- Fifty years after her untimely death, Marilyn Monroe continues to attract attention as an ongoing focus of interest and controversy. In this brand-new book, film historian Cindy De La Hoz gives Marilyn"s countless fans a dramatic biography, and supplements it with 20 rare and removable facsimile documents that mark important events in the actress"s life. The biography begins with the birth of Norma Jeane Mortensen in 1926, then describes her unstable family background, her childhood spent in an orphanage and foster homes, her early career as a photographer"s model, her 1946 contract with Twentieth Century-Fox, her rise to movie stardom, and her important films, including Some Like It Hot and The Misfits. Also described are Marilyn"s several marriages, her emotional troubles, and her sudden, mysterious death on August 5, 1962.