Biography
More than half a century has passed since the mysterious death of the famous actress, inimitable blonde, living embodiment of the “American Dream” - Marilyn Monroe. But interest in her personality, biography and circumstances of death continues today. Initially imitating the luxurious Jean Harlow, Marilyn later became an object of worship for Hollywood film actresses.
Marilyn Monroe - Hollywood legend
Obviously, such popularity required strength of character, intelligence and determination from the young diva. Unfortunately, until the end of her life, Marilyn Monroe was perceived only as a living embodiment of sex appeal, and the insightful and strong woman in the actress would be seen later.
Marilyn Monroe - biography
If you ask to name the sexiest blonde in the history of mankind, almost everyone will remember the name Marilyn Monroe.
It is easier to hide intelligence, pain, disappointment and tragedy behind the image of a sex symbol. There are many guesses and versions about her life and death. Which of them is closer to the truth? There is no way to find out about this anymore. But we can touch the secret of this great diva, sex symbol, style icon, whose name still echoes in the hearts of millions of her admirers.
Marilyn fooled millions of men and women, laying a solid brick in the wall of the stereotype “all blondes are fools.” She herself, of course, was not one, but she boldly exploited this image. From birth, Marilyn, or Norma Jeane, as she was then called, had luxurious red-brown curls.
When the modest girl showed up at a Los Angeles modeling agency early in her career, hairdresser Sylvia Barnhart mercilessly cut off her thick hair, dyed it platinum and advised Norma to change her name. Thus the star Marilyn Monroe was born. But what would this attractive packaging be worth without the glittery contents?
All her life, Marilyn tried to compensate for the shortcomings of her half-starved childhood, spent with her alcoholic mother, and then in an orphanage and in foster families. She read books avidly, took acting lessons, wrote poetry, studied the theory of psychoanalysis, and later headed her own film company. But this side of Monroe’s life, like her photo with a book in her hands, remained in the shadows for a long time. They didn’t fit too well with the image of a sex symbol.
Childhood and youth
Norma Jeane Mortenson was born in Los Angeles, California on June 1, 1926. The girl was Gladys Baker's third child; besides her, her mother had a son and a daughter from a previous relationship. The woman separated from the girl’s father a couple of days before the birth of their common daughter. On Norma's birth certificate, the mother falsely stated that she had no living children. In addition, it is not known for certain who exactly the father of the Hollywood star is. As an adult, the actress herself claimed that the entries in the paternity certificate were not truthful, and Norma’s biological father was a certain Charles Stanley Gifford.
Marilyn Monroe in childhood
The childhood of a future star is a difficult and difficult experience. Due to the fact that Delia, Gladys Baker's mother, did not agree to accept the child into her home, the girl had to be given to the Bolender foster family, who ran a family-type orphanage. Here the girl lived until the age of seven, regularly seeing her mother. Gladys also paid for everything her daughter needed, from food to going to the movies.
In 1933, Norma’s mother took Norma in, but literally a year later the girl was again left homeless and without protection, as Gladys was taken to the hospital with a nervous breakdown. McKee, the girl's mother's best friend, took custody of the baby. Unfortunately, Norma's misadventures did not end there.
Marilyn Monroe in her youth
In 1934, Grace got married, but since the newly-minted spouses did not have enough money to provide for themselves, not to mention Norma, they again sent the girl to an orphanage. Subsequently, the baby spent time either in the orphanage or with one of her mother’s relatives or friends. The actress later recalled that adolescence became a severe test for her, because representatives of the family of the houses in which she lived tried to rape her several times.
Having met James Dougherty at the age of 15, Norma soon married him. Marriage allowed the girl not to return to the shelter every time the next “virtues” abandoned her.
I am Marilyn Monroe (E. A. Mishanenkova, 2013)
Marilyn Monroe was born in Los Angeles on June 1, 1926 at around 9:30 am.
At birth she received the name Norma Jeane. According to one of the many legends that surrounded her entire life, her mother named her after two great actresses: Jean Harlow and Norma Talmadge.
This may be partly true - Gladys Pearl Baker, the mother of the future superstar, worked in a film laboratory and adored silent film actress Norma Talmadge, after whom she could well have named her daughter.
But Gladys definitely couldn’t give her middle name – Jean – to her daughter in honor of the blonde star Jean Harlow. In 1926, she was still called by her real name Harleen Carpenter, and took the pseudonym Jean Harlow only in 1928, when the future Marilyn was already two years old.
However... few people know that already at school the spelling of Norma Jean’s middle name suddenly changed - instead of “Jeane” they began to write “Jean” - and that was Harlow’s name. Gladys was the initiator of this name change or the future Marilyn herself is unknown. They both adored Harlow and dreamed that one day Norma Jeane would repeat her brilliant career.
It turns out that the story about the name is a fiction and at the same time true... And the same can be said about almost everything that is known about Marilyn Monroe...
Marilyn Monroe's mother, Gladys Pearl Baker, was a beautiful, amorous, temperamental and mentally unstable woman.
Norma Jeane was her third child. By that time, Gladys had been married twice and already had two children, who were raised by the relatives of her first husband, Jasper Baker. After the divorce, the children were left to him, despite the fact that Gladys accused him of abuse and drunkenness. But Jasper, in turn, managed to prove his wife’s immoral behavior and, after the court’s decision on divorce, left with the children for Kentucky. And Gladys was forced to return to her mother - even more unbalanced than herself.
Soon she left her mother for Hollywood, where she got a job in a film laboratory and met Martin Edward Mortenson, who became her second husband.
This marriage did not last long - after four months Gladys ran away, finding married life too boring. This is exactly how her mother always parted with her men. Mortenson tried to bring back his prodigal wife, but to no avail. In the end, their marriage was dissolved, but this happened only three years later - in 1928, after the birth of Norma Jeane.
