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Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson) was born on June 1, 1926. She was an American actress, model, and singer, who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s and early 1960s.
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Marilyn's mother Gladys was mentally unstable and financially unable to care for the young Norma Jeane, so she placed her with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, California, where she lived until she was seven.
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Gladys bought a house and brought Norma Jeane to live with her.
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Gladys began a series of mental episodes that would plague her for the rest of her life. And Marilyn was forcibly removed to the State Hospital in Norwalk.
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Marilyn was sent to live with her great-aunt, Olive Brunings, in Compton, California; this was also a brief stint ended by an assault when one of Olive's sons had attacked the now middle-school-aged girl.
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Monroe moved back to Grace and Doc Goddard's house (her mother's friends). While attending Van Nuys High School, she met a neighbor's son, James Dougherty (more commonly referred to as simply "Jim"), and began a relationship with him.
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Marilyn Monroe married James Dougherty.
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Marilyn began working in the Radioplane Munitions Factory, mainly spraying airplane parts with fire retardant and inspecting parachutes.
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She signed a film contract with Twentieth Century-Fox
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She began working at The Blue Book Modeling Agency.
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Monroe signed a six-month contract with Columbia Pictures and was introduced to the studio's head drama coach Natasha Lytess, who became her acting coach for several years
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Monroe was soon cast in a major role in the low-budget musical Ladies of the Chorus (1948). Monroe was capitalized as one of the film's bright spots, and the film enjoyed only moderate success. During her short stint at Columbia, studio head Harry Cohn softened her appearance somewhat by correcting a slight overbite she had.