Marilyn Monroe

Blonde is a beautifully made movie with a superb performance by Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe. So why does it feel so empty?

In certain scenes shot on black and white film, with Dominik recreating the exact blocking of a scene from, say, Some Like It Hot (1959), it took this reviewer a moment to recognize he was looking at de Armas and not the actual Monroe of 60 years ago. And rest assured, Blonde is obsessed with the absence of Marilyn’s father, going so far as to suggest that hole in her formative years is something akin to the Rosebud sled in Citizen Kane. Ultimately, the movie’s pretensions of attempting a quixotic examination of Marilyn Monroe’s sex life amounts to little more than art house cinema proving it isn’t above exploitation. While that is true, there’s still little difference in sentiment from the dismissive studio head Daryl Zanuck who refused to ever take Marilyn seriously and the way Blonde lingers as much or more on the sexcapades of Marilyn’s life than how she felt about the men in them. Instead the movie chooses to revel in the objectification demanded by a misogynistic society, and how eagerly Monroe pursued it. As per the movie, the unlikely pairing was due to the celebrated playwright becoming as attracted to her mind and underrated intellect as he is to her famed physique. It’s even a bit of fitting irony, too, that the most buzzed about element is not the movie star Blonde has ostensibly come to eulogize, but the curiosity factor around the one who seems poised to become an A-list sensation by playing her. Which is why Blonde’s attempt to bury it under so much artifice of its own, and a good deal of fiction from author Joyce Carol Oates—whose Blonde novel rewrote Monroe’s life for the worst—misses out on the opportunity provided by de Armas’ almost-great performance. It’s a shame then that Blonde is no more interested in being kind, or necessarily self-aware, than the legion of wolves who leer at Marilyn for nearly three hours throughout the picture. Given that backdrop, it’s no small wonder Norma Jeane was anxious to become Marilyn after the movie cuts to her adulthood. All the months and years leading up to Blonde’s premiere centered around apprehension in the media over a Cuban woman playing the American movie star. Whereas the male emblem of 1950s sex got a glorifying piece of hagiography courtesy of Baz Luhrmann over the summer, Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is eager to strip away the lairs of popular fantasy (and just about everything else) until all we’re left with is a fragile, scared young woman who was smothered by the adoration that gave her everything…

Rather than being a traditional biopic, the film is an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' fictionalised novel of the same name – mixing fact with fiction to paint ...

[subscribe now](http://radiotimes.com/magazine-subscription?utm_term=evergreen-article) and get the next 12 issues for only £1. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the [Radio Times podcast](https://www.radiotimes.com/podcasts/). [Film](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/) coverage or visit our [TV Guide](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/tv-listings/) to see what's on tonight. Even the actual identity of her father has not always been certain. See my attorney.'" [How to watch new Marilyn Monroe drama Blonde](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/how-to-watch-blonde-netflix/) [Blonde review: A brutal but beautiful look at Marilyn Monroe](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/blonde-review-netflix/) [Did Blonde's Marilyn Monroe and John F Kennedy story actually happen?](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/blonde-marilyn-monroe-john-f-kennedy-true-story-netflix/) He wouldn’t recognise her, he said ‘No, I don’t know who you are. [terms and conditions](https://www.immediate.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/) and [privacy policy](https://policies.immediate.co.uk/privacy/). [Variety](https://variety.com/2022/tv/global/marilyn-monroe-documentary-charles-stanley-gifford-mediawan-1235222789/) that the evidence was "irrefutable". [Blonde](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/blonde-movie-release-date-netflix-marilyn-monroe/) finally arrived on Netflix on Wednesday 28th September 2022.

It has been a Year of Marilyn, full of tributes and homages, but "Blonde" explores the darker side of the entertainment icon.

