispedømme''.

Geography

Bergen municipality occupies the majority of the Bergen peninsula in mid-western Hordaland. It is sheltered from the North Sea by the islands Askøy, Holsnøy (the municipality of Meland) and Sotra (the municipalities of Fjell and Sund).

The municipality covers an area of 465 km². The population is 256,580 making the population density 551 people per km². The population of the main urban area is 220,418. The municipality also contains eight minor urban settlements with a total population of 17,213, with Indre Arna, situated in the borough Arna, being the largest with a population of 6,151 as of 1 January 2007.

Bergen's city centre is situated among a group of mountains known collectively as ''de syv fjell'' (the seven mountains), including the mountains Ulriken, Fløyen, Løvstakken and Damsgårdsfjellet, as well as three of the following: Lyderhorn, Sandviksfjellet, Blåmanen, Rundemanen, and Askøyfjellet. The first to name them "the seven mountains" might have been Ludvig Holberg, inspired by the seven hills of Rome. These seven mountains are, however, only a few of the mountains located within the borders of the Bergen municipality. Gullfjellet is the highest mountain in Bergen, at 987 metres above sea level.

Bergen borders the municipalities Meland, Lindås and Osterøy to the north, Vaksdal and Samnanger to the east, Os and Austevoll to the south, and Sund, Fjell and Askøy to the west.

Climate

Bergen features a temperate oceanic climate with relatively mild winters and cool summers. Despite being so far north, Bergen's weather is relatively mild. In the winter, Bergen is one of the warmest cities in Norway, thanks to the Gulf Stream. The city is located further north than Saint Petersburg, yet winters are much warmer in Bergen than St. Petersburg.

Bergen experiences plentiful rainfall, with annual precipitation measuring on average. This is because the city is surrounded by mountains that cause moist North Atlantic air to undergo orographic lift, which yields abundant rainfall. Rain fell every day between 29 October 2006 and 21 January 2007, 85 consecutive days. In Bergen, precipitation is plentiful and heavy rain can happen at any time of the year. The highest temperature ever recorded was 31.8 °C, a record that dates back to 1947. The lowest ever recorded is −16.3 °C, in 1987.

The high precipitation is often used in the marketing of the city, and figures to a degree on postcards sold in the city. For some time there were umbrella vending machines in the city, but these did not turn out to be a success.

Climate change

In recent years, precipitation and winds have increased in the city. In late 2005, heavy rains caused floods and several landslides, the worst of which killed three people on 14 September. Some indications are that due to climate change, severe storms causing landslides and floods will become more powerful in the area and in surrounding counties in coming years. As a response, the municipality created a special 24-man rescue unit within the fire department in 2005, to respond to future slides and other natural disasters, and neighbourhoods considered at risk of slides were surveyed in 2006. As of October 2007, the prediction has been supported by over 480 landslides in Hordaland county from the spring of 2006 to the summer of 2007. Most of the slides hit roads however none of them caused damage to cars, buildings, or people, until October 2007, when a large rock dislodged and killed the driver of a car. Another concern is the risk of rising sea levels. Already today, Bryggen is regularly flooded at extreme tide, and it is feared that as sea levels rise, floods will become a major problem in Bergen. Floods may in the future reach the old fire station in Olav Kyrres Gate, as well as the railroad tracks leading out of the city. It has therefore been suggested by among others Stiftelsen Bryggen, the foundation responsible for preserving the UNESCO site, that a sea wall, built so that it could be raised and lowered as demanded by the tides, be built outside the harbour to protect the city.

Another effect of recent years' weather conditions in the area is that Norwegians increasingly believe that climate change is a threat.

Demographics

Ethnic Norwegians make up 88.8% of Bergen's residents. Of these, 2.1% were first or second generation immigrants with Western backgrounds and 6.6% were first or second generation immigrants with non-Western backgrounds. The population growth with 4,549 persons in 2009, which is a growth rate of 1,8%. 96% of the population live in urban areas. As of 2002, the average gross income for men above the age of 17 is 426,000 NOK, the average gross income for women above the age of 17 is 238,000 NOK, with the total average gross income being 330,000 NOK. In 2007, there were 104.6 men for every 100 women in the age group of 20-39. 22.8% of the population were under 17 years of age, while 4.5% were 80 and above.

Religion

Registered in Bergen for 2010 are more than 7,300 Catholics (up from 408 in 1951), 4,947 members of Protestant Free churches, 2,707 Muslims, 816 Hindus, 255 (up from 175 in 2009) Russian Orthodox and 147 (up from 98 in 2009) Oriental Orthodox. The Church of Norway made up the majority of the population and there are also many other Protestant Free Churches. There is one Catholic Church and one Mosque. There is no Orthodox Church in Bergen, but one is planned because the Orthodox community is on of the fastest growing religious communities in Bergen. The Holy Epiphany Parish of Russian Orthodox Church has been active in the city since 2004. Whereas more than 7.3% and 42,516 are Muslims in Oslo, the figures are just 1.0% and 2,533 in Bergen (actual numbers are likely higher). Bergen has a relatively low percentage of Muslims, in relation to many European cities, for example London and Malmö with 8.5% and 20.6% Muslims respectively.

style="text-align:right;" style="text-align:right;" style="text-align:right;" style="text-align:right;" style="text-align:right;" style="text-align:right;" style="text-align:right;"

style="background:#efefef;"	Religion	Members	Percent
Church of Norway	201,006	79.74%
Non-Religious	>style="text-align:right;"| 13.55%
Saint Paul Catholic Church, Bergen	Saint Paul Catholic Church	>style="text-align:right;"| 2.84%
Protestantism	Protestant Free churches	>style="text-align:right;"| 1.92%
Islam	>style="text-align:right;"| 1.05%
Hinduism	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.31%
Russian Orthodox Christianity	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.09%
Oriental Orthodox Christianity	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.05%

! Year	! 1876	! 1951	! 1976	! 2004	! 2008
	20	408	1,112	4,044	7,300
Percent	0.0%	0.3%	0.5%	1.7%	2.9%

! Year	! 2006	! 2010
Muslims in Bergen	1,892	2,707
Percent	0.7%	1.0%

Churches

The churches of the Established Church (the Church of Norway) in Bergen are St Olav's Cathedral Church (Bergen Domkirken, or Cathedral), St Mary's Church (Mariakirken, currently closed for renovation), St John's Church (Johanneskirken), Holy Trinity Church (Nykirken, or New Church), Holy Cross Church (Korskirken), and St George's Church (Jurgenkirken, chapel of the leper hospital), together with the Nonneseter Abbey Chapel. There are also small churches of various other minority denominations, plus St Paul's Roman Catholic Church.

Immigration

style="background:#efefef;"	Countries	Population
Total	260,392
EU/EEA, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand	241,390
Asia, Africa, Latin America, Oceania except Australia and New Zealand, and Europe except the European Union	EU/EEA	19,002

The immigrant population (those with two foreign born parents) in Bergen, includes 23,682 individuals with backgrounds from 164 countries representing 9.56% of the city's population (2008). Of these, 40.8% have background from Europe, 36.0% from Asia, 12.4% from Africa, 7.8% from Latin America, 2.5% from North America and 0.5% from Oceania. The immigrant population in Bergen in the period 1993–2008 increased by 119.7%, while the ethnic Norwegian population has grown by 8.1% during the same period. The national average is 138.0% and 4.2%. The immigrant population has thus accounted for 43.6% of Bergen's population growth and 60.8% of Norway's population growth during the period 1993–2008, compared with 84.5% in Oslo.

The immigrant population in Bergen has changed a lot since 1970. As of 1 January 1986, there were 2,870 persons with non-Western immigrant background in Bergen. In 2006, this figure had increased to 14,630, so the non-Western immigrant population in Bergen was five times higher than in 1986. This is a slightly slower growth than the national average, which has sextupled during the same period. Also in relation to the total population in Bergen, the proportion of non-Western increased significantly. In 1986, the proportion of the total population in the municipality of non-Western background was 3.6%. In January 2006, persons with non-Western immigrant background accounted for 6 percent of the population in Bergen. The share of Western immigrants has remained stable at around 2% in the period. The number of Poles in Bergen rose from 697 in 2006 to 3,128 in 2010.

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style="background:#efefef;"	Country of origin	Population (2001)	Percent of total population (2001)
Total	230,948	100.0%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 93.5%
Immigrants	14,795	>style="text-align:right;"| 6.4%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.4%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.4%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.3%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.3%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.3%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.1%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.1%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.1%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.1%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.1%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.1%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.1%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.0%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.0%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.0%
Other countries	>style="text-align:right;"| 1.7%
style="background:#efefef;">Country of origin	Population (2011)	Percent of total population (2011)
Total	260,392	100.0%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 87.6%
Immigrants	32,038	>style="text-align:right;"| 12.3%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 1.3%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.6%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.4%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.4%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.4%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.4%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.4%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.4%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.3%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.3%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.3%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.2%
	>style="text-align:right;"| 0.1%
Other countries	>style="text-align:right;"| 4.2%

History of the Jews in Bergen

The first Jewish family settled in Bergen in 1857, but just about 150 of around 2,000 Jews in Norway settled in Bergen between 1851 and 1945. A congregation was established. Herschel Rabinowitz, the brother to Moritz Rabinowitz said in 1936 that "Bergen would never have a significant Jewish population". Eight years later, he was arrested and murdered in Auschwitz. The Jewish congregation in Bergen was removed after the Holocaust in Norway. In all, 20 Jews from Bergen were deported to Auschwitz and killed by the winter of 1942–1943. Ten of them lived in the Møhlenpris area, including the 29-year-old store employee Harry Hirsch Scheer. Each year, held the torch from Møhlenpris school on 26 November, the date for the deportation with D/S Donau.

Urban areas

According to Statistics Norway there are nine urban areas in the municipality. The largest, Bergen urban area, covers or just 20% of the municipality. The population density is 2,422 p/km².

Population as of 1 January 2009:

Bergen urban area – 227,752

Indre Arna – 6,296

Fanahammeren – 3,613

Ytre Arna – 2,522

Hylkje – 2,195

Espeland – 2,049

Nordvik – 431

Krokeidet – 337

Flesland – 335

Cityscape

The city centre of Bergen is located west in the municipality, facing the fjord of Byfjorden. It is situated among a group of mountains known as the Seven Mountains, although the number is a matter of definition. From here, the urban area of Bergen extends to the north, west and south, and to its east is a large mountain massif. Outside of the city centre and the surrounding neighbourhoods (i.e. Årstad, inner Laksevåg and Sandviken), the majority of the population lives in relatively sparsely populated residential areas that have been built since the 1950s. While some are dominated by apartment buildings and modern terraced houses (e.g. Fyllingsdalen), others are dominated by single-family homes.

The oldest part of Bergen is the area around the bay of Vågen in the city centre. Originally centred on the eastern side of the bay, Bergen eventually expanded west and southwards. Few buildings from the oldest period remain, the most significant being St Mary's Church from the 12th century. For several hundred years, the extent of the city remained almost constant. The population was stagnant, and the city limits were narrow. In 1702, 7/8 of the city burned. Most of the old buildings of Bergen, including Bryggen (which was rebuilt in a medieval style), were built after the fire. The fire marked a transition from tar covered houses, as well as the remaining log houses, to painted and some brick-covered wooden buildings. The last half of the 19th century was a period of rapid expansion and modernisation of the city. The fire of 1855 west of Torgallmenningen led to the development of regularly sized city blocks in this area of the city centre. The city limits were expanded in 1876, and Nygård, Møhlenpris and Sandviken were urbanised with large-scale construction of city blocks housing both the poor and the wealthy. Their architecture is influenced by a variety of styles; historicism, classicism and Art Nouveau. The wealthy built villas between Møhlenpris and Nygård, and on the side of Fløyen, had also been added to Bergen in 1876. Simultaneously, an urbanisation process was taking place in Solheimsviken in Årstad, at the time outside of Bergen municipality, centred around the large industrial activity in the area. The workers' homes in this area were poorly built, and little remains after large-scale redevelopment in the 1960s-1980s. After Årstad became a part of Bergen in 1916, a development plan was applied to the new area. Few city blocks akin to those in Nygård and Møhlenpris were planned. Many of the worker class built their own homes, and many small, detached apartment buildings were built. After World War II, Bergen had again run short on land to build on, and, contrary to the original plans, many large apartment buildings were built in Landås in the 1950s and 1960s. Bergen acquired Fyllingsdalen from Fana municipality in 1955. Like similar areas in Oslo (e.g. Lambertseter), Fyllingsdalen was developed into a modern suburb with large apartment buildings, mid-rises, and some single-family homes, in the 1960s and 1970s. Similar developments took place outside of Bergen's city limits, for example in Loddefjord.

At the same time as planned city expansion took place inside Bergen, its extra-municipal suburbs too grew rapidly. Wealthy citizens of Bergen had been living in Fana since the 19th century, but as the city expanded it became more convenient to settle in the municipality. Similar processes took place in Åsane and Laksevåg. Most of the homes in these areas are detached row houses, single family homes or small apartment buildings. Since the surrounding municipalities were merged with Bergen in 1972, expansion has continued in largely the same manner, although the municipality encourages condensing near commercial centres, future Bergen Light Rail stations, and elsewhere.

As part of the modernisation wave of the 1950s and 1960s, and due to damages caused by World War II, the city government ambitiously developed redevelopment plans for many areas in central Bergen. The plans involved demolition of several neighbourhoods of wooden houses, namely Nordnes, Marken, and Stølen. None of the plans were carried out in their original form, the Marken and Stølen redevelopment plans discarded entirely and that of Nordnes only carried out in the area that had been most damaged by war. The city council of Bergen had in 1964 voted to demolish the enterity of Marken, however, the decision proved to be strongly controversial and the decision was reversed in 1974. Bryggen was under threat of being wholly or partly demolished after the fire of 1955, when a large number of the buildings burned to the ground. Instead of being demolished, the remaining buildings were eventually restored and accompanied by reconstructions of some of the burned buildings. Demolition of old buildings and occasionally whole city blocks is still taking place, the most recent major example being the razing of Jonsvollskvartalet at Nøstet.

Administration

Post	Mayor
Body	The City of Bergen
Insignia	Bergen komm.svg
Insigniasize	130px
Insigniacaption	Seal of the City of Bergen
Incumbent	Gunnar Bakke
Incumbentsince	October 2007
Appointer	Herman Friele
Termlength	2 years
Formation	17th century
Succession	Currently unknown
Website	}}

Since 2000, the city of Bergen is governed by a city government (''byråd'') based on the principle of parliamentarism. The government consists of 6 government members called commissioners, and is appointed by the city council, the supreme authority of the city. Since the local elections of 2007, the city has been ruled by a right-wing coalition of the Progress Party, the Christian Democratic Party and the Conservative Party, each with two commissioners. The Progress Party member Gunnar Bakke is mayor, while conservative Monica Mæland is the leader of the city government, the most powerful political position in Bergen.

2007 elections

colspan="2"	Bergen city council 2007–2011
	18 (0)
Norwegian Labour Party	Labour Party	16 (+1)
Progress Party (Norway)	Progress Party	14 (+2)
Socialist Left Party (Norway)	Socialist Left Party	5 (–3)
Christian Democratic Party (Norway)	Christian Democratic Party	4 (0)
Liberal Party (Norway)	Liberal Party	4 (+2)
Red Electoral Alliance	3 (–1)
Centre Party (Norway)	Centre Party	2 (+1)
Pensioners' Party (Norway)	Pensioners' Party	1 (–2)
Total	67

The 2007 city council elections were held on 10 September. The Socialist Left Party (SV) and the Pensioners Party (PP) ended up as the losers of the election, SV going from 11.6% of the votes in the 2003 elections to 7.1%, and PP losing 2.9% ending up at 1.2%. The Liberal Party more than doubled, going from 2.7% to 5.8%. The Conservative Party lost 1.1% of the votes, ending up at 26.3%, while the Progress Party got 20.2% of the votes, a gain of 3% since the 2003 elections. The Christian Democratic Party gained 0.2%, ending up at 6.3%. The Red Electoral Alliance lost 1.4%, ending up at 4.5%, while the Centre Party gained 1.2%, ending up at 2.8%. Finally, the Labour Party continued being the second largest party in the city, gaining 1% and ending up at 23.9%.

