June 1st 1926 - August 4th 1962

Happy 87th Birthday, Marilyn! June 1st 1926 - ∞

She stood for life. She radiated life. In her smile hope was always present. She glorified in life, and her death did not mar this final image. She had become a legend in her own time, and in her death, took her place among the myths of our century. - John Kobal 

 

Marilyn in Korea, 1954

Marilyn at the Golden Globes (1962)

6th February 1962 - Marilyn seeing Macbeth with the Strasbergs

Marilyn by Elliott Erwitt during the shooting of The Seven Year Itch, 1954

Marilyn by Bert Stern, 1962

Marilyn by Alfred Einsentaedt, 1953

Marilyn by Cecil Beaton, 1956

Marilyn by Sam Shaw, 1954

Marilyn by Sam Shaw, 1957


Happy Birthday Jean Harlow (March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937)

To Marilyn, Jean Harlow was more than a hero: Harlow’s life was in many ways a blueprint of her own. The parallels in the lives of Monroe and Harlow are overwhelming: both were brought up by strict Christian Scientists (in Norma Jeane’s case, her beloved foster parent, Ana Lower); both were married three times; both left school at sixteen to marry their first husbands (Harlow eloped with a millionaire); both spent their lives seeking out their father; and both died in tragic and some say suspicious circumstances. They both acted opposite Clark Gable in the last film they ever made. Intriguingly  Gable once said of Harlow, “She didn’t want to be famous, she wanted to be happy,” a quote that can be equally applied to Marilyn.

They were both great lovers of animals and willing to provide a haven for strays. Both of them tested the morals of their days by posing nude, flaunting their bodies, and eschewing underwear; both of them acted under their mother’s maiden names. Each lived on North Palm Drive at one point in their lives. Marilyn, like Harlow, had to go on a one woman strike to improve her extremely unfavorable contract terms and payment rates at the height of her popularity. The parallels continue even at the end of their lives; both actresses were regularly prescribed sedatives by their doctors; just months before both actresses died, they went to a presidential birthday celebration (Harlow went to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s birthday ball, Marilyn to President John F Kennedy’s), for which they were reprimanded by their studios. - Source: http://www.marilynmonroe.ca/camera/about/facts/idol.html

Marilyn by Harold Lloyd, 1953

Marilyn at the Rockefeller Center, July 2nd 1957