(narrator) Marilyn Monroe was the golden girl of Hollywood's golden age.

("Lorelei Lee") ♪ Men grow cold as girls grow old ♪ (narrator) Star of over 30 films, classics like The Seven Year Itch... ("Sugar Kane") ♪ Runnin' wild, lost control ♪ -...and Some Like It Hot.

-♪ Mighty bold ♪ (jazzy music) (narrator) She was cast as the dumb blonde over and over.

In this program, we reveal that behind the stereotype... (blasts of steam) ...was a witty, intelligent trailblazer... (Lucy) There has been a shift towards considering her more as a feminist.

(narrator) ...who stood up for racial and gender equality... (Bonnie) Marilyn Monroe was ahead of her time, but she didn't even know it.

(narrator) ...single-handedly took on the big guns... (David) Marilyn Monroe was the first woman of real power to stand against the studio system in Hollywood.

(narrator) ...and won.

(Greg) In the 1950s, women simply did not do production companies.

But Marilyn destroyed the system.

(lively music) (narrator) With incredible access to Marilyn's surviving co-stars and friends, we learn how she behaved on set... (George) She cared deeply, and what she delivered was extraordinary.

(narrator) ...intimate revelations... Marilyn was in the earliest stage of pregnancy.

(narrator) ...and a different Marilyn to the one we think we know.

(John) All they see is this fragile creature, and it just wasn't true.

(pensive music) (narrator) With a first-hand account of her darkest hours... (John) I saw her crawling on the floor at three o'clock in the morning, smelling from drugs and alcohol.

(crowd shouting) (narrator) ...this is the true, untold story of Marilyn Monroe.

(majestic music) May 19th, 1962.

Madison Square Garden, New York.

♪ (Sarah) JFK's inner circle decided that they would throw a birthday gala, and who better to headline than Marilyn Monroe?

(applause) (Lucy) She tiptoes onto stage, and she's announced rather poignantly, given that she didn't have that long to live -after this occasion.

-Mr. President, the late Marilyn Monroe.

(applause) And she flicks the microphone in a very cool and sexy action.

(narrator) The performance that would go down in history is remembered as much for Marilyn's slurring as for her tongue-in-cheek rendition.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ Happy birthday, Mr. President ♪ (shutter click, ominous roar) (narrator) At 35 years old, Marilyn Monroe was the most famous film star in the world.

Eleven weeks later, she was dead.

(mysterious music) But how did this pioneering star of 30 films with the strength to fight the Hollywood system come to this?

(shutter clicks) (ragtime-style piano music) Marilyn was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June the 1st, 1926.

(Sarah) Her mother, Gladys Monroe Baker, was diagnosed as schizophrenic, and she was put in a state hospital, in an asylum.

(melancholic music) (Greg) She really wasn't the ideal person to be a mother.

(Sarah) Nobody knows for sure who her father was.

Marilyn Monroe herself never knew.

(narrator) Without a father, and a mother who couldn't cope, Norma Jeane spent most of her childhood -in foster care.

-It was a childhood where she never really could hang on to a family for very long and feel that she really belonged, because before she knew it, she was going somewhere else again.

(Sarah) These were not necessarily warm and caring foster homes.

(narrator) Throughout Norma Jeane's troubled childhood, there was one constant: (upbeat piano music) Her mother's close friend, Grace McKee.

(Adam) Grace took on this role of unofficial guardian.

She would come along and take her out for the day, take her out to get her nails done, take her to the movies.

(narrator) And she was drawn to one particular star.

(Adam) Grace was obsessed with Jean Harlow.

She was a huge sex symbol, the original platinum blonde.

(narrative) These cinema trips with Grace had a huge impact on Marilyn.

But the movies were a million miles from the reality of growing up largely in foster care.

(bright music) When Norma Jeane was 15, she was offered a choice: get married or end up in another foster home.

At just 16, she married 21-year-old Jim Dougherty.

(Greg) They set up a little household.

However, Jim was called in to serve for the world war.

(Franklin Delano Roosevelt) We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

(applause) (narrator) With Jim posted to the Merchant Marine, Norma Jeane joined the war effort on the home front.

(patriotic music) (Greg) She joined a munitions factory called Radioplane munitions.

(narrator) And it was at this factory that she was discovered by an Army photographer.

(Greg) A photographer was looking around for images to promote the war effort.

(Amber) At that point, she looked very different.

Her hair was a light brown type color.

She looked very much like her California girl next door.

(Greg) And that started getting her her first recognition.

