Purpose: At the end of my speech, the audience will be able to understand who Marilyn Monroe really was.
Thesis: Marilyn Monroe was a contradiction within herself.
Introduction: In today's world of supermodels and actresses that are praised the thinner they get, we forget that there was a time when the world idolized women such as Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, neither of which would ever fit in today's world of the perfect woman ideal. Marilyn seemed to live every little girl's dream of making it in Hollywood. Anthony Summers states in his book Goddess that she was a woman who "postured as the world's mistress, yet yearned for monogamy and motherhood." (Summers 4) Unfortunately, she died at the age of 36 never really achieving what she wanted. Long after her death she is still seen as one of America's first sex idols. We will touch on three important but varied ways of her life, the sometime dark childhood with the threat of insanity, her life a whirlwind of marriages and love affairs, and ultimately, her untimely and sorely uninvestigated death.
Transition: So who was Marilyn Monroe?.
I. Marilyn Monroe had a disruptive childhood. .
A. She was born Norma Jeane Morteson to Gladys Baker in June of 1926. .
1. She was the youngest of three children. .
2. She lived two months with her mother before she was left to be raised by her mother's landlords, the Bolender's.
B. Norma Jeane was baptized Norma Jeane Baker by her maternal grandmother, Della Monroe. .
1. Della would visit the child from time to time at the Bolender's. .
2. Fred Guiles states in his biography of Marilyn that "an incident involving Norma Jeane and her grandmother occurred during the summer of 1927" that would later enter the "Marilyn canon of deprivation and horror". (Guiles 12) Her grandmother seemed to have the murderous impulse to suffocate the young girl.
3. Della was later committed and died shortly after her admittance. .
C. In 1933, Norma Jeane moved in with her mother for a while.