Boroughs

Bergen is divided into 8 boroughs, as seen on the map to the left. Going clockwise, starting north, the boroughs are Åsane, Arna, Fana, Ytrebygda, Fyllingsdalen, Laksevåg, Årstad and Bergenhus. The city centre is located in Bergenhus. Parts of Fana (= the fens), Ytrebygda, Åsane (= the hills) and Arna are not part of the Bergen urban area, explaining why the municipality has approximately 20,000 more inhabitants than the urban area. The separate borough administrations were closed 30 June 2004, but were re-established 1 January 2008.

!Borough	!Population	!%	!Area (km2)	!%	!Density(/km2)
style="text-align:left;"	12,546	4.9	102.44	22.0	126
	37,851	14.8	26.58	5.7	4.336
	37,821	14.8	159.70	34.3	251
	28,760	11.2	18.84	4.0	1.638
	38,033	14.8	32.72	7.0	1.261
	25,326	9.9	39.61	8.5	655
style="text-align:left;"	36,667	14.3	14.78	3.2	4.329
	39,186	15.3	71.01	15.2	569
	410
	256,600	100	465.68	100	576

The following acreage figures in the table include fresh water and uninhabited mountain areas. ¹ 1 The borough Bergenhus is ², the rest is water and uninhabited mountain areas. ² 2 The borough Årstad is ², the rest is water and uninhabited mountain areas.

Education

Higher education

Bergen has one university, the University of Bergen, and one university college, Bergen University College, with a total of 22,000 students and 3,600 staff. With approximately 16,000 students and 3,000 staff, the University of Bergen () is the third largest university in Norway, after the University of Oslo and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Although it was founded as late as 1946, academic activity had been taking place at Bergen Museum since 1825. The university's academic profile focuses on marine research and co-operation with developing countries. In 2002, the university was awarded three national centres of excellence in climate research, petroleum research and medieval studies. In December 2004, billionaire Trond Mohn donated 250 million NOK to the University as research funding. In addition, he has given the university several individual gifts of 50 million NOK.

Bergen University College (Norwegian: ''Høgskolen i Bergen'') is one of 24 state-owned university colleges in Norway. As of 2007, it has approximately 6,000 students and 600 staff. The university college offers studies directed towards specific professions. The college is organised in 3 faculties: the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Engineering, and the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences. The Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (Norwegian: ''Norges Handelshøyskole'') is a leading school of business and economics in Norway. Finn E. Kydland, the most recent (2004) of three Norwegian laureates of the Economy Nobel Prize, has studied and lectured at the school. The school has approximately 2,700 students and 350 staff. As the result of a resolution passed by the Norwegian Storting in 1917, the school was founded in 1936 as the first business school in Norway. As of 2007, the school's MSc programme is ranked by the Financial Times as the 36th best in Europe.

The Bergen School of Architecture (''Bergen Arkitekt Skole''), founded in 1986 by architect Svein Hatløy, has alternative programs, with graduates like ''3RW arkitekter'' and Tommie Wilhemsen.

The Bergen National Academy of the Arts (''Kunsthøgskolen i Bergen'', approximately 300 students and 100 staff) is one of the two independent institutions of higher learning in the visual arts and design in Norway. Students can take a three-year Bachelor degree and a two-year Master degree in the following areas: Visual Art, Interior Architecture, Furniture Design, Room Design, Visual Communications, Photography, Printmaking, Ceramics and Textiles.

The Naval Academy (''Sjøkrigsskolen'') of the Royal Norwegian Navy is located at Laksevåg in Bergen.

Primary and secondary education

There are 64 elementary schools, 18 lower secondary schools and 20 upper secondary schools in Bergen, as well as 11 combined elementary/lower secondary schools.

Bergen Katedralskole () is believed to have been founded in 1153 by Pope Adrian IV (then known as ''Nicholas Breakspear''), thus making it Bergen's oldest school and one of the oldest schools in Norway. The school moved to its present location in 1840, and the old building was left mostly unused until the School Museum of Bergen moved into the building in 2003. Since 1972, the school is a regular upper secondary school (similar to a high school in the United States and the United Kingdom).

In 2006, Bergen Handelsgymnasium, an upper secondary school in Bergen, was chosen as a finalist in the The Holberg Prize School Project.

Research

The University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hospital are by far the largest research institutions in Bergen.

The Chr. Michelsen Institute (''Christian Michelsens Institutt''), founded in 1930, is located in Bergen. With an annual turnover of 56 million NOK, it is one of Scandinavia's largest independent research institutes on human rights and development issues. The aim of CMI is to inform and influence policy on international development issues.

The Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (Norwegian: ''Havforskningsinstituttet''), formerly known as ''Norwegian Fisheries Investigations'' (Norwegian: ''Norske Fiskeriundersøgelser'') has been located in Bergen since 1900. The primary responsibility of the institute is to provide advice to national authorities, society and industry regarding questions related to the ecosystems of the Barents Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea and the Norwegian coastal zone and in the field of aquaculture. The institute has a staff of 700, making it the largest marine research institution in Norway.

UNIFOB AS is a non-profit research organisation affiliated with the University of Bergen. Unifob conducts research and associated activities across all the scientific fields covered by the university departments, including Petroleum, Health, Computational Science, Marine Molecular Biology.

Economy

Bergen's inter-municipal harbour is by far Norway's largest port and one of Europe's largest ports, according to the inter-municipal company Port of Bergen.

In August 2004, ''Time'' magazine named the city one of Europe's 14 "secret capitals" where Bergen's capital reign is acknowledged within maritime businesses and activities such as aquaculture and marine research, with the Institute of Marine Research (IMR) (the second-largest in Europe) as the leading institution. Bergen is the main base for the Royal Norwegian Navy (at Haakonsvern) and its international airport Flesland is the main heliport for the huge Norwegian North Sea oil and gas industry, from where thousands of offshore workers commute to their work places onboard oil and gas rigs and platforms.

The headquarters of TV 2 Norway's largest commercial television channel are located in Bergen.

One of Norway's largest shopping malls, Lagunen Storsenter, is located in Fana in Bergen, with a turnover of 2 540 million Norwegian kroner, and 5.2 million visitors every year.

Tourism is an important income source for the city. The hotels in the city may be full at times, due to the increasing number of tourists and conferences. Prior to the Rolling Stones concert in September 2006, many hotels were already fully-booked several months in advance. Bergen is recognised as the unofficial capital of the region known as Western Norway, and recognised and marketed as the gateway city to the world famous fjords of Norway and for that reason it has become Norway's largest - and one of Europe's largest - cruise ship ports of call.

Transportation

Bergen has an international airport, Bergen Airport, Flesland, with direct flights to several European cities. The Bergensbanen railway line runs east to Voss, Geilo, Hønefoss and Oslo. The E39 road passes through the city, connecting to Trondheim and Stavanger. The E16 road to Oslo passes through the Lærdalstunnelen, the longest road tunnel in the world. Bergen was the first city in Northern Europe to introduce a ring of toll roads entirely surrounding the city, making entering the city centre by car impossible without paying the toll. The toll road system, established to fund new roads and motorways, opened 2 January 1986.thumb|left|''MS Midnatsol'' of The Coastal Express, Hurtigruten The toll was collected by both toll plazas and an electronic toll collection system. In the early 2000s, the electronic toll collection system AutoPASS was introduced, replacing both the remaining toll plazas and the existing but dated electronic toll collection system.

Public transportation is provided by the transportation company Tide, the result of a merger between ''Gaia'' and ''HSD''. Among the fleet of buses are 8 trolleybuses (two of which are dual-mode buses). Local train transport to Arna is provided by Norges Statsbaner. There is a funicular (Fløibanen) and an aerial tramway (Ulriksbanen). The city's tram system was closed in 1965, although a museum line still operates on Møhlenpris. The first stage of a modern light rail system was opened 22 June 2010, and connects the city centre with Nesttun. Express buses go to all larger destinations in Norway.

The Norwegian coastal steamer service Hurtigruten originates in Bergen, running north to Trondheim, Bodø, Tromsø and Kirkenes. Passenger catamarans run from Bergen south to Haugesund and Stavanger, and north to Sognefjorden and Nordfjord. Car ferries connect to Hanstholm and Hirtshals in Denmark. The ferries to Lerwick, Scrabster, Tórshavn on the Faroe Islands, and Seyðisfjörður in Iceland are not operative anymore. The service from Newcastle in the United Kingdom, once provided by such ships as the ''Leda'', was cancelled after 1 September 2008.

Culture and sports

Bergen is an important cultural centre in its region and in Norway, maybe best known for hosting the annual Bergen International Festival (''Festspillene i Bergen''). The city is home to the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, which was founded in 1765 and is one of the world's oldest orchestral institutions. The orchestra performs regularly at the 1,500 seat Grieg Hall. The city is also home of the Bergen Woodwind Quintet, which is made up primarily of principal winds of the Bergen Philharmonic. Bergen was a European Capital of Culture in 2000. Other main cultural events include ''Borealis'', ''Nattjazz'', ''Lost Weekend Festivalen'' and ''Bergenfest'' (formerly ''Ole Blues''). There are numerous amateur bands in Bergen and the surrounding communities performing regularly throughout the city. They generally fall within two distinct categories: brass bands, following the British band tradition, and ''Janitsjar'' or wind bands, which include both woodwind and brass instruments. Both of these types of bands tend to be quite competitive, and the Grieg Hall in Bergen is home to the annual Norwegian Brass Band Championships, which takes place in late winter.

A third category, perhaps unique to Bergen, are the ''Buekorps'', a prominent feature in the Constitution Day celebrations in the city. ''Buekorps'' parade in the streets with wooden sticks shaped as guns or crossbows, sabres and even halberds, to a military snare sounded by several drummers. The performers are usually boys between 7 and 21 years of age, but older veterans can be seen. In recent times there are buekorps for girls and for both girls and boys as well. Buekorps are regarded with warmth by some, whilst others dislike them due to their militarised appearance or the dominant sound of the drumming.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s several pop, rock and black metal artists from Bergen became famous, at home as well as abroad. Many of these were connected to the small record label ''Tellé Records''. In the domestic press this became known as the Bergen Wave.

Bergen has a small but thriving scene for contemporary art, most notably centred around BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen Kunsthall, United Sardines Factory (USF) and Bergen Center for Electronic Arts (BEK).

With circulations of 87,076 and 30,719 in 2006, ''Bergens Tidende'' and ''Bergensavisen'' are the two largest newspapers in Bergen. ''Bergens Tidende'' has won three European Newspaper Awards, in 2006 for ''best designed regional newspaper'', in 2004 for ''best designed weekly newspaper'', and in 2002 for ''best designed regional newspaper''. The city is also the home of several smaller newspapers and publications, including ''Fanaposten'' (circulation of 4,062), a local newspaper for Fana, Bygdanytt in Arna, and the Christian newspaper Dagen (circulation of 8,936).

Football

Bergen has two professional football teams, Brann and Løv-Ham. Brann plays in Tippeligaen, Norway's top football division, while Løv-Ham plays in the first division. Despite Løv-Ham playing in the 2nd highest level in Norwegian football, Brann is the only club to draw any considerable interest from the public. The first Løv-Ham supporter group, Selskapsløvene () was created as recently as December 2005. Brann play their matches at Brann Stadion, with a capacity of 17,824 as of June 2007, while Løv-Ham played their matches at Krohnsminde kunstgressbane until 2008, with a capacity of 3000, but an attendance record of 1051 in the league. They now play their games at Varden Amfi in Fyllingsdalen.

Although Brann is one of the largest teams in Norway, the team has had limited success in the Premier League and the cup. They have won the cup six times, most recently in 2004. Brann won the Premier League in 1961/62 and then in 1963. The 1963 title was directly followed by the relegation of the team into the Second Division (today known as ''Adeccoligaen'', the second highest level of Norwegian football). The team has won several silver and bronze medals since, but did not win the league again until the 2007 season.

Dialect

''Bergensk'', or the ''Bergen dialect'', is the dialect of Norwegian spoken in Bergen. It is easy for Norwegians to recognise, as it is very easily distinguished from the other dialects in Hordaland. Like almost all Norwegian dialects, Bergensk cannot be said to be either Bokmål or Nynorsk. While the vocabulary shows many traits of both Bokmål and Nynorsk, it has many characteristics that are not covered by either of the two official written languages.

Foreigners, such as the Low German speaking merchants of the Hanseatic League who lived in Bergen in the period from about 1350 to 1750, have had a profound impact on the dialect. Bergen being the major Norwegian city during the Dano-Norwegian union from 1536 to 1814 led to Bergensk absorbing more of the Danish than other Norwegian dialects. Many, but not all, influences from these languages since spread from Bergen to parts of or the whole of Norway.

The female grammatical gender disappeared from Bergensk in the 16th century, probably as a result of influences from Danish, making the city's dialect one of the very few in Norway with only two grammatical genders. All others, excepting sociolects in other Norwegian cities, have three. The ''R''s are uvular trills, as in French, which probably spread to Bergen (and Kristiansand) some time in the 18th century, overtaking the alveolar trill in the time span of 2 to 3 generations. Owing to an improved literacy rate, Bergensk was influenced by riksmål and bokmål in the 19th and 20th centuries. This led to large parts of the German-inspired vocabulary disappearing and pronunciations shifting slightly towards East Norwegian.

Notable residents

International relations

Each year Bergen donates the Christmas Tree seen in Newcastle's Haymarket as a sign of the ongoing friendship between the sister cities. The Nordic friendship cities of Bergen, Gothenburg, Turku and Aarhus arranges inter Nordic camp schools each year by inviting school classes, 10 grade level from each of the other cities on school camps. Bergen received a totem pole as a gift of friendship from the city of Seattle on the city's 900 anniversary in 1970. It is now placed in the Nordnes park and gazes out over the sea towards the friendship city far to the west.

Sister Cities

Asmara, Eritrea Gothenburg, Sweden Lübeck, Germany (since 1996 - Friendship Treaty) Málaga, Spain Newcastle, United Kingdom (since 1968) Quebec, Canada Rostock, Germany (since 1965) Seattle, United States(since 1967) Turku, Finland (since 1946) Aarhus, Denmark

References

Notes

External links

Municipality website in Norwegian and English

Bergen Guide

Category:Cities and towns in Norway Category:Populated coastal places in Norway Category:1070 establishments Category:Populated places established in the 11th century Category:Port cities and towns in Norway Category:Port cities and towns of the North Sea Category:Viking Age populated places Category:European Capitals of Culture Category:Folk museums

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name	Candice Bergen
birth name	Candice Patricia Bergen
birth date	May 09, 1946
birth place	Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
occupation	Actress, fashion model
years active	1965–present
spouse	}}

| website = }}

Candice Patricia Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is an American actress and former fashion model.

She is known for starring in two TV series, as the title character on the situation comedy ''Murphy Brown'' (1988–1998), for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama ''Boston Legal'' (2004–2008), for which she was nominated for two Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She starred in several major films throughout the mid 1960s to early 1980s such as ''The Sand Pebbles'', ''Carnal Knowledge'', ''The Wind and the Lion'', and ''Gandhi'' and received an Academy Award nomination for her role in ''Starting Over''. Her later career includes character roles in ''Miss Congeniality'' and ''Sweet Home Alabama''.

Early life

Bergen was born in Beverly Hills, California. Her mother, Frances Bergen (née Westerman), was a Powers model who was known professionally as Frances Westcott. Her father, Edgar Bergen, was a ventriloquist, comedian, and actor. Her paternal grandparents were Swedish-born immigrants who anglicized their surname, which was originally Berggren. As a child, Bergen was irritated at being referred to as Charlie McCarthy's little sister, Charlie McCarthy being her father's star dummy.

Career

Bergen began appearing on her father's radio program at a young age, and in 1958, at age eleven, with her father on Groucho Marx's quiz show ''You Bet Your Life'' as Candy Bergen. She said that when she grew up she wanted to design clothes.

Bergen made her screen debut playing an aloof university student in ''The Group'' (1966), which delicately touched on the then-forbidden subject of lesbianism. Her second film in 1966 was ''The Sand Pebbles'', in which she played Shirley Eckert, an assistant school teacher and missionary opposite Steve McQueen. The film was nominated for several Academy Awards. After starring in the French film ''Live for Life'' (1967) and ''The Magus'' (1968) with Michael Caine and Anthony Quinn, she was featured in a 1970 political satire, ''The Adventurers'', playing a frustrated socialite who has a lesbian affair. In 1975 she starred with Sean Connery in ''The Wind and the Lion'', as a headstrong American widow kidnapped in Morocco in 1904 along with her two young children.

