Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, model, and singer. Famous for playing comedic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s and was emblematic of the era's changing attitudes towards sexuality. She was a top-billed actress for only a decade, but her films grossed $200 million by the time of her death in 1962. Long after her death, she has continued to be a major icon of pop culture.
Betty Friedan was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism in the 20th century. In 1966, Friedan co-founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), which aimed to bring women "into the mainstream of American society now [in] fully equal partnership with men".
Mira Katherine Sorvino is an American actress. She won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995).
Gloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader and a spokeswoman for the American feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a 1953 American musical comedy film based on the 1949 stage musical of the same name. It was directed by Howard Hawks and stars Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe, with Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid, Tommy Noonan, George Winslow, Taylor Holmes and Norma Varden in supporting roles.
Norma Jean & Marilyn is a 1996 made-for-TV biographical film produced by HBO and premiered on May 18, 1996. The film featured Ashley Judd as Norma Jean Dougherty and Mira Sorvino as Marilyn Monroe. It was partially based on Norma Jean: My Secret Life With Marilyn Monroe by actor Eddie Jordan, who claimed to have had a years-long relationship with Monroe.
Marilyn Monroe died of a barbiturate overdose late in the evening of Saturday, August 4, 1962, at her 12305 Fifth Helena Drive home in Los Angeles, California. Her body was discovered before dawn on Sunday, August 5. She was a major sex symbol and one of the most popular Hollywood stars during the 1950s and early 1960s. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films had grossed $200 million by the time of her death.
American actress Marilyn Monroe's life and persona have been depicted in film, television, music, the arts, and by other celebrities.
Strawhead is a play by American writers Norman Mailer and Richard Hannum about Marilyn Monroe. The play is an adaptation of Mailer's 1980 book Of Women and Their Elegance, an imagined memoir told in Monroe's voice.
Marilyn: The Untold Story is a 1980 television film, about the life of the 1950s sex symbol-movie star, Marilyn Monroe. The feature stars Catherine Hicks as Monroe; Richard Basehart as her early-career agent Johnny Hyde; Frank Converse as her second husband Joe DiMaggio; Jason Miller as her third husband Arthur Miller; Kevin Geer as her first husband James Dougherty; Viveca Lindfors as her acting coach Natasha Lytess; and Sheree North as her mother Gladys Baker.
Norman Mailer's 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe was a large-format book of glamor photographs of Monroe for which Mailer supplied the text. Originally hired to write an introduction by Lawrence Schiller, who put the book package together, Mailer expanded the introduction into a long essay.
"The 20th Century Fox Mambo" is an original song introduced in the second episode of the first season of the musical TV series Smash, entitled "The Callback". It was written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, but in the show's universe, it was written by songwriting team Tom Levitt and Julia Houston for their Marilyn Monroe musical Bombshell.
Love, Marilyn is a 2012 American documentary film about Marilyn Monroe's writings produced by Stanley F. Buchthal, Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby, and directed by Garbus. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2012 and is based on the 2010 non-fiction book Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters, edited by Stanley F. Buchthal and Bernard Comment. The production firms that produced the film included the Diamond Girl production company, Sol's Luncheonette Production and the French-based StudioCanal production company, whose parent company owns the third-largest film library in the world.
Andre de Dienes was a Hungarian photographer, noted for his work with Marilyn Monroe and his nude photography.
Bombshell is an American musical with music and lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman based on the original fictitious musical from the first season of the NBC television series Smash. The songs include soulful jazz anthems and upbeat pop songs. Bombshell is the life story of Marilyn Monroe. It tells the story of the aspiring starlet who transforms herself into a worldwide sex symbol, including her early life and her alleged affair with American President John F. Kennedy.
The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe is a 2015 American made-for-TV drama film on Marilyn Monroe. It stars Kelli Garner, Susan Sarandon, Emily Watson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Eva Amurri Martino and was first aired on Lifetime on May 30 and 31, 2015. The miniseries is based on The New York Times bestseller of the same name by J. Randy Taraborrelli. It was nominated for three Creative Arts Emmy Awards
Natasha Lytess was an actress, writer and drama coach.
Barbara Leaming is an American biographer, whose subjects have included Roman Polanski, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Marilyn! The Musical is a musical written by Mort Garson about Marilyn Monroe that was originally produced in London in 1983 as a vehicle for Stephanie Lawrence.
Stepping from the Shadows is a novel by Patricia A. McKillip. It was first published in hardcover by Atheneum in 1982, with a paperback edition issued by Berkley Books in August 1984.
