Birth of Norma Jeane Mortenson (Marilyn Monroe)

On June 1, 1926, Norma Jeane Mortenson—the future Marilyn Monroe—was born at Los Angeles General Hospital (often recorded as Los Angeles County Hospital) in Los Angeles, California, to Gladys Pearl Monroe Baker. This date marks the beginning of one of the most consequential careers in 20th‑century popular culture.

Her birth into instability would deeply shape her life. Gladys, who struggled with mental illness and financial insecurity, was unable to provide a stable home, and Norma Jeane spent much of her childhood in foster care and an orphanage. Growing up in Depression‑era Los Angeles, she experienced poverty, sexual abuse, and emotional deprivation, conditions far removed from the glamorous image she would later project on screen.

Historically, this birth is significant because it anchors the life of a woman who would become an enduring global icon of cinema, beauty, and sexuality. Monroe’s trajectory—from an unwanted child without a secure family to an internationally recognized star—has become a powerful narrative about self‑reinvention, the promises and perils of Hollywood, and the gendered pressures of mid‑20th‑century stardom. Her birth name, later changed as she constructed a screen persona, symbolizes the distance between the vulnerable girl Norma Jeane and the mythic figure Marilyn Monroe, a duality that continues to fascinate biographers, feminists, and cultural historians.