And of course, it comes to the now-familiar conclusion that there was much more to the story than was apparent at the time. But Dominik’s film certainly meets Bolton’s other expectation: “Respect and fidelity to the complexity of the person.” Still, “Blonde” the movie covers many of the major known tragedies and trials of Monroe’s real life, such as her mother’s mental illness as well as her own, her failed marriages, her substance-abuse issues and her unrealized desire to become a parent. (It skips over a few famous beats, too, such as Monroe’s early marriage in her teenage years to a policeman — as well as the fact that she had half-siblings, one of whom she reconnected with later in life. Vogue recently heralded [“Barbiecore”](https://www.vogue.com/article/barbie-fashion-is-everywhere-this-summer) as the hottest trend of summertime, and a TikTok genre known as “BimboTok” was the subject of many a concerned-but-fascinated [trend story](https://www.thecut.com/2021/12/reclaiming-bimbo-bimbotok.html) [in 2022](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/bimbo-reclaim-tiktok-gen-z-1092253/). But the genre does seem to take cues from Monroe’s bubbly public persona — and her apparent enjoyment of being a beautiful, hyperfeminine woman. “Blonde,” however clumsily, attempts to answer that question, as it’s the rare Monroe tribute that looks closely at the mortal person behind the immortal image. Chrissy Chlapecka, 22, is one of the most prominent TikTokers associated with BimboTok, and she names Monroe among her lifelong inspirations. Her image has “come to stand for the very essence of glamour and beauty,” Bolton says, while her life story “stands for the classic hard-luck, rags-to-riches” tale of making it big in Hollywood. “I have noticed once again that clothing is coming around to the ’60s,” says Donelle Dadigan, president and founder of the Hollywood Museum in California (where interest in the Monroe items spikes yearly in June around her birthday). But none of this year’s moments of Marilyn fixation have engaged quite as directly with the latter as “Blonde,” which focuses on Norma Jeane Baker, the woman who became Marilyn Monroe. A few forces have converged this year to create a period of renewed fascination with Monroe — or perhaps more accurately, with Monroe iconography.

Ana De Armas at Marilyn Monroe in Blonde. Getty Images. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. I know all too well the excruciating agony ...

The pain she lived with is unquestionable, and ultimately her extremely sad death at the age of 36 was ruled to be suicide. [affects 1 in 10 women](https://www.endometriosis-uk.org/endometriosis-facts-and-figures) and the average time between first visiting a doctor and [receiving a diagnosis](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a34192345/endometriosis-diagnosis-times/) is still an unforgivable 7.5 years. [Endometriosis](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a40252558/adenomyosis-vs-endometriosis/) is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other places, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes. In Monroe’s case, this life was lived in a different era and as medical misogyny exists today, it can be fairly reasoned she would have been on the receiving end of much more archaic treatment back in the 1950s and 60s. Marilyn Monroe’s image is inextricably linked with pop culture and perhaps that’s why so many have tried to take a figurative piece of her. But when doing that, we must recognise the extent of her lived reality. All of which, living with the sheer agony of endometriosis may have contributed to. [Marilyn Monroe](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a41385580/blonde-marilyn-monroe-real-life/) has been the subject of global fascination for several decades and she’ll always be seen as a sparkling Hollywood star. I’ve passed out from its crashing waves flooding my body and have desperately willed the sharp stabbing agony to stop. And now following the release of the [new Netflix film Blonde](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/a40443520/ana-de-armas-blonde-release-date-trailer-cast/), Monroe’s life is in the spotlight once more. Symptoms include pain, fatigue, heavy bleeding and depression, with endometriosis potentially affecting every part of a sufferer’s life, including their fertility. With scenes in Blonde said to be sexist, exploitative and invasive (with rape, forced abortion and abuse featuring throughout), the pain endured in her short life is being pored over for entertainment purposes again.

“Blonde,” a new movie about Marilyn Monroe based on Syracuse University alumna Joyce Carol Oates' book of the same name, is out now.

Fame is what made Marilyn the most visible person in the world, but it also made Norma the most invisible.” Costume designer Jennifer Johnson made replicas using modern fabrics with exhaustive attention to detail, including plating for the iconic white halter cocktail dress that billowed up over a subway grate. Andrew Dominik, whose credits include “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” and “Killing Them Softly,” directed the film and wrote the script based on Oates’ 2000 novel. Many films about Marilyn Monroe are kind of upbeat and have a lot of music and singing. “[The film] boldly reimagines the life of one of Hollywood’s most enduring icons, Marilyn Monroe. We’d pore over every detail in the photo and debate what was happening in it. The film, rated NC-17, is free to watch for anyone with a [Netflix account](https://www.netflix.com/). “It’s not a feel-good movie. It’s not running for public office.” “If the audience doesn’t like it, that’s the f---ing audience’s problem. [Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/watch/80174263) Wednesday, Sept. The cast includes Adrien Brody as “The Playwright” (Arthur Miller), Bobby Cannavale as “The Ex-Athlete” (Joe DiMaggio), Michael Masini as Tony Curtis, and Caspar Phillipson as “The President” (John F.

From Some Like It Hot to The Misfits (and with a Millionaire in between), here's a look at Marilyn Monroe's accomplished onscreen legacy.

The performances in this countdown showcase her unforgettable work as a dynamic leading lady. While some consider Monroe to be synonymous with a life of scandal, and others see her simply as a bubble-headed sex symbol, this list forcefully counters those misconceptions. As an actor, Marilyn Monroe embodied glamour, tragedy, romanticism, and wit.

Blonde, a movie that reimagines the life of the iconic star Marilyn Monroe, starring Ana de Armas, is rated NC-17 on the subscription-based service Netflix.

