Born Norma Jean Baker in Los Angeles in 1926, the illegitimate child of a salesman, Marilyn Monroe is perhaps the greatest star in the history of motion pictures, and her eventful and tragic life has become a legend The authors retrace her steps from an unhappy childhood, her discovery by Howard Hughes and her personal life her marriage to the baseball player Joe DiMaggio, her relationship with the playwright Arthur Miller and her bent for self-destruction, which ended with her death from a drug overdose at 36