--- title: Marilyn Monroe at 90: Read TIME's 1956 Cover Story About Her description: The iconic actress would have turned 90 on June 1, 2016. Here, read TIME's 1956 cover story about how she became a 'real actress.' canonical: https://time.com/4346417/marilyn-monroe-time-1956-cover/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-06-01T12:00:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:32:41.312Z article:section: History og:title: Marilyn Monroe at 90: Read TIME's 1956 Cover Story About Her og:description: The iconic actress would have turned 90 on June 1, 2016 og:url: https://time.com/4346417/marilyn-monroe-time-1956-cover/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt042e5e263334b6d9/6988949ea988ca21616b7f7f/1101560514_400.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: May 14, 1956 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Marilyn Monroe at 90: Read TIME's 1956 Cover Story About Her twitter:description: The iconic actress would have turned 90 on June 1, 2016 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt042e5e263334b6d9/6988949ea988ca21616b7f7f/1101560514_400.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Marilyn Monroe Became a 'Real Actress'  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 1, 2016 12:00 PM UTC  The May 14, 1956, cover of TIME The May 14, 1956, cover of TIMECover Credit: BORIS CHALIAPIN  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 1, 2016 12:00 PM UTC From the beginning, [Marilyn Monroe](http://time.com/3973828/marilyn-monroe-photos/)—the iconic actress who would have [turned 90](http://time.com/13193/marilyn-monroe-rare-photos/) on Wednesday—was a “figure of fantasy,” as TIME put it in a 1956 cover story. Her face and body jump-started her professional life, from her earliest days as a model to the [nude calendar shoot ](http://time.com/3256694/marilyn-monroe-nude-photo-scandal/)that revived her sputtering career in 1949\. But all along, Monroe wanted more. She wanted to be cultured, educated and respected for her craft. And that respect was—to the surprise of some observers—deserved. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) In the unbylined cover story, which was written by Hollywood reporter Ezra Goodman with the help of [33 reporters in 26 cities](http://time.com/vault/issue/1956-05-14/page/27/), TIME explored how Monroe’s troubled youth as Norma Jeane Baker (which included her rape, as a child, by family friend) affected her psyche as Marilyn Monroe. “Norma Jeane was trained for nothing except laying on paint; her education was so poor that she could not even fake a cultural conversation,” the story explained. “In public she was smothered by feelings of inferiority. In private she was swept by panics, anxieties and hallucinations. And yet, curiously, life in its deepest expressions was on Norma Jeane’s side—perhaps had always been on her side. The sensitivity which made her feel so deeply the shocks of her childhood was countered by a set of instincts as solid as an anvil. She took blows that would have smashed many people, and she cracked a little, but she did not fall apart. And always there was that traffic-jamming, production-stopping hunk of woman that the scared little girl inhabited.” **MORE:** [Read Marilyn Monroe’s Obituary From 1962](http://time.com/3984289/marilyn-monroe-obituary/) As that “hunk of woman” began to earn her international fame, many in Hollywood saw her as nothing more than that. “That blonde can’t act her way out of a Whirlpool bra,” one of her directors told the magazine, anonymously. Acting had become her career, and a very successful one at that, but it was not a passion. That changed after her 1954 divorce from Joe DiMaggio: --- > “” --- **_Read the full cover story, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Marilyn Monroe](http://time.com/vault/issue/1956-05-14/page/76/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4346417/marilyn-monroe-time-1956-cover/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4346417/marilyn-monroe-time-1956-cover/"},"headline":"How Marilyn Monroe Became a 'Real Actress'","datePublished":"2016-06-01T12:00:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:32:41.312Z","description":"The iconic actress would have turned 90 on June 1, 2016","url":"https://time.com/4346417/marilyn-monroe-time-1956-cover/","keywords":["Newsfeed","movies","celebrity","People"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt042e5e263334b6d9/6988949ea988ca21616b7f7f/1101560514_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt042e5e263334b6d9/6988949ea988ca21616b7f7f/1101560514_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"May 14, 1956","caption":"May 14, 1956","creditText":"Cover Credit: BORIS CHALIAPIN","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4346417/marilyn-monroe-time-1956-cover/","name":"How Marilyn Monroe Became a 'Real Actress'"}}]}] ```