For most of Norma Jean's childhood, her mother was confined in mental institutions. From the age of five, the little girl lived in a succession of foster homes, in which she was subjected to neglect, humiliation, and once even to rape. At nine she was placed in an orphanage and at 11 she went to live with a friend of her mother's. At 16 she quit high school and sought escape from her loveless childhood in a marriage to Jim Dougherty, a 21-year old aircraft plant worker. She was later to sum up the marriage thus: "We hardly spoke to each other . . . We had nothing to say." A year later she attempted suicide, but it was a halfhearted try. In 1944, when her husband was sent overseas as a merchant marine, she began working as a paint sprayer in a defense plant. It was there that she was discovered by an Army photographer, who asked her to pose for morale-boosting photographs. Her pinups won some popularity among GI's: the Seventh Division Medical Corps voted her the girl they would most like to examine. Soon other photographers began taking notice and one of them introduced her to a modeling agency, where her brown hair was bleached and shortened. By now (1946) she was divorced and looking ahead to a bright career as a model. She was sent to charm school and her photos soon began appearing on the covers of male magazines and attracting attention in Hollywood. Howard Hughes offered her a screen test, but he was beaten to the punch by 20th Century-Fox, which signed Marilyn to a year's contract in August 1946, at $125 a week. Her name was changed to Marilyn Monroe and she was given the usual starlet buildup—cheesecake photos, mention in gossip columns, poses with celebrities, and acting, singing, and dancing lessons. Everything but actual roles in films.

When she finally made her debut in a bit part in Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay! (1948), Marilyn's few close shots were dropped on the cutting-room floor. All that remained in the release print of her initial film appearance was a long shot in which she is seen rowing a boat in a distant background. She played a bit in another film before being dropped by Fox. Undaunted, she continued taking acting classes and in March of 1948 she was signed by Columbia for a lead part in the low budget musical Ladies of the Chorus. But Columbia, too, allowed her option to expire and she found herself again out of work. It was during this period of unemployment that she posed for her famous nude calendar photo. She was paid $50 for her services. The calendar company realized a profit of $750,000 on a million copies it sold.

After a six-month absence, Marilyn returned to the screen in a succession of small roles, typically cast as a dumb platinum blonde. In 1950 she was again signed by Fox and gradually her parts grew in size and importance. Thanks to a well-orchestrated publicity campaign and increasing popularity, she was secure enough in her position as an upcoming star in 1952 to weather the discoveries by the press of her nude calendar photos ("I was hungry," she explained) and the presence of her mother in a mental asylum. Marilyn's rise was now rapid. By the time she married baseball hero Joe DiMaggio, in January of 1954, she was Fox's biggest box-office attraction and Hollywood's newest sex goddess. Her wiggle, her pout, her husky voice, were becoming the object of women's imitation and men's dreams. She exuded breathless sensuality and was at once erotic and wholesome, invitingly real and appealingly funny.

While working on The Seven Year Itch, the film with the famous shot of her standing over a subway grating with her skirt blowing up to her face, Marilyn divorced DiMaggio, nine months after their marriage. After completing the film, in a gesture of defiance against Fox and her stereotyped roles, she went to New York, where she announced to the press the formation of Marilyn Monroe Productions, with herself as president, in partnership with photographer Milton Greene. She told reporters she was eager to play serious parts, citing as an example the role of Grushenka in The Brothers Karamazov. She ignored the mocking and snickering reactions to her statements and began attending acting classes at the Actors Studio, under the personal tutelage of Lee and Paula Strasberg. She mingled with New York's intellectual crowd and became particularly attached to playwright Arthur Miller.

In December 1955, Marilyn was lured back into the Fox fold with a contract that was lucrative and gave her approval over her films' directors. She surprised critics with her subtle performance in her first film under the new contract, Bus Stop. Director Joshua Logan commented: "She has the makings of a great comedienne." In June 1956, Marilyn married Arthur Miller, after converting to Judaism, an Owl and Pussycat match if ever there was one. They left together for England, where Marilyn starred in The Prince and the Showgirl, opposite Sir Laurence Olivier, who also directed. The film fizzled critically and commercially, but her next, back in Hollywood, Some Like It Hot, was a smash hit.

Marilyn's last film was The Misfits (1961), the script of which was written especially for her by Miller. By sad coincidence, it was also the last film of Clark Gable, who died shortly after its completion. The production was beset by difficulties and went for over its budget, largely because of Marilyn's frequent illnesses and spells of depression. At one point she collapsed on the set from an overdose of sleeping pills and was rushed to a hospital. As her tensions grew, her dosage of sleeping pills increased and she began mixing them with alcoholic drinks. She was not seeing her psychiatrist daily and suffering from total physical exhaustion. On January 21, 1961, a week after the opening of The Misfits, she divorced Miller. A month after the premiere she entered a hospital for intensive psychiatric care.

Seemingly recovered in the summer of 1962, Marilyn began working in Fox's production Something's Got to Give. But her habitual tardiness and frequent absences, tolerated in the past, were so damaging to the progress of the production that she was fired from the set. A month later, one the morning of August 5, 1962, her housekeeper found Marilyn Monroe's body nude and lifeless on her bed. An empty bottle of sedatives was found nearby. The coroner's verdict called her death the result of an overdose of barbiturates and a possible suicide. At her funeral Lee Strasberg eulogized: "Marilyn Monroe was a legend. In her own lifetime she created a myth of what a poor girl from a deprived background could attain. For the entire world she became a symbol of the eternal feminine." For years after she passed away, stories kept spreading about Monroe's intimate relations with President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Bobby, and speculation abounded about the "real" cause of her death, with many writers and amateur sleuths suspecting foul play and suggesting a political conspiracy to keep her quiet. By 1990 no fewer than 15 postmortem biographies of the star appeared in print and more were announced for publication. Her autobiography, My Story, was published in 1974. Documentary, compilation, and dramatized films and TV movies about the star's life and career have also been periodically released. A bewildered superstar in her lifetime, in her death Marilyn Monroe basked in the aura of a myth.