Death of Marilyn Monroe

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On the evening of August 4, 1962, American actress Marilyn Monroe died at age 36 of a barbiturate overdose inside her home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California. Her body was discovered before dawn the following morning, on August 5. Monroe had been one of the most popular Hollywood stars during the 1950s and early 1960s and was a top-billed actress for the preceding decade. Her films had grossed $200 million by the time of her death ($2.1 billion today). Monroe had suffered from mental illness and substance abuse, and she had not completed a film since The Misfits, released on February 1, 1961, which was a box-office disappointment. Monroe had spent 1961 preoccupied with her various health problems, and in April 1962 had begun filming Something's Got to Give for 20th Century Fox, but the studio fired her in early June. Fox publicly blamed Monroe for the production's problems, and in the weeks preceding her death she had attempted to repair her public image by...

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