(narrator) Norma Jeane was an instant hit, and her face was splashed across Army magazines and pamphlets.

(Amber) She was perfect as a morale-boosting image.

(narrator) When the war ended and her husband returned, the pressure was on to stay at home -and raise a family.

-Marilyn decided that housewife was not gonna be her career.

And she did not want to be married anymore.

(fantastical music) (narrator) So in 1945, aged just 19, a determined Norma Jeane signed up to the Blue Book Modeling Agency and soon after left her husband, and she was no ordinary model.

(Sarah) The head of her modeling agency, she said, "I never saw anybody work so hard."

She needed to understand lighting and lenses and angles, and how to move her body.

She was tireless and unbelievably ambitious.

(lively music) (narrator) By the summer of 1946, she was gracing magazine covers by the dozen, and her growing profile attracted the attention of a Hollywood studio.

♪ (Greg) It had come to the knowledge of 20th Century Fox that there was a woman out there that's quite beautiful, and so, they decided to set up a screen test.

(anticipatory music) (Sarah) She had terrible stage fright from the beginning.

As it turned out, they just did a silent screen test.

So she was in effect able to just use the modeling skills that she had been developing over recent years.

(Greg) They liked her, and they actually signed her on a six-month contract.

(narrator) Before long, she would be starring in a string of hits, and, as witty as ever, making clever additions to the scripts.

"I can be smart when it's important, but men don't tend to like it."

She came up with it herself.

(narrator) And nearly 70 years after they danced together on set, her Oscar-winning dance partner sheds light -on Marilyn, the working girl.

-She cared deeply, and what she delivered was extraordinary.

(jazzy music) (crowd cheering, shouting) (anticipatory music) (narrator) On August the 24th, 1946, already a successful model, Norma Jeane signed her first contract with 20th Century Fox.

But the studio didn't approve of her name.

(Lucy) "Norma Jeane" was not considered to be a particularly film star-like name, and there was an actress around at the time, Marilyn Miller, and one of the studio executives said, "Oh, you remind me of her."

So she went with Marilyn.

(swing-style music) (narrator) And Marilyn, once again showing her determined character, wanted to choose her own new surname.

So what they did is, her maternal grandmother's last name was Monroe, so they combined the Marilyn with the Monroe, and Norma Jeane was said goodbye to.

♪ (narrator) Marilyn's next task was to get herself that all-important first role.

In one of the early surviving screen tests that she did... You can't take such a chance.

You dumb broad.

(Sarah) ...the man opposite her refers to her just as a dumb broad.

-I oughta-- -Go ahead.

It won't be the first time I've been worked over today.

I'm getting used to it.

(narrator) This idea that a pretty girl was also always going to have to be a dumb broad, that was something that was going to chase her throughout her career.

(slinky music) (narrator) Her breakthrough role was a walk-on part in the 1949 Marx Brothers film Love Happy.

It was the spark that would ignite her career, leading to a series of similar roles.

♪ Realizing that her looks were where her power lay, Marilyn set to work perfecting her image.

(Sarah) That gradually emerges through a series of screen roles.

Haven't you bothered me enough, you big banana-head?

(Sarah) Over the course of about a three-year period...

I'll be anywhere you want me to be.

(Amber) ...her hair got shorter, and it also got blonder.

It went from sort of light brown and eventually through to the platinum blonde -that we know her for.

-Mr. McKinnon, control yourself.

-Go fry an egg!

-Well!

There were rumors that she also had some work done on her chin.

(Greg) She also had her nose taken care of.

(suspenseful music) (Lucy) She worked with the makeup artist Whitey Snyder.

They created a look that entailed emphasizing her lips using many different shades of red lipstick.

(narrator) But her transformation was more than skin deep.

(Lucy) And she also created a health and beauty regime that created the Monroe look.

♪ (jazzy music) (narrator) Marilyn had nailed a distinctive image.

Her career started to take off.

("Barnaby Fulton") All set?

-Is your motor running?

-Is yours?

(narrator) Fox offered her a new, seven-year contract with a starting salary of $500 a week, more than £3,500 in today's money, and soon came her first starring role, in the film noir thriller Niagara.

(Sarah) With Niagara, the look of Marilyn had been established.

(dramatic music) (Ali) Marilyn's sexuality is on show throughout the movie.

She has the same kind of impact that she had in the Marx Brothers film.

It's designed to, again, make everybody look at her.

(narrator) Niagara grossed $6 million and catapulted Marilyn into stardom.