The views expressed here are that of the respective authors/ entities and do not represent the views of Economic Times (ET). The actress also said that Blonde is supposed to create controversy and discomfort. But why exactly is "Blonde" rated NC-17? ET hereby disclaims any and all warranties, express or implied, relating to the report and any content therein. - What is the movie Blonde about? [Ana de Armas](/topic/ana-de-armas)'s starrer [Blonde](/topic/blonde), in which she plays the role of the iconic [Hollywood](/topic/hollywood)icon [Marilyn Monroe](/topic/marilyn-monroe), is currently rated NC-17 on [Netflix](/news/netflix-news).

The perfect film to watch with a phone and the pause button.

When Monroe is negotiating a higher rate for her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – as she points out, she is the blonde being preferred – we see another personality, one which demonstrates a shrewdness and humour that must have been necessary for her to endure as long as she did at the level she was at. Her performance is a life raft. The film is interesting because Monroe’s life is interesting; most things involving film stars, famous athletes and presidents are. He thought she was hot, but treated her like a kid! Was she actually in a three-way relationship with Charlie Chaplin Jr. And so we come to Blonde, the latest production to take on Monroe, who, as the film poster notes, was “watched by all, seen by none.”

Streetwear brands Culture Kings and Carré drop a new Marilyn Monroe-inspired collection ahead of 'Blonde' release.

[debuted to a massive 14-minute long standing ovation](https://variety.com/2022/film/news/blonde-ana-de-armas-standing-ovation-venice-nc-17-marilyn-monroe-1235337816/) during its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month. “The film leaves us with just how haunting it is that where the world saw a goddess, she saw no there there.” The lineup includes t-shirts, dresses and hoodies donning captivating famous images of the blonde icon whose life was famously shrouded in mystery.

Andrew Dominik's 'Blonde' has generated plenty of controversy for its depiction of violence towards Marilyn Monroe. But could the icon's complicated story ...

Near the end of Blonde, a drugged and drunken Marilyn collapses on the floor of a plane flying her to give the President of the United States a blow job, keening and rolling on the ground. But perhaps what we mean by it’s so sad is that we see in women like Blonde’s Marilyn the futility of living so close to life’s marrow, so perpetually in tune with the deep down thrum. And while our feelings about Marilyn Monroe still run hot decades after her death, this fascination may be in part due to our uneasy relationship with the display of female pain among the living. Our enduring fascination with Marilyn points to something darker in the ether; something darker in ourselves. We see this in Blonde when Marilyn, awash in bouquets and fan letters, is being zipped into her undergarments by attendants while confessing that she feels like “a slave to Marilyn Monroe” and is exhausted by life as a caricature. “Every one of us, everybody in the world, would give their right arm to be you.” Only the visible is allowed to be real for a beautiful movie star. This first manifestation of her grief — to make herself beautiful, to make herself sexy — was the most socially acceptable one she could have chosen. The story of beauty is hagiography, while the story of glamour is riveting. When Marilyn slipped into a tight sweater, glued false lashes onto her eyelids, and parlayed the stammer she’d developed after being molested as an 8-year-old into a breathy aural suggestion of sex, she was looking for a daddy, as she would call all of her future lovers: a father figure who would never abandon her as her own father had. She was the aestheticization of female pain embodied, and this is central to [our enduring fascination with her](https://www.thecut.com/2022/09/leave-marilyn-monroe-alone.html) almost 60 years after her death. To use it as fuel to become what the world wanted from a woman — a pliant pinup willing to smile, at least for a little while, in obscenity’s face. Marilyn was about something that had already begun to fall out of favor in the mid-20th century and has continued declining in popularity ever since, which is the idea of a woman needing a man to love her.

As one of Hollywood's sex symbols, it's not difficult to imagine the horrors and trauma that Norma Jeane Mortenson might have faced as an actor finding her way ...

Considering that Marilyn Monroe is one of the most celebrated and beloved actresses of her time, there is never a single moment in this movie (that follows her through the height of her career) when she feels triumphant. As a woman watching this and as a lover of Marilyn Monroe, this felt like torture. None of the people in her life — except for maybe her makeup artist Whitey, aka Allan Snyder (Toby Huss) — is there to comfort her or help her or love her. Men want to possess her or fix her or hurt her, women want to hate her and shame her. De Armas is a duplicate of Monroe in some scenes, with it nearly being impossible to tell the difference between her and the real Monroe. She's crying for the entire movie, and you want to cry with her for the way they're butchering Monroe's legacy. Monroe is perpetually surrounded by men; the only women in her life abandon her or make fun of her. However, it is marketed as a historical film, and it's not really emphasized to its audience that it's based on a fictional story about Monroe by Joyce Carol Oates. The fact that those moments feel so genuine makes it even more painful that the movie doesn't linger in them and instead chooses to shock and sensationalize. Chayze Irvin's camera work is often dreamlike and the constantly shifting perspectives, aspect ratios, and jumping between black and white and color adds to the chaotic nature of the story. If you ever wanted a lesson in what the male gaze looks like, this movie is the prime example. [Blonde](https://collider.com/tag/blonde/) portrays [Marilyn Monroe](https://collider.com/tag/marilyn-monroe/) as a lifelong victim.