Despite initial rocky reviews, she appeared in such films as Mike Nichols' provocative ''Carnal Knowledge'' (1971) and the Burt Reynolds romantic comedy ''Starting Over'' (1979), for which she received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for best supporting actress.

Bergen had roles in Western films including ''The Hunting Party'' and ''Bite the Bullet'', both of which starred Gene Hackman. She was the love interest of Ryan O'Neal in the ''Love Story'' sequel, ''Oliver's Story'', and portrayed a best-selling author in ''Rich and Famous'' (1981) with Jacqueline Bisset.

Bergen has written articles, a play, and a memoir, ''Knock Wood'' (1984). She has also studied photography and worked as a photojournalist. Considered one of Hollywood's most beautiful women, Bergen worked as a fashion model before she took up acting.

Turning to television and given a chance to show her little-seen comic talent, ''Murphy Brown'', Bergen played a tough television reporter. Primarily a conventional sit-com, the show did tackle important issues: TV star Murphy Brown, a recovering alcoholic, became a single mother and later battled breast cancer. In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle criticized prime-time TV for showing the Murphy Brown character "mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice." His remarks became comedic fodder, and were written into the show as if he were talking about the Murphy Brown character, who was depicted watching Quayle's speech. A subsequent episode explored the subject of family values within a diverse set of families. The Brown character arranges for a truckload of potatoes to be dumped in front of Quayle's residence, an allusion to an infamous incident in which Quayle erroneously directed a school child to spell the word "potato" as "potatoe". In reality, Bergen agreed with at least some of Quayle's observations, saying that while the particular remark was "an arrogant and uninformed posture", as a whole, it was "a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did." Bergen's run on ''Murphy Brown'' was extremely successful: between 1989 and 1995 she was nominated for an Emmy Award seven times and won five. After her fifth win, she declined future nominations for the role. Throughout the same time frame as ''Murphy Brown'', Bergen also appeared as the main spokesperson for a Sprint telephone ad campaign, known to many in the ads as the "Dime Lady", for advertising Sprint's 10 cents a minute rate.

After playing the role of the successful journalist, Bergen was offered a chance to work as a real-life one. After the run of ''Murphy Brown'' ended in 1998, CBS approached her to cover stories for ''60 Minutes'', an offer she declined, with the conviction that she didn't personally want to blur the lines between actor and journalist at the time.

After ''Murphy Brown'', Bergen hosted ''Exhale with Candice Bergen'' on the Oxygen network. She also appeared in character roles in films, most notably ''Miss Congeniality'' (2000) as a former beauty queen who rivals Sandra Bullock; and as the mayor of New York who disapproves of her son marrying Reese Witherspoon in ''Sweet Home Alabama'' (2002). She also appeared in the comedies ''View from the Top'' with Gwyneth Paltrow and ''The In-Laws'' with Michael Douglas, both released in 2003.

In January 2005, Bergen joined the cast of the television series ''Boston Legal'' as Shirley Schmidt, a founding partner in the law firm of Crane, Poole & Schmidt. She played the role for five seasons. In 2006 and 2008, she received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

A frequent host on NBC's ''Saturday Night Live'', she was the first woman to host the show and the first host to do a second show. Bergen guest-starred on ''The Muppet Show'' in its first year, appearing in several skits, an episode now available in a DVD collection. She was also featured in a long-running "Dime Lady" ad campaign for the Sprint phone company.

She has also made guest appearances on many other TV shows, including ''Seinfeld'' (as herself playing Murphy Brown), ''Law & Order'', ''Family Guy'', ''Will & Grace'' (playing herself), and ''Sex and the City'', where she played Enid Frick, Carrie Bradshaw's editor at ''Vogue''. More recently she appeared in the 2009 movie ''Bride Wars'' as Marion St. Claire, New York's most sought-after wedding planner, who also serves as the narrator of the story.

Since its launch in 2008, Candice Bergen has been a contributor for wowOwow.com, a website for women to talk culture, politics and gossip.

Bergen has an occasional role on ''House'' as Lisa Cuddy's mother, starting in Season 7, including the 2011 episodes "Larger Than Life" and "Family Practice".

In 2010, she appeared in an one-night only concert semi staged reading of ''Evening Primrose'' by Stephen Sondheim.

Personal life

Candice Bergen attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she was elected both Homecoming Queen and Miss University, but acknowledges that her failure to take her education seriously resulted in her being asked to leave.

During the 1960s, Bergen and then-boyfriend Terry Melcher, the son of Doris Day, lived at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles, which was later occupied by Sharon Tate and her husband, Roman Polanski. Tate and four others were murdered in the home in 1969 by followers of Charles Manson. There was some initial speculation that Melcher may have been the intended victim.

A political activist, Bergen accepted a date with Henry Kissinger. During her activist days she participated in a Yippie prank when she, Abbie Hoffman, and others threw dollar bills onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 1967, leading to its temporary shut-down. In 1972, she served as a fundraiser and organizer for George McGovern's presidential campaign.

On September 27, 1980, she married French film director Louis Malle (Bergen herself has traveled extensively and speaks French fluently). They had one child, a daughter named Chloe, in 1985. The couple were married until Malle's death from cancer on Thanksgiving Day in 1995.

Since June 15, 2000, she has been married to New York real estate magnate and philanthropist Marshall Rose.

Awards won

Emmy Awards:

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for: ''Murphy Brown'' (1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995) 5 wins

Golden Globe Awards:

Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series – Comedy/Musical for: ''Murphy Brown'' (1989, 1992) 2 wins

Filmography

+ List of feature film credits
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1966	''''	Lakey
1966	''''	Shirley Eckert
1967	''''	Electra Brown
1967	''Vivre pour vivre''	Candice	aka ''Live for Life'' (US)
1968	''''	Lily
1970	''''	Sue Ann Daley
1970	''Getting Straight''	Jan
1970	''Soldier Blue''	Kathy Maribel Lee, 'Cresta'
1971		Susan
1971	''''	Melissa Ruger
1971	''T.R. Baskin''	T. R. Baskin	aka ''A Date with a Lonely Girl'' (UK)
1974	''11 Harrowhouse''	Maren Shirell
1975	''''	Eden Pedecaris
1975		Miss Jones
1977	''''	Ellie Tucker	aka ''The Domino Killings'' (UK)
1978	''''	Lizzy
1978	''Oliver's Story''	Marcie Bonwit
1979		Jessica Potter
1981		Merry Noel Blake
1982		Margaret Bourke-White
1984		SAL 9000	voice only (credited as Olga Mallsnerd)
1985		Kyle McClaren
2000		Kathy Morningside
2002		Mayor Kate Hennings
2003	''View from the Top''	Sally Weston
2003	''''	Judy Tobias
2008		Enid Frick
2008	''''	Catherine Frazier
2009	''Bride Wars''	Marion St. Claire
2010	''''	Augusta

Short subject

''Unusual Occupations: Film Tot Holiday'' (1947)

''Flash 02'' (1967)

''The Lion Roars Again'' (1975)

Documentary

''Wedding of the Doll'' (1968)

''Frames from the Edge'' (1989)

''Belly Talkers'' (1996)

''Who Is Henry Jaglom?'' (1997)

Television

''Coronet Blue'' (1 episode, 1967)

''The Kraft Music Hall'' (1 episode, 1969)

''Saturday Night Live'' (1975)

''The Muppet Show'' (1976)

''Arthur the King'' (1985) (aka ''Merlin & the Sword'') .... Morgan le Fay

''Murder: By Reason of Insanity'' (1985)

''Hollywood Wives'' (1985) (miniseries)

''Mayflower Madam'' (1987)

''Trying Times'' (1 episode, 1987)

''Murphy Brown'' (247 episodes, 1988–1998) (also executive producer)

''Seinfeld'' (1 episode, 1992)

''Understanding Sex'' (1994) .... Narrator

''Understanding'' (2 episodes, 1995) .... Narrator

''Mary & Tim'' (1996) (also co-executive producer)

''Ink'' (1 episode, 1997)

''Family Guy'' (2 episodes, 2000) as Gloria Ironbox

''Footsteps'' (2003)

''Sex and the City'' (3 episodes, 2004) as Vogue editor Enid Frick

''Law & Order'' (1 episode, 2004) .... Judge Amanda Anderlee

''Will & Grace'' (2004) as herself

''Law & Order: Trial by Jury'' (3 episodes, 2005) .... Judge Amanda Anderlee

''Boston Legal'' (78 episodes, cast member from 2005–2008)

''House'' (3 episodes, 2011)

References

External links

Candice Bergen at wowOwow

Category:American female models Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Actors from California Category:American people of German descent Category:Emmy Award winners Category:American people of Swedish descent Category:1946 births Category:Living people

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name	Orson Welles
birth date	May 06, 1915
birth place
death date	October 10, 1985
death place
death cause	Heart attack
alma mater	Todd School for Boys
occupation	Actor, director, writer, producer, voice actor
years active	1931–85
spouse	Virginia Nicholson (1934–40)Rita Hayworth (1943–48)Paola Mori (1955–85)
height	6'1"
partner	Dolores del Río (1938–41)Oja Kodar (1966–85)
parents	Richard Hodgdon Head Welles,Beatrice Ives
awards	1941 Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for ''Citizen Kane'' 1970 Academy Honorary Award
influences	John Ford, William Shakespeare, Fritz Lang, Joseph Conrad
influenced	Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, John Carpenter, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese }}

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 October 10, 1985), best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the twentieth century, especially for his significant and influential early work—despite his notoriously contentious relationship with Hollywood. His distinctive directorial style featured layered, nonlinear narrative forms, innovative uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unique camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots, and long takes. Welles's long career in film is noted for his struggle for artistic control in the face of pressure from studios. Many of his films were heavily edited and others left unreleased. He has been praised as a major creative force and as "the ultimate auteur."

After directing a number of high-profile theatrical productions in his early twenties, including an innovative adaptation of ''Macbeth'' and ''The Cradle Will Rock'', Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel ''The War of the Worlds'' performed for the radio drama anthology series ''Mercury Theatre on the Air''. It was reported to have caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was occurring. Although these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to instant notoriety.

''Citizen Kane'' (1941), his first film with RKO, in which he starred in the role of Charles Foster Kane, is often considered the greatest film ever made. Several of his other films, including ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' (1942), ''The Lady from Shanghai'' (1947), ''Touch of Evil'' (1958), ''Chimes at Midnight'' (1965), and ''F for Fake'' (1974), are also widely considered to be masterpieces.

In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two separate British Film Institute polls among directors and critics, and a wide survey of critical consensus, best-of lists, and historical retrospectives calls him the most acclaimed director of all time. Well known for his baritone voice, Welles was also an extremely well regarded actor and was voted number 16 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the greatest American film actors of all time. He was also a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor and an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety shows in the war years.

Early life

Welles was born May 6, 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, son of Richard Hodgdon Head Welles (1873, Missouri – December 28, 1930, Chicago, Illinois) and Beatrice Ives (1882 or 1883, Springfield, Illinois – May 10, 1924, Chicago, Illinois). His family was raised Roman Catholic. Despite his parents' affluence, Welles encountered many hardships in childhood. In 1919, his parents separated and moved to Chicago. His father, who had made a fortune as the inventor of a popular bicycle lamp, became an alcoholic and stopped working. Welles's mother, a concert pianist, played during lectures by Dudley Crafts Watson at the Chicago Art Institute to support her son and herself (the oldest Welles boy, "Dickie", had been institutionalized at an early age because he had learning difficulties). Beatrice died of jaundice in 1924 in a Chicago hospital a few days after Welles's ninth birthday. After his mother's death, Welles ceased pursuing his interest in music. He was taken in by Dudley Crafts Watson and lived with the family at Watson's family home, "Trillium Dell", on Marshman Avenue in Highland Park, Illinois. At the age of ten, Orson with Watson's third daughter, Marjorie (of the same age), ran away from home. They were found a week later, singing and dancing for money on a street corner in Milwaukee. His father died when Orson was 15 during the summer after Orson's graduation from Todd School for Boys, an independent school in Woodstock, Illinois. Maurice Bernstein, a physician from Chicago, became his guardian.

At Todd School, Welles came under the influence of Roger Hill, a teacher who later became Todd's headmaster. Hill provided Welles with an ''ad hoc'' educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged his first theatrical experiments and productions there. Following graduation from Todd, Welles was awarded a scholarship to Harvard University. Rather than enrolling, he chose to travel. Later, he briefly studied for a time at the Art Institute of Chicago. He returned a number of times to Woodstock to direct his alma mater's student productions.

Early career (1931–1934)

After his father's death, Welles traveled to Europe with the aid of a small inheritance. Welles later reported that while on a walking and painting trip through Ireland, he strode into the Gate Theatre in Dublin and claimed he was a Broadway star. The manager of Gate, Hilton Edwards, later said he didn't believe him but was impressed by his brashness and some impassioned quality in his audition. Welles made his stage debut at the Gate in 1931, appearing in ''Jew Suss'' as the Duke. He acted to great acclaim, which reached the United States. He performed smaller supporting roles as well. On returning to the United States he found his fame ephemeral and turned to a writing project at Todd School that would become the immensely successful ''Everybody's Shakespeare'' and subsequently, ''The Mercury Shakespeare''. Welles traveled to North Africa while working on thousands of illustrations for the ''Everybody's Shakespeare'' series of educational books, a series that remained in print for decades.

An introduction by Thornton Wilder led Welles to the New York stage. In 1933, he toured in three off-Broadway productions with Katharine Cornell's company, including two roles in ''Romeo and Juliet''. Restless and impatient when the planned Broadway opening of ''Romeo and Juliet'' was canceled, Welles staged a drama festival of his own with the Todd School, inviting Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards from Dublin's Gate Theatre to appear, along with New York stage luminaries. It was a roaring success. The subsequent revival of Cornell's ''Romeo and Juliet'' brought Welles to the notice of John Houseman, who was casting for an unusual lead actor for the lead role in the Federal Theatre Project.

By 1935 Welles was supplementing his earnings in the theater as a radio actor in Manhattan, working with many of the actors who would later form the core of his Mercury Theatre. He married Chicago actress Virginia Nicholson in 1934 and that year he shot an eight-minute silent short film, ''The Hearts of Age'' with her. The couple had one daughter, Christopher. She made her only film appearance in 1948, taking the role of Macduff's son in Welles's film ''Macbeth'' and later became known as Chris Welles Feder, an author of educational materials for children.

Theatre and radio (1936–1940)

Federal Theatre Project

''Macbeth''

In 1936, the Federal Theatre Project (part of Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration) put unemployed theater performers and employees to work. Welles was hired by John Houseman and assigned to direct a play for the Federal Theatre Project's Negro Theater Unit. He offered them ''Macbeth'', in a production that became known as the ''Voodoo Macbeth'', because Welles set it in the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe, with voodoo witch doctors for the three Weird Sisters. Jack Carter played Macbeth. The incidental music was composed by Virgil Thomson. The play was received rapturously and later toured the nation. When the lead actor, Maurice Ellis, fell ill on tour, Welles quickly boarded an airplane to fly to the location and stepped into the part playing the role in blackface. At the age of twenty, Welles was hailed as a prodigy. A few minutes of the Welles production of Macbeth was recorded on film in a 1937 documentary called ''We Work Again''.

Collaboration with Aaron Copland

The young actor/director was chosen by the American composer Aaron Copland in 1937 to direct what is one of Copland's least known works, the opera ''The Second Hurricane'' composed for high school students of The Henry Street Settlement Music School in New York. Among the few adult performers in the production was actor Joseph Cotten, Welles's longtime friend and collaborator, who was paid $10 for his performance.

''The Cradle Will Rock''

After the success of ''Macbeth'', Welles mounted the absurd farce ''Horse Eats Hat'', an adaptation by Welles and Edwin Denby of Eugène Labiche's play, ''Un Chapeau de Paille d'Italie''. He consolidated his "White Hope" reputation with ''Dr. Faustus'', which used light as a prime unifying scenic element in a nearly blacked-out stage.

