BBC to dramatise last six months of Marilyn Monroe's life
The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe is set to observe the end of the Hollywood icon’s life
A new drama for BBC Studios is in the works, set to explore Marilyn Monroe’s final months before her death.
The series, with the working title The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe, is being penned by Dan Sefton – the writer behind medical drama Trust Me.
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Based on segments of Keith Badman’s 2010 book The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe, the series is set to detail Monroe’s relationships with Hollywood studio bosses and US President John F Kennedy.
It will also explore the circumstances surrounding the actress’s death in 1962.
Monroe, who was 36 at the time, died by overdosing on sleeping pills – although ruled at the time as a suicide, her death sparked controversy and spawned a series of conspiracy theories.
She is arguably the biggest screen icon in Hollywood history, yet Marilyn Monroe's personal life has transfixed viewers as much as her films.
The near-superhero transformation from starlet Norma Jeane Baker into Marilyn. Relationships with a wide variety of high-profile men – sportsmen, playwrights, politicians. Her struggles with fame, and her yearning to prove there was a serious actress beyond the blonde bombshell persona. And the intrigue and tragedy surrounding her still-mysterious death.
No wonder her life has been dramatised so many times over, and continues to fascinate us today.
The “ambitious” drama will be set “where the harsh glamour of 1960s Hollywood and the hard-edged politics of Washington intersect,” according to the BBC.
It will tackle “big themes such as power, love, loyalty and politics,” added BBC Studios’ Anne Pivcevic.
Discussing the upcoming adaptation, Sefton said he was “thrilled…to bring this incredible true story to the screen.”
"Marilyn's desire to be taken seriously as an actress and her battle with the powerful men who control the studio system is sadly as relevant today as it ever was,” he told the BBC.
Monroe’s life has been at the centre of a series of movies and TV series, with more recent efforts including 2011 drama film My Week with Marilyn, with Michelle Williams winning an Oscar nomination for her titular role.
Gemma Arterton also played the role of Monroe last year in the Sky Arts series Urban Myths.
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