An account of the life and career of Marilyn Monroe, one of Hollywood's most famous and glamorous movie stars.
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Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 – 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2021) by the time of her death in 1962. Long after her death, Monroe remains a major icon of pop culture. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her sixth on their list of the greatest female screen legends from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Multiple film critics and media outlets have cited Monroe as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in a total of 12 foster homes and an orphanage; she married at age sixteen. She was working in a factory during World War II when she met a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career, which led to short-lived film contracts with 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures. After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in late 1950. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and in the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. She faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photographs prior to becoming a star, but the story did not damage her career and instead resulted in increased interest in her films. By 1953, Monroe was one of the most marketable Hollywood stars; she had leading roles in the film noir Niagara, which overtly relied on her sex appeal, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, which established her star image as a "dumb blonde". The same year, her nude images were used as the centerfold and on the cover of the first issue of Playboy. She played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, but she was disappointed when she was typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project but returned to star in The Seven Year Itch (1955), one of the biggest box office successes of her career. When the studio was still reluctant to change Monroe's contract, she founded her own film production company in 1954. She dedicated 1955 to building the company and began studying method acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Later that year, Fox awarded her a new contract, which gave her more control and a larger salary. Her subsequent roles included a critically acclaimed performance in Bus Stop (1956) and her first independent production in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her role in Some Like It Hot (1959), a critical and commercial success. Her last completed film was the drama The Misfits (1961).
Sheree North (January 17, 1932 – November 4, 2005) was an American actress, singer, and dancer. Description above from the Wikipedia article Sheree North, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Donald Patrick "Don" Murray (July 31, 1929-February 2, 2024) was an American actor. Murray was born in Hollywood, California. He attended East Rockaway High School (class of 1947) in East Rockaway, New York where he played football and track, was a member of the student government and glee club and joined the Alpha Phi Chapter of the Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity. From high school he went on to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Murray had a long and varied career in films and television, including his role as Sid Fairgate in the long-running prime-time soap opera Knots Landing from 1979 to 1981. He was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actor in Bus Stop (1956) in which he co-starred with Marilyn Monroe. He starred as a blackmailed United States senator in Advise & Consent (1961), a film version of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Allen Drury that was directed by Otto Preminger and cast Murray opposite Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton. He also co-starred with Steve McQueen in the film Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965) and played the ape-hating Governor Breck in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972). In addition to acting, Murray directed a film based on the book The Cross and the Switchblade (1970) starring Pat Boone and Erik Estrada, and he scripted two episodes of Knots Landing ("Hitchhike" parts 1 & 2) in 1980. Murray starred with Otis Young in the ground breaking ABC western television series The Outcasts (1968-69) featuring an interracial bounty hunter team in the post-Civil War West. Murray decided to leave Knots Landing after two years to concentrate on other projects, although some sources say he left over a salary dispute. The character's death was notable at the time because it was considered rare to "kill off" a star character. The death came in the second episode of season three, following up on season two's cliffhanger in which Sid's car careered off a cliff. To make viewers off doubt the character would actually die, Murray was listed in the newly created credit sequence for season three; the character survived the plunge off the cliff (thus temporarily reassuring viewers), but died shortly afterwards in hospital. Although he effectively distanced himself from the series after his exit in 1981, Murray later contributed an interview segment for Knots Landing: Together Again, a non-fiction reunion special made in 2005. Murray was the first husband of actress Hope Lange. They had two children, including actor Christopher Murray.
Susan Elizabeth Strasberg (May 22, 1938 – January 21, 1999) was an American actress. Description above from the Wikipedia article Susan Strasberg, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Eli Herschel Wallach (December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Other roles include his portrayal of Don Altobello in The Godfather Part III, Calvera in The Magnificent Seven, and Arthur Abbott in The Holiday. Wallach has received BAFTA Awards, Tony Awards and Emmy Awards for his work. Wallach also has a cameo as a liquor store owner in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River. Wallach received an Honorary Academy Award at the 2nd Annual Governors Awards, presented on November 13, 2010. Description above from the Wikipedia article Eli Wallach, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Joseph Paul DiMaggio (born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio; November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "the Yankee Clipper", and "Joe D.", was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees. He is widely considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time and is best known for setting the record for the longest hitting streak in baseball (56 games from May 15 – July 16, 1941), which still stands today. He was a three-time American League (AL) Most Valuable Player Award winner and an All-Star in each of his 13 seasons. During his tenure with the Yankees, the club won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships. His nine career World Series rings are second only to fellow Yankee Yogi Berra, who won ten. At the time of his retirement after the 1951 season, he ranked fifth in career home runs (361) and sixth in career slugging percentage (.579). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955 and was voted the sport's greatest living player in a poll taken during baseball's centennial year of 1969. His brothers Vince (1912–1986) and Dom (1917–2009) were also major league center fielders. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces on February 17, 1943, rising to the rank of sergeant. He spent most of his military career playing for baseball teams and in exhibition games, and superiors gave him special privileges due to his prewar fame. Embarrassed by his lifestyle, he requested that he be given a combat assignment but was turned down. He was released on a medical discharge in September 1945, due to chronic stomach ulcers. In January 1937, he met actress Dorothy Arnold on the set of Manhattan Merry-Go-Round. He announced their engagement on April 25, 1939, they married on November 19, 1939, and had a son, Joseph Paul DiMaggio Jr. (1941–1999). They divorced in 1944, while he was on leave from the Yankees during World War II. He and actress Marilyn Monroe eloped on January 14, 1954. The union was troubled from the start by his jealousy and controlling attitude; he was also physically abusive. After returning from New York City to Hollywood in October 1954, she filed for divorce after only nine months of marriage. He underwent therapy, stopped drinking alcohol, and expanded his interests beyond baseball. He reentered her life as her marriage to Arthur Miller was ending. On February 10, 1961, he secured her release from Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in Manhattan. She joined him in Florida where he was a batting coach for the Yankees. Their "just friends" claim did not stop remarriage rumors from flying. Bob Hope "dedicated" Best Song nominee "The Second Time Around" to them at the 33rd Academy Awards. According to Maury Allen's biography, he was told that DiMaggio left his employ on August 1, 1962, because he had decided to ask Monroe to remarry him. Four days later, on August 5, she was found dead in her Brentwood home. Devastated, he claimed her body and arranged for her funeral. He barred Hollywood's elite and members of the Kennedy family from attending, including President John F. Kennedy. He had a half-dozen red roses delivered to her crypt three times a week for 20 years. He refused to talk about her publicly or otherwise exploit their relationship. He never married again.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Camille (1936). He was replaced as the director of Gone with the Wind (1939), but went on to direct The Philadelphia Story (1940), Adam's Rib (1949), Born Yesterday (1950), A Star Is Born (1954) and My Fair Lady (1964). He continued to work into the 1980s. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Cukor, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Peter Graves was born Peter Duesler Aurness on March 18, 1926 on Minneapolis, Minnesota. While growing up in Minnesota, he excelled at sports and music (as a saxophonist), and by age 16, he was a radio announcer at WMIN in Minneapolis. After two years in the United States Air Force, he studied drama at the University of Minnesota and then headed to Hollywood, where he first appeared on television and later made his film debut in Rogue River (1951). Numerous film appearances followed, especially in Westerns. However, Graves is primarily recognized for his television work, particularly as Jim Phelps in Mission: Impossible (1966). Peter Graves died of a heart attack on March 14, 2010, just four days before his 84th birthday.