But the raw sexuality she exuded on screen led to pressures off screen.

The casting couch is well known.

It's certainly legendary that people were expected to perform sexual favors.

There were always rumors that Marilyn did have sex with a lot of studio executives in order to advance her career.

I don't know if that's true or not.

(Adam) She most certainly would have had to deal with the kind of things that now, finally, with the Me Too movement, is being held up for the abuse that it actually is.

(narrator) Despite working in an often toxic and sexist culture, Marilyn was now fearlessly forging a path to the top of the Hollywood system.

Production was underway on her next film... (fanfare-like music) ...Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

(Anna) Marilyn is a gold digger who is observed closely by a private investigator hired by the father of her intended.

(Sarah) The dumb blonde isn't as dumb as she seems.

(narrator) Marilyn was frustrated by the dumb blonde role and felt undervalued by the studio, but her performance in the film is legendary.

("Lorelei Lee") ♪ Men grow cold as girls grow old ♪ ♪ And we all lose our charms in the end ♪ ♪ But square-cut or pear-shape ♪ ♪ These rocks don't lose their shape ♪ ♪ Diamonds are a girl's best friend ♪ (Ali) The dress, the dance sequence, the song.

It is Marilyn par excellence.

-♪ Girls grow old ♪ -And Oscar-winning dance star George Chakiris was by Marilyn's side.

If anybody mentions that movie, what comes to mind?

That beautiful red background and her pink dress against it.

It's visually really striking.

(narrator) And what was also striking in this early stage of her career was Marilyn's dedication.

(George) We rehearsed for, I think, two or three weeks and it took three days to film.

She was a perfectionist.

During the breaks, we'd get up and play around and try to do the steps.

She just went right back to her starting position to start the take again.

She never looked at herself in the mirror, she never did any of that, and I loved that about her.

She cared deeply, and what she delivered was extraordinary.

(narrator) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was one of the biggest movies of 1953.

After dancing and singing on screen, it was time for an ambitious Marilyn to prove her versatile talent and make her mark by tackling a comedy, and she stole the show in her next smash, How to Marry a Millionaire.

(Anna) So Marilyn Monroe stars alongside Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall.

They play three women who are determined to marry millionaires, and comedy ensues.

(Ali) Essentially, this movie is known for our Marilyn being able to play a slightly different twist -on the dumb blonde role.

-She's actually playing with her own image of Marilyn Monroe and making fun of it.

(narrator) How to Marry a Millionaire was a huge commercial success, earning $8 million at the box office.

Marilyn Monroe was fast becoming Hollywood's leading comic actress.

(newsreel announcer) You know them well, of course: Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

(bright music) (Sarah) Fan mail was pouring in, and Marilyn's stardom was becoming very real and powerful.

(upbeat music) (newsreel announcer) Between Beverly Hills and the ocean is the 20th Century Fox studio.

(narrator) But the studio failed to recognize her extraordinary versatility, pushing her into the same emptyheaded roles time and time again.

Marilyn had had enough.

She suddenly saw what the deal was, and she realized, "They just wanted me for boobs and hair and lips and skin, and I'm so much more than that."

(shutter snaps) (Greg) There was actually several movies she'd turned down, including The Girl in the Pink Tights, which, I think, just going by the name alone, you can guess it was probably not a great script.

She thought it was garbage.

She also found out that her co-star, Frank Sinatra, was on a fee that was three times what she would have got, so she dug her heels in and said no.

(narrator) Marilyn simply failed to turn up on set.

(Lucy) The studio's response was to suspend her.

(narrator) Marilyn's fallout with the studio made newspaper headlines, which she then replaced with even bigger ones when she married a popular sporting legend.

(crack of bat, crowd gasps) (announcer) Joe DiMaggio slams what looks like sure homer.

(romantic music) (Sarah) Joe DiMaggio was one of the most famous sportsmen in the country.

He was a national hero.

(narrator) They had met over dinner after he'd asked a friend to introduce them.

Bowing to her now even-greater star power, Fox lifted Marilyn's suspension.

But she ignored their pleas and jetted off to Tokyo on her honeymoon.

(Sarah) DiMaggio was invited to Japan, which was a huge nation of baseball fans.

(Greg) He was the big baseball star.

However, Marilyn is the one that got all the attention.

(newsreel announcer) And Joe?

He's the forgotten man, which is something in Japan, where baseball is so popular.

(Greg) And I'm sure that he probably was underneath seething a little.

(newsreel announcer) But enough's enough.

