Marilyn Monroe would have turned 100 on June 1. To mark her centennial, institutions around the world are staging exhibitions that explore the actor and pop cultural fixation’s legacy. The National Portrait Gallery in London opens “Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait” on June 4, bringing together Monroe-inspired works by Andy Warhol, Cecil Beaton, and Richard Avedon alongside her personal effects. The Academy Museum in Los Angeles is presenting hundreds of posters, photographs, letters, and costumes that offer new insight into the star. And the Cinémathèque Française in Paris is running a retrospective of her films through June 12.
Born Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles in 1926, Monroe spent much of her childhood shuttled between foster homes and an orphanage after her mother was committed to a mental institution. Discovered by a photographer while working in a munitions factory during World War II, she signed her first film contract in 1946 and, within a decade, had become the most photographed woman on the planet. By the time of her death at 36 from a drug overdose, her films had grossed more than $200 million. She had been married to a baseball legend (Joe DiMaggio) and a Nobel Prize-winning playwright (Arthur Miller), sung Happy Birthday to a sitting president, and became an international sex symbol.
Yet Monroe has remained ingrained in the public imagination in part because of the gap between the image she projected and the woman she was: a “dumb blonde” who read Dostoevsky and founded her own production company. Her exploitation became an indictment of the culture that made her famous. Her image is indelible, even to this day. Below, we present a guide to the best and worst cultural works and moments that Monroe inspired, as well as the ones that made her famous.
The Best
Blonde: A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates
What It Is: Oates’s fictionalized biography follows Norma Jeane Baker from her traumatic childhood through her transformation into Marilyn Monroe and her eventual unraveling. The nearly 700-page tome—one of Oates’s most celebrated—evaded the lurid sensationalism that plagued Monroe while still providing an unflinching look into the addiction, sexual and emotional abuse, and pressures of celebrity.
Accolades: Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (2001) and the National Book Award (2000)
Notable Detail: Oates said she initially intended the book to be a 175-page novella, but she got a little carried away. The first draft was even longer than the final version.
Marilyn Monroe by Gloria Steinem
What It Is: The first major book about Monroe written by a woman, Steinem’s essay-length study—paired with photographs by George Barris—offers a psychological portrait of the actor and cultural flashpoint. Drawing on Monroe’s own words, it offers a feminist perspective on the icon paired with careful reporting and analysis.
Accolades: A national bestseller, the book grew out of an essay Steinem had published in Ms. magazine in 1972, an indication of how long she had been thinking through Monroe’s relationship to feminism.
Notable Detail: In a 1986 interview, Steinem speculated that had Monroe lived, she might have become “a serious actress and wise comedienne who would still be working in her 60s, with more productive years to come.”
“Marilyn” series by Andy Warhol
What It Is: Shortly after Monroe’s death in August 1962, Warhol began silkscreening her image onto canvas using a publicity still from her 1953 film Niagara. Layering bright, flat color over her likeness, he produced dozens of portraits that became key examples of Pop Art and one of the most recognizable images an American artist ever produced.
Accolades: In May 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million at Christie’s—a record for an American artwork at auction and the second-highest price ever achieved for any work of art at public sale.
Notable Detail: The $195 million Marilyn was from a series in different colors that got their name from a bizarre incident in which a performance artist visiting Warhol’s Factory shot a stack of them with a revolver. (When Dorothy Podber had asked if she could shoot the paintings, Warhol assumed she meant with a camera.)
Some Like It Hot, 1959
What It Is: Widely considered Monroe’s masterpiece, Billy Wilder’s screwball comedy follows two broke musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) who witness a mob killing and disguise themselves as women to escape—only to find themselves falling for their bandmate, Sugar Kane (Monroe), a bubbly, oblivious, comic tour de force.
Accolades: The American Film Institute ranked it the single funniest American film ever made in 2000. Some Like It Hot received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Actor (Lemmon), and won for Best Costume Design. It was among the first 25 films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Notable Detail: Behind the scenes, Monroe’s erratic behavior—including dozens of takes for a single line and chronic lateness—drove Wilder and Curtis to the edge. Curtis famously (if perhaps apocryphally) compared kissing her to kissing Hitler.
“Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” 1962
What It Is: At a Democratic fundraiser at Madison Square Garden—which doubled as a star-studded celebration of John F. Kennedy’s 45th birthday—Monroe appeared in a $12,000 flesh-colored, crystal-beaded Jean Louis gown so form-fitting she had to be sewn into it. She delivered a breathy, intimate rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” before segueing into a verse of “Thanks for the Memory” with new lyrics written specially for the occasion. It was one of her last major public appearances before her death less than three months later.
Accolades: The gown Monroe wore that night sold for $4.8 million to Ripley’s Believe It or Not in 2016, making it one of the most expensive pieces of clothing ever sold at auction. Her own performance became one of the most replayed moments in American cultural history.
Notable Detail: When Kennedy took the stage afterward, he quipped, “I can now retire from politics after having had ‘Happy Birthday’ sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.”