Whether you love or hate 'Blonde,' you should watch some of Marilyn Monroe's films. We've rounded up 8 of our favorites.

The second (and final) film made by Marilyn Monroe Productions, The Prince and the Showgirl shows Monroe at her most effervescently charming. She stars as Sugar Kane, a singer in an all-girls band who always gets "the fuzzy end of the lollipop." Perhaps the quintessential image of Marilyn Monroe arrives in this film, clad in a flamingo pink gown and dripping with jewels as she sings "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." Niagara rocketed Monroe to superstardom, codifying her sexpot image as enshrined in reviews that compared her figure in her tight dresses to the beauties of Niagara Falls. When she hooks up with Gaylord Langland (Clark Gable) and his pals, Guido (Eli Wallach) and Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift), she finds herself drawn to both Gay and Perce. But it also proved Monroe's deft ability to use her appearance as part of her craft, delivering a multifaceted and complex rendering of the scheming Rose. Once again Monroe sent up her image, bantering with Bacall and Grable to craft another wry, deceptively smart story of women who ultimately give in to romance over their gold-digging intentions. In a significant dramatic turn, Monroe plays Cherie, a performer at a local bus-stop cafe with Hollywood aspirations. Bus Stop, based on the play of the same name by William Inge, marked a departure for Monroe as her first film following her year in New York studying at the Actor's Studio. But in addition to the physical concept of Marilyn Monroe, she was an exceptional actress. Watch these for a more genuine look at what has made Monroe one of the world's most enduring Hollywood legends. She codified the "dumb blonde" as a trope while also constantly pulling the rug out from underneath it.

With Ana de Armas playing Marilyn Monroe in 'Blonde' hitting Netflix today, we're ranking every actress who has played the star onscreen from Michelle ...

The movie is based on the memoir by Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a young third AD on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, the less iconic comedy starring Sir Laurence Olivier as the eponymous prince who falls in love with Monroe’s showgirl. Here, Monroe is covered up (literally) and spoken over (literally) because the story is never really about her; it’s about the boys obsessed with her as the ultimate goal. Much importance is given to the push-and-pull relationship between Marilyn and her mother, Gladys (Susan Sarandon) — far more than her marriages or affair with JFK, which sets this biopic apart from the others. In a remote castle populated by celebrity impersonators, Marilyn lives with her husband, Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant), and their daughter, Shirley Temple (Esmé Creed-Miles). The entire premise of the short-lived Smash is the impossibility of a single performer fully capturing that indescribable thing that made Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe. The resulting film (which garnered a sequel, Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn) is much more about men staring at the woman born Norma Jeane Mortenson than about the person herself. Monroe’s purported affair with the Kennedys is the least interesting thing about her (and them). Positioned as her one true love, the one who got away, and even a secret fourth husband, this is possibly the most offensive entry in the “mediocre man somehow charms Monroe” subgenre. In a series criticized for taking liberties with historical facts, it’s not surprising there is little respect paid to the memory of Monroe (she has to mock-blow Bobby Kennedy), who’s presented here as little more than a crass, unstable bimbo. Barbara Niven (a Lifetime-movie staple) plays a cartoon version of Monroe: boobs out, big blonde wig, and desperate to get in bed with JFK. A lot of these are told from the point of view of the men who took advantage of her or pined for her from afar, so much so that there’s a whole genre of “Marilyn and me” stories that lean heavily toward the “and me” part. That’s not counting the myriad of cameos (she pops up in the background of a “supposedly dead celebrity” party of immortals in Death Becomes Her), allusions (Penélope Cruz in Broken Embraces dons a Marilyn-esque wig) and stories loosely inspired by her story (the Paddy Chayefsky-penned 1958 film The Goddess is widely assumed to be based on Monroe).

"Blonde" Makeup and hair crew on how they transformed Ana de Armas into Marilyn Monroe.