In 1937, he rehearsed Marc Blitzstein's highly political operetta, ''The Cradle Will Rock''. Because of severe federal cutbacks in the Works Progress projects, the show's premiere at the Maxine Elliott Theatre was canceled. The theater was locked and guarded to prevent any of the government-purchased materials being used for a commercial production of the work. In a last-minute move, Welles announced to waiting ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to the Venice, about twenty blocks away. Some cast, as well as some crew and audience, walked the distance on foot. The union musicians refused to perform in a commercial theater for lower non-union government wages. The actors' union stated that the production belonged to the Federal Theater Project and could not be performed outside that context without permission. Lacking the participation of the union members, ''The Cradle Will Rock'' began with Blitzstein introducing the show and playing the piano accompaniment on stage with some cast members performing their parts from the audience. This impromptu performance was well received by its audience. It afterward played at the Venice for two weeks in the same informal way.

Mercury Theatre

Resigning from the Federal Theatre, Welles and Houseman formed the Mercury Theatre, of which Welles became executive producer and whose repertory company eventually included actors such as Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Río, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Frank Readick, Everett Sloane, Eustace Wyatt and Erskine Sanford, all of whom would continue to work for Welles for years. The first Mercury Theatre production was a melodramatic and heavily edited version of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Julius Caesar,'' set in a contemporary frame of fascist Italy. Cinna the Poet dies at the hands not of a mob but of a secret police force. According to Norman Lloyd, who played Cinna the Poet, "it stopped the show." The applause lasted more than ten minutes and the production was widely acclaimed.

In the second year of the Mercury Theater, Welles shifted his interests to radio as an actor, director and producer. He played Hamlet for CBS on The Columbia Workshop, while adapting and directing the play. In July 1937, the Mutual Network gave him a seven-week series to adapt ''Les Misérables,'' which he did with great success. That September, Mutual chose Welles to play Lamont Cranston, aka ''The Shadow,'' anonymously and in the summer of 1938 CBS gave him (and the Mercury Theatre) a weekly hour-long show to broadcast radio plays based on classic literary works. The show was titled ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air,'' with original music by Bernard Herrmann, who would continue working with Welles on radio and in films for years.

''The War of the Worlds'' broadcast

Their October 30, 1938 radio adaptation of ''The War of the Worlds'' by H. G. Wells brought Welles instant fame. The combination of the news bulletin form of the performance with the between-breaks dial spinning habits of listeners from the rival and far more popular ''Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy program,'' was later reported in the media to have created widespread confusion among listeners who failed to hear the introduction, although the extent of this confusion has recently come into question. Panic was reported to have spread (after citation from rumors) among many listeners who believed the news reports of a Martian invasion. The myth of the result created by the combination was reported as fact around the world and disparagingly mentioned by Adolf Hitler in a public speech a few months later. The 1970s "docu-drama" ''The Night That Panicked America'' was based on events centering around the production of, and events that resulted from, the program.

Welles's growing fame soon drew Hollywood offers, lures which the independent-minded Welles resisted at first. ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air,'' which had been a "sustaining show" (without sponsorship) was picked up by Campbell Soup and renamed ''The Campbell Playhouse.''

On October 28, 1940, Welles met H.G. Wells in San Antonio, Texas; a local radio station KTSA recorded the conversation, which was likely the only meeting between the two.

Hollywood (1939–1948)

RKO Radio Pictures president George Schaefer eventually offered Welles what generally is considered the greatest contract ever offered to an untried director: complete artistic control. RKO signed Welles in a two-picture deal; including script, cast, crew, and most importantly, final cut, although Welles had a budget limit for his projects. With this contract in hand, Welles (and nearly the entire Mercury Theatre troupe) moved to Hollywood. He commuted weekly to New York to maintain his commitment to ''The Campbell Playhouse''.

Welles toyed with various ideas for his first project for RKO Radio Pictures, settling on an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'', which he worked on in great detail. He planned to film the action with a subjective camera (a technique later used in the Robert Montgomery film ''Lady in the Lake''). When a budget was drawn up, RKO's enthusiasm cooled because it was greater than the previously agreed limit. RKO also declined to approve another Welles project, ''The Smiler With the Knife'', based on the Cecil Day-Lewis novel, ostensibly because RKO executives lacked faith in Lucille Ball's ability to carry the film as the leading lady.

In a sign of things to come, Welles left ''The Campbell Playhouse'' in 1940 due to creative differences with the sponsor. The show continued without him, produced by John Houseman. In perhaps another sign of things to come, Welles's first experience on a Hollywood film was narrator for RKO's 1940 production of ''The Swiss Family Robinson''.

''Citizen Kane''

Production

RKO, having rejected Welles's first two movie proposals, agreed on the third offer, ''Citizen Kane,'' for which Welles co-wrote, produced, directed, and performed the lead role.

Welles found a suitable film project in an idea he conceived with screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, (who was then writing radio plays for ''The Campbell Playhouse''). Initially entitled ''The American'', it eventually became Welles's first feature film (also his most famous and honored role), ''Citizen Kane'' (1941).

Mankiewicz based his original notion on an ''exposé'' of the life of William Randolph Hearst, whom he knew socially but came to hate, having once been great friends with Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. Mankiewicz had been banished from her company because of his perpetual drunkenness. Mankiewicz, a notorious gossip, exacted revenge with his unflattering depiction of Davies in ''Citizen Kane'' for which Welles bore most of the criticisms. Welles also had a connection with Davies through his first wife.

Kane's megalomania was modeled loosely on Robert McCormick, Howard Hughes, and Joseph Pulitzer as Welles wanted to create a broad, complex character, intending to show him in the same scenes from several points of view. The use of multiple narrative perspectives in Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'' influenced the treatment.

Supplying Mankiewicz with 300 pages of notes, Welles urged him to write the first draft of a screenplay under John Houseman, who was posted to ensure Mankiewicz stayed sober. On Welles's instruction, Houseman wrote the opening narration as a pastiche of ''The March of Time'' newsreels. Orson Welles explained to Peter Bogdanovich about the writers working separately by saying, "I left him on his own finally, because we'd started to waste too much time haggling. So, after mutual agreements on storyline and character, Mank went off with Houseman and did his version, while I stayed in Hollywood and wrote mine." Taking these drafts, Welles drastically condensed and rearranged them, then added scenes of his own. The industry accused Welles of underplaying Mankiewicz's contribution to the script, but Welles countered the attacks by saying, "At the end, naturally, I was the one making the picture, after all—who had to make the decisions. I used what I wanted of Mank's and, rightly or wrongly, kept what I liked of my own."

Charles Foster Kane is based loosely on parts of Hearst's life. Nonetheless, autobiographical allusions to Welles were worked in, most noticeably in the treatment of Kane's childhood and particularly, regarding his guardianship. Welles then added features from other famous American lives to create a general and mysterious personality, rather than the narrow journalistic portrait intended by Mankiewicz, whose first drafts included scandalous claims about the death of the film director Thomas Ince.

Once the script was completed, Welles attracted some of Hollywood's best technicians, including cinematographer Gregg Toland, who walked into Welles's office and announced he wanted to work on the picture. Welles later described Toland as "the fastest cameraman who ever lived." For the cast, Welles primarily used actors from his Mercury Theatre. He invited suggestions from everyone but only if they were directed through him. Filming ''Citizen Kane'' took ten weeks.

Reaction

Mankiewicz handed a copy of the final shooting script to his friend, Charles Lederer, husband of Welles's ex-wife, Virginia Nicholson, as well as the nephew of Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper saw a small ad in a newspaper for a preview screening of ''Citizen Kane'' and went. Hopper, realizing immediately that the film was based on features of Hearst's life, reported this back to him and he threatened to give "Hollywood, Private Lives" if that was what it wanted. Thus began the struggle over the attempted suppression of ''Citizen Kane''.

Hearst's media outlets boycotted the film. They exerted enormous pressure on the Hollywood film community by threatening to expose fifteen years of suppressed scandals and the fact that most of the studio bosses were Jewish. At one point, the heads of the major studios jointly offered RKO the cost of the film in exchange for the negative and all existing prints, fully intending to burn them. RKO declined and the film was given a limited release. Hearst intimidated theater chains by threatening to ban advertising for any of their other films in any of his papers if they showed ''Citizen Kane''.

The film was well-received critically, with Bosley Crowther, film critic for the ''New York Times'' calling it "close to being the most sensational film ever made in Hollywood". By the time it reached the general public, though, the publicity had waned. It garnered nine Academy Award nominations (Orson nominated as a producer, director, writer, and actor), but won only for Best Original Screenplay, shared by Mankiewicz and Welles. Although it was largely ignored at the Academy Awards, ''Citizen Kane'' now is hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. Andrew Sarris called it "the work that influenced the cinema more profoundly than any American film since ''The Birth of a Nation''."

The delay in its release and its uneven distribution contributed to its average result at the box office, making back its budget and marketing, but RKO lost any chance of a major profit. The fact that ''Citizen Kane'' ignored many Hollywood conventions also meant that the film confused and angered the 1940s cinema public. Exhibitor response was scathing; most theater owners complained bitterly about the adverse audience reaction and the many walkouts. Only a few saw fit to acknowledge Welles's artistic technique. RKO shelved the film and did not re-release it until 1956.

During the 1950s, the film came to be seen by young French film critics such as François Truffaut as exemplifying the "auteur theory", in which the director is the "author" of a film. Truffaut, Godard and others inspired by Welles's example made their own films, giving birth to the Nouvelle Vague. In the 1960s ''Citizen Kane'' became popular on college campuses as a film-study exercise and as an entertainment subject. Its frequent revivals on television, home video, and DVD have enhanced its "classic" status and ultimately it recouped its costs. The film still is considered by most film critics and historians to be one of the greatest motion pictures in cinema history.

''The Magnificent Ambersons''

Welles's second film for RKO was ''The Magnificent Ambersons'', adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Booth Tarkington. George Schaefer hoped to make money with this film, since he lost money with ''Citizen Kane''. ''Ambersons'' already had been adapted for ''The Campbell Playhouse'' by Welles for the stage, and he then wrote the screen adaptation. Toland was not available, so Stanley Cortez was named cinematographer. The meticulous Cortez, however, was slow and the film lagged behind schedule and over budget. Prior to production, Welles's contract was renegotiated, revoking his right to control the final cut.

At RKO's request, simultaneously, Welles worked on an adaptation of Eric Ambler's spy thriller, ''Journey into Fear'', which he co-wrote with Joseph Cotten. In addition to acting in the film, Welles was also producer. Direction was credited solely to Norman Foster. Welles later stated that they were in such a rush that the director of each scene was determined by whoever was closest to the camera.

CBS then offered Welles a new radio series called ''The Orson Welles Show''. It was a half-hour variety show of short stories, comedy skits, poetry, and musical numbers. Joining the original Mercury Theatre cast for the show, was Cliff Edwards, the voice of Jiminy Cricket, "on loan from Walt Disney". The variety format was unpopular with listeners and Welles soon was forced to limit the content of the show simply to telling a one half-hour story for the entirety of each episode.

''It's All True''

To further complicate matters during the production of ''Ambersons'' and ''Journey into Fear'', Welles was approached by Nelson Rockefeller and Jock Whitney to produce a documentary film about South America. This was at the behest of the federal government's Good Neighbor policy, a wartime propaganda effort designed to prevent Latin America from allying with the Axis powers. Welles saw his involvement as a form of national service, since his physical condition excused him from direct military service.

Expected to film the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Welles rushed to finish the editing on ''Ambersons'' and his acting scenes in ''Journey into Fear''. Ending his CBS radio show, he lashed together a rough cut of ''Ambersons'' with Robert Wise, who had edited ''Citizen Kane'', and left for Brazil. Wise was to join him in Rio to complete the film, but never arrived. A provisional final cut arranged via phone call, telegram, and shortwave radio was previewed without Welles's approval in Pomona in a double bill, to a mostly negative audience response, particularly to the character of Aunt Fanny played by Agnes Moorehead. Whereas Schaefer argued that Welles be allowed to complete his own version of the film, and that an archival copy be kept with the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, RKO disagreed. With Welles in South America, there was no practical means of having him edit the film.

As a result of the difficult financial circumstances that RKO found itself in across the period 1940–42, major changes occurred at the studio in 1942 Floyd Odlum took over control of RKO and began changing its direction. Rockefeller, the most significant backer of the Brazil project, left the RKO board of directors. Around the same time, the principal sponsor of Welles at RKO, studio president George Schaefer, resigned. The changes throughout RKO caused reevaluations of many projects. RKO took control of ''Ambersons'', formed a committee, which was ordered to edit the film into what the studio considered a commercial format. They removed fifty minutes of Welles's footage, re-shot sequences, rearranged the scene order, and added a happy ending. Koerner released the shortened film on the bottom of a double-bill with the Lupe Vélez comedy, ''Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost''. ''Ambersons'' was an expensive flop for RKO, although it received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Agnes Moorehead.

Welles's South American documentary, entitled ''It's All True'', budgeted at one million dollars with half of its budget coming from the U.S. Government upon completion, grew in ambition and budget while Welles was in South America. While the film originally was to be a documentary on Carnaval, Welles added a new story which recreated the journey of the ''jangadeiros'', four poor fishermen who had made a journey on their open raft to petition Brazilian President Vargas about their working conditions. The four had become national folk heroes; Welles first read of their journey in ''TIME''. Their leader, Jacare, died during a filming mishap. RKO, in limited contact with Welles, attempted to rein in the production. Most of the crew and budget were withdrawn from the film. In addition, the Mercury staff was removed from the studio in the U.S.

Welles requested resources to finish the film. He was given a limited amount of black-and-white stock and a silent camera. He completed the sequence, but RKO refused to support any further production on the film. Surviving footage was released in 1993, including a rough reconstruction of the "Four Men on a Raft" segment. Meanwhile, RKO asserted in public that Welles had gone to Brazil without a screenplay and that he had squandered a million dollars. Their official company slogan for the next year was, "Showmanship in place of Genius" – which was taken as a slight against Welles.

Director for hire (1943–1946)

On returning to Hollywood, Welles found no studios interested in hiring him as a film director after the twin disasters of ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' and ''It's All True''. Welles next worked on radio. CBS offered him two weekly series, ''Hello Americans'', based on the research he'd done in Brazil, and ''Ceiling Unlimited'', sponsored by Lockheed, a wartime salute to advances in aviation. Both featured several members of his original Mercury Theatre troupe. Within a few months, ''Hello Americans'' was canceled and Welles was replaced as host of ''Ceiling Unlimited'' by Joseph Cotten. Welles guest-starred on a great variety of shows, notably guest-hosting Jack Benny shows for a month in 1943. He took an increasingly active role in American and international politics and used journalism to communicate his forceful ideas widely.

In 1943, Welles married Rita Hayworth. They had one child, Rebecca Welles, and divorced five years later in 1948. In between, Welles found work as an actor in other directors' films. He starred in the 1944 film adaptation of ''Jane Eyre'', trading credit as associate producer for top billing over Joan Fontaine. He also had a cameo in the 1944 wartime salute ''Follow the Boys'', in which he performed his ''Mercury Wonder Show'' magic act and "sawed" Marlene Dietrich in half after Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn refused to allow Hayworth to perform.

In 1944, Welles was offered a new radio show, broadcast only in California, ''Orson Welles' Almanac''. It was another half-hour variety show, with Mobil Oil as sponsor. After the success of his stand-in hosting on ''The Jack Benny Show'', the focus was primarily on comedy. His hosting on the Jack Benny show included several self-deprecating jokes and story lines about his being a "genius" and overriding any ideas advanced by other cast members. The trade papers were not eager to accept Welles as a comedian, and Welles often complained on-air about the poor quality of the scripts. When Welles started his ''Mercury Wonder Show'' a few months later, traveling to armed forces camps and performing magic tricks and doing comedy, the radio show was broadcast live from the camps and the material took on a decidedly wartime flavor. Of his original Mercury actors, only Agnes Moorehead remained working with him. The series was cancelled by year's end due to poor ratings.

While he found no studio willing to hire him as a film director, Welles's popularity as an actor continued. Pabst Blue Ribbon gave Welles their radio series ''This Is My Best'' to direct, but after one month he was fired for creative differences. He started writing a political column for the ''New York Post'', again called ''Orson Welles's Almanac''. While the paper wanted Welles to write about Hollywood gossip, Welles explored serious political issues. His activism for world peace took considerable amounts of his time. The ''Post'' column eventually failed in syndication because of contradictory expectations and was dropped by the ''Post''.

