Known for her signature blonde hair and red lipstick, Marilyn Monroe is easily one of the most iconic celebrities of all time.
Born Norma Jean Baker, the actress and model had a tough childhood that caused her to move from one foster home to another. Not even her marriage at age of 16, could bring the stability she lacked as a child.
It wasn't until 1944 that she truly found happiness in life. While working in a military factory and was introduced to a photographer from the U.S. Army Air Force's First Motion Picture Unit.
Shortly after, she became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, but that only hid the troubled girl who still lurked underneath the fame.
Monroe committed suicide in 1962, but is still remembered as a pop culture icon and sex symbol. Most people have forgotten her troublesome roots from before she was famous.
Take a look at Norma Jean Baker before she became Marilyn Monroe.
The future American actress as a 10-month old baby (April 1927)
Norma with her mother Gladys Baker (1929)
Norma stayed at her Aunt Ana's home, one of many places she would live in through her childhood as an orphan (1938).
Norma at 14-years old had to leave her Aunt's home when she got sick. She moved in with the Goddard family. She had lived there before when she was 11, but left when her legal guardian Erwin Goddard molested her (1940).
At the age of 16, Norma married James Dougherty (June 19, 1942).
With little in common and 5 years her senior, James and Norma rarely spoke to each other. After James became a Merchant Marine and was sent off to the Pacific in 1944 they became increasingly distant (1943).
Norma had her first modelling job working at her post at the Radioplane Munitions Factory (1945).
Shortly after her photoshoot in the factory, she quit her job to try modelling full time (1945).
Her husband James Dougherty strongly disapproved of his wife's new career. A year after this ad for hair products was printed the pair would get divorced (1945).
Norma's first national magazine cover was in 1946 for The Family Circle. The image was sweet, wholesome and innocent.
Her lover and photographer behind this photo of her posing in Malibu said, "She was twenty and had never experienced the intoxication of success, yet already there was a shadow over her radiance in her laughter"