It’s almost 50 years since Marilyn Monroe died, aged just 36. But why does the iconic actress – and the strange circumstances surrounding her death – continue to fascinate us? Three Stylist writers explore the fateful events of 5 August 1962.

The Saturday night before Marilyn Monroe’s dead body was discovered by her housekeeper on 5 August 1962 has become the most analysed period in Hollywood history. Like the assassination of President Kennedy 15 months later, the shock loss of history’s most iconic blonde continues to reverberate – partly due to the sudden nature of her death and the strange circumstances that surround it. In the last year alone, there have been 14 new books released about the actress – with each author positing their own theories on how and why she died.

But why is the myth of Marilyn so enduring? Plenty of talented stars have met untimely ends, yet somehow Marilyn’s image still captivates women (even those born decades after she died). The white dress blowing above the subway grate, the grainy photo of her dabbing on Chanel Nº5, the breathy rendition of Happy Birthday and her blonde hair – all are instantly recognisable. But unlike contemporaries such as Betty Grable and Doris Day, Marilyn still evokes a real affection that is unique.

Whether it’s the sadness of her childhood, shunted between foster homes, her shining performance in 1959’s Some Like It Hot or just the simple fact that her life was cut short in its prime, Marilyn makes us want to protect her. We want to give her a happy ending. And this is why her death continues to fascinate us – whether it was a suicide, a terrible accident or a hushed-up murder – we want to find out the truth about what happened for her sake as much as our own. As the anniversary approaches, three Stylist writers and Marilyn fans argue what they think really happened in the final hours of the world’s most enduring icon.

Suicide Blonde

Rose Hoare, 33, a journalist from London, believes that Marilyn took her own life. As a former counsellor, she can see too many psychological risk factors to ignore in Marilyn's life in general and her final days in particular

In 1955, 29-year-old Marilyn began psychotherapy at the suggestion of her acting coach Lee Strasberg. Celebrated for her ditzy portrayal of dumb blondes, Marilyn now hoped to land more diverse roles. Although the actress had reservations about Strasberg’s method of mining the past for emotions that can be used in a scene, she certainly had plenty of material to draw from.

Marilyn was born out of wedlock to an unknown father and a mother who was confined to mental hospitals throughout her life and who was herself the child of mentally ill parents. Marilyn tried repeatedly to contact the man who was most likely her father, C Stanley Gifford, but he never responded. At eight years old, her mother was declared incompetent, and at nine Marilyn entered an orphanage. Two years later, when she was sent to a foster family, she lived next door to a man who, according to the diary she kept as an adult, molested her. Her adult life wasn’t much happier – all of Marilyn’s three marriages ended in divorce or separation. During her last marriage to Arthur Miller, who described her as “the saddest girl I've ever met”, she miscarried twice. By 1962, the year she died, she had been briefly admitted to a psychiatric clinic and was undergoing five therapy sessions a week.

Marilyn passed away with massive amounts of sedatives in her system. Her housekeeper initially said she knocked on Marilyn’s door at midnight, at which point she called Marilyn’s doctors, who said they found her dead. But she later revised the times she asserted in her statement, as did both doctors, although none gave reasons for this.

The coroner’s shrugging verdict of “probable suicide” has never really satisfied anyone. That both Marilyn’s housekeeper and doctors revised their testimony naturally fuels suspicion of a cover-up. They may have just been trying to protect Marilyn’s reputation, so that the world would never know she took her own life – suicide was simply unacceptable in Hollywood, especially in the early Sixties.

Who killed Marilyn Monroe?