“The gray is painted into their hair to make them more distinguished.” She adds, “There are silvery streaks painted in, and when you look at the original, you think, ‘Why would they do that?’ So we had to copy that.” In recreating “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” Kerwin mixed a fuchsia lip with red. Says Kerwin, “We needed something sturdy that could hold up with the gluing and ungluing of wigs.” “It changed the eye shape,” Kerwin explains. It gave us a chance to figure out what worked better in black and white as opposed to color,” explains Kerwin. The shoot session was done before principal filming began, and it helped immensely since they would have to recreate many of Monroe’s most iconic moments.

She was an actress of uncommon talent. But once again a director is more interested in examining her body (literally, in this case) than getting inside her ...

Monroe’s life was tough, but there was more to it than Dominik grasps, the proof of which is in the films she left behind — “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “How to Marry a Millionaire,” “Some Like It Hot,” “The Misfits” — the whole damn filmography. But by so insistently erasing the divide between these realms, Dominik ends up reducing Marilyn to the very image — the goddess, the sexpot, the pinup, the commodity — that he also seems to be trying to critique. Dominik does get around to showing her face, which is beaming as the camera points up toward Marilyn in outward supplication. The movie opens with a short black-and-white sequence that re-creates the night Monroe filmed the most famous scene in Billy Wilder’s garish 1955 comedy, “The Seven Year Itch,” about a married man lusting after a neighbor played by Monroe. In the introduction to the book, the critic Elaine Showalter writes that Oates used Monroe as “an emblem of twentieth-century America.” A woman, Showalter later adds without much conviction, “who was much more than a victim.” His Norma Jeane — and her glamorous, vexed creation, Marilyn Monroe — is almost nothing more than a victim: As the years passed and even as her fame grows, she is mistreated again and again, even by those who claim to love her. Watching “Blonde,” I wondered if Dominik had ever actually watched a Marilyn Monroe film, had seen the transcendent talent, the brilliant comic timing, the phrasing, gestures and grace? But of course this is all about Monroe, one of the most famous women of the 20th century, and it revisits her fame and life — Bobby Cannavale plays a character based on Joe DiMaggio, and Adrien Brody on Arthur Miller — with enough fidelity to suggest that Dominik is working in good faith when he’s simply exploiting her anew. “Blonde” doesn’t announce itself as fiction right off, though it carries the usual mealy-mouthed disclaimer in the credits. (As Anthony Summers points out in his book “Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe,” [she formed her own corporation: Marilyn Monroe Productions, Inc.) Mostly, what’s missing is any sense of what made Monroe more than just another beautiful woman in Hollywood: her genius. After a brief prelude that introduces Marilyn at the height of her fame, the movie rewinds to the sad, lonely little girl named Norma Jeane, with a terrifying, mentally unstable single mother, Gladys (Julianne Nicholson).

Jennifer Johnson talks about revealing the person behind the myth, the “emotional armour” of Norma Jeane's off-duty looks, and her thoughts on the Kim ...

He couldn’t find a fabric to back the dressing and [make it] heavier, so he went up to the art department at Fox Studios and found a pool-table fabric and used the green felt to make the inside of the dress. So we went back to the drawing board and worked on the architecture to figure out how to electrify it and focus on the movement. That uniform is extraordinarily important as it represents a sort of emotional armour and it’s a statement about the person she really was and how she wanted to be acknowledged – as an intellectual person of interest, an artist. In my opinion, because that dress is a singular entity and it’s so important to Marilyn’s history, it shouldn’t leave a curatorial, air-conditioned, temperature-controlled environment. For the [original] pink dress of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, William Travilla had to remake the original design last-minute to be more modest after the leaking of some pics of Marilyn posing naked for a calendar. She knew her worth and to voice out those aspects in the film was significant. We felt something was wrong, like she was wrapped in a toilet paper tube, it didn’t have any life to it. We had a very small budget and a fast production, so the trick was to avoid those shortcuts because if you take them, and you don’t dig deep into the forensic work of how complicated the image was to create in the first place, you’re left with a sort of a cheapening of her – which we see when we walk on Hollywood Boulevard and see an impersonator in the white dress that blows up in the subway. Here, she reflects on how she brought life to some of the 20th century’s most iconic looks – and the “emotional armour” of Norma Jeane’s off-duty looks. The biggest challenge of recreating Marilyn comes from the fact that we are all so familiar with her. The image of Monroe has been so stereotyped by the industry that it is easy to forget there was a person breathing behind the brand; with his long-awaited biopic Blonde, Australian director Andrew Dominik surely wanted to bring the US icon’s humanity back. An emblem of 20th-century America as instantly recognisable as Coca Cola or white picket fences, an image that speaks to an era of deep gender inequality and objectification of women, but which we still can’t help fantasising about.

Filmmaker Andrew Dominik has called Blonde “a movie for all the unloved children of the world.” Here's the real story of Monroe's family life.