Post-war work (1946–1948)

''The Stranger''

In 1946, International Pictures released Welles's film ''The Stranger'', starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and Welles. Sam Spiegel produced the film, which follows the hunt for a Nazi war criminal living under an alias in America. While Anthony Veiller was credited with the screenplay, it had been rewritten by Welles and John Huston. Disputes occurred during the editing process between Spiegel and Welles. The film became a box office success and it helped his standing with the studios.

In the summer of 1946, Welles directed a musical stage version of ''Around the World in Eighty Days'', with a comedic and ironic rewriting of the Jules Verne novel by Welles, incidental music and songs by Cole Porter, and production by Mike Todd, who would later produce the successful film version with David Niven. When Todd pulled out from the lavish and expensive production, Welles alone supported the finances. When he ran out of money at one point, he convinced Columbia president Harry Cohn to send him enough to continue the show, and in exchange, Welles promised to write, produce, direct, and star in a film for Cohn for no further fee. The stage show soon failed, due to poor box-office, with Welles unable to claim the losses on his taxes. The complicated financial arrangements concerning the show, its losses, and Welles's arrangement with Cohn, resulted in a tax dispute with the IRS.

At the same time in 1946 he began two new radio series, ''The Mercury Summer Theatre'' for CBS and ''Orson Welles Commentaries'' for ABC. While ''Summer Theatre'' featured half-hour adaptations of some of the classic Mercury radio shows from the 1930s, the first episode was a condensation of his ''Around the World'' stage play, and remains the only record of Cole Porter's music for the project. Several original Mercury actors returned for the series, as well as Bernard Herrmann. It only was scheduled for the summer months, and Welles invested his earnings into his failing stage play. ''Commentaries'' was a political vehicle for him, continuing the themes from his New York Post column. Again, Welles lacked a clear focus, until the NAACP brought to his attention the case of Isaac Woodard. Welles brought significant attention to Woodard's cause. Soon Welles was being hanged in effigy in the South and theaters refused to show ''The Stranger'' in several southern states.

''The Lady from Shanghai''

The film Welles was obliged to make for Cohn helping him complete ''Around the World in Eighty Days'' ended up being ''The Lady from Shanghai'', filmed in 1947 for Columbia Pictures. Intended to be a modest thriller, the budget skyrocketed after Cohn suggested that Welles's then-estranged second wife Rita Hayworth co-star. Cohn disliked Welles's rough-cut, particularly the confusing plot and lack of close-ups, and was not in sympathy with Welles's Brechtian use of irony and black comedy, especially in a farcical courtroom scene. Cohn ordered extensive editing and re-shoots. After heavy editing by the studio, approximately one hour of Welles's first cut had been removed, including much of a climactic confrontation scene in an amusement park funhouse. While expressing displeasure at the cuts, Welles was appalled particularly at the musical score. The film was considered a disaster in America at the time of release, though the closing shootout in a hall of mirrors has since become one of the touchstones of film noir. Not long after release, Welles and Hayworth finalized their divorce. Although ''The Lady From Shanghai'' was acclaimed in Europe, it was not embraced in the U.S. for several decades. Influential modern critics including David Kehr have subsequently declared it a masterpiece, with Kehr calling it "the weirdest great movie ever made." A similar situation occurred when Welles suggested to Charlie Chaplin that he star in a film directed by Welles based on the life of the French serial killer, Henri Désiré Landru. Instead, Chaplin adapted the idea for his own film, ''Monsieur Verdoux'', with Welles officially credited for the idea.

''Macbeth''

In 1948, Welles convinced Republic Pictures to let him direct a low-budget version of ''Macbeth'', which featured extremely stylized sets and costumes, and a cast of actors lip-syncing to a prerecorded soundtrack, one of many innovative cost-cutting techniques Welles deployed in an attempt to make an epic film from B-movie resources. The script, adapted by Welles, is a violent reworking of the Shakespearean original, freely cutting and pasting lines into new contexts via a collage technique, and recasting ''Macbeth'' as a clash of pagan and proto-Christian ideologies. Some of the voodoo trappings of the famous Welles/Houseman Negro Theatre stage adaptation are also visible, especially in the film's characterization of the Weird Sisters, who create an effigy of Macbeth as a charm to enchant him. Of all Welles's post-''Kane'' Hollywood productions, ''Macbeth'' is closest to ''Citizen Kane'' in its use of long takes and deep focus photography. Shots of the increasingly isolated Scottish king looming in the foreground while other characters address him from deep in the background overtly reference ''Kane''.

Republic initially trumpeted the film as an important work but decided it did not care for the Scottish accents on the soundtrack and held up general release for almost a year after early negative press reaction, which included ''Life'''s comment that Welles's film "doth foully slaughter Shakespeare." Welles left for Europe, while his co-producer and life-long supporter Richard Wilson reworked the soundtrack. Welles ultimately returned and cut twenty minutes from the film at Republic's request and recorded narration to cover the gaps. The film was decried as another disaster. ''Macbeth'' had its share of influential fans in Europe, especially the French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, who hailed the film's "crude, irreverent power" and careful shot design, and described the characters as haunting "the corridors of some dreamlike subway, an abandoned coal mine, and ruined cellars oozing with water." In the late 1970s, a fully restored version of ''Macbeth'' was released that followed Welles's original vision, and all prints of the truncated continuity have gradually been withdrawn from circulation, turning Welles's compulsory recut, which has the distinction of being created by the director himself, into something of a lost work.

Welles in Europe (1948–1956)

Welles left Hollywood for Europe in late 1947, enigmatically saying that he had chosen "freedom." In Italy he starred as Cagliostro in the 1948 film ''Black Magic''. His co-star, Akim Tamiroff, impressed Welles so much that Tamiroff would appear in four of Welles's own productions during the 1950s and 1960s.

''The Third Man''

The following year, Welles starred as Harry Lime in Carol Reed's ''The Third Man'', alongside Joseph Cotten, his good friend and co-star from ''Citizen Kane'', with a script by Graham Greene and a memorable zither score by Anton Karas. The film was an international smash hit, but unfortunately Welles had turned down a percentage of the gross in exchange for a lump-sum advance. A few years later British radio producer Harry Alan Towers would resurrect the Lime character for radio in the series ''The Lives of Harry Lime''. The 1951 series included new recordings by Karas, was very successful, and ran for 52 weeks. Welles claimed to write a handful of episodes—a claim disputed by Towers, who maintains they were written by Ernest Borneman—which later would serve as the basis for the screenplay by Welles, ''Mr. Arkadin'' (1955).

Welles also appeared as Cesare Borgia in the 1949 Italian film ''Prince of Foxes'', with Tyrone Power and Mercury Theatre alumnus Everett Sloane, and as the Mongol warrior Bayan in the 1950 film version of the novel ''The Black Rose'' (again with Tyrone Power).

''Othello''

During this time, Welles was channeling his money from acting jobs into a self-financed film version of Shakespeare's play ''Othello''. From 1949 to 1951, Welles worked on ''Othello'', filming on location in Europe and Morocco. The film featured Welles's old friends, Micheál Mac Liammóir as Iago and Hilton Edwards as Desdemona's father Brabantio. Suzanne Cloutier starred as Desdemona and Campbell Playhouse alumnus Robert Coote appeared as Iago's associate Roderigo.

in the 1952 film ''Othello''.]]

Filming was suspended several times as Welles ran out of funds and left to find other acting jobs, accounted in detail in MacLiammóir's published memoir ''Put Money in Thy Purse''. When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival it won the Palme d'Or, but was not given a general release in the United States until 1955 (by which time Welles had re-cut the first reel and re-dubbed most of the film, removing Cloutier's voice entirely), and it played only in New York and Los Angeles. The American release prints had a technically flawed soundtrack, suffering from a complete drop-out of sound at every quiet moment. It was one of these flawed prints that was restored by Welles's daughter, Beatrice Welles-Smith in 1992 for a wide re-release. The restoration included reconstructing Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's original musical score (which was inaudible) and adding ambient stereo sound effects (which weren't in the original film). The subject of great controversy among film scholars, the restoration went on to a successful theatrical run in America. A print of the U.S. version was released on laser-disc in 1995 and soon withdrawn after a legal challenge by Beatrice Welles-Smith. The original Cannes version has survived, but is not available commercially.

In 1952 Welles continued finding work in England, after the success of the ''Harry Lime'' radio show. Harry Alan Towers offered Welles another series, ''The Black Museum'', with Welles as host and narrator, and this would also run 52 weeks. Director Herbert Wilcox offered him the part of the murdered victim in ''Trent's Last Case'', based on the novel by E. C. Bentley. In 1953 the BBC hired Welles to read an hour of selections from Walt Whitman's epic poem ''Song of Myself''. Towers hired Welles again, to play Professor Moriarty in the radio series, ''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'', starring John Gielgud, and Ralph Richardson.

Late in 1953, Welles returned to America to star in a live CBS ''Omnibus'' television presentation of Shakespeare's ''King Lear''. The cast included MacLiammóir and the British actor, Alan Badel. While Welles received good notices, he was guarded by IRS agents, prohibited to leave his hotel room when not at the studio, prevented from making any purchases, and the entire sum (less expenses) he earned went to his tax bill. Welles returned to England after the broadcast.

In 1954, director George More O'Ferrall offered Welles the title role in the 'Lord Mountdrago' segment of ''Three Cases of Murder'', co-starring Badel. Herbert Wilcox cast him as the antagonist in ''Trouble in the Glen'' opposite Margaret Lockwood, Forrest Tucker, and Victor McLaglen. Old friend John Huston cast him as Father Mapple in his 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's ''Moby-Dick'', starring Gregory Peck.

''Mr. Arkadin''

Welles's next turn as director was the film ''Mr. Arkadin'' (1955), which was produced by his political mentor from the 1940s, Louis Dolivet. It was filmed in France, Germany, Spain and Italy on a very limited budget. Based loosely on several episodes of the Harry Lime radio show, it stars Welles as a billionaire who hires a man to delve into the secrets of his past. The film stars Robert Arden, who had worked on the Harry Lime series; Welles's third wife, Paola Mori, whose voice was dubbed by actress Billie Whitelaw; and guest stars Akim Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave, Katina Paxinou and Mischa Auer. Frustrated by his slow progress in the editing room, producer Dolivet removed Welles from the project and finished the film without him. Eventually five different versions of the film would be released, two in Spanish and three in English. The version that Dolivet completed was retitled ''Confidential Report''. In 2005 Stefan Droessler of the Munich Filmmuseum oversaw a reconstruction of the surviving film elements. Included in a DVD box set (''The Complete Mr. Arkadin'') released by The Criterion Collection, it is considered by Welles scholar and director Peter Bogdanovich to be the best version of Welles's original intentions for the film.

In 1955 Welles also directed two television series for the BBC. The first was ''The Orson Welles Sketchbook'', a series of six 15-minute shows featuring Welles drawing in a sketchbook to illustrate his reminiscences for the camera (including such topics as the filming of ''It's All True'' and the Isaac Woodard case), and the second was ''Around the World with Orson Welles'', a series of six travelogues set in different locations around Europe (such as Venice, the Basque Country between France and Spain, and England). Welles served as host and interviewer, his commentary including documentary facts and his own personal observations (a technique he would continue to explore). A seventh episode of this series, based on the Gaston Dominici case, was suppressed at the time by the French government, but was reconstructed after Welles's death and released to video in 1999.

In 1956 Welles completed ''Portrait of Gina'', posthumously aired on German television under the title ''Viva Italia'', a 30-minute personal essay on Gina Lollobrigida and the general subject of Italian sex symbols. Dissatisfied with the results—Welles recalled he had worked on it a lot and the result looked like it—he left the only print behind at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The film cans would remain in a lost-and-found locker at the hotel for several decades, where they were discovered after Welles's death.

Return to Hollywood (1956–1959)

In 1956, Welles returned to Hollywood, guesting on radio shows (notably as narrator of ''Tomorrow'', a nuclear holocaust drama produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration). He guest starred on television shows, including ''I Love Lucy,'' and began filming a projected pilot for Desilu, owned by Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, who had recently purchased the former RKO studios. The film was ''The Fountain of Youth'', based on a story by John Collier. Originally deemed not viable as a pilot, the film wasn't aired until 1958. It won the Peabody Award for excellence. Welles's next feature film role was in ''Man in the Shadow'' for Universal Pictures in 1957, starring Jeff Chandler. Around this time period, however, Welles began to suffer from weight problems that would eventually cause a deterioration in his health.

''Touch of Evil''

Welles stayed on at Universal to direct (and co-star with) Charlton Heston in the 1958 film ''Touch of Evil'', based on Whit Masterson's novel ''Badge of Evil'' (Welles, who wrote the screenplay for the film, claimed never to have read the book). Originally only hired as an actor, Welles was promoted to director by Universal Studios at the insistence of Charlton Heston. Reuniting many actors and technicians with whom he'd worked in Hollywood in the 1940s (including cameraman Russell Metty (''The Stranger''), make-up artist Maurice Siederman (''Citizen Kane''), and actors Joseph Cotten, Marlene Dietrich, and Akim Tamiroff), filming proceeded smoothly, with Welles finishing on schedule and on budget, and the studio bosses praising the daily rushes. After the end of production, the studio re-edited the film, re-shot scenes, and shot new exposition scenes to clarify the plot. Welles wrote a 58-page memo outlining suggestions and objections. The studio followed a few of the ideas, but cut another 30 minutes from the film and released it. The film was widely praised across Europe, awarded the top prize at the Brussels World's Fair.

In 1978, the long preview version of the film was rediscovered and released. In 1998, editor Walter Murch and producer Rick Schmidlin, consulting the original memo, used a workprint version to attempt to create a version of the film as close as possible to that outlined in the memo. This is at best a compromise that should not be mistaken for Welles's original intent. Welles stated in that memo that the film was no longer his version—it was the studio's, but as such, he was still prepared to help them with it.

As Universal reworked ''Touch of Evil'', Welles began filming his adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes' novel ''Don Quixote'' in Mexico, starring Mischa Auer as Quixote and Akim Tamiroff as Sancho Panza. While filming would continue in fits and starts for several years, Welles would never complete the project.

Welles continued acting, notably in ''The Long, Hot Summer'' (1958) and ''Compulsion'' (1959), but soon returned to Europe.

Return to Europe (1959–1970)

He continued shooting ''Don Quixote'' in Spain, but replaced Mischa Auer with Francisco Reiguera, and resumed acting jobs. In Italy in 1959, Welles directed his own scenes as King Saul in Richard Pottier's film ''David and Goliath''. In Hong Kong he co-starred with Curt Jürgens in Lewis Gilbert's film ''Ferry to Hong Kong''. In 1960, in Paris he co-starred in Richard Fleischer's film Crack in the Mirror. In Yugoslavia he starred in Richard Thorpe's film ''The Tartars''.

By this time he had ceased filming ''Quixote''. Though he would continue toying with the editing well into the 1970s, he never completed the film. As the process went on, Welles gradually voiced all of the characters himself and provided narration. In 1992, the director Jesús Franco constructed a film out of the portions of ''Quixote'' left behind by Welles. Some of the film stock had decayed badly. While the Welles footage was greeted with interest, the post-production by Franco was met with harsh criticism.

In 1961 Welles directed ''In the Land of Don Quixote'', a series of eight half-hour episodes for the Italian television network RAI. Similar to the ''Around the World with Orson Welles'' series, they presented travelogues of Spain and included Welles's wife, Paola, and their daughter, Beatrice. Though Welles was fluent in Italian, the network was not interested in him providing Italian narration because of his accent, and the series sat unreleased until 1964, by which time the network had added Italian narration of its own. Ultimately, versions of the episodes were released with the original musical score Welles had approved, but without the narration.

''The Trial''

In 1962 Welles directed his adaptation of ''The Trial'', based on the novel by Franz Kafka and produced by Alexander Salkind and Michael Salkind. The cast included Anthony Perkins as Josef K, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Paola Mori and Akim Tamiroff. While filming exteriors in Zagreb, Welles was informed that the Salkinds had run out of money, meaning that there could be no set construction. No stranger to shooting on found locations, Welles soon filmed the interiors in the Gare d'Orsay, at that time an abandoned railway station in Paris. Welles thought the location possessed a "Jules Verne modernism" and a melancholy sense of "waiting", both suitable for Kafka. The film failed at the box-office. Peter Bogdanovich would later observe that Welles found the film riotously funny. During the filming, Welles met Oja Kodar, who would later become his muse, star and mistress for the last twenty years of his life. Welles also stated in an interview with the BBC that it was his best film.

