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Marilyn Monroe Research Paper

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Marilyn Monroe was an iconic sex symbol known for her beauty, sex appeal, idiosyncratic sense of humor, and sly wit. With traits such as those, it’s no wonder she was and still is loved by much of the world. However, did these qualities really belong to the façade that was Marilyn or were they simply Norma Jeane’s qualities being contained behind another face? That dazzling, witty blonde we’ve come to know as Marilyn Monroe was actually born Norma Jeane Mortenson, the girl who was no stranger to foster care. Add her three failed marriages and long experience with psychoanalysis, and you wonder how no one could have seen through her and her painted on, fictitious image. Monroe once said, “Fame is fickle, and I know it. It has its compensations …show more content…

Her mother, Gladys Baker, was a schizophrenic and mentally unstable, therefore, forcing her to live with a number of foster parents,. She spent up to two years at one time in an orphanage. She went to live with her mother’s friend, Grace McKee, at one point who let young Norma Jeane wear makeup and curl her hair and watch movies with her favorite actress Jean Harlow. After McKee married, Marilyn was sent to live with her great aunt Olive Brunings and was reported to have been sexually assaulted by her son while there. At 16, she escaped having to go back to the orphanage by marrying her first husband aircraft-plant worker Jim Dougherty. He was shipped out to the Pacific as a Merchant Marine and later returned to find a transformed Norma Jeane. David Conover had taken photos of her at the munitions factory and recommended that she sign up to the Blue Book Modeling Agency. From there she died her hair golden blonde, became one of the company’s most famous models, received a contract with 20th Century Fox, and came up with the famous alter ego, Marilyn Monroe. Jim came home to find that Norma Jeane was long gone and would not be coming

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