American film star, born Norma Jeane on June 1st 1926—a stage name she described as "a veil" she could wear. She became Hollywood's defining sex symbol of the 1950s and was married to playwright Arthur Miller. She read Dostoevsky and sang to (and probably slept with) President John F. Kennedy. She died of an overdose in 1962, aged 36.
Her likeness has long outlived her. The rights to her estate and intellectual property are owned by Authentic Brands Group, which acquired Monroe as its first celebrity estate in 2010 and reportedly earns $80m a year from her image alone. Her centenary in 2026 was marked by exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, branded products from champagne to china to high heels, and a 500-strong attempt in Palm Springs to break the world record for the largest gathering of Monroe lookalikes. In 2024 Authentic partnered with Soul Machines, an AI firm, to create a "digital Marilyn" that wears her signature red lipstick and says "darling" with alarming frequency.
This sentence does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.