1. Happy birthday Marilyn. Born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, Monroe would be 75 today. Born to baker Edward Mortenson, she never knew her father, and grew up in foster homes while her mother, Gladys Monroe, was hospitalised for depression. Monroe later lived with family friend Grace McKee - until the teenager accused Grace's husband of attempted rape.
2. Norma was spotted by a photographer while working in a parachute factory during the second world war, and the pictures caused a sensation, after which she bleached her hair and became a sought-after cover girl. Her first magazine cover was for Douglas Airview in January 1946. Within a year she had appeared on 33 national magazine covers, among them Playboy magazine, who made her their first ever centrefold in 1949.
3. The blonde bombshell caught the eye of a Twentieth Century Fox talent scout and changed her name, apparently inspired by stage actress Marilyn Miller and her mother's maiden name. She began her movie career with uncredited bit parts in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948) and The Shocking Miss Pilgrim. Niagara and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes launched her as a sex symbol superstar, but after 1955's The Seven Year Itch she wanted serious acting to replace her sexpot image, and went to New York's Actors Studio to work with director Lee Strasberg.
4. Monroe won a Golden Globe in 1960 for her performance in Billy Wilder's much-loved comedy Some Like It Hot, in which she starred with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. Curtis is widely believed to have likened kissing his leading lady to kissing Hitler - which he has since denied. 1961's The Misfits, in which she starred alongside Clark Gable was written for her by third ex-husband playwright Arthur Miller. The last film she worked on was the unfinished Something's Got To Give. Monroe was fired by director George Cukor due to chronic lateness and drug dependency, then rehired, but her untimely death prevented the movie's completion.
5. Married three times, Monroe's first wedding was aged 16, to Jim Dougherty, which fell apart when he joined the merchant marines. Her marriage to retired baseball hero Joe DiMaggio hit the rocks partly because he objected to the famous ventilator scene in The Seven Year Itch. She met Arthur Miller while taking acting classes in New York, but their five-year marriage ended in 1961.
6. She also had affairs with Yves Montand, Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra, who, just weeks before she died, was rumoured to be on the verge of proposing to Marilyn to "save her from herself" (though she was also apparently planning to remarry Joe DiMaggio). There were also reported affairs with Robert Kennedy and his brother President John F Kennedy. You can watch the classic footage of her singing Happy Birthday, live to him in May 1962, wearing a dress that she literally was sewn into. The Jean Louis gown made $1.26m when it was auctioned recently at Christie's.
7. But Marilyn was plagued by unhappiness, made worse when she suffered two miscarriages while married to Miller. By 1960 she was taking tranquillisers and her troubled mental state reportedly became worse after Freudian psychoanalysis, questioning her every move and motive. "Marilyn wasn't killed by Hollywood," John Huston, the actor and director, said upon learning of her death in 1962. "The girl was an addict of sleeping tablets and she was made so by the goddamn doctors."
8. Controversy still surrounds her death - officially by suicide after a sleeping pill overdose on the night of August 4, 1962. Conspiracy theories abound. Many believe the US government was involved - Monroe's affairs with both Bobby and John Kennedy meant she "knew too much". A recent poll suggests that most Americans do believe she was murdered: there is certainly an overwhelming amount of evidence suggesting that someone else was involved in her death. Read the autopsy report for yourself and see if you can get any closer to the facts.
9. She is still today one of the world's most instantly recognisable faces, with no shortage of modern day imitators. Her status as one of the world's sexiest women is undisputed, although by modern standards her vital statistics - somewhere around 35-22-35 - would make her fat. Skinny British actress-cum-model Liz Hurley remarked recently "I'd kill myself if I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe." American actress Claudia Shear retaliated: "Most of us would kill ourselves if we were as talent-free as Elizabeth Hurley."
10. For her many loyal fans the legend lives on. She carved her name in their hearts and in return fans have carved her image on pumpkins and colouring books and even a vodka company has paid its tribute. The candle in the wind has left an enduring legacy.