‘The people made me a star’: 100 years of Marilyn Monroe – in pictures

The woman once known as Norma Jeane became an inspiration for artists and photographers – as a stunning new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery proves No business like show business ... Marilyn Monroe, The Ballerina Sitting. Photograph: Milton H. Greene /© MHG Collective, LLC. Tue 9 Jun 2026 08.00 CEST Norma Jeane, 1946 Born on 1 June 1926, Marilyn Monroe remains a defining presence in popular culture. From the first pin-up photographs made when she was a young model named Norma Jeane, to her last interview for Life magazine and the poignant final images on Santa Monica beach in 1962, she was one of the most photographed people in the world. A new exhibition explores Monroe’s life, career and legacy, with portraits created by many of the greatest photographers and artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait is at National Portrait Gallery, London until 6 September Photograph: © André de Dienes / MUUS Collection Norma Jeane, photoshoot, 1946 While working in a munitions factory, Monroe was photographed by documentary photographer David Conover, who suggested a modelling career. Her image, reproduced on numerous magazine covers, caught the eyes of movie talent scouts. In 1946 she signed her first contract with 20th Century Fox, who advocated for a name change Photograph: Bruno Bernard/Bernard of Hollywood Foundation Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses by James Joyce, Long Island, New York, 1955 Monroe was staying with her literary friends Hedda and Norman Rosten on Long Island. During that time, Eve Arnold photographed the Ulysses session, capturing Monroe at an abandoned children’s playground near Mount Sinai Photograph: Eve Arnold/© Eve Arnold Estate The Swimming Pool Sitting, Connecticut 1956 This image of a young freckle-faced star reveals an intimate side seen only by few. During the summer, Monroe and the Greene family would go a mile down the road to the home of Richard Rogers and end a hot summer day with a cool swim in the pool Photograph: Milton H. Greene/© MHG Collective, LLC. Marilyn Monroe, by Cecil Beaton, bromide print, 1956 In 1956, Monroe and Milton H Greene produced Bus Stop, her most dramatic role to date. She married the eminent playwright Arthur Miller, whom she had known since the early 1950s, and converted to Judaism. Monroe appointed British theatre legend Sir Laurence Olivier as the director and co-star of The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), which was filmed in London Photograph: Cecil Beaton/© National Portrait Gallery, London Colour Her Gone by Pauline Boty, 1962 Looking for a fresh start and a more settled life, in February 1962 Monroe returned to Los Angeles, buying her first home – a hacienda-style house in Brentwood – which she started to decorate and furnish Photograph: Pauline Boty/© Pauline Boty Estate. Reproduction by permission of Wolverhampton Art Gallery Marilyn Monroe, 1962, by Allan Grant She gave a candid interview to Life magazine with the journalist Richard Meryman, accompanied by photographs taken in her new home by photographer Allan Grant. In the article she noted: ‘I’ve been in the movie industry for 15 years and I never once felt like a star. If I was a star, it was the people who made me one, not a studio or any single person’ Photograph: Allan Grant/© 1962 MM The Only Blonde in the World by Pauline Boty , 1963 Monroe’s death in 1962 was headline news across the world, and there was an outpouring of grief and disbelief. In his eulogy, Lee Strasberg described Monroe as ‘ever avid for life and reaching out for fulfilment’. In the mind of the public, it was difficult to reconcile the extraordinary vivacity of Monroe’s on-screen presence with what had been her deep personal unhappiness Photograph: Tate/© The estate of Pauline Boty Green Marilyn by Andy Warhol, 1962 Within weeks of her death media outlets were quick to republish or debut some of the last photographs of her. These apparently carefree portraits – and Monroe’s self-editing of the images – became deeply poignant, something that artists including James Francis Gill, Pauline Boty and Richard Hamilton found impossible to ignore in their work. Andy Warhol’s cycle of Marilyns are perhaps the most famous portraits of the star, powerfully evoking the disjuncture of her public persona and private tragedy Photograph: © 2026 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Licensed by DACS, London.