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Monroe was born on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles. She had an unstable childhood in orphanages and foster homes, and married for the first time at 16.
She first encountered show business in 1944 while working in a factory, when a photographer came to photograph women working on production lines during World War II.
Soon afterwards, she entered modelling, divorced her husband and made a historic decision: dyeing her brown hair silver-blonde. She later signed her first contract with Fox and, by the age of 30, had established herself as a global star.
Behind her success, Monroe set up her own film production company, studied at the prestigious Actors Studio in New York and dared to challenge the power of the studios.
In the 1950s, while under contract with 20th Century Fox, she refused to appear in the musical adaptation “The Girl in Pink Tights”, judging the screenplay ordinary and her pay unfair because it was three times lower than that of her co-star, Frank Sinatra.
Monroe’s work with Fox produced some of the most famous images of all time, including the image of her appearing to hold down a white dress while standing over a New York City subway vent in “The Seven Year Itch”.
Beyond her film performances, Monroe’s fame also came from a private life that gave tabloid newspapers endless scandal, feeding public fascination and making her an archetype of 20th-century celebrity.
After her first marriage at 16, she had a brief and turbulent marriage to baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, followed by a five-year marriage to Arthur Miller, the acclaimed American playwright.
But there was also talk that she may have had relationships with both John F Kennedy and his brother Robert F Kennedy, as well as with Hollywood figures such as Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.
Monroe died from a drug overdose at her home in Los Angeles in August 1962, aged just 36.
