Marilyn Monroe

 

Marilyn Monroe was an actress, model, and singer from the United States. She became one of the most prominent sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, indicative of the era's sexual revolution, due to her humorous "blonde bombshell" roles. Although she was only a leading lady for a decade, her films generated $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2020) by the time she died in 1962. Long after her death, she remained a huge pop cultural phenomenon. Monroe was ranked sixth on the American Film Institute's 1999 list of the Golden Age of Hollywood's finest female screen icons.

Monroe's turbulent personal life drew considerable attention. She battled drugs and bipolar disorder. Her high-profile marriages to retired baseball star Joe DiMaggio and author Arthur Miller both ended in divorce. On August 4, 1962, she died at the age of 36 of a barbiturates overdose at her Los Angeles home. Although various conspiracy theories have been developed in the decades since her death, her death was declared a suicide.