By Frank Worth

Famous Marilyn Monroe shot of skirts billowing standing over sidewalk vent with Billy Wilder, circa 1955, on the set of The Seven Year Itch.

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, Marilyn Monroe (1926 -1962) was a Golden Globe Award-winning American actress, singer, model and pop icon. She was known for her comedic skills and screen presence, going on to become one of the most popular movie stars of the 1950s and early 1960s.

Her first starring role was in 1952 with Don't Bother to Knock followed by Niagara in 1953. Over the following months, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire cemented Monroe's status as an A-list actress and she became one of the world's biggest movie stars. The lavish Technicolor comedy films established Monroe's ‘dumb blonde’ on-screen persona.

The Seven Year Itch was her next big hit in 1955. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her un-glamourous role in Bus Stop. She starred in The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier but she scored the biggest hit of her career when she starred alongside Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot, for which she received a Golden Globe. Her husband Arthur Miller wrote what became her and her co-star Clark Gable's last completed film, The Misfits.

She made her last significant public appearance, singing Happy Birthday, Mr. President at a televised birthday party for President John F. Kennedy.

She has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame 6104 Hollywood Boulevarde and remains one of the 20th century's legendary public figures and archetypal Hollywood movie stars

Billy Wilder (1906-2002) was an Austrian-born, Jewish-American journalist, screenwriter, film director, and producer whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's Golden Age.

He won Academy Awards as Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for The Lost Weekend (1945), Best Director and Best Picture for The Apartment (1960), Best Original Screenplay of Sunset Boulevarde (1950) and The Apartment and the Irving G Thalberg Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1988. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.