These days, beauty queens and stars who are celebrated for their looks as much as their talent are everywhere. Seventy years ago, Marilyn Monroe started that trend. She was the most desired woman in the world, having had the good fortune to be a talented actress and incredibly beautiful just at the dawn of Hollywood's golden age. Everyone wanted to see Marilyn, and everyone wanted to know her story.
Her story, sadly, wasn't always a happy one away from the camera. She struggled with addiction issues and with fame, ultimately finding it to be a hollow place where people paid more for your smile than your soul. She's smiling here in this picture with pianist Buddy Greco in early August 1962, but mere days later her psychiatrist found her dead at home, having apparently taken her own life in a deliberate drug overdose. She was 36.