[00:06.45]Her name at birth was Norma Jean Baker.
[00:10.92]Her life as a child was like a bad dream.
[00:14.68]She lived with a number of different people, and often was mistreated.
[00:19.88]At age sixteen Norma Jean married a sailor.
[00:24.69]But she soon ended that marriage.
[00:27.69]She changed her hair color from brown to shining gold.
[00:32.21]And she changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.
[00:35.76]She wanted to be an actress...and she succeeded.
[00:40.39]She appeared in a number of Hollywood movies.
[00:43.99]Millions of people went to see them.
[00:47.52]By the time Norma Jean had reached the age of twenty-six,
[00:52.14]her beautiful face and body earned her a place asone of America's leading movie stars.
[00:58.59]But success and fame were not enough to make her happy.
[01:04.24]The troubles of her childhood days stayed with her.
[01:08.60]She drank too much alcohol.
[01:11.92]She took too many drugs.
[01:14.37]At the age of thirty-six, she took her own life.
[01:18.37]She has been dead since 1962.
[01:22.49]Still, her fame continues to grow.
[01:26.05]People born long after she died are watching her movies on television.
[01:31.53]Objects that belonged to her bring huge prices at public sales.
[01:37.49]The new Warner Brothers' Museum in Hollywood has the white dress she wore in one of her movies,
[01:45.27]"The Prince and the Showgirl".
[01:47.05]People continue to talk about what they feel is her strange death.
[01:52.93]Some people believe she was murdered.
[01:56.32]Two investigations showed that she died as the result of too many drugs.
[02:02.80]Why is the public still so interested in a woman who died so many years ago?
[02:09.07]A number of reasons.
[02:12.05]Her exciting but tragic life.
[02:14.35]Her Connections with well-known people.
[02:17.80]And her image as an especially desirable woman.
[02:22.94]In the 1950s, many Americans believed sex was a very private subject.
[02:29.84]People often severely judged those who were sexually appealing.
[02:34.54]Into this atmosphere burst Marilyn Monroe.
[02:38.51]As one critic said, her body was round in all the right places.
[02:44.34]She wore her clothes like skin.
[02:47.52]When she walked, she moved her lower body in a way that few other actresses had done.
[02:53.95]Her voice was soft and breathy.
[02:57.42]She soon became America's golden girl.
[03:01.26]The story of Marilyn Monroe begins on June first, 1926.
[03:07.59]Norma Jean was born that day in the west coast city of Los Angeles, California.
[03:13.93]Her birthplace was not far from the Hollywood movie studios where she would someday be a star.
[03:21.93]Her mother, Gladys Baker, suffered from mental problems.
[03:26.58]Often the mother had to be treated in a hospital for long periods of time.
[03:32.58]Her daughter was sent to live with a number of different people.
[03:37.21]The actress later would describe her stays with these Foster families as sometimes very unhappy.
[03:45.78]During the worst experiences, she would go to a movie theater.
[03:50.58]There the young Norma Jean escaped into the make-believe world of movies.
[03:56.72]She would act all the movie parts after she went to a movie.
[04:01.45]She told this to a long time friend, actor Ted Jordan, who later wrote a book about her.
[04:09.39]By the time she was seventeen, Marilyn was trying very hard to be a movie actress.
[04:16.71]She finally was able to get an actors' agent to help her.
[04:21.41]He got 20th Century Fox Company to give Marilyn parts in some movies it produced.
[04:28.20]Marilyn continued to change the way she had looked as Norma Jean.
[04:33.14]She had an operation to improve the appearance of her nose.
[04:37.45]Her eyes were made to appear larger.
[04:40.84]She began using a great deal of bright red lipstick on her mouth.
[04:45.88]Marilyn may have worked more to improve her appearance
[04:50.48]than to improve her performance in acting classes.
[04:55.08]Some people at Twentieth Century Fox said she did not like to work at all.
[05:01.17]She appeared in only one movie.
[05:03.65]And she had only one line to speak in that.
[05:02.65]The Fox Movie Company dismissed her.
[05:05.76]Soon,however, her agent got her a job at Columbia Pictures.
[05:10.51]She appeared in a movie called "Ladies of the Chorus."
[05:15.13]She Sang two songs.
[05:17.98]Several critics praised her performance |