Death of Marilyn Monroe in Brentwood, Los Angeles

In the early hours of August 5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her Brentwood home in Los Angeles at age 36, the victim of an apparent barbiturate overdose. She was pronounced dead that morning, and the Los Angeles County Coroner later ruled the case a “probable suicide.”

Monroe’s final years had been marked by emotional turmoil, chronic insomnia, health problems, and professional instability, including clashes with studios and directors and the suspension of her last film, "Something’s Got to Give." Her death generated immediate global shock. Crowds gathered outside her home and at the mortuary; newspapers and radio bulletins around the world treated the event as front-page news. Conflicting details and subsequent revelations about her relationships with powerful men, including President John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, fueled decades of speculation and conspiracy theories, though no credible official evidence has overturned the original finding of probable suicide.

Historically, Monroe’s death is significant not only because it ended a major Hollywood career but also because it crystallized her transformation into a modern myth. She came to symbolize the destructive pressures of fame, the exploitation of women in the entertainment industry, and the inadequacy of mid‑20th‑century understanding of mental health and addiction. Feminist scholars, biographers, and artists have revisited her life and death to interrogate how gender, power, and media intersected in her story. The date August 5, 1962, thus stands as both a tragic endpoint and the beginning of Marilyn Monroe’s posthumous life as one of the most enduring icons of the 20th century.