His patience is exhausted, and Joe says, "Go."

(Sarah) And while they were there, Marilyn got the invitation to go entertain American troops in Korea.

(narrator) Seizing the opportunity to keep her name in lights, an ever-ambitious Marilyn left Joe behind in Tokyo.

(newsreel announcer) Marilyn Monroe invades frozen Korea, and the GIs come a-runnin', vowing unconditional surrender.

(patriotic music) (Greg) Everything was very put together at the last minute.

A tiny little portable stage.

(newsreel announcer) 13,000 Marines whoop it up as a now-glamorous Marilyn steps front and center.

(applause, cheers) (Sarah) She insisted on wearing a beautiful dress in freezing cold weather, because that was what they expected.

(narrator) And her performance was electrifying.

(Greg) The men had not seen a woman for quite a long time, really, so they were, as I can say, very excited to see her.

(narrator) This overwhelming reception had a profound impact on Marilyn.

(Sarah) That was the first time when she got an inkling of what a big star she was.

That was when she began to understand it in real terms.

(narrator) She had become a global sensation, but husband Joe was far from thrilled.

(Bidisha) He just can't stand that she's so famous He can't stand all the other fans around her, the way these sort of men follow her around and leer at her.

(narrator) And Joe's jealousy would only intensify when she took on a role in The Seven Year Itch.

(Sarah) People reported that they heard screaming, and most people believe that Joe was physically violent to Marilyn that night.

(somber music) (crowd cheering) (jazzy music) (narrator) In 1955, Marilyn Monroe, the most famous female star in Hollywood, took a role playing The Girl in The Seven Year Itch.

(upbeat music) Tom Ewell plays a man living in his New York family apartment.

("Richard Sherman") I'm afraid I'm coming down with what you and Dr. Steichel call the seven year itch.

What am I going to do?

He's starting to be distracted by other women.

(Neil) And in moves a new neighbor upstairs, who just happens to be Marilyn Monroe.

She is a fantasy figure in this.

I mean, she is the girl next door, the girl upstairs.

(narrator) And on one baking September night, she would shoot one of the most iconic scenes in cinema history.

Tom Ewell's character and The Girl are walking out of a movie they've watched together.

It's a very hot night, and as she walks over a subway grate, a train passes underneath, and her white dress billows up.

It's just extraordinary how impactful that one scene has had, not only on her career but actually on popular culture.

(lively music) (narrator) Marilyn's friend and photographer Sam Shaw took the famous shot.

(upbeat music) (Edie) Well, my father came up with the skirt-blowing scene after reading the script.

In 1941, he had done a cover for Friday magazine where a model was going through, like, a wind tunnel and her skirt was blowing.

He put it in the back of his mind that if he ever had the opportunity to use that concept again, he would.

(Greg) The scene took place in New York, outside the Lux Theater, September 15th, 1954, at 2 a.m. in the morning.

(jazzy music) (Meta Shaw) Underneath the grating, there was a wind machine going to make the skirt blow up.

(Ali) Thousands of people were clamoring around-- let's be honest, it was mainly men-- screaming her name.

(Amber) The white dress was designed by William Travia, and we see his trademark sunburst pleating.

And it's also what creates the fullness that allows it to really billow in the subway breeze.

(Greg) Her hair was perfectly coiffed, her makeup was exactly right.

Marilyn was exuding 100 percent of her sexuality.

(narrator) And it was between one of the takes when Sam Shaw captured the iconic moment.

(Meta Shaw) Marilyn turns to him.

Her skirt goes up and she goes, "Hi, Sam."

It was called "the shot seen 'round the world."

(Ali) It is for many that image you think of when you think of Marilyn.

The lipstick just so, the blonde hair.

It's all perfect.

(shutter snapping) (narrator) This scene worked wonders for Marilyn, -but not for husband Joe.

-Somebody told Joe DiMaggio that it was happening.

(Greg) And he became more and more incensed the more times they did the takes.

Marilyn actually wore two pairs of panties to make sure that she protected her own modesty.

To him, it was a kind of shocking display of her sexuality.

To her, it was just part of the job.

(somber music) (Greg) There are rumors that Joe got very angry afterwards in their hotel room.

(Sarah) People reported that they heard screaming, and most people believe that Joe was physically violent to Marilyn that night.

And certainly, not long after that, Marilyn was filing for divorce.

♪ (narrator) After only nine months, the marriage was over, and this wasn't the only relationship under strain.

Exasperated with the studio's treatment of her, she decided to break her Fox contract.

