Marilyn Monroe (c) 2002 Getty Images / Stringer

In Shakespeare's time, men played women's roles. But as women were permitted to play women on stage, opportunities for personal success for women opened up. Today, some of the best-known women in the world are actresses. Women on stage and screen embody society's images of "woman" and so actresses can tell us a lot about what the time identifies as "proper" roles -- even if the actresses in those roles go beyond what society considered proper.

Marilyn Monroe
Blond bombshell and dumb blond -- two stereotypes of woman in the 1940s and 1950s were typical of Marilyn Monroe's public image. Privately, she fought these images even while she could not escape them.

Lena Horne
Lena Horne, singer and actress, had a lifetime of successes, though she battled racism and segregation during her career.

Theodora
She started as an actress, and became one of the most powerful women in Byzantine history. She apparently worked closely with her husband, the emperor Justinian, in his rule. She also aligned herself with a heterodox Christianity, the monophysites.

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