1962 : Marilyn Monroe is found dead
On August 5, 1962, movie actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead in her
home in Los Angeles. She was discovered lying nude on her bed, face
down, with a telephone in one hand. Empty bottles of pills, prescribed
to treat her depression, were littered around the room. After a brief
investigation, Los Angeles police concluded that her death was "caused
by a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode of
death is probable suicide."
Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Mortenson in Los Angeles on June 1,
1926. Her mother was emotionally unstable and frequently confined to
an asylum, so Norma Jean was reared by a succession of foster parents
and in an orphanage. At the age of 16, she married a fellow worker in
an aircraft factory, but they divorced a few years later. She took up
modeling in 1944 and in 1946 signed a short-term contract with 20th
Century Fox, taking as her screen name Marilyn Monroe. She had a few
bit parts and then returned to modeling, famously posing nude for a
calendar in 1949.
She began to attract attention as an actress in 1950 after appearing
in minor roles in the The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve. Although
she was onscreen only briefly playing a mistress in both films,
audiences took note of the blonde bombshell, and she won a new
contract from Fox. Her acting career took off in the early 1950s with
performances in Love Nest (1951), Monkey Business (1952), and Niagara
(1953). Celebrated for her voluptuousness and wide-eyed charm, she won
international fame for her sex-symbol roles in Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), and There's No
Business Like Show Business (1954). The Seven-Year Itch (1955)
showcased her comedic talents and features the classic scene where she
stands over a subway grating and has her white skirt billowed up by
the wind from a passing train. In 1954, she married baseball great Joe
DiMaggio, attracting further publicity, but they divorced eight months
later.
In 1955, she studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New
York City and subsequently gave a strong performance as a hapless
entertainer in Bus Stop (1956). In 1956, she married playwright Arthur
Miller. She made The Prince and the Showgirl--a critical and
commercial failure--with Laurence Olivier in 1957 but in 1959 gave an
acclaimed performance in the hit comedy Some Like It Hot. Her last
role, in The Misfits (1961), was directed by John Huston and written
by Miller, whom she divorced just one week before the film's opening.
By 1961, Monroe, beset by depression, was under the constant care of a
psychiatrist. Increasingly erratic in the last months of her life, she
lived as a virtual recluse in her Brentwood, Los Angeles, home. After
midnight on August 5, 1962, her maid, Eunice Murray, noticed Monroe's
bedroom light on. When Murray found the door locked and Marilyn
unresponsive to her calls, she called Monroe's psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph
Greenson, who gained access to the room by breaking a window.
Entering, he found Marilyn dead, and the police were called sometime
after. An autopsy found a fatal amount of sedatives in her system, and
her death was ruled probable suicide.
In recent decades, there have been a number of conspiracy theories
about her death, most of which contend that she was murdered by John
and/or Robert Kennedy, with whom she allegedly had love affairs. These
theories claim that the Kennedys killed her (or had her killed)
because they feared she would make public their love affairs and other
government secrets she was gathering. On August 4, 1962, Robert
Kennedy, then attorney general in his older brother's cabinet, was in
fact in Los Angeles. Two decades after the fact, Monroe's housekeeper,
Eunice Murray, announced for the first time that the attorney general
had visited Marilyn on the night of her death and quarreled with her,
but the reliability of these and other statements made by Murray are
questionable.
Four decades after her death, Marilyn Monroe remains a major cultural
icon. The unknown details of her final performance only add to her
mystique.
history.com/tdih.do
1858 : First transatlantic telegraph cable completed
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5235
1981 : Reagan fires 11,359 air-traffic controllers
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5236
##########################################
On August 5, 1962, movie actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead in her
home in Los Angeles. She was discovered lying nude on her bed, face
down, with a telephone in one hand. Empty bottles of pills, prescribed
to treat her depression, were littered around the room. After a brief
investigation, Los Angeles police concluded that her death was "caused
by a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode of
death is probable suicide."
Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Mortenson in Los Angeles on June 1,
1926. Her mother was emotionally unstable and frequently confined to
an asylum, so Norma Jean was reared by a succession of foster parents
and in an orphanage. At the age of 16, she married a fellow worker in
an aircraft factory, but they divorced a few years later. She took up
modeling in 1944 and in 1946 signed a short-term contract with 20th
Century Fox, taking as her screen name Marilyn Monroe. She had a few
bit parts and then returned to modeling, famously posing nude for a
calendar in 1949.
She began to attract attention as an actress in 1950 after appearing
in minor roles in the The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve. Although
she was onscreen only briefly playing a mistress in both films,
audiences took note of the blonde bombshell, and she won a new
contract from Fox. Her acting career took off in the early 1950s with
performances in Love Nest (1951), Monkey Business (1952), and Niagara
(1953). Celebrated for her voluptuousness and wide-eyed charm, she won
international fame for her sex-symbol roles in Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), and There's No
Business Like Show Business (1954). The Seven-Year Itch (1955)
showcased her comedic talents and features the classic scene where she
stands over a subway grating and has her white skirt billowed up by
the wind from a passing train. In 1954, she married baseball great Joe
DiMaggio, attracting further publicity, but they divorced eight months
later.
In 1955, she studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New
York City and subsequently gave a strong performance as a hapless
entertainer in Bus Stop (1956). In 1956, she married playwright Arthur
Miller. She made The Prince and the Showgirl--a critical and
commercial failure--with Laurence Olivier in 1957 but in 1959 gave an
acclaimed performance in the hit comedy Some Like It Hot. Her last
role, in The Misfits (1961), was directed by John Huston and written
by Miller, whom she divorced just one week before the film's opening.
By 1961, Monroe, beset by depression, was under the constant care of a
psychiatrist. Increasingly erratic in the last months of her life, she
lived as a virtual recluse in her Brentwood, Los Angeles, home. After
midnight on August 5, 1962, her maid, Eunice Murray, noticed Monroe's
bedroom light on. When Murray found the door locked and Marilyn
unresponsive to her calls, she called Monroe's psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph
Greenson, who gained access to the room by breaking a window.
Entering, he found Marilyn dead, and the police were called sometime
after. An autopsy found a fatal amount of sedatives in her system, and
her death was ruled probable suicide.
In recent decades, there have been a number of conspiracy theories
about her death, most of which contend that she was murdered by John
and/or Robert Kennedy, with whom she allegedly had love affairs. These
theories claim that the Kennedys killed her (or had her killed)
because they feared she would make public their love affairs and other
government secrets she was gathering. On August 4, 1962, Robert
Kennedy, then attorney general in his older brother's cabinet, was in
fact in Los Angeles. Two decades after the fact, Monroe's housekeeper,
Eunice Murray, announced for the first time that the attorney general
had visited Marilyn on the night of her death and quarreled with her,
but the reliability of these and other statements made by Murray are
questionable.
Four decades after her death, Marilyn Monroe remains a major cultural
icon. The unknown details of her final performance only add to her
mystique.
history.com/tdih.do
1858 : First transatlantic telegraph cable completed
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5235
1981 : Reagan fires 11,359 air-traffic controllers
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5236
##########################################
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