# Twentieth Century-Fox signs a six-month player option and the stage name Marilyn Monroe is adopted

Date: 1946

## The fact

On 24 August 1946 Fox put Norma Jeane Dougherty under a six-month player option after a silent test. With Lyon she took the professional name [Marilyn Monroe](/people/marilyn-monroe), using her mother’s maiden surname. This Fact is that option-and-name instrument, not Ladies of the Chorus and not the 1950s starring mill.

It is one event.

## Context

A first studio option is labour access inside a seven-year-contract system that later constrained her. Do not treat 1946 as creative control. Do not treat the name as a conspiracy file.

Marilyn Monroe’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death.

Ben Lyon and Fox legal staff executed the option; Grace McKee Goddard signed as guardian on earlier paper. Zanuck was unenthusiastic. The name is a studio-and-self choice, not a civil-registry rewrite of 1926.

Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers are the surviving public file.

## Evidence and sources

AFI person chronology and Britannica independently date the 1946 Fox option and the Monroe name.

Official or archival record: AFI Catalog — Marilyn Monroe person record (https://catalog.afi.com/Person/129923-Marilyn-Monroe; American Film Institute).

## Significance

A named player option is a labour-market door. Confidence high on the contract month, medium on any unique later coefficient from the option.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 1946 Fox option and public use of Marilyn Monroe.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Marilyn Monroe.

They are not a public rating.

The driver `labour-market-tightness` is attached because the mechanism named in Significance follows from this instrument, not because a standing list of welfare headings needed another tick. Marilyn Monroe did not file a later UNESCO form, a later Loeb colophon, or a later museum label as a personal act. A portrait or conventional bust is not this mechanism. Allegation, reconstruction, and established occurrence stay distinct. A six-month option is not MMP. Keep Lyon’s naming distinct from Zanuck’s later refusals. Keep the carrier date of later English distinct from the received historical year stored in the date field. Do not read a later English edition as a recovered autograph of Marilyn Monroe.

## People

- Marilyn Monroe: https://factrail.ai/people/marilyn-monroe

## Drivers

- Labour-Market Tightness: https://factrail.ai/drivers/labour-market-tightness

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marilyn-Monroe
- https://catalog.afi.com/Person/129923-Marilyn-Monroe

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/mm-fox-contract-name-1946