Was there ever anyone else like Marilyn? It’s nearly 50 years since her untimely death and no one has been able to step into her shoes. While her career, indeed her life, was marked by personal problems and a reputation for being unreliable and difficult to work with, she is still responsible for such enduring favorite films as Some Like it Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and The Seven Year Itch.

In 1999, Monroe was ranked as the sixth greatest American female star of all time by the American Film Institute above such stars as Lauren Bacall, Joan Crawfod, and Ginger Rogers. On August 5, 1962, she was found dead of an overdose of barbiturates that may have been an accident or suicide-although conspiracy theories also include murder by such wide-ranging miscreants as the CIA, the Mafia, or the Kennedys.

Marilyn Her Life in Pictures opens with a concise biographical introduction and then provides a chronological visual story of her life, decade by decade from her early years, through the hard times as she built her reputation as an actor, to her greatest successes-Some Like It Hot, The Seven-Year Itch, Bus Stop, and others. The camera loved Marilyn, and photographers were always on hand to take her picture. Marilyn: Her life in Pictures choses from the huge number of images available to produce a fascinating coverage of her eventful but brief life, from photos of her early life, through her first photo shoots with David Conover, and Joseph Jagur, to the iconic images of the films of the 1950s and 1960s.