-She wanted out.

-She left DiMaggio, she left Hollywood, and she moved to New York.

(Buddy Holly-style rock music) She bought a plane ticket under the name Zelda Zonk so that nobody would know it was actually her.

(Sarah) She would just disappear on them, and what were they gonna do?

They couldn't force her to work if she wasn't there.

(narrator) For a determined Marilyn, New York held the key to the development of her career.

(Lucy) So she was devoted to her work and to improving her craft.

She really wanted to be remembered as an actress with integrity.

(lively music) (narrator) Savvy Marilyn enrolled at The Actors Studio, the most prestigious acting school of its time, run by Lee and Paula Strasberg.

(John) My father was the artistic director of The Actors Studio.

No matter how famous you were, no matter how rich you were, you came in there and it was your work that was being looked at, not who you were.

The Actors Studio was where the real serious people were-- Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and people who were really doing real stuff in the movies.

(narrator) What set The Actors Studio apart was a technique -known as the Method.

-It was based on your ability to recall experiences that you have had, from simple sensations to traumatic emotional experiences, and to be able to reproduce them on cue.

(ambient music) (narrator) Strasberg also encouraged her to undergo a period of psychoanalysis.

(Lucy) I think it was probably one of the worst things that could have happened to her at the time, because it kept her locked with all that pain that she'd experienced as a child, rather than freeing her to move on and cope better with life.

(narrator) Some years earlier, Marilyn had revealed to a journalist details of childhood abuse.

She did say that she had suffered molestation, sexual abuse, as a child.

(Sarah) She was vulnerable.

She was passed around from home to home at a time when society discounted those kinds of allegations.

(narrator) And she had been dismissed as a fantasist.

Both as a child and as a woman, kind of two counts against her.

It was a culture that simply disbelieved victims of sexual assault.

(narrator) Now, through psychoanalysis, Marilyn revisited all her past traumas, including the neglect and abandonment she had experienced from birth.

To cope with the grueling hours on film sets, she had been taking a cocktail of pills since she started at Fox.

(Sarah) Pills were just handed out like candy.

There were doctors on every studio set, and all the actors had them and the dancers had them and the choreographers had them, and you could just get them.

(narrator) In New York, while in therapy, she began taking even more pills, and as her drug use spiraled, the towering strength Marilyn had shown till now began to crumble.

(Greg) The psychiatrists, in prescribing these drugs, were thinking they were doing her good.

I don't think that they were as aware as we are today of how addictive they are, how dangerous they are.

(Sarah) She would prick capsules of barbiturates and dissolve them in champagne to make them work faster.

She didn't know how much she was taking.

She wasn't even tracking it.

(somber music) (John) I saw her crawling on the floor at three o'clock in the morning, smelling from drugs and alcohol, saying, "Do you think I can wake up your parents?"

I saw her as much more vulnerable.

It's just terrible.

That's terrible stuff.

(narrator) Thankfully, the Strasbergs gave Marilyn the support she needed to survive.

(John) I don't think anyone expected that she would end up as a member of the family.

Marilyn was more like between a sister and a wounded animal.

When I saw Marilyn happy, it was when she was with the family, just having a good time.

(narrator) Marilyn was also driven to broaden her mind.

(Bidisha) Marilyn Monroe was acutely aware that she had had a very poor education, and she was determined to improve herself.

(Sarah) She was a voracious reader.

She read political histories, she read political biographies.

(Bidisha) She wanted to fill up her mind and give herself a bit of substance.

(Sarah) Because she was a dumb blonde in the eyes of everybody else, once again, her efforts at self-improvement were just met with mockery.

(narrator) But Marilyn's inner circle were fully aware of her true intelligence, and whilst in New York, she met an old friend.

(Bidisha) In the 1950s, Arthur Miller was America's most famous playwright.

(Sarah) Marilyn had met Arthur Miller in Hollywood a few years before and they'd had a flirtation at a party.

Nothing came of it; he was married.

But when Marilyn moved to New York, it deepened into something more serious.

(Bidisha) They swapped book recommendations, they wrote letters to each other.

They didn't just have dirty weekends away.

It was quite a literary courtship.

(mellow music) (Lucy) She was forward-thinking.

She was outraged by many elements of sexism and racism in society, of color prejudice.

(Sarah) In America, the class that was most repressed was African Americans, Black people.

(David) To be a Black person in America in the '50s, you could only sit at the back of the bus.

You could only use certain toilets.

You could only go into certain clubs and restaurants.

It was very much a segregated society.

