Marilyn Monroe at 100: A Hollywood Legend
On June 1, 1926, Norma Jeane Mortenson was born. We celebrate her centenary with three original Italian hand-painted movie posters: The Asphalt Jungle, The Seven Year Itch, Bus Stop.
June 1, 2026
On June 1, 1926, Norma Jeane Mortenson was born in the indigent ward of Los Angeles General Hospital. The world didn't know it yet, but this was the birth of Marilyn Monroe: the greatest sex symbol in the history of cinema, and, in equal measure, one of Hollywood's most underrated actresses.
Born to a mother who suffered from severe mental illness and was unable to care for her consistently, raised between orphanages and foster homes, Norma Jeane found in cinema not just a career but a rebirth of identity. In 1946, at twenty, she bleached her hair, adopted the screen name Marilyn Monroe and signed her first contract with 20th Century-Fox. Marilyn Monroe had just been born for the second time.
To mark her hundredth anniversary, we celebrate her through three vintage Italian hand-painted posters, works by the Maestri Cartellonisti who, with brush and tempera, captured something photographs alone never could: the ambiguous soul of a woman who was always far more than she appeared to be.
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Directed by John Huston, this film noir marks one of Marilyn's first significant roles, back when she was still virtually unknown. She plays Angela Phinlay, mistress to a corrupt lawyer, a minor role on paper, but one that struck audiences so powerfully it turned her into a presence impossible to ignore. The Italian hand-painted poster captures the film's nocturnal tension beautifully, that distinctly Italian gift for distilling an entire film's atmosphere into a single painted image, with an evocative power no photograph could ever match.
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Billy Wilder directs what would become one of the most iconic scenes in cinema history: Marilyn's white dress lifted by a subway grate's rush of air on a New York street. The title alludes to the restlessness said to strike a marriage in its seventh year, and Wilder casts Marilyn as the embodiment of every forbidden fantasy harboured by the average American man. But she, with her natural wit and extraordinary comic timing, rises above the role and becomes something far bigger. The Italian poster artist behind this piece captured that rare lightness, Marilyn's singular gift for being sensual and innocent all at once.
Bus Stop (1956)
Perhaps the least known film to general audiences, but one of the most important in Marilyn's artistic history. After studying at the Actors Studio in New York, she wanted to prove she could truly act. The result is a remarkable performance: Chรฉrie, a small-time singer with dreams of making it big, is a vulnerable, melancholic, real character. The film won her new critical recognition as a dramatic actress. The Italian hand-painted poster, with its characteristic warm chromatic rendering and expressive brushwork of the cartellonista school, pays tribute to this more authentic, less constructed Marilyn.
Three films, three different moments of the same woman. The Marilyn of The Asphalt Jungle is still Norma Jeane finding her way. The Marilyn of The Seven Year Itch is the myth at its absolute peak. The Marilyn of Bus Stop is the actress who wants to be taken seriously.
The Italian Maestri Pittori Cartellonisti, with their extraordinary and now unrepeatable work, left behind a portrait of her that goes beyond photography: they painted not just a face, but an era.
The works reproduced on this page come from original period prints, recovered, photographed and digitally restored by Movie.it.