Welles played a film director in ''La Ricotta'' (1963)—Pier Paolo Pasolini's segment of the ''Ro.Go.Pa.G.'' movie, although his renowned voice was dubbed by Italian writer Giorgio Bassani. He continued taking what work he could find acting, narrating or hosting other people's work, and began filming ''Chimes at Midnight'', which was completed in 1966. Filmed in Spain, it was a condensation of five Shakespeare plays, telling the story of Falstaff and his relationship with Prince Hal. The cast included Keith Baxter, John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Fernando Rey and Margaret Rutherford, with narration by Ralph Richardson. Music was again by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. Jess Franco served as second unit director.

''Chimes at Midnight''

''Chimes at Midnight'' was based on Welles's play ''Five Kings'' which condensed five of Shakespeare's plays into one show in order to focus on the story of Falstaff. Welles produced the show in New York in 1939 but the opening night, where part 1 was acted, was a disaster and part 2 was never put on. He revamped the show and revisited it in 1960 at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. But again, it was not successful. However, this later production was used as the base for the movie. The script contained text from five plays: primarily ''Henry IV, Part 1'' and ''Henry IV, Part 2'', but also ''Richard II'', ''Henry V'', and ''The Merry Wives of Windsor''. Keith Baxter played Prince Hal, and internationally respected Shakespearean interpreter, John Gielgud, played the King, Henry IV. The film's narration, spoken by Ralph Richardson, is taken from the chronicler Raphael Holinshed. According to Jeanne Moreau, Welles delayed filming for two weeks due to stage fright. Welles held this film in high regard and considered it, along with ''The Trial'', his best work. As he remarked in 1982, "If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that's the one I'd offer up."

In 1966, Welles directed a film for French television, an adaptation of ''The Immortal Story'', by Karen Blixen. Released in 1968, it stars Jeanne Moreau, Roger Coggio and Norman Eshley. The film had a successful run in French theaters. At this time Welles met Kodar again, and gave her a letter he had written to her and had been keeping for four years; they would not be parted again. They immediately began a collaboration both personal and professional. The first of these was an adaptation of Blixen's ''The Heroine'', meant to be a companion piece to ''The Immortal Story'' and starring Kodar. Unfortunately, funding disappeared after one day's shooting. After completing this film, he appeared in a brief cameo as Cardinal Wolsey in Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of ''A Man for All Seasons''—a role for which he won considerable acclaim.

In 1967 Welles began directing ''The Deep'', based on the novel ''Dead Calm'' by Charles Williams and filmed off the shore of Yugoslavia. The cast included Jeanne Moreau, Laurence Harvey and Kodar. Personally financed by Welles and Kodar, they could not obtain the funds to complete the project, and it was abandoned a few years later after the death of Harvey. The surviving footage was eventually edited and released by the Filmmuseum München. In 1968 Welles began filming a TV special for CBS under the title ''Orson's Bag'', combining travelogue, comedy skits and a condensation of Shakespeare's play ''The Merchant of Venice'' with Welles as Shylock. Funding for the show sent by CBS to Welles in Switzerland was seized by the IRS. Without funding, the show was not completed. The surviving film clips portions were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München.

In 1969, Welles authorized the use of his name for a cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Orson Welles Cinema remained in operation until 1986, with Welles making a personal appearance there in 1977. Also in 1969 he played a supporting role in John Huston's ''The Kremlin Letter''. Drawn by the numerous offers he received to work in television and films, and upset by a tabloid scandal reporting his affair with Kodar, Welles abandoned the editing of ''Don Quixote'' and moved back to America in 1970.

Final years (1970–1985)

Welles returned to Hollywood, where he continued to self-finance his own film and television projects. While offers to act, narrate and host continued, Welles also found himself in great demand on talk shows, and made frequent appearances for Dick Cavett, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin, and Merv Griffin. Welles's primary focus in this period was filming ''The Other Side of the Wind'', a project that took six years to film but has remained unfinished and unreleased. An early role was portraying Louis XVIII of France in ''Waterloo'' (1970). Welles also narrated the beginning and ending scenes of the Bud Yorkin historical comedy ''Start the Revolution Without Me'' (1970), which starred Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland, and Hugh Griffith, among others. In 1971 Welles directed a short adaptation of ''Moby-Dick'', a one-man performance on a bare stage, reminiscent of his stage production ''Moby Dick Rehearsed'' from the 1950s. Never completed, it was eventually released by the Filmmuseum München. He also appeared in ''La Décade prodigieuse'', co-starring with Anthony Perkins and directed by Claude Chabrol, based on a detective novel by Ellery Queen. That same year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an honorary award "For superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures". Welles pretended to be out of town and sent John Huston to claim the award. Huston criticized the Academy for awarding Welles while they refused to give him any work.

In 1972, Welles acted as on-screen narrator for the film documentary version of Alvin Toffler's 1970 book ''Future Shock''. Working again for a British producer, Welles played Long John Silver in director John Hough's ''Treasure Island'' (1972), an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, which had been the second story broadcast by ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' in 1938. Welles also contributed to the script, his writing credit was attributed to the pseudonym 'O. W. Jeeves'. Welles original recorded dialog was re dubbed by Robert Rietty.

In 1973, Welles completed ''F for Fake'', a personal essay film about art forger Elmyr de Hory and the biographer Clifford Irving. Based on an existing documentary by François Reichenbach, it included new material with Oja Kodar, Joseph Cotten, Paul Stewart and William Alland. An excerpt of Welles's 1930s ''War of the Worlds'' broadcast was recreated for this film, however none of the dialogue heard in the film actually matches what was originally broadcast. Welles filmed a five minute trailer, rejected in the US, that featured several shots of a topless Kodar.

Welles hosted and narrated a syndicated anthology series, ''Orson Welles's Great Mysteries,'' over the 1973–1974 television season. It did not last beyond that season; however, the program could be perceived as a television revival of the Mercury Theatre whose executive producer Welles had been in the 1930s and 1940s.

In 1975, Welles narrated the documentary ''Bugs Bunny: Superstar'', focusing on Warner Bros. cartoons from the 1940s. Also in 1975, the American Film Institute presented Welles with its third Lifetime Achievement Award (the first two going to director John Ford and actor James Cagney). At the ceremony, Welles screened two scenes from the nearly finished ''The Other Side of the Wind''. Filming had begun in 1972 and by 1976, Welles had almost completed the film. Financed by Iranian backers, ownership of the film fell into a legal quagmire after the Shah of Iran was deposed. Written by Welles, the story told of a destructive old film director looking for funds to complete his final film. It starred John Huston and the cast included Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, Norman Foster, Edmond O'Brien, Cameron Mitchell, and Dennis Hopper. While there have been several reports of all the legal disputes concerning ownership of the film being settled, enough disputes still exist to prevent its release. The Showtime cable network has promised support for the project should the various entanglements associated with it be resolved.

In 1976, Paramount Television purchased the rights for the entire set of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories for Orson Welles. Welles had once wanted to make a series of Nero Wolfe movies, but Rex Stout — who declined Hollywood adaptations during his lifetime after two disappointing 1930s films — turned him down. Paramount planned to begin with an ABC-TV movie and hoped to persuade Welles to continue the role in a mini-series. Frank D. Gilroy was signed to write the television script and direct the TV movie on the assurance that Welles would star, but by April 1977 Welles had bowed out. In 1980 the Associated Press reported "the distinct possibility" that Welles would star in a Nero Wolfe TV series for NBC television. Again, Welles bowed out of the project due to creative differences and William Conrad was cast in the role.

In 1979 Welles completed his documentary ''Filming Othello'', which featured Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards. Made for West German television, it was also released in theaters. That same year, Welles completed his self-produced pilot for ''The Orson Welles Show'' television series, featuring interviews with Burt Reynolds, Jim Henson and Frank Oz and guest-starring The Muppets and Angie Dickinson. Unable to find network interest, the pilot was never broadcast. In 1979 Welles also appeared in the biopic ''The Secret of Nikola Tesla'', and a cameo in ''The Muppet Movie'' as Lew Lord.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Welles participated in a series of famous television commercial advertisements. For two years he was on-camera spokesman for the Paul Masson Vineyards, and sales grew by one third during the time Welles intoned what became a popular catchphrase: "We will sell no wine before its time." He was also the voice behind the long-running Carlsberg "Probably the best lager in the world" campaign and promoted Domecq sherry on British television.

In 1981, Welles hosted the documentary ''The Man Who Saw Tomorrow'', about Renaissance-era prophet Nostradamus. In 1982 the BBC broadcast ''The Orson Welles Story'' in the ''Arena'' series. Interviewed by Leslie Megahey, Welles examined his past in great detail, and several people from his professional past were interviewed as well. It was reissued in 1990 as ''With Orson Welles: Stories of a Life in Film''. Welles provided narration for the tracks "Defender" from Manowar's album Fighting the World and "Dark Avenger" on Manowar's 1982 album, ''Battle Hymns''. His name was misspelled on the latter album, as he was credited as "Orson Wells".

During the 1980s, Welles worked on such film projects as ''The Dreamers'', based on two stories by Isak Dinesen and starring Oja Kodar, and ''The Orson Welles Magic Show'', which reused material from his failed TV pilot. Another project he worked on was ''Filming The Trial'', the second in a proposed series of documentaries examining his feature films. While much was shot for these projects, none of them was completed. All of them were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München.

In 1984, Welles narrated the short-lived television series ''Scene of the Crime''. During the early years of ''Magnum, P.I.'', Welles was the voice of the unseen character Robin Masters, a famous writer and playboy. Welles's death forced this minor character to largely be written out of the series. In an oblique homage to Welles, the ''Magnum, P.I.'' producers ambiguously concluded that story arc by having one character accuse another of having hired an actor to portray Robin Masters.

The last film roles before Welles's death included voice work in the animated films ''The Enchanted Journey'' (1984) and ''The Transformers: The Movie'' (1986), in which he played the planet-eating robot Unicron. His last film appearance was in Henry Jaglom's 1987 independent film ''Someone to Love'', released after his death but produced before his voice-over in ''Transformers: The Movie''. His last television appearance was on the television show ''Moonlighting''. He recorded an introduction to an episode entitled "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice", which was partially filmed in black and white. The episode aired five days after his death and was dedicated to his memory.

Personal life

Relationships and family

In 1934, Welles eloped with Chicago-born actress and socialite Virginia Nicolson. They divorced in 1940 after Welles's affair with Vera Zorina was vaguely mentioned in Walter Winchell's column.

Since 1932, Welles had fallen in love with Mexican actress, Dolores del Río. They lived a torrid romance between 1938 and 1942, though he was ten years her junior. They collaborated together in the movie ''Journey into Fear'' but the affair ended soon afterward.

Welles married Rita Hayworth in 1943. The couple became estranged during the making of ''The Lady from Shanghai''. After five years, Rita filed for divorce, her reason to the press being, "I can't take his genius any more." During his last interview and only two hours before his death, Welles answered Merv Griffin's suggestive comment "But one of your wives—oh, I have envied you so many years for Rita Hayworth", by calling her "one of the dearest and sweetest women that ever lived" and saying that he was "lucky enough to have been with her longer than any of the other men in her life."

In 1955 Welles married Italian actress Paola Mori (Countess Paola Di Girifalco). Estranged for decades, the couple were never divorced. Croatian-born actress Oja Kodar became Welles's longtime companion both personally and professionally from 1966 on. They lived together for the last twenty-four years of his life. A year after Orson's death, Paola and Oja finally agreed on the settling of his will. On the way to their meeting to sign the papers, however, Paola was killed in a car accident.

Welles had three children: author Christopher Welles, or Chris Welles Feder (born in 1938, with Virginia Nicolson), Rebecca Welles Manning (born December 17, 1944 – died October 14, 2004, with Rita Hayworth) and Beatrice Welles (born in 1955, with Paola Mori).

Some of Welles's claimed familial ties have not held up under scrutiny. Despite the persistent urban legend, promoted by Welles himself, he was not the great-grandson of Abraham Lincoln's wartime Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles. Perhaps the genesis of the myth dates to a 1970 interview on ''The Dick Cavett Show'' during which Welles remarks about his venerable great-grandfather Gideon Welles. Orson Welles's father was Richard Head Welles, son of his paternal grandfather Richard Jones Welles; Gideon Welles had no son by that name. His sons were Hubert (1833–1862), John Arthur (1845–1883), Thomas G. (1846–1892), and Edgar Thaddeus Welles (1843–1914).

Physical characteristics

According to a 1941 physical exam taken when he was 26, Welles was tall and weighed . His eyes were brown. Other sources cite that he was tall, but the slates from costume tests made during the 1940s show him as . Welles gained a significant amount of weight in his 40s, eventually rendering him morbidly obese, at one point weighing nearly four hundred pounds (181.4 kg). His obesity was severe to the point that it restricted his ability to travel, aggravated other health conditions, including his asthma, and even required him to go on a diet in order to play the famously portly Sir John Falstaff. Some have attributed his over-eating and drinking to depression over his marginalization by the Hollywood system.

Religious beliefs

In April 1982, Merv Griffin interviewed Welles and asked about his religious beliefs. Welles replied, "I try to be a Christian, I don't pray really, because I don't want to bore God." After the success of his 1941 film ''Citizen Kane'', Welles announced that his next film would be about the life of Jesus, and that he would play the lead role. However, Welles never got around to making the film. He narrated the Christian documentary ''The Late, Great Planet Earth'' as well as the 1961 Biblical film about the life of Christ, ''King of Kings''.

Politics

Welles was politically active from the beginning of his career. He remained a man of the left throughout his life, and always defined his political orientation as "progressive". He was a strong supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, and often spoke out on radio in support of progressive politics. In particular, he was an early and outspoken critic of American racism and the practice of segregation. He campaigned heavily for Roosevelt in the 1944 election. For several years, he wrote a newspaper column on political issues and briefly toyed with running for office. In 1970, Welles narrated (but did not write) a satirical political record on the administration of President Richard Nixon entitled ''The Begatting of the President''.

In the 2006 book, ''Whatever Happened to Orson Welles?'', writer Joseph McBride made several controversial claims about Welles. Though Welles said otherwise during his lifetime, McBride claimed Welles left America in the late 1940s to escape McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist. McBride also claimed, in spite of the sexual content of Welles's contemporary work (''F for Fake'' and the unfinished ''Other Side of the Wind''), that Welles was extremely puritanical about sex based on his comment to Peter Bogdanovich that ''The Last Picture Show'' was "a dirty movie".

Welles once told ''Cahiers du cinéma'' about sex in film, "In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God."

Death

On October 10, 1985, Welles did his final interview on ''The Merv Griffin Show''. He died two hours later of a heart attack at his home in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, the same day as his ''Battle of Neretva'' co-star Yul Brynner. Welles's ashes were buried on the property of a long time friend, retired bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez, in Ronda, Spain.

Unfinished projects

Welles's reliance on self-production meant that many of his later projects were filmed piecemeal or were not completed. Welles financed his later projects through his own fundraising activities. He often also took on other work to obtain money to fund his own films.

''Don Quixote''

In the mid-1950s, Welles began work on ''Don Quixote'', initially a commission from CBS television. Welles expanded the film to feature length, developing the screenplay to take Quixote and Sancho Panza into the modern age. Filming stopped with the death of Francisco Reiguera, the actor playing Quixote, in 1969. Orson Welles continued editing the film into the early 1970s. At the time of his death, the film remained largely a collection of footage in various states of editing. The project and more importantly Welles's conception of the project changed radically over time. A version of the film was created from available fragments in 1992 and released to a very negative reception.

''The Merchant of Venice''

In 1969 Welles was given another TV commission to film a condensed adaptation of ''The Merchant of Venice''. Although Welles had actually completed the film by 1970 the finished negative was later mysteriously stolen from his Rome production office.