I did this at sixteen by getting married.” (Monroe’s only guardian in the film is a neighbor who appears briefly, played by Sara Paxton.) When McKee Goddard and her husband [announced their move](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/leaming-marilyn.html?scp=62&sq=orphan%2520train&st=cse) to West Virginia they offered a then 15-year-old Monroe the choice between marrying James Dougherty, the 21-year-old son of a former neighbor, or returning to the orphanage. [spent her childhood](https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/marilyn-monroe-career-timeline/62/) in various orphanages and foster homes, where she allegedly faced [sexual abuse](https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/11/marilyn-monroe-201011) and emotional distress. When her daughter was three years old, Gladys would [allegedly](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Secret_Life_of_Marilyn_Monroe/MlkKQf4Mt00C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Ida) make a thwarted attempt to break into Monroe’s foster home, placing her daughter in a duffel bag and briefly locking out the foster mother. “I used to tell lies in my interviews—chiefly about my mother and father,” Monroe wrote in My Story. [two weeks old](https://www.biography.com/news/marilyn-monroe-mother-relationship) when Gladys first dropped her off at a foster home in Hawthorne, California. As the mother of two children—Jackie and Berniece—who had already been taken from her by an ex-husband, Gladys was eager to keep her youngest in her life in some form, according to [Biography](https://www.biography.com/news/marilyn-monroe-mother-relationship). [RKO film cutter](https://time.com/6215916/blonde-true-story-marilyn-monroe-netflix/)). Based on the [2000 Pulitzer Prize–shortlisted novel](https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/04/back-to-blonde) by Joyce Carol Oates, he has [called](https://collider.com/blonde-ana-de-armas-marilyn-monroe-andrew-dominik-comments/) Blonde “a movie for all the unloved children of the world.” She is shown directly threatening her daughter’s life multiple times— nearly drowning her in a bathtub and driving her toward the 1933 Griffith Park fire. “It wasn’t till later that I realized how much she had done for me,” Monroe wrote of her “Aunt Grace” in her posthumously published memoir, [My Story](https://www.google.com/books/edition/My_Story/VbOIqnTRumIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=arranged). “Every baby needs a da-da-daddy,” Marilyn Monroe sings in one of her first credited roles, as former burlesque dancer Peggy Martin in 1948’s Ladies of the Chorus. At the film’s beginning, a seven-year-old Norma Jeane Baker (Lily Fisher) is tormented by her alcoholic and mentally unstable mother, Gladys (Julianne Nicholson).

Did Monroe have an affair with JFK? Was she abused by Joe DiMaggio? Was she in a throuple?

But Marilyn gave me the impression that it was not a major event for either of them: it happened once, that weekend, and that was that,” Roberts recalled. What seems highly dubious is that Monroe would let Kennedy treat her as dismissively as is suggested by Blonde, even though the womanizing president was notoriously not a romantic when it came to his conquests. Z,” a meeting that might be her big break if it results in a contract with “the studio.” Instead of an audition, she finds she is expected to perform fellatio on him. After treating her with as much respect and affection as he would a sex doll with no needs or personality of her own, he turns his back and the agents hustle her out—all wham, bam, with not even a thank you, ma’am. Baker had a mental breakdown in January 1934 and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, after which she was in and out of institutions for the rest of her life. Blonde depicts (in gory detail) Marilyn having an abortion after her breakup with the two Juniors, although whether this was her decision and arose, as the film suggests, out of her fear that her mother’s mental instability could be hereditary or whether the studio arranged it so she could start shooting Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on schedule is left ambiguous. “ [An actress isn’t a machine](https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/a28305/marilyn-monroe-career-woman/#:~:text=An%20actress%20isn%27t%20a%20machine%2C%20but%20they%20treat%20you,contract%20with%20Twentieth%20Century%20Fox.),” she told Life magazine, “but they treat you like one.” After Gentlemen Prefer Blondes proved to be Fox’s highest-earning film to date, Monroe expected to be able to command roles that showed off her range as an actress. The result was an estrangement between us, and I have not seen her for several years.” [By some accounts](https://people.com/movies/marilyn-monroes-most-famous-lovers-truth-vs-rumor/), it was not Monroe’s stepping out with movie stars for publicity that broke up the relationship, but Chaplin discovering her in bed with his brother Sydney. DiMaggio, 12 years older than Monroe, tried to control her career, discouraging her from taking roles that reinforced the sexualized blond-bombshell image she was best known for and encouraging her to become a full-time housewife. [Blonde](https://slate.com/culture/2022/09/blonde-marilyn-monroe-netflix-movie-ana-de-armas.html) is not so much a biopic based on the facts of the late Hollywood icon’s life as a speculative dive into her psyche, very much in the vein of [Spencer](https://slate.com/culture/2021/11/spencer-kristen-stewart-princess-diana-movie-accuracy.html), Pablo Larraín’s tribute to another iconic blond, Princess Diana. Gladys’ behavior grows increasingly erratic, including putting Norma Jeane in a car and driving toward a wildfire dressed only in a nightgown, until finally she tries to drown the child in the bathtub, after which she is committed to a state institution for the hospitalization of the mentally ill. was the same age as I, 21, an attractive, petite, unknown movie actress named Norma Jean Dougherty who was under contract at Twentieth Century-Fox.” However, Chaplin went on to recall, “from a professional point of view it was absolutely necessary for her to be seen together with all kinds of movie stars to get the papers interested in giving her a mention.

