How Marilyn Monroe became the ultimate pop culture icon

Sixty years after her death, Marilyn Monroe remains a true Hollywood myth. His career has fascinated as much as his setbacks, to the point of making him a glamorous and mysterious character, who has left an indelible mark on popular culture. On the occasion of the release of the film Blonde haira look back at the great moments in the life of a timeless star.

Actress, singer, fashion icon, art object… 60 years after her death, the legend Marilyn Monroe still fascinates. Netflix has also understood this very well since the biopic Blonde hair, with Ana de Armas in the title role, is due on the platform on September 28. Adapted from bestseller by Joyce Carol Oatesthe feature film directed by Andrew Dominik returns freely to the trajectory of the actress.

A destiny made of success, love, but also mystery. Behind the rhinestones and sequins hides a dark side, that of Norma Jeane Baker. The tortured alter ego of Marilyn Monroe who made it possible to build – even after her disappearance – the myth that we know today.

From pin-up to Hollywood star

After a chaotic childhood, punctuated by foster homes, an orphanage and visits to her mother in a psychiatric hospital, Norma Jeane Baker quickly rose to fame. She enlisted in the US Army in the early 1940s, before being spotted by a military photographer. She then became the face of government campaigns to promote the involvement of women in the war effort, then appeared as the “Mmmmm girl”, a pin-up who appeared in more than 30 magazines in just some months.

Modeling allows him to pass his first cinematographic tests and to sign a six-month contract with 20th Century Fox. Her bleached blond hair wreaked havoc and it was then, in 1946, on the advice of Ben Lyon, an executive at 20th Century Fox, that the debuting actress took the mythical name of Marilyn Monroe.

Marilyn Monroe began her career as a pin-up model.©DR

However, it was not until 1950 and her meeting with Johnny Hyde that the career of the actress, then accustomed to cameos and commercial failures, exploded. The artistic agent helps him to build the image and the plastic that we know today. Blond becomes the hallmark of a luscious and sexy Marilyn. A true American sex symbol, passed under the knife.

The Monroe Revolution is on. She catalyzes all the fantasies of the time, however distinguishing herself from the fatal beauties of the 1950s to offer a funny and sympathetic character to the public. This reversal of the codes allows her to get noticed and to begin a career as a recognized actress. First in Eve (1950), then with The Demon wakes up at night (1952).

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Marilyn Monroe in the famous subway scene in Seven years of reflection.© Sam Shaw Inc.

She also shares the poster with stars of the time, such as Ginger Rogers and Cary Grant, Jane Russell in the mythical Men prefer blondes (1953), or Lauren Bacall in How to marry a millionaire (1953).

She also runs in Seven years of reflection (1955) – in which we can discover the most emblematic scene of the actress, where her white dress is lifted by the air from a subway grate –, directed by Billy Wilder, whom she finds again in 1959 for Some like it hota cult American comedy, in which we hear him perform the title I Wanna Be Loved by Youand for which she won the Golden Globes for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy.

Love, sex and fantasy

At the height of her career, she toured the following year The Billionaire (1960). On the set, she meets the French actor Yves Montand, with whom she has an affair. However, her greatest romance remains that with the President, John F. Kennedy, after her marriages to the painter James Dougherty, the baseball player Joe DiMaggio, then the playwright Arthur Miller.

His highly commented interpretation ofHappy Birthday Mister President will become one of the most legendary images of the 20th century. Proof of the glory of Marilyn Monroe, but also of the controversy she has always aroused.

Object of fantasy of the 1950s, the actress has always conveyed a sexualized and glamorous image of a girl next door. His poses in magazines, the assumed nudity in erotic calendars under the pseudonym of “Mana Monroe”, the male gauze of filmmakers and his complex loves have fueled his notoriety while creating controversy.

The hidden face of a Hollywood star

Behind the make-up and plastic surgery hid a mysterious woman, prisoner of her beauty, who quickly sank into depression. This is the whole Marilyn Monroe paradox. Despite her popularity and a brilliant career, the actress is tormented, in search of a freedom she will never find. Behind the scenes, miscarriages, stays in a psychiatric hospital – like her mother – and regular doses of barbiturates punctuate her daily life.

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Marilyn Monroe suffered from depression for a long time.©DR

From 1960, it is the descent into hell and Marylin Monroe is on the edge of the abyss. Her career was floundering, and the actress was a caricature, until her death in her hacienda in Brentwood, Los Angeles. On the night of August 4, 1962, at the age of 36, she overdosed. The authorities then evoke “probable suicide”, while rumors of contract assassination emerge: the FBI, the CIA and the Kennedy family would have sought to silence the artist. A version that has never been proven, but which still maintains its aura today.

An eternal icon

In barely ten years of career, Marilyn Monroe marked the golden age of Hollywood. Even today, his imprint on cinema is indelible. His career and his destiny have also marked pop culture, to the point of making him an ultimate symbol. This fascination is expressed in many tributes. First on the art side, with the numerous photographs taken of the actress, but above all through the eyes of Andy Warhol.

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The portrait of Marilyn Monroe painted by Andy Warhol has inspired many reproductions.©Pexels/Martin Péchy

In 1964, the patron of pop art produced the mythical portrait of the actress entitled Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, recently sold at auction for $195 million. Then in music, thanks to the songs of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, Norma Jeane Baker (1983), by Vanessa Paradis in Marilyn and John (1987), or Nicki Minaj and Pharrell Williams more recently.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Marilyn Monroe and nods to the actress have never been so present, as the dress worn by Kim Kardashian during the Met Gala 2022 or the release of the biopic Blonde hair on Netflix, after My Week With Marilyn (2011).

Andrew Dominik’s film will return to the making of the American dream and the fall of its myth. Because Marilyn Monroe was all of these things at the same time. From the anonymous Norma Jeane Baker to the planetary star, passing by a glamorous and complexed woman, the pin-up of the 1950s catalyzed contradiction as much as fascination. A paradox whose proportions we are barely beginning to understand, but which contributes to the sustainability of the legendary actress in pop culture, as well as in our hearts.

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How Marilyn Monroe became the ultimate pop culture icon