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Featured articleMarilyn Monroe is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 1, 2016.
Did You KnowOn this day... Article milestones
DateProcessResult
September 23, 2015Peer reviewReviewed
October 16, 2015Good article nomineeListed
November 26, 2015Peer reviewReviewed
December 26, 2015Featured article candidatePromoted
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on November 15, 2015.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Marilyn Monroe was featured on the cover and on the centerfold of the first issue of Playboy?
On this day... Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on January 14, 2005, January 14, 2006, August 5, 2007, August 5, 2010, August 5, 2012, August 5, 2015, August 5, 2018, August 5, 2020, and August 5, 2022.
Current status: Featured article

Conflicting Dates

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The main text states that Monroe quit working at the Radioplane Company factory in January 1945, but the text underneath the photo of her taken at the factory states that it was taken in June 1945, which doesn't seem possible if she had quit in January of 1945.

On a completely different topic, the subject of Monroe's paternity: I take issue with the partial sentence, referring to the time before DNA testing confirmed that Charles Stanley Gifford was her father: "....until then, her father was thought to be Mortensen".

All of the reading I did in the decades before 2022, the year of the DNA testing, stated that Monroe was probably illegitimate, that it was unlikely that Edward Mortensen was her father, and that it was likely that Charles Stanley Gifford was her father. None of it could be stated with absolute certainty before DNA testing, of course, yet it is inaccurate to state that before 2022 "her father was thought to be Mortensen". Few believed he was, as he and Gladys Monroe had been separated for months before Marilyn Monroe was conceived, and he had, in fact, filed a petition for divorce from Gladys, citing desertion, a year before Marilyn's birth. Jersey Jan (talk) 01:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Done: I had another look at the image on Wikimedia Commons, the info-box caption states that it was probably taken in 1944 so I've fixed it for you. I was the one who changed it a year ago probably because it said it was taken in June 1945. Thanks. PEPSI697 💬 | 📝 05:51, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Singer

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Hi, should we summarize her singing career in the lead? I mean, the reason for this reversal, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one is because we have MOS:ROLEBIO and Template:Infobox person. Btw, there was a relevant discussion one year ago. Thedarkknightli (talk) 14:55, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Lolamelody123456, could you please participate in this discussion? I noticed you had deleted the content I previously added to the lead. Thanks! Thedarkknightli (talk) 22:43, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi ! Upon reflection I think we shouldn't summarize her singing career in the lead because she sung as part of being an actress. She never released albums for example.The songs mentioned are either part of movies already in the lead or as for "Happy Birthday Mr. President", not relevant enough as a "song". Lolamelody123456 (talk) 17:17, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. This was discussed somewhere before. She sang some of the songs in her musical films as part of the characters (and some were even dubbed), she did not pursue a career as a singer and never released an album. The exception here is the song traditionally sung to celebrate a person's birthday, which has indeed been popular, but it was just a live recording of the birthday event and was never intended to be part of a singer's repertoire (+no one who sings this most recognizable song in the English language on birthdays is automatically a singer). Not a WP:LEAD material squeezed in between information about marriages and death. ภץאคгöร 19:16, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Monroe was a singer and should be listed as such. Albums, career pursuit, films or not, etc are not relevant to the fact that she is very widely known as a model, actress and singer who sang very often in her performances. She went and gave concerts singing overseas for US troops etc. It is not up to Wikipedians to pass judgement that she was not a known singer. She was. We are here to give readers facts, not to extract them arbitrarily. Some models and actresses do not sing much. Monroe did.--SergeWoodzing (talk) 01:28, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This has come up a few times in the past with older actors... in a time where song and dance was normal in a movie. Basically if you weren't well-rounded you didn't get a job because of theatrical nature of acting in the past. Moxy🍁 01:51, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And? Not many singers went overseas to do song concerts for US troops. Even in the old days, some models and actresses did not sing much. Monroe did, in her movies, in recordings such as her big hit single "I Want to Be Loved by You" etc. Lots of movie stars never sang in their movies because the studios dubbed them with people who sang better. Monroe sang herself. Monroe was a singer. SergeWoodzing (talk) 18:54, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PS No albums??? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 19:01, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree. Monroe is primarily known as an actress and model. All of her singing is associated with her acting career (and even then, of her 29 completed films, she sang in 8 of them, less than a third). As others have said, she released no albums nor even participated in any variety show, etc. as a singer. Rcarter555 (talk) 22:36, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support adding 'Singer'. Akin to Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire's dancing career contained within their acting roles, the prominence of Monroe's songs in those eight films, in addition to her Kennedy birthday appearance, are understandably as notable as almost any other singer's body of work. That the songs were part of her occupation as an actress, and not within a stand-alone recording career, make her iconic singing performances even more unique and historically important in their own right. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:41, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

“As notable as almost any other singers body of work” is a wild stretch. Rcarter555 (talk) 09:27, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Probably "a wild stretch", although her notability as a singer seems solid, with a few of her performances on the iconic side. Acclaimed actress Ginger Rogers made many films where she did not dance, but in those in which she did, her notability as a dancer took hold and became a historically significant part of her career. Similarly, Monroe's on-and-off singing throughout her film career seems equivalent enough to earn the 'singer' descriptor. Randy Kryn (talkingtoyouand) 09:36, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say this is a borderline case, as she made popular renditions of several songs, but the fact that practically all of those related directly to her films dissuades me from adding 'singer' to her roles. We're on much more solid ground with 'model', as she had that profession before she became an actress and continued to model afterwards. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:32, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ian Rose, would you similarly remove 'dancer' from Ginger Rogers (a rhetorical question, as nobody would, but Monroe's showcased singing seems comparable to Rogers' filmed dance expertise). Randy Kryn (talk) 11:36, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Who says I wouldn't...?! Rogers did a lot of dancing (and singing) but she had plenty of straight acting roles (winning her Oscar for one). However, as with Monroe's modelling, Rogers was a song-and-dance lady before films so I'd probably let that one stay... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:43, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so one fact is being ignored by everybody, in previous discussuion and now, and it's tiresome: why did she tour overseas as a singer, nothing else, if she wasn't a singer? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 16:51, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Appearing for four days in a USO show hardly constitutes “touring overseas as a singer” Rcarter555 (talk) 17:47, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]