Actress, Film Legend and Icon. Best remembered for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and was emblematic of the era's attitudes toward sexuality. Although she was a top-billed actress for only a decade, her films grossed $200 million by the time of her unexpected death in 1962. Edward Mortenson was listed as her father on Norma Jeane's birth certificate but Charles Stanley Gifford, a co-worker of Gladys' with whom she had an affair around the time of Norma Jeane's conception, was determined to be her biological father via a DNA test in 2022. Marilyn herself believed that Gifford was her father. As a child, she was shown a picture of Gifford by her mother who told her, "This is your father." Her attempts to contact Gifford over the years were rebuffed. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage; she married James Dougherty at the age of sixteen. While working in a radio plane factory in 1944 as part of the war effort, she was introduced to a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career. The work led to short-lived film contracts with Twentieth Century-Fox (1946–1947) and Columbia Pictures (1948). After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with 20th Century-Fox in 1951. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress and had roles in several comedies, including "As Young as You Feel" and "Monkey Business," and in the dramas "Clash by Night" and "Don't Bother to Knock." Monroe faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photos before she became a star, but rather than damaging her career, the story resulted in increased interest in her films. By 1953, she was one of the most marketable Hollywood stars; she had leading roles in the noir film "Niagara," which focused on her sex appeal, and the comedies "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "How to Marry a Millionaire," which established her star image as a "dumb blonde." Although she played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, she was disappointed at being typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project, but returned to star in one of the biggest box office successes of her career, "The Seven Year Itch" (1955). When the studio was still reluctant to change her contract, she founded a film production company in late 1954 named Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP). She dedicated 1955 to building her company and began studying method acting at the Actors Studio. In late 1955, Fox awarded her a new contract, which gave her more control and a larger salary. Her subsequent roles included a critically acclaimed performance in "Bus Stop" (1956) and the first independent production of MMP, "The Prince and the Showgirl" (1957). Monroe won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her work in "Some Like It Hot" (1959), which was a critical and commercial success. Her last completed film was the drama "The Misfits" (1961). Her troubled private life received much attention. She struggled with substance abuse, depression, and anxiety. She had two highly publicized marriages, to retired baseball star Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller, both of which ended in divorce. After her divorce from Miller, she reconnected with DiMaggio. On August 4, 1962, she died at age 36 from an overdose of barbiturates at her home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Coroner to the Stars Thomas Noguchi ruled that her death was a "probable suicide", but several conspiracy theories have been proposed in the decades following her death. In 2017, Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner was interred next to her in Westwood Memorial Park.