(Sarah) Marilyn did not ever respect those kinds of social barriers.

She was friends with the people that she wanted to be friends with.

(narrator) And that included jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald.

(David) She met Ella and discovered that they had something in common.

They both had abusive childhoods.

Both kinda put into boxes.

(David) And they really jelled and they really became friends.

(Bonnie) Marilyn really considered her an important artist, and she wanted to get Ella into Hollywood to really do a big Hollywood gig.

(sprightly music) (narrator) At the time, Ella was struggling to get a headline booking.

One of the places that turned her down was L.A.'s glitziest venue.

(newsreel announcer) The Mocambo, one of Hollywood's best-known places to dine and dance, is star-studded every night.

(lively jazz music) (Lucy) When Marilyn found out that Ella Fitzgerald wasn't allowed to sing at the Mocambo club, Marilyn was outraged.

(Sarah) She got on the phone to the manager of the club and said that if he agreed to book Ella that she would be there front and center at the main table for a week.

If Marilyn was there, other A-listers would come as well, because you didn't get more A-list than Marilyn Monroe.

♪ And they said yes.

(narrator) The gig attracted some of Hollywood's biggest names, with Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland spotted on the front row.

(Bonnie) On Ella's opening night, she got rave reviews.

(David) After playing at the Mocambo, the white audience, the mainstream audience, knew who Ella Fitzgerald was.

(Bonnie) Ella is on record saying that she owed a lot to Marilyn Monroe, that Marilyn Monroe was ahead of her time but she didn't even know it.

♪ (narrator) Marilyn was also winning her own battles.

(soft music, street noises) Fox allowed her to renegotiate her contract on new terms, and once again ahead of her time, she teamed up with old friend photographer Milton Greene.

(Greg) They would combine their resources and form a production company, which they called Marilyn Monroe Productions.

She was going to take control of her career, force Fox to let her make some films on the side, and that she would be able then to have directorial control.

(Bidisha) She was really determined to prove that she could take up space in Hollywood as a thinker and as a filmmaker, so not just in front of the camera looking beautiful, but behind the camera, having ideas.

(pensive music) (narrator) But the studios openly mocked Marilyn for wanting to set up her own company.

(Sarah) She was just laughed at.

They said that she was above herself.

This sense that she didn't know her own limits and that she didn't understand that she was just a dumb blonde, and who does she think she is?

♪ (Greg) In the 1950s, women simply did not do production companies.

That was the studio that did that.

But Marilyn destroyed the system.

(narrator) By 1956, Marilyn's split with Fox was complete... (triumphant music) ...and any future work with them would now be on her terms.

(Bidisha) She went back in and renegotiated her contract.

(Greg) She had the right to refuse any film she did not wanna do.

She also had the right to make her own movies.

♪ (narrator) She may have been at the top of her game professionally, but personally, she was struggling.

(Ali) It was around about this point in Marilyn Monroe's career where she started to become more dependent on drugs.

(Bidisha) She would take something to help her sleep.

She would take something to help wake in the morning.

(Sarah) All the stories are that she would have plastic bags filled with undifferentiated pills and just kind of reach in and grab them out.

(Ali) In that era, it was whatever worked, and if this is what the star needed, this is what the star got.

(pensive music) (upbeat music) (narrator) As president of Marilyn Monroe Productions, she was now ready to take on the big boys of the Hollywood studio system and was about to shoot her first independent film, The Prince and the Showgirl, in London.

Before filming began, she married her playwright beau, Arthur Miller, who, despite being a suspected communist sympathizer, was permitted to travel with her.

A few weeks later, the newlyweds headed to England for the shoot.

(newsreel announcer) "She's Here!"

said the headlines, and everyone knew they meant the American film star with the famous shape and the wiggly walk.

(majestic music) Her Majesty, talking with Miss Monroe, remarks that they were neighbors at Windsor.

(narrator) For The Prince and the Showgirl, Marilyn had secured acting royalty.

(Bidisha) She went into production on The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier, the great actor, as the director and a kind of co-star.

("Elsie Marina") You know what's going to happen.

I'm going to fall in love with you.

'Cause I always, always do.

-Always?

-Mm.

Both times.

(narrator) But far from falling in love, relations between the two were strained.

(Sarah) She walked on set and Olivier began just by patronizing her.

And she asked him how they were going to play a certain scene, and instead of taking that question seriously, he said, "Oh, don't bother acting, Marilyn, just be sexy."

It was her movie.

She was producing it, he worked for her, and he told her just to be sexy.