From her fight for pay parity on 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' to troubles on the set of 'Some Like It Hot.'

[her final interview](https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/14/greatinterviews), Monroe would recount a similar story: “I remember when I got the part in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. One of Blonde’s only moments of levity comes when Monroe is offered $500 a week to star in 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, while her costar Jane Russell is paid $100,000 because she’s on loan from another studio. That contract was [reportedly](https://nypost.com/2018/08/11/inside-marilyn-monroes-twisted-toxic-relationships/) not extended after Monroe allegedly refused sex with studio president Harry Cohn in his office. At the start of her career in show-biz, Blonde’s Monroe is raped by a man referred to as “Mr. Later in the film, when Monroe is asked by Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) how she got her start in movies, she appears disturbed and flashbacks of the assault play in her head. [per](https://nypost.com/2018/08/11/inside-marilyn-monroes-twisted-toxic-relationships/) biographer Charles Casillo, she had an arrangement with film executive Joe Schenck, in which she would “service” him for career advancement, including a six-month deal with Columbia Pictures. He gave me a script to read and told me how to pose while reading it. “He had a bug up his ass about not absolutely giving her the right parts. But how many of the show-biz stories in Dominik’s Blonde are true to how they really went down? She was not respected within the industry. Below, a breakdown of the filmmaking fact vs. Viewers are offered snippets of Monroe’s career—her first major performance as a deranged babysitter in 1952’s Don’t Bother to Knock, her fight for pay parity ahead of 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and turbulent days on 1959’s Some Like It Hot.

Netflix's Blonde has renewed interest in the actress' short but memorable life. The actress appeared in Gentelmen Prefer Blondes and other classic movies.

Found on a table in her home was a letter from the creator of Gentleman Prefer Blondes, who wanted her for the lead in a new musical. Her psychiatrist called the doctor who actually prescribed Monroe the sleeping pills, who then came and pronounced Monroe dead when he arrived. She then married playwright Arthur Miller (best known for "Death of a Salesman" and "The Crucible"), but she divorced him in 1961. In 2000, Joyce Carol Oates published a fictionalized version of Monroe's life in Blonde, which Netflix adapted into a feature film of the same name starring Ana de Armas. For model and actress Marilyn Monroe—the subject of a new fictionalized move on her life, Blonde—her personal life pervaded through her professional career. Monroe's mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and financial hardship and her father was out of the picture, so she shuffled between foster homes and guardians until she married a 21-year-old named Jim Dougherty at age 16.

The life of Marilyn Monroe is one of Hollywood's most enduring, intriguing and ultimately tragic stories, and it serves as the basis for Netflix's film ...

Illustrated with rare photos of Marilyn throughout her life, My Story tells the real story of how Marilyn became the American Hollywood icon the world knows and loves today. [National Suicide Prevention Lifeline](https://988lifeline.org/) at [988](tel:18002738255) or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. She said life wasn’t worth living anymore.” Love letters and phone calls to the president were going unanswered and her affairs with both Jack and Bobby were considered a liability for the Whitehouse and both men distanced themselves from Monroe–rejection and loneliness hit her hard. Written in her own words, My Story takes readers through Marilyn’s life, from her childhood as an unwanted orphan to her rise as a movie star and sex symbol. For the next 20 years, he had six roses delivered to Monroe’s crypt in the Corridor of Memories three times a week. Monroe believed it was to help her withdraw from alcohol and sleeping pills, but she quickly learned it was because she was deemed “self-destructive” and placed in a straitjacket to sit in a maximum-security ward. Lawford told detectives that he later regretted not checking in on her later in the evening. “She talked about being a waif, that she was ugly, that people were only nice to her for what they could get from her. She contacted her ex-husband, baseball god John DiMaggio, who got Monroe moved to another hospital where she was treated as a regular patient and her detox from alcohol and drugs could begin. She was one of the world’s first true “sex symbols”, becoming an icon for a time of sexual revolution between the 1950s and 60s. At 3.50 am, Monroe’s doctor arrived and pronounced her dead at the scene. Ralph Greenson, who broke into Monroe’s bedroom through the window and found the star unresponsive in her bed.

