Marilyn Monroe: More Brains, More Books, More Trouble

Marilyn Monroe was not born a blonde. That iconic platinum halo came much later, courtesy of Hollywood stylists and a bottle of peroxide. Her natural hair was a perfectly respectable shade of brown, but the studios had a different kind of woman in mind—one who sparkled like a champagne flute and looked slightly ethereal under a spotlight. And so, Norma Jeane Mortenson began her metamorphosis into the most recognisable sex symbol of the 20th century.

Before she was Marilyn, she worked in a munitions factory during World War II. Yes, Rosie the Riveter had a Californian cousin. A military photographer spotted her and thought she had something. She did. She had that strange, luminous charisma that didn’t need a microphone to project.

She stuttered as a child. That breathy, whispery delivery we all associate with her? Partly a clever way to manage her speech. It became her signature, but it started as a survival tactic.

She married young. Sixteen, to be precise. Her first husband, James Dougherty, was a merchant marine. He said later that he preferred the Norma Jeane he knew to the Marilyn the world loved. Which is probably the most predictable quote ever offered by a man interviewed about Marilyn Monroe.

She read voraciously. Her personal library contained over 400 books, covering Dostoevsky, Milton, and Freud. Yes, Freud. The woman who famously sang “Happy Birthday” in a dress so tight she had to be sewn into it also grappled with psychoanalytic theory. Talk about complex layers.

She started her own production company. In the 1950s. When Hollywood moguls still thought a woman’s role was to sit, smile, and flutter her lashes. Marilyn Monroe Productions aimed to give her more control over her roles. It was a statement of defiance tucked inside a powder-pink envelope.

Einstein was on her wall. A photo of him, that is. She said she admired intelligence more than looks. Of course, she knew she could command attention with her body, but she also wanted to be taken seriously. The world wasn’t quite ready for both.

Her white dress moment from The Seven Year Itch nearly caused a riot. Men swarmed the set. The dress flared over a subway grate and turned a simple marketing gimmick into cultural mythology. Her then-husband Joe DiMaggio, who was famously private, did not appreciate the spectacle. Their marriage didn’t last long after that.

She took acting seriously. She studied at the Actors Studio in New York under Lee Strasberg, alongside Marlon Brando and James Dean. While tabloids obsessed over her hemlines, she obsessed over Chekhov.

She struggled with insomnia. Prescription pills, alcohol, anxiety—the perfect cocktail for never sleeping. Her nights were often spent pacing, reading, or calling friends at strange hours. Fame, it turns out, isn’t a reliable sedative.

She had a clause in her contract that required her to always have a choice of directors. An unusual move, especially at the time, and especially for someone marketed as a “dumb blonde.” It was her quiet way of reclaiming the narrative.

She was notoriously late to set. Not fashionably late. Problematically late. Often hours. Directors despaired, co-stars fumed. But when the camera rolled, she still stole the scene. Every time. The curse and blessing of being magnetic.

She posed nude before she was famous. The photos later re-emerged as calendars, which could have ruined her. Instead, she owned the story. She said she was hungry and needed the money. America, oddly enough, respected the honesty.

Marilyn Monroe never won an Oscar. Not even a nomination. But she did win three Golden Globes, including Best Actress for Some Like It Hot. Oscar may have been stone-faced, but the Globes were always a little looser.

She once had a pet basset hound named Hugo and a white poodle named Maf, short for Mafia, gifted to her by Frank Sinatra. Because nothing says tragic glamour like a poodle with mob affiliations.

She converted to Judaism for her third marriage, to playwright Arthur Miller. She took it seriously, too. Read the Torah, asked questions, embraced the faith in a way that went beyond PR or performance. Her life was full of reinventions, but this one was deeply personal.

Marilyn Monroe was the first woman to own her own film production company. That alone should have made her a feminist icon. But the world couldn’t quite reconcile feminism with sex appeal in a tight dress. Then again, the world rarely can.

She was considered for the role of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Truman Capote wanted her, but the studio feared she was too risqué. Audrey Hepburn got the part. Marilyn, in all fairness, would have played it quite differently.

She didn’t live at the Chateau Marmont, but she had her own Brentwood home, where she died. The house was modest by celebrity standards. Spanish-style, low-slung, and oddly serene. It was the only home she ever owned entirely herself.

She had a thing for Chanel No. 5. Famously said it’s all she wore to bed. The quote launched a thousand perfume campaigns and blurred the line between commercialism and intimacy.

She was rumoured to have had affairs with both John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. History remains speculative. Diaries went missing. Files vanished. Conspiracies thrived. She was a muse, a threat, a myth. And myths are rarely tidy.

She once said, “I don’t mind living in a man’s world as long as I can be a woman in it.” For someone written off as an airhead, she had a knack for one-liners that cut to the bone.

Marilyn Monroe was almost impossible to photograph badly. Even in candid shots, there was a surreal symmetry to her face, a way her body knew how to find the light. It was instinct, not training. A gift.

Her death at 36 remains one of Hollywood’s most enduring unsolved riddles. Officially, it was a barbiturate overdose. Unofficially, it was a blend of power, paranoia, politics, and pills. The perfect noir ending, if one were writing a screenplay.

She once asked, not unreasonably, “If I’m a star, then why am I so lonely?” That question, posed by the woman who seemed to have everything, still echoes like a spotlight in an empty room.