Of course she was angry, of course she was outraged.

(Lucy) The falling-out between Monroe and Olivier is legendary.

(tense music) (Neil) Olivier was guilty of absolutely blatant sexism, and I think that he was jealous of her fame.

(Ali) There are moments in the movie where "the" Sir Laurence Olivier is outshone by Marilyn Monroe.

("Charles") What are words when deeds can say so much more?

("Elsie Marina") That's just terrible!

(Neil) Olivier seems almost sort of to disappear when he's on screen with her.

You made a pass and I turned it down.

(narrator) Filming done, Marilyn and Arthur Miller, who were still under investigation... (flashbulb-like pop) ...headed back to the States to stay with his lawyer Joseph Rauh's family.

(Carl) My father offered to have them stay at our house, 'cause everyone was concerned that Marilyn would be mobbed if she had to stay in a hotel.

(narrator) At this time, she particularly craved privacy.

(Carl) Marilyn was in the earliest stage of pregnancy.

(Bidisha) She wanted to have a family and to get away from the horror show that is Hollywood.

(narrator) Marilyn was ready to settle into family life as soon as Miller's trial came to an end.

(Carl) The very last day, she agreed to meet the press.

This was the scene in the front of our house.

(bright music) That's me.

It certainly was a 16-year-old's dream to be around Marilyn Monroe for a couple weeks, no doubt about that.

(narrator) The trial ended and Miller was given a suspended sentence.

Expecting their first child together, they moved into a charming old farmhouse.

(Bidisha) You just know that she would have been an absolutely doting, wonderful mother, because she had a lot of love to give.

♪ (fizzy crackling) (narrator) But on the 1st of August, 1957, Marilyn was rushed to hospital.

(melancholic music) (Carl) Unfortunately, she had a miscarriage.

♪ (Bidisha) I think it's absolutely a shame that she didn't get the daughter or the son that she would have wanted.

(narrator) She lost at least two and on some accounts three pregnancies.

(murmur of crowd) (Bidisha) After her run of miscarriages in the late '50s, she wanted something to numb the pain and the depression and the sense of failure.

(Neil) She overcame a lot of those problems with the help of drugs.

(Sarah) To what degree she would have thought in terms of addiction is harder to know.

She knew she was unhappy, and she was in that cycle where she felt like the pills helped.

(narrator) Now totally dependent on prescription drugs... (jazzy music) ...Marilyn went reluctantly back to work, starring in the legendary comedy Some Like It Hot.

(Neil) She plays Sugar Kane, who is a member of an all-female band.

("Sugar Kane") ♪ Runnin' wild, mighty bold ♪ ♪ Feelin' gay, reckless too ♪ ♪ Carefree mind all the time, never blue ♪ (Neil) Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon have to dress up as women to escape being shot by gangsters, and so they join this all-female band, and of course, they both sort of fall head over heels in love with Marilyn.

(sultry music) Marilyn's big on entrances, and she really enhanced this one as she's sort of wiggling her way down the train station.

The problem for Marilyn was that although it was a superlative script, it was still yet another dumb blonde.

("Daphne") Good night, Sugar!

(lively music) Good night, honey!

(narrator) Arthur Miller hadn't worked since they had married and was keen for her to take on the role.

(Sarah) Arthur Miller helped talk her into it, and so she just resented it.

("Sugar Kane") Relax... (Neil) She's doing it, but she's not well.

She really isn't well.

(dark music) (narrator) During filming, Marilyn's drug-taking intensified.

(Neil) She took so many drugs to sleep that they couldn't wake her up, so they used to make her up in bed while she was asleep before then getting her up and onto the set.

(narrator) Her marriage to Miller lasted barely two more years.

By then, the troubled and addicted actor was in free fall.

(Ali) She just couldn't wrestle with her own demons.

It was just awful to be Marilyn Monroe, at this point.

(narrator) Her final appearance should have acted as a warning.

(Sarah) She'd had a fair amount of champagne.

We don't know what other pills and chemicals she had taken, but she was pretty clearly inebriated.

(narrator) Of the tragedy that lay ahead... (Greg) I cannot believe this incredible, fabulous woman is gone.

♪ (crowd cheering) (melancholic music) (narrator) In 1962, 18 months after her marriage had broken down, it's believed Monroe embarked on an affair with the American President John F. Kennedy.

(John F. Kennedy) Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

(cheers, applause) The rumors are that they had sex, yes.

How many times or whether it counted as an affair, I don't know.