In contrast to the helpless depiction of Marilyn Monroe in Netflix's 'Blonde,' the real star seized her own power and broke barriers by founding her own ...

And Monroe's founding of her own production company was considered a major blow to the studio system as it once was. She loved acting, she loved her work and she wanted to be able to take on roles and work in a way that wasn't demeaning and degrading. "She would have had confidence in her own opinions, and that would have grown and solidified. This was her way to be able to be the type of actress she knew she could be, and always wanted to be. It's easier for people to take a look at the cartoon version, and say, 'Okay, I understand what that is,' than it is for them to open themselves up to the possibility of nuance. Within the next several years, the studios would continue to decline, clearing the path for the "New Hollywood" of the 1960s. The papers heralded Monroe's new contract and victory in her legal battle as a historic moment. "The studio owned her, and she knew that she couldn't remain in that system, but she also didn't want to give up acting. She grit her teeth through the making of River of No Return at Fox, commenting, "I think I deserve a better deal than a grade-Z cowboy movie in which the acting finished second to the scenery." Monroe was company president, with Greene as vice president (she took 51 percent of the company and Greene 49 percent). She also dealt a grievous blow to the Hollywood studio system in the process. Monroe gets the latter treatment in the latest film to tackle her life, [Andrew Dominik's](http://www.ew.com/people/andrew-dominik) [Blonde](http://www.ew.com/creative-work/blonde).

Andrew Dominik's adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates novel is a morbid, leering and tasteless abasement.

This goes double during a scene when Monroe is filming the subway-grate shot in “The Seven Year Itch,” during which his camera lingers and leers with unsavory insistence. There are short clips of her work in such classics as “All About Eve,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “Some Like It Hot,” but Dominik never allows de Armas to convey her character’s exquisite comic timing, superb physical grace or shrewdness. She certainly deserves more than a dumb “Blonde.” That scene ends with a rape that can’t help but conjure images of Harvey Weinstein and the “casting couch” tradition he so brutally perpetuated. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson), who features in one of the film’s many tasteless scenes, in this case of Monroe performing oral sex while he watches a rocket launch on TV. The rest of “Blonde” continues apace, with Monroe encountering creepy, dismissive or outright violent men who continually underestimate and betray her.

The artist, who died at age 36, had an intelligence that surprised many, but was always perceived superficially and ended up succumbing to her character.

The second is that she was fragile. “The dumb blonde was a role—she was an actress, for God’s sake! “The biggest myth is that she was dumb.

Did Marilyn Monroe have children? Here's if Marilyn Monroe had kids, a daughter or a son before she died and more about her miscarriages.

According to [Endometriosis UK](https://www.endometriosis-uk.org/endometriosis-facts-and-figures), the disease affects one in 10 of people with a uterus. Marilyn’s doctors also have stated that she had been “prone to severe fears and frequent depressions” and had overdosed several times in the past. A toxicology report showed that her cause of death was acute barbiturate poisoning, with 8 mg% of chloral hydrate and 4.5 mg% of pentobarbital in her blood, as well as 13 mg% of pentobarbital in her. Illustrated with rare photos of Marilyn throughout her life, My Story tells the real story of how Marilyn became the American Hollywood icon the world knows and loves today. She became pregnant for a second time in 1957, but lost the child to an ectopic pregnancy. She first became pregnant in 1956, but lost the baby to a miscarriage. Since Marilyn’s death, her life has been made into several movies and documentaries, including 2011’s My Week With Marilyn (in which she was played by Michelle Williams) and 2022’s Blonde (in which she was played by Ana de Armas.) “She was very inspiring. She was married to Arthur, a screenwriter, from 1956 to 1961. “Just so much more empathy, and understanding, and self-evaluation of everything as a woman in the industry, and same age [as me], same everything. [Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates](https://www.amazon.com/Blonde-Anniversary-Joyce-Carol-Oates/dp/0062968459/?tag=stylecaster0d-20&asc_source=web&asc_campaign=web&asc_refurl=https%3A%2F%2Fstylecaster.com%2Fmarilyn-monroe-children%2F) Marilyn, who had become known for her comedic “blonde bombshell” characters, went on to star in dozens of more movies, including Bus Stop, The Prince and the Showgirl and Some Like It Hot, which she won the Golden Globe Award in the Best Actress, Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy category for in 1960. By 1955, Marilyn, who had divorced her her first husband, had starred in movies like Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire and her biggest box office success of her career, The Seven Year Itch.