''The Other Side of the Wind''

In 1970 Welles began shooting ''The Other Side of the Wind''. The film relates the efforts of a film director (played by John Huston) to complete his last Hollywood picture and is largely set at a lavish party. By 1972 the filming was reported by Welles as being "96% complete", though it is likely that Welles had only edited about 40 minutes of the film by 1979. In that year, legal complications over the ownership of the film forced the negative into a Paris vault where it remained until 2004, when Peter Bogdanovich (who also acted in the film) announced his intention to complete the production. As of 2009, legal complications over the Welles estate have kept the film from being finished or released. Some footage is included in the documentary ''Working with Orson Welles'' (1993).

Other unfinished projects

''Heart of Darkness'': Welles's projected first film in 1940, planned in extreme detail and with some test shots filmed. (The footage is now lost.) It was planned to be entirely shot in long takes from the point of view of the narrator, Marlow, who would be played by Welles, seeing his own reflection in the window as his boat sailed down river. The project was abandoned because it could not be delivered on budget, and ''Citizen Kane'' was made instead. ''Mr. American'': Early 1940 drafts of ''Citizen Kane'' were based far more overtly on the life of Howard Hughes than on William Randolph Hearst, and would have made for a substantially different picture.

''It's All True'': Welles did not originally want to direct this 1942 documentary on South America, but after its abandonment by RKO, he spent much of the 1940s attempting to buy the negative of his material from RKO, so that he could edit and release it in some form. The footage remained unseen in vaults for decades, and was assumed lost. Over 50 years later, some (but not all) of the surviving material saw release in the 1993 documentary ''It's All True: Based on an Unfinished Film by Orson Welles''.

''Monsieur Verdoux'': In 1944, Welles wrote the first-draft script of this film, which he also intended to direct. Charlie Chaplin initially agreed to star in it, but later changed his mind, citing never having been directed by someone else in a feature before. Chaplin bought the film rights and made the film himself in 1947, with some changes (Welles said the gallows scenes were written by Chaplin, but that much of the film was unchanged from his own script). The final film credits Chaplin with the script, "based on an idea by Orson Welles".

''Cyrano de Bergerac'': Welles spent around nine months c. 1947-8 co-writing the screenplay for this along with Ben Hecht, a project Welles was assigned to direct for Alexander Korda. He began scouting for locations in Europe whilst filming ''Black Magic'', but Korda was short of money, so sold the rights to Columbia pictures, who eventually dismissed Welles from the project, and then sold the rights on to United Artists, who in turn made a film version in 1950, which was not based on Welles's script. ''Around the World in 80 Days'': After Welles's elaborate musical stageshow of this Jules Verne novel, encompassing 38 different sets, he began shooting some test footage in Morocco for a film version in 1947. The footage was never edited, funding never came through, and Welles abandoned the project. Nine years later, the stage show's producer Mike Todd made his own award-winning film version of the book. ''Moby Dick Rehearsed'': a film version of Welles's 1955 London meta-play, starring Gordon Jackson, Christopher Lee, Patrick McGoohan, and with Welles as Ahab. Using bare, minimalist sets, Welles alternated between a cast of nineteenth-century actors rehearsing a production of ''Moby Dick'', with scenes from ''Moby Dick'' itself. Kenneth Williams, a cast member who was apprehensive about the entire project, recorded in his autobiography that Welles's dim, atmospheric stage lighting made some of the footage so dark as to be unwatchable. The entire play was filmed, but is now presumed lost. The recording was made during one weekend at the Hackney Empire theatre. ''Histoires extraordinaires'': The producers of this 1968 anthology film, based on short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, announced in June 1967 that Welles would direct one segment based on both "Masque of the Red Death" and "The Cask of Amontillado" for the omnibus film. Welles withdrew in September 1967 and was replaced. The script, written in English by Welles and Oja Kodar, is in the Filmmuseum Munchen collection. ''One-Man Band'': This Monty Python-esque spoof in which Welles plays all but one of the characters (including two characters in drag), was made around 1968-9. Welles intended this completed sketch to be one of several items in a television special on London. Other items filmed for this special – all included in the "One Man Band" documentary by his partner Oja Kodar – comprised a sketch on Winston Churchill (played in silhouette by Welles), a sketch on peers in a stately home, a feature on London gentlemen's clubs, and a sketch featuring Welles being mocked by his snide Savile Row tailor (played by Charles Gray).

''Treasure Island'': Welles wrote two screenplays for this in the 1960s, and was eager to seek financial backing to direct it. Eventually, his own screenplay (under the pseudonym of O.W. Jeeves) was further rewritten, and formed the basis of the 1972 film version directed by John Hough, in which Welles played Long John Silver.

''The Deep'': An adaptation of Charles Williams' ''Dead Calm''. The picture was entirely set on two boats and shot mostly in close-ups, and was filmed off the coasts of Yugoslavia and the Bahamas, between 1966 and 1969, with all but one scene completed. Originally planned as commercially viable thriller, to show that Welles could make a popular, successful film. It was put on hold in 1970 when Welles worried that critics would not respond favourably to this film as his theatrical follow-up to the much-lauded ''Chimes at Midnight'', and Welles focused instead on ''F for Fake''. It was abandoned altogether in 1973 due to the death of its star Laurence Harvey. The Munich Film Museum holds a restored copy, with title cards filling out the missing scene. ''Saint Jack''. In 1978 Welles was lined up by his long-time protégé Peter Bogdanovich (who was then acting as Welles's ''de facto'' agent) to direct this adaptation of the 1973 Paul Theroux novel about an American pimp in Singapore. Hugh Hefner and Bogdnovich's then-partner Cybill Shepherd were both attached to the project as producers, with Hefner providing finance through his Playboy productions. However, both Hefner and Shepherd became convinced that Bogdanovich himself would be a more commercially viable director than Welles, and insisted that Bogdanovich take over. Since Bogdanovich was also in need of work after a series of box office flops, he agreed. When the film was finally made in 1979 by Bogdanovich and Hefner (but without Welles or Shepherd's participation), Welles felt betrayed and according to Bogdanovich the two "drifted apart a bit". ''Filming The Trial'': After the success of his 1978 film ''Filming Othello'' made for West German television, and mostly consisting of a monologue to the camera, Welles began shooting scenes for this follow-up film, but never completed it. What Welles did film was an 80 minute question-and-answer session in 1981 with film students asking about the film. The footage was kept by Welles's cinematographer Gary Graver, who donated it to the Munich Film Museum, which then pieced it together with Welles's trailer for the film, into an 83 minute film which is occasionally screened at film festivals.

''The Big Brass Ring'': A script of this project was eventually adapted and filmed by George Hickenlooper in 1999 as a play-within-a-film, about Orson Welles's production of the play. Welles's complete screenplay was one of his last projects, written in 1985.

''King Lear'': At the time of his death, Welles was in talks with a French production company to direct a film version of the Shakespeare play, in which he would also play the title role.

An adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel ''Ada'' for which Welles flew to Paris to discuss the project personally with the Russian author.

Legacy

The 1996 documentary ''The Battle Over Citizen Kane'' chronicles the battle between Welles and Hearst. A 1999 HBO docudrama, ''RKO 281'', tells the story of the making of ''Citizen Kane'', starring Liev Schreiber as Orson Welles.

Tim Robbins's 1999 film ''Cradle Will Rock'' chronicles the process and events surrounding Welles and John Houseman's production of the 1937 musical by Marc Blitzstein. In it, Welles is played by actor Angus MacFadyen.

Playwright and actor Austin Pendleton wrote the play ''Orson's Shadow'' about Welles and his collaboration with Laurence Olivier. It deals with the time that Welles directed Laurence Olivier in a production of Eugène Ionesco's play ''Rhinoceros''. According to this play, Welles privately disliked Olivier's film adaptations of Shakespeare's works (which were far more successful than Welles's), at one point stating that Olivier's film of ''Hamlet'' "looked like a Joan Crawford movie". Welles struggled with getting Olivier to play not merely someone lower-class (as he did in ''The Entertainer'') but getting Olivier to play someone utterly non-descript.

Author Kim Newman has featured Orson Welles as a character in several stories from his Anno Dracula series.

In the Tim Burton-directed biopic ''Ed Wood'' (1994), Welles (played by Vincent D'Onofrio and dubbed by Maurice LaMarche) makes a brief "cameo appearance", giving advice to director Edward D. Wood, Jr. who idolises Welles. Inspired, Wood proceeds to finish his film ''Plan 9 from Outer Space'', sometimes called one of the worst films of all time. Though ''Ed Wood'' is based on Wood's life, in reality the scene is entirely fictional: Wood never met Orson Welles. D'Onofrio would again portray Welles in the 2005 30-minute film ''Five Minutes Mr. Welles'' concerning Welles's role in the film ''The Third Man''.

Although the character Brain from the animated series ''Animaniacs'' and ''Pinky and the Brain'' was not initially modeled after Welles, Maurice LaMarche was shown a picture of Brain and tasked with finding a voice for the character. LaMarche immediately thought of Welles and decided to do his Welles impersonation. LaMarche also played Welles in ''The Critic'' (where his "later work", ads for such products as 'Mrs. Pell's Fishsticks', is referenced) and in the ''Futurama'' episode "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences", in which he performs a ''WOTW''-like play.

One of the recurring celebrity characters on the influential Canadian sketch comedy TV show ''Second City Television'' (SCTV) was John Candy's impersonation of Welles. ON SCTV, Candy-as-Welles appeared in an embarrassing array of commercials, talk shows, and other low-budget productions. It's unknown whether or not Welles ever saw Candy's impersonation.

''Me and Orson Welles'', released in November 2009, stars Zac Efron as a teenager who convinces Welles (Christian McKay) to cast him in Welles's 1937 production of ''Julius Caesar'', based on Robert Kaplow's novel.

The final segment of ''The Simpsons'' "Treehouse of Horror XVII" features a parody of Welles's 1938 War Of The Worlds radio broadcast in which, having been fooled once, the people of Springfield refuse to believe that an actual alien invasion is taking place. Welles was again voiced by Maurice LaMarche in the episode.

Filmography

Awards

The American Film Institute ranked ''Citizen Kane'' as the greatest American movie. These other Welles films were nominated for their list: ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' (1942, director/producer/screenwriter); ''The Third Man'' (1949, actor); ''Touch of Evil'' (1958, actor/director/screenwriter); and ''A Man for All Seasons'' (1966, actor).

''Citizen Kane'' was nominated for numerous prizes at the 1941 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role. The only Oscar won, however, was Best Original Screenplay, which Welles shared with Herman J. Mankiewicz. Welles later gave his statuette to cinematographer Gary Garver as payment for services rendered. Also, the film ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' was nominated for Best Picture, a year later.

''The Stranger'' was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1947. Welles himself was awarded a Career Golden Lion in 1970.

In 1952, Welles's ''Othello'' won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Welles was nominated for Best Foreign Actor in a Leading Role at the 1968 BAFTA Awards for his performance in ''Chimes at Midnight''.

Welles was given the first Career Golden Lion award in the Venice Film Festival in 1970.

In 1970, Welles won an Honorary Academy Award for "superlative and distinguished service in the making of motion pictures." In light of his poor treatment by the Academy and by the American film industry in general, Welles did not attend the ceremony. In 1970, he was awarded the French Légion d'honneur, the highest civilian decoration in France. Welles was also a distinguished Foreign Member of the Académie française, succeeded by Peter Ustinov.

Welles was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Film Institute in 1975.

In 1978, Welles was presented with the Los Angeles Film Critics Career Achievement Award.

n 1979, Welles was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

In 1982, Welles was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globe Awards for his role in ''Butterfly'', and won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for his role on ''Donovan's Brain''.

Welles was awarded a Fellowship of the British Film Institute in 1983.

In 1984, Welles was given the D. W. Griffith Award of the Directors Guild of America.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Welles as the 16th Greatest Male Star of All Time.

When asked to describe Welles's influence, Jean-Luc Godard remarked: "Everyone will always owe him everything." (Ciment, 42)

A highly divergent genus of Hawaiian spiders "Orsonwelles" is named in his honor (Hormiga et al. 2003)

He won three Grammy Awards, each win in the category of Best Spoken Word Recording: in 1976, for "Great American Documents" (shared with Helen Hayes, Henry Fonda and James Earl Jones; in 1978, for the original motion picture soundtrack to ''Citizen Kane''; and in 1981, for a recording of ''Donovan's Brain''.

In 2008 a statue of Welles sculpted by Oja Kodar was erected in the town of Split, Croatia.

References

Bibliography

Anderegg, Michael: ''Orson Welles, Shakespeare and Popular Culture'', New York: Columbia University Press, 1999

Bazin, Andre: ''Orson Welles'', Harper and Row, 1978

Benamou, Catherine L.: ''It's All True: Orson Welles's Pan-American Odyssey'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007

Beja, Morris, ed.: ''Perspectives on Orson Welles'', G. K. Hall, 1995

Berg, Chuck and Erskine, Tom, ed.: ''The Encyclopedia of Orson Welles'', Checkmark Books, 2003

Bessy, Maurice: ''Orson Welles: An investigation into his films and philosophy'', Crown, 1971

Bogdanovich, Peter and Welles, Orson ''This Is Orson Welles'', HarperPerennial 1992, ISBN 0-06-092439-X

Brady, Frank: ''Citizen Welles'', New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989

Callow, Simon: ''The Road to Xanadu''. London: Jonathan Cape, 1995.

Callow, Simon: ''Hello Americans''. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006.

Carringer, Robert: ''The Making of Citizen Kane'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985

Carringer, Robert: ''The Magnificent Ambersons: a Reconstruction'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993

Ciment, Michel: "Les Enfants Terribles" in ''American Film'', December 1984

Comito, Terry, ed.: ''Touch of Evil'', Rutgers, 1985

Conrad, Peter: ''Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life'', London: Faber and Faber, 2003

Cowie, Peter: ''The Cinema of Orson Welles'', Da Capo Press, 1973.

D'Angela, Toni (ed.), ''Nelle terre di Orson Welles'', Alessandria: Edizioni Falsopiano 2004.

Davies, Anthony: ''Filming Shakespeare's Plays'', Cambridge University Press, 1988

Drazin, Charles: ''In Search of the Third Man'', Limelight, 2000

Estrin, Mark: ''Orson Welles Interviews'', University Press of Mississippi, 2002

Feder, Chris Welles: ''In My Father's Shadow: a Daughter Remembers Orson Welles'', Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009

France, Richard, ed.: ''Orson Welles on Shakespeare'', London: Routledge, 2001

France, Richard: "The Theatre of Orson Welles", Bucknell University Press, 1977

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Higham, Charles: "Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius", New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985

Hormiga, G., M.A. Arnedo & R.G. Gillespie, 2003, "Speciation on a Conveyor Belt: Sequential Colonization of the Hawaiian Islands by "Orsonwelles" spiders (Araneae: Linyphiidae)., Syst. Biol. 52, 89–109.

Howard, James: "The Complete Films of Orson Welles", Citadel Press, 1991

Ishaghpour, Youssef: ''Orson Welles, cinéaste, une caméra visible'', éditions de la différence, 2001

Jorgens, Jack J.: ''Shakespeare on Film'', Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977

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Mac Liammóir, Micháel. ''Put Money in Thy Purse: The Filming of Orson Welles's Othello'', Virgin, 1994

McBride, Joseph: ''Orson Welles'', Harcourt Brace, 1977

McBride, Joseph: ''Orson Welles'', Da Capo Press, 1996.

Mulvey, Laura: ''Citizen Kane'', London: BFI, 1992

Naremore, James. ''The Magic World of Orson Welles'', Southern Methodist University Press, 1989.

Naremore, James, ed.: ''Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: a Casebook'', Oxford University Press, 2004

Noble, Peter: ''The Fabulous Orson Welles'', London: Hutchinson and Co., 1956

Perkins, V. F.: ''The Magnificent Ambersons'', London: BFI, 1999

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: "Orson Welles's Essay Films and Documentary Fictions", in ''Placing Movies'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: "The Battle Over Orson Welles", in ''Essential Cinema'', Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: "Orson Welles as Ideological Challenge" in ''Movie Wars'', A Capella Books, 2000

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: ''Discovering Orson Welles'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007

''Shakespeare Bulletin'', Volume 23, Number 1, Spring 2005: Special Welles issue.