She was getting a kick out of having an affair with the most powerful man in the world.

(narrator) On May the 19th, 1962, Marilyn traveled to New York to sing Happy Birthday very publicly to J.F.K.

(applause) (Lucy) And she kind of tiptoes onto stage, and she's announced rather poignantly, given that she didn't have that long to live after this occasion.

(announcer) Mr. President, the late Marilyn Monroe.

(Lucy) And she flicks the microphone.

(melancholic music) (Sarah) She'd had a fair amount of champagne.

We don't know what other pills and chemicals she had taken, but she was pretty clearly inebriated.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ Happy birthday, Mr. President ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ (cheers, applause) (Neil) It's probably one of the most sensual performances she ever gave.

♪ (Greg) She sang it very tongue-in-cheek, and they loved it.

(band plays "Happy Birthday") (narrator) Afterwards, Marilyn flew back to Hollywood, but the studio, claiming they had forbidden the trip, fired her.

J.F.K.

stopped taking her calls.

(dark music) Marilyn was now vulnerable and very alone.

(crackling fizz) The last day of Marilyn's life, which was August the 4th, 1962, was a fairly uneventful day for Marilyn.

She spent the whole day at home.

(Adam) She saw her psychotherapist, Dr. Greenson, at midday, and then she was at home.

(Greg) She retired to bed early that night.

(Bidisha) She did what she often did, which is phone 'round some of her friends.

(Greg) The did not notice anything in particular wrong with her.

(narrator) Later that evening, the alarm was raised.

(Adam) The housekeeper saw that her light was still on and that the door was locked.

(Greg) She called Dr. Greenson, her psychiatrist.

He came over, broke a window... (glass shatters) ...into her bedroom and discovered her dead on the bed.

♪ (Bidisha) There's a bottle of prescription pills next to her.

(newsreel announcer) One of the most famous stars in Hollywood history is dead at 36.

Marilyn Monroe was found dead in bed under circumstances that were in tragic contrast to her glamorous career as a comic talent.

On the surface, she seemed to have such a zest for life.

(somber music) (Neil) The coroner's verdict was probable suicide.

The word's "probable," and that's what opened up the floodgates to a million conspiracy theories.

(Sarah) There are all of these complicated ideas about how she died and why she died.

(Lucy) It's been seen as probably like an accidental overdose and therefore a tragic end.

There was a period of several hours before the police were called.

What the hell were they covering up?

♪ (Greg) Well, I've heard everything from the Mafia did her in to her doctor did her in to the Kennedys came by and injected her.

(melancholic music) What remains consistent is the idea that a powerful man had to be involved in the story.

Keep the men out of the story.

She died alone, and let us at least speak of that with the dignity and respect that it deserves.

(newsreel announcer) The curtain falls.

Brief and simple rites mark the funeral of Marilyn Monroe.

(dark music) (narrator) Her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio arranged a small funeral service for friends and family.

(newsreel announcer) Only 25 persons were invited to the services and no screen stars were in attendance.

(narrator) Marilyn had fought all her life against a troubled childhood, an exploitative studio system, and men who loved her but let her down.

And on August the 8th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe, finally at peace, was laid to rest.

(Greg) I cannot believe this incredible, fabulous woman is gone.

♪ (narrator) Marilyn was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park.

Also buried there are her director from Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder, and her co-star, Jack Lemmon.

Marilyn's legacy is triumphant.

-Is your motor running?

-Is yours?

(engine revs) -Takes a while to warm up.

-Yes, me too.

(Lucy) Marilyn Monroe is undoubtedly the most recognizable Hollywood movie star of all time.

(Bidisha) She had so much talent that when she was on screen, you couldn't look at anything else.

(Bonnie) She's immortal.

She works in every age, she'll never go out of style.

(triumphant music) (Ali) You should not think of her as being this dumb blonde.

She was so much more than that.

(Sarah) We still have made so little progress in thinking about her in different terms.

♪ (John) All they see is this fragile creature, and it just wasn't true.

She changed her life.

She got what she wanted.

(David) Marilyn Monroe was the first woman of real power to stand against the studio system in Hollywood.

♪ (Lucy) She deserves to be remembered as more of a force to be reckoned with, more of a trailblazer.

(Greg) I think if she was alive today, they'd go, "Well, yeah, Marilyn, that's the way it oughta be."

♪ (ensemble) ♪ Diamonds are a girl's ♪ ♪ Diamond's are a girl's best friend ♪ (sultry swing-type music) ♪ (bright music)