The Worst
Seward Johnson, Forever Marilyn, 2011
What It Is: A 26-foot-tall, 34,000-pound steel and aluminum sculpture depicting Monroe in her famous pose from The Seven Year Itch—white dress billowing upward from a subway grate—was installed in Chicago in 2011 before touring several locations, eventually landing in Palm Springs, California, amid fierce resistance.
Criticism: The art critic Christopher Knight denounced the sculpture as misogynistic, writing that what it communicates loudly and clearly is, “Let’s have some fun and look up this babe’s dress.” Women’s March Action called it “blatantly sexist,” and someone scrawled “#MeToo” on the statue’s leg during its time in Sarasota, Florida. The Palm Springs Art Museum fought to have it removed from its front steps, eventually succeeding after a lawsuit.
Notable Detail: The late critic Robert Hughes called Johnson’s sculptures “chocolate-box rubbish,” appealing only to “dull corporate minds.” Louis Grachos, the then-director of the Palm Springs Art Museum, asked the city council, “What message does that send to our young people, our visitors, and community to present a statue that objectifies women?”
Blonde, 2022
What It Is: Director Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of Oates’s novel stars Ana de Armas as Monroe. Much of the film is shot in black and white; the content becomes hallucinatory and, at times, graphic.
Criticism: The film became the first Netflix production to receive an NC-17 rating for sexual content. The critic Justin Chang wrote that the film “focuses so narrowly on Monroe’s pain and trauma that it feels less like a biographical drama than a passion play.”
Notable Detail: Oates’s novel is explicit that it is a work of fiction, a distinction the film blurs. Several scenes—including one depicting sexual assault—have no basis in documented fact and drew specific criticism from Monroe scholars.
Kim Kardashian in Marilyn’s dress for the Met Gala
What It Is: For the 2022 Met Gala, Kim Kardashian borrowed the original Jean Louis gown Monroe had worn to sing “Happy Birthday” to Kennedy and wore it on the red carpet—after reportedly losing 16 pounds in three weeks to fit into it.
Criticism: The backlash from fashion archivists, historians, and preservationists was swift. Experts noted visible damage to the gown after the event, including stretched and displaced crystals and a torn section along the zipper. The Marilyn Monroe Clothing Preservation Committee condemned the loan as a reckless disregard for the garment’s historical status.
Notable Detail: The incident occurred the same week that Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn sold for $195 million at Christie’s. The coincidence briefly made Monroe the most discussed person in the culture, 60 years after her death.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953
What It Is: Howard Hawks’s musical comedy follows two showgirls—Lorelei Lee (Monroe) and Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell)—as they sail to Paris in search of rich husbands, with Lorelei delivering the film’s signature number, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” in a pink satin gown. The film was a massive commercial hit and made Monroe one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
Criticism: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is the film most responsible for locking Monroe into the “dumb blonde” caricature she spent the rest of her career trying to escape. Her biographer Margot Henriksen has called it “an unfair stereotype that bothered her throughout her career.”
Notable Detail: During production, Fox repeatedly reminded Monroe that she was not the star of the picture (the studio considered Russell the bigger name). Monroe pushed back: “Well, whatever I am, I am the blonde.”
The “Monroebot” A.I. Chatbot, 2024
What It Is: For International Women’s Day in March 2024, SXSW and an A.I. company, Soul Machines, unveiled “Digital Marilyn,” an A.I. chatbot built in Monroe’s likeness and voice, developed in partnership with Authentic Brands Group, which manages the rights to Monroe’s image and estate. The uncanny chatbot read users’ emotions via camera and microphone and generated personalized interactions “in Marilyn’s signature voice and style.”
Criticism: What could go wrong with launching a chatbot exploiting the memory of a woman on International Women’s Day? Entertainment Weekly‘s Maureen Lee Lenker wrote that “we may have arrived at an all-time low.”
Notable Detail: Fans pointed out that at the same time it was seeking to promote her likeness through A.I., Authentic Brands Group, which manages Monroe’s estate, aggressively worked to shut down nonprofit Monroe fan pages on social media.
The Playboy Centerfold, December 1953
What It Is: The inaugural issue of Playboy, published in December 1953 by a then-unknown Hugh Hefner, featured Monroe as both its cover image and its first-ever centerfold. The nude photographs had been taken four years earlier, in 1949, when Monroe was broke and needed $50 to make a car payment. She posed for photographer Tom Kelley under the pseudonym “Mona Monroe.” Hefner bought the rights for $500. Monroe was not consulted, not compensated beyond the original $50, and not informed before publication.
Criticism: Although the issue sold nearly 50,000 copies, “I never even received a thank you,” Monroe said in a posthumously published interview for the book Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words. “I even had to buy a copy of the magazine to see myself in it.”
Notable Detail: In 1992, Hefner paid $75,000 for the burial crypt directly beside Monroe’s at Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles—a purchase he described as “too sweet to pass up.” Monroe, who died in 1962, was not consulted about this either.
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