Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962) 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 (equivalent to $2 billion in 2019) by the time of her death in 1962. More than half a century later, she continues to be a major popular culture icon.
Early films in the 1940s include Arthur Pierson’s Dangerous Years (1947), with Billy Halop, Scotty Beckett, and Ann E. Todd; an uncredited role in F. Hugh Herbert’s Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948), with June Haver, Lon McCallister, Walter Brennan, Anne Revere, Natalie Wood, Robert Karnes, Henry Hull, and Tom Tully; Phil Karlson’s Ladies of the Chorus (1948), with Adele Jergens and Rand Brooks; and David Miller’s Love Happy (1949), with Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Groucho Marx, Ilona Massey, Vera-Ellen, Marion Hutton, Raymond Burr, Melville Cooper, Leon Belasco, Paul Valentine, Eric Blore, and Bruce Gordon.
Films in the early 1950s include an uncredited role in Richard Sale’s A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950), with Dan Dailey and Anne Baxter; John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950), with Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, and John McIntire; Joseph L. Mankiewicz‘s All About Eve (1950), with Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Thelma Ritter, Gregory Ratoff, Barbara Bates, and Walter Hampden; and an uncredited role in John Sturges’s Right Cross (1950), with June Allyson, Ricardo Montalbán, Dick Powell, and Lionel Barrymore.
More films in the early 1950s include Home Town Story (1951), with Jeffrey Lynn, Donald Crisp, Marjorie Reynolds, and Alan Hale Jr.; Harmon Jones’s As Young as You Feel (1951), with Monty Woolley, Ritter, David Wayne, and Jean Peters; Joseph Newman’s Love Nest (1951), with June Haver, William Lundigan, Frank Fay, and Jack Paar; Let’s Make It Legal (1951), with Claudette Colbert, Macdonald Carey, Zachary Scott, Barbara Bates, and Robert Wagner; Fritz Lang’s Clash by Night (1952), with Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, and Keith Andes; Edmund Goulding’s We’re Not Married (1952), with Ginger Rogers, Fred Allen, Victor Moore, David Wayne, Eve Arden, Paul Douglas, Eddie Bracken, Mitzi Gaynor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Louis Calhern; Howard Hawks’s Monkey Business (1952), with Cary Grant, Rogers, and Charles Coburn; and Henry Koster, Henry Hathaway, Jean Negulesco, Hawks, and Henry King’s anthology O. Henry’s Full House (1952), with Fred Allen, Baxter, Jeanne Crain, Farley Granger, Charles Laughton, Oscar Levant, Jean Peters, Gregory Ratoff, Dale Robertson, David Wayne, and Richard Widmark.
More films in the 1950s include Niagara (1953), with Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Denis O’Dea, and Max Showalter (credited as Casey Adams); Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), with Jane Russell, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid, Tommy Noonan, George Winslow, Taylor Holmes and Norma Varden; and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), with Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, and William Powell; Otto Preminger’s River of No Return (1954), with Robert Mitchum, Tommy Rettig, and Rory Calhoun; Walter Lang’s There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), with Ethel Merman, Donald O’Connor, Dan Dailey, Johnnie Ray, and Mitzi Gaynor; Billy Wilder‘s The Seven Year Itch (1955), with Tom Ewell; Joshua Logan’s Bus Stop (1956), with Don Murray, Arthur O’Connell, Betty Field, Eileen Heckart, Robert Bray, and Hope Lange; and The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), with Laurence Olivier (who also directed).
Her last three complete films were Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959), with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Pat O’Brien, Joe E. Brown, Joan Shawlee and Nehemiah Persoff – for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy; George Cukor’s Let’s Make Love (1960), with Yves Montand, Tony Randall, Frankie Vaughan, plus cameos by Milton Berle, Bing Crosby, and Gene Kelly (as themselves); and The Misfits (1961), with Clark Gable (also his last film), Montgomery Clift, Ritter, and Eli Wallach.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Dangerous Years (1947) – directed by Arthur Pierson
- Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948) – directed by F. Hugh Herbert – uncredited
- The Green Grass of Wyoming (1948) – directed by Louis King – uncredited
- Ladies of the Chorus (1948) – directed by Phil Karlson
- Love Happy (1949) – directed by David Miller
- A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950) – directed by Richard Sale – uncredited
- The Asphalt Jungle (1950) – directed by John Huston
- The Fireball (1950) – directed by Tay Garnett
- All About Eve (1950) – directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
- Right Cross (1950) – directed by John Sturges – uncredited
- Home Town Story (1951) – directed by Arthur Pierson
- As Young as You Feel (1951) – directed by Harmon Jones
- Love Nest (1951) – directed by Joseph Newman
- Let’s Make It Legal (1951) – directed by Richard Sale
- Clash by Night (1952) – directed by Fritz Lang
- We’re Not Married! (1952) – directed by Edmund Goulding
- Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) – directed by Roy Ward Baker
- Monkey Business (1952) – directed by Howard Hawks
- O. Henry’s Full House (1952) – directed Henry Koster, Henry Hathaway, Jean Negulesco, Howard Hawks, & Henry King
- Niagara (1953) – directed by Henry Hathaway
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) – directed by Howard Hawks
- How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) – directed by Jean Negulesco
- River of No Return (1954) – directed by Otto Preminger
- There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954) – directed by Walter Lang
- The Seven Year Itch (1955) – directed by Billy Wilder
- Bus Stop (1956) – directed by Joshua Logan
- The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) – directed by Laurence Oliver
- Some Like It Hot (1959)** – directed by Billy Wilder
- Let’s Make Love (1960) – directed by George Cukor
- The Misfits (1961) – directed by John Huston
- Something’s Got to Give (1962) – directed by George Cukor – unfinished
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