Simon, William G., ed.: "Special Welles issue", in: ''Persistence of Vision: the Journal of the Film Faculty of the City University of New York''; Number 7, 1988

Simonson, Robert. "Orson's Shadow Talkback Series Continues May 4 with Welles's Daughter." May 3, 2005

Taylor, John Russell: ''Orson Welles: a Celebration'', Pavilion, 1986

Taylor, John Russell: ''Orson Welles'', Pavilion, 1998

Walsh, John Evangelist: ''Walking Shadows: Orson Welles, William Randolph Hearst and Citizen Kane'', Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004

Walters, Ben: ''Welles'', London: Haus Publishing, 2004 ISBN 978-1-904341-80-2

Welles, Orson: ''Les Bravades'', Workman, 1996

Welles, Orson and Bogdanovich, Peter: ''This is Orson Welles'', Da Capo Press, 1998.

Welles, Orson: ''Mr. Arkadin'', London: HarperCollins, 2006

Welles, Orson: ''The Big Brass Ring'', Black Spring Press, 1991

Welles, Orson: ''The Cradle Will Rock'', Santa Teresa Press, 1994

Welles, Orson: "The Other Side of the Wind", in: ''Cahiers du cinéma''/ Festival International du Film de Locarno, 2005

White, Rob: ''The Third Man'', London: BFI, 2003

Wood, Bret: ''Orson Welles: a Bio-Bibliography'', Greenwood Blue, 1990

External links

Wellesnet

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birth name	Norma Jeane Mortenson
birth date	June 01, 1926
birth place	Los Angeles, California, United States
death date	August 05, 1962
death place	Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, United States
death cause	Barbiturate overdose
restingplace	Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Westwood, Los Angeles
other names	Norma Jeane BakerNorma Jeane DoughertyNorma Jeane DiMaggio
occupation	Actress, model, singer, film producer
years active	1947–1962
notable works	''Niagara'', ''Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'', ''River of No Return'', ''The Seven Year Itch'', ''Some Like It Hot'', ''The Misfits''
religion	Christian (1926–1956),Judaism (1956–1962)
spouse	(divorced) (divorced) (divorced)
signature	Marilyn Monroe Signature.svg }}

Norma Jeane Mortensen Baker (June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962), professionally recognized as Marilyn Monroe, 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.

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 dwelled 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 she received 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 final completed film was ''The Misfits'', co-starring Clark Gable with the screenplay written by her then-husband, Arthur Miller.

The final years of Monroe's life were marked by illness, personal problems, and a reputation for being unreliable and 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 the possibility 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 years and decades following her death, Monroe has often been cited as both a pop and a cultural icon as well as the quintessential American sex symbol.

Family and early life

Marilyn Monroe was born on June 1, 1926, in the Los Angeles County Hospital 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). Monroe's birth certificate names the father as Martin Edward Mortensen with his residence stated as "unknown". 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. Several of Monroe's biographers suggest that Gladys Baker used his name to avoid the stigma of illegitimacy. 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. Throughout her life, Marilyn Monroe denied that Mortensen was her father. 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.

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. 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' 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. 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. 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. 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. 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

Early work: 1945–1947

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's 1st Motion Picture Unit noticed her and snapped a series of photographs, none of which appeared in ''Yank'' magazine, 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 to 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." 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. Lyon, however, felt that the name "Marilyn Monroe" was sexy, had a "nice flow", and would be "lucky" due to the double "M" and thus Norma Jeane Baker took the name of Marilyn Monroe.

The actress's first movie role was an uncredited role as a telephone operator in ''The Shocking Miss Pilgrim'' in 1947, starring Betty Grable. 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. Monroe's latest three films wouldn't be released until 1948, which was months after her contract had ended in late 1947.

Breakthrough: 1948–1951

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. 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. 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 and he 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.

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. ''Love Happy'' brought Monroe to the attention of the talent agent, Johnny Hyde, who agreed to represent her. After singing 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, 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. 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. 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. 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 in which were filmed on a moderate budget and only became mildly successful. In March 1951, she appeared as a presenter at the 23rd Academy Awards ceremony. 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.

Leading films: 1952–1955

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. 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.

She made her first appearance on the cover of ''Life'' magazine in April 1952, where she was described as "The Talk of Hollywood". The following year, she was photographed by noted ''Life'' magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, considered "The father of photojournalism." 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. Monroe was pleased with his images of her, later telling him, "You made a palace out of my patio."

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." 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.

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. 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.

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. In ''Don't Bother to Knock'' she played the starring role 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. ''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. 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. 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. Reviews of the film dwelled on her sexuality, while noting that her acting was imperfect.

Much of the critical commentary following the release of the film focused on Monroe's overtly sexual performance, and a scene which shows Monroe (from the back) making a long walk toward Niagara Falls received frequent note in reviews. After seeing the film, Constance Bennett reportedly quipped, "There's a broad with her future behind her." 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." 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". 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. 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.

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". 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.

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. 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''. ''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. 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."

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. "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''. 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.

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. 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." 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.

International success: 1954–1957

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." 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.

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 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. ''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. 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.''

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. 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. Their divorce was granted in November 1954. 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. Monroe received positive reviews for her performance and was in a strong position to negotiate with 20th Century Fox. 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.

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. 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.

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.

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. Monroe had met Paula Strasberg and her daughter Susan on the set of ''There's No Business Like Show Business'', 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.

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. 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. 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. 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. Kim Stanley later recalled that students were discouraged from applauding, but that Monroe's performance had resulted in spontaneous applause from the audience. 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."

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. 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. thumb|left|300px|Monroe's dramatic performance as Chérie in ''[[Bus Stop (film)|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. Though not nominated for an Academy Award, she received a Golden Globe nomination.

''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." Olivier later commented that in the film "Marilyn was quite wonderful, the best of all." 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.

Last films: 1958–1962

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. Monroe consistently refused to take direction from Wilder, or insisted on numerous retakes of simple scenes until she was satisfied. She developed a rapport with Lemmon, but she disliked Curtis after hearing that he had described their love scenes as "like kissing Hitler". Curtis later stated that the comment was intended as a joke. During filming, Monroe discovered that she was pregnant. She suffered another miscarriage in December 1958, as filming was completed.

''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. 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?" 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." Wilder had become ill during filming, and explained, "We were in mid-flight — and there was a nut on the plane." In hindsight, he discussed Monroe's "certain indefinable magic" and "absolute genius as a comic actress."

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. 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. 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. The film was not a critical or commercial success.

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. 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. Greenson stated that his main objective at the time was to enforce a drastic reduction in Monroe's drug intake.

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. 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. A visitor to the set, Susan Strasberg, later described Monroe as "mortally injured in some way," 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. 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. Monroe returned to Nevada and completed the film, but she became hostile towards Arthur Miller, and public arguments were reported by the press. 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. Monroe and Miller returned to New York on separate flights.

Within ten days Monroe had announced her separation from Miller, and Gable had died from a heart attack. 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, 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". Monroe later attended the christening of the Gables' son, at the invitation of Kay Gable. ''The Misfits'' received mixed reviews, and was not a commercial success, though some praised the performances of Monroe and Gable. Despite on-set difficulties, Gable, Monroe, and Clift delivered performances that modern movie critics consider superb. Many critics regard Gable's performance to be his finest, and Gable, after seeing the rough cuts, agreed. 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."

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. Her divorce from Arthur Miller was finalized in January 1961, with Monroe citing "incompatibility of character", and in February she voluntarily entered the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. Monroe later described the experience as a "nightmare". 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. She returned to California and lived in a rented apartment as she convalesced. 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."

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." (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, Monroe was dismissed. The studio 20th Century Fox filed a lawsuit against her for half a million dollars, 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." Monroe was replaced by Lee Remick, and when Dean Martin refused to work with any other actress, he was also threatened with a lawsuit. 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. She next posed for Bert Stern for ''Vogue'' in a series of photographs that included several nudes. 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."

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''. 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'' 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. 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. 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".

Death and aftermath

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. 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, and Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los Angeles County Coroners office recorded cause of death as "acute barbiturate poisoning," resulting from a "probable suicide." 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.

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. Her casket was solid bronze and was lined with champagne colored silk. Allan “Whitey” Snyder did her make-up which was supposedly a promise made in earlier years if she were to die before him. She was wearing her favorite green Emilio Pucci dress. In her hands was a small bouquet of pink teacup roses. For the next 20 years, red roses were placed in a vase attached to the crypt, courtesy of DiMaggio.

In August 2009, the crypt space directly above that of Monroe was placed for auction 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. The winning bid was placed by an anonymous Japanese man for $4.6 million, 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. He affirmed that the initial success of his magazine directly correlated with Monroe.

Administration of estate

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". 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, or New York, which she considered her primary residence, was worth millions.

On May 4, 2007, a New York judge ruled that Monroe's rights of publicity ended at her death. In October 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 771. 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. 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. The decision was reaffirmed by the United States District Court of New York in September 2008.

In July 2010, Monroe's Brentwood home was put up for sale by Prudential California Realty. The house was sold for $3.6 million. 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''.

Personal life

Relationships

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.

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. 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."

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. 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. 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. 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."

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, often referred to as "The Egghead and The Hourglass". 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."

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. 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".

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. 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. 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 raised as a Christian but before her 1956 conversion (to Judaism), 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". She did convert to Judaism before marrying Miller.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

Psychoanalysis

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.

Politics

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."

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."

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. Monroe supported the Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy.

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."

Portrayals

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)

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 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." (2012)

Laura Aikin in Robin de Raaff's opera, ''Waiting for Miss Monroe'' (2012)

Filmography

! Film title	! Year	! Role	! Co-actors	! Director	! Producer	! Notes
''The Shocking Miss Pilgrim''		Telephone Operator	Betty Grable and Dick Haymes		20th Century Fox	Uncredited
''Dangerous Years''	1947	Evie	Billy Halop and Ann E. Todd	Arthur Pierson	20th Century Fox
''Green Grass of Wyoming''		Square Dance extra	Peggy Cummins and Charles Coburn		20th Century Fox	Uncredited
	1948	Lady in Waiting	Dan Dailey and Jeanne Crain		20th Century Fox	Uncredited
''Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!''	1948	Betty	June Haver and Natalie Wood		20th Century Fox	Uncredited
''Ladies of the Chorus''	1948	Peggy Martin	Adele Jergens and Rand Brooks		Columbia Pictures	First major film appearance
''Love Happy''		Grunion's Client	Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, and Groucho Marx		United Artists
''A Ticket to Tomahawk''		Clara	Dan Dailey, Anne Baxter, and Rory Calhoun		20th Century Fox	Uncredited
''Right Cross''	1950	Dusky Ledoux	June Allyson and Dick Powell		Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer	Uncredited
''''	1950	Polly			20th Century Fox	Aka: ''The Challenge''
''''	1950	Angela Phinlay	Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, and Jean Hagen		Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
''All About Eve''	1950	Miss Claudia Caswell	Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, and George Sanders		20th Century Fox
''Home Town Story''		Iris Martin	Jeffrey Lynn, Alan Hale, Jr., and Donald Crisp	Arthur Pierson	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
''As Young as You Feel''	1951	Hariett	Monty Woolley, Thelma Ritter, and Jean Peters	Harmen Jones	20th Century Fox
''Love Nest''	1951	Roberta "Bobbie" Stevens			20th Century Fox
''Let's Make It Legal''	1951	Joyce Mannering	Claudette Colbert, Macdonald Carey, and Barbara Bates		20th Century Fox
''O. Henry's Full House''		Streetwalker	Fred Allen, Anne Baxter, and Richard Widmark		20th Century Fox	Cameo appearance
	1952	Lois Laurel	Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, and Charles Coburn		20th Century Fox
'' Clash by Night''	1952	Peggy	Barbara Stanwyck, Keith Andes, and Paul Douglas		RKO Radio Pictures
''We're Not Married!''	1952	Anabel Norris	Ginger Rogers, Fred Allen, Victor Moore, David Wayne, and Zsa Zsa Gabor		20th Century Fox
''Don't Bother to Knock''	1952	Nell Forbes	Richard Widmark and Anne Bancroft		20th Century Fox	First starring role
		Rose Loomis	Joseph Cotten and Jean Peters		20th Century Fox
	1953	Lorelei Lee	Jane Russell, Charles Coburn, and Elliot Reid		20th Century Fox
''How to Marry a Millionaire''	1953	Pola Debevoise	Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, and William Powell		20th Century Fox
''River of No Return''		Kay Weston	Robert Mitchum, Tommy Rettig, and Rory Calhoun		20th Century Fox
	1954	Victoria "Vicky" Hoffman	Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, and Mitzi Gaynor		20th Century Fox
''''		The Girl	Tom Ewell and Evelyn Keyes		20th Century Fox	Contains the famous scene of Monroe's skirt being blown up by a subway grating.
		Chérie			20th Century Fox	Aka: ''The Wrong Kind of Girl''
''		Elsie Marina	Laurence Olivier		Warner Brothers	The only film released under Marilyn Monroe Productions.
''Some Like It Hot''		Sugar Kane Kowalczyk	Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon		Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer	Monroe's most successful film. Known as a comedy film classic.
''Let's Make Love''		Amanda Dell	Yves Montand, Frankie Vaughan, and Tony Randall		20th Century Fox
''''		Roslyn Taber	Clark Gable, Eli Wallach, Montgomery Clift		United Artists	Final film appearance
		Herself (archive footage)			20th Century Fox	Documentary film

Uncompleted films

! Film	! Year	! Role	! Co-stars	! Director	! Producer
''Something's Got to Give''		Ellen Wagstaff Arden	Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse	George Cukor	20th Century Fox

Television appearances

''As Herself''

! TV Program	! Year	! Notes
''The Jack Benny Program''	1953	1 episode
''Person to Person''	1955	Television documentary
''Premier Khrushchev in the USA''	1959	Television documentary
''President Kennedy's Birthday Salute''	1962	Television movie
''Lykke og krone''	1962	Television documentary

Songs

! Year	! Film title	! Song title
		"Every Baby Needs a Da-Da-Daddy"
"Anyone Can See I Love You"
"Ladies Of The Chorus"
1950		"Oh, What a Forward Young Man You Are"
1953	align=center	"Kiss"
	rowspan="7" style="text-align:center;"	"Two Little Girls from Little Rock"
"When Love Goes Wrong"
"Bye Bye Baby"
"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"
"Four French Dances — Sur le balcon, La Tentateur, Sol taire, Parle d'affair"
"Down Boy"'
"When The Wild Wild Women Go Swimmin' Down In the Bimini Bay"
		"She Acts Like A Woman Should"
"You'd Be Surprised"
"A Fine Romance"
"Do It Again"
		"I'm Gonna File My Claim"
"One Silver Dollar"
"Down In The Meadow"
"River Of No Return"
	rowspan="4" style="text-align:center;"	"Heat Wave"
"Lazy"
"After You Get What You Want"
"A Man Chases a Girl"
1956	align=center	"That Old Black Magic"
1957		"I Found a Dream"
		"Runnin' Wild"
"I Wanna Be Loved By You"
"I'm Through With Love"
"Some Like It Hot"
		"My Heart Belongs to Daddy"
"Specialization"
"Let's Make Love"
"Incurably Romantic"
1962		"Happy Birthday, Mr. President"

Awards and nominations

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

Marilyn Monroe in popular culture

Berniece Baker Miracle, Monroe's half-sister

John F. Kennedy document hoax

Notes

References

Jacke, Andreas: Marilyn Monroe und die Psychoanalyse. Psychosozial Verlag, Gießen 2005, ISBN 978-3-89806-398-2, ISBN 3-89806-398-4

Meaker, M. J. ''Sudden Endings: 13 Profiles in Depth of Famous Suicides'' Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY: 1964 p. 26–45: "Marilyn and Norma Jean: Marilyn Monroe"

External links

Gallery: Marilyn Monroe: Life and Times — ''Life Magazine''

''What Really Killed Marilyn'', article by Clare Boothe Luce for ''Life Magazine'', 7 August 1964.

"Marilyn!", essay by Dan Callahan for ''Alt Screen'' on the occasion of a retrospective at BAMcinématek

Category:1926 births Category:1962 deaths Category:20th-century actors Category:Actors Studio alumni Category:Actors who committed suicide Category:University High School (Los Angeles, California) alumni Category:Van Nuys High School alumni Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery Category:Converts to Judaism from Christianity Category:American Jews Category:Drug-related suicides in California Category:Female suicides Category:Former Christian Scientists Category:Glamour models Category:Models who committed suicide Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:Playboy Playmates (1953–1959) Category:RCA Victor artists Category:Torch singers Category:Jewish actors

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