Marilyn Monroe
The most iconic woman of the twentieth century. A film-negative cutter’s unwanted daughter became the blonde whose image is still printed on more merchandise than almost any human who ever lived. She married Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, sang to a President, and starred in films that defined an era. Behind the smile was crippling anxiety, barbiturate dependence, and a lifelong search for the parental love she never received. She died at thirty-six under circumstances that are still debated. A schizophrenic lab worker and a man who refused to acknowledge his own child produced the most photographed face in human history. The genetic lottery’s cruelest joke — giving someone everything on the outside and almost nothing on the inside.