Who was Marilyn Monroe's father?
Edward Mortenson is listed on the birth certificate - probably Gladys, in order to avoid unnecessary scandal, chose to call her then official husband the father of the child (accidentally or intentionally forgetting his first name and making a mistake in the last name). In fact, Martin Edward Mortenson could not have been Marilyn's father, since he broke up with Gladys ten months before her birth.
And certainly not Jasper Baker, whose last name Marilyn later bore for many years until she took her famous pseudonym.
In truth, neither Marilyn nor even Gladys likely knew exactly who her real father was. It could have been any man with whom her mother had an affair in 1925, and there were many of them. But the name most often mentioned is Charles Stanley Gifford, Gladys’ colleague in the film laboratory. In 1951, Marilyn even tried to get to know him, but Gifford replied: “Let her contact my lawyer.”
According to legend, ten years later she repeated the same phrase to the nurse, who said that Gifford was very ill and wanted to see her...
Like many girls who grew up without a father, Marilyn Monroe suffered greatly from this and created a fictitious image of her father in her mind.
One day her mother showed her a photograph of a man and said that it was her father. Marilyn remembered that there was a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, “he had a lively smile in his eyes, and he had a thin mustache, like Clark Gable.”
Thus was born one of the first legends that Marilyn Monroe came up with about her life - she began to tell her friends that her father was Clark Gable. At the orphanage, she even hung his photograph above the bed and told everyone that it was her father. Perhaps, somewhere in the depths of her soul, she really hoped that suddenly this would actually be the case - after all, this happens in films.
Many years later, Marilyn would meet Clark Gable on the set of their joint film The Misfits, and her childhood fantasy would come to life again. The widow of her psychiatrist later said: “She sometimes allowed herself to think that Gable was actually her father.”
However, fantasies are fantasies, but when, shortly before her death, Marilyn filled out some form, in the column “Father’s name” she sadly but confidently wrote “unknown.”
Marilyn knew nothing about her father, but she knew too much about her maternal ancestors.
Alas, their family history would not have pleased even a person with stronger nerves, and for the suspicious and unbalanced Marilyn it became a real curse - something like the Sword of Damocles, constantly hanging over her.
Her maternal great-grandfather, Tilford Hogan, hanged himself when he was eighty-two. In itself, this suicide alone is not something out of the ordinary - this happens to old people, whose psyche is sometimes upset with age. But unfortunately, this attack of madness was not the only one in their family.
The maternal grandmother, Della, died in an asylum at the age of fifty-one, about a year after Marilyn was born. She suffered from heart disease and accompanying manic-depressive psychosis.
And finally, the maternal grandfather, Otis Monroe, suffered from paresis and dementia paresis caused by late stage syphilis. This is why he died.
Marilyn knew all this. And for the rest of her life she was haunted by the fear that she, too, would go crazy...
Marilyn Monroe recalled that her crazy grandmother tried to strangle her as a baby.
The neighbors intervened and pulled the crazy old woman away in time. “I remember I woke up. My sleep was interrupted, I was fighting for my life. Something was pressing on my face. Maybe a pillow. “I resisted with all my might,” these are the words of Marilyn herself, but how true are they? She was a little over a year old, how could she remember anything? Or are these false memories that appeared under the influence of childhood fears?
Most biographers don't give much credence to this story. Firstly, Marilyn told it a little differently each time, and secondly, she remembered it just when she was filming the film “You Can Enter Without Knocking,” where her character almost strangled a child.
The truth can no longer be known. What is known for sure is that Marilyn’s grandmother, Della Monroe, was actually sent to an insane asylum due to bouts of insanity, during which she became dangerous to others. And Marilyn Monroe was tormented by fear of sleep until her death. Insomnia became her eternal companion.
Marilyn Monroe spent the first seven years of her life in a foster family.
Ida and Wayne Bolender, to whom her mother gave her to raise her, were poor and very religious people. These two reasons explained their unusual income - they looked after not only Norma Jeane, sometimes they had five or six children in their care at the same time. The Bolenders received money for this, but income was not their only goal - they believed that they had an obligation to raise these children as worthy members of society, to instill in them moral principles and love of God.
They did not approve of Gladys, in their eyes she was a bad mother, besides, she wore bright makeup and did not lead a particularly virtuous life. But they treated Norma Jeane well; she was an almost ideal ward - quiet, obedient, rarely sick, and went to Sunday school without arguing.
This relative idyll continued until 1932, when a catastrophe occurred in the girl’s life - a neighbor shot her dog. Norma Jeane fell into the first depression of her life, and soon the frightened Bolenders had to call her mother. After this, Gladys finally decided to take her daughter with her. Whether it was good or bad is hard to say.
In June 1933, Marilyn Monroe found herself in Hollywood, where her mother lived.
Gladys just managed to get into President Franklin Roosevelt's housing program and get a loan for a house at a very low interest rate. She immediately rented out this house to an English couple who worked in cinema, leaving a couple of rooms for herself and her daughter.
Gladys and her best friend Grace McKee, with whom they worked together, spent all their free time having fun with noisy, cheerful companies. And little Norma Jean, raised by religious Bolenders, prayed in horror for them, confident that for such behavior they would go to hell.
But now she went not to church, but to the cinema, and soon religiosity became a thing of the past, and the girl began to pray to the same gods as the people around her - the actors and actresses who shone on the silver screens. Gladys and Grace were crazy about the dazzling blonde Jean Harlow, and she soon became Norma Jeane's favorite actress, idol and role model.
Marilyn lived with her mother for only a few months. In early 1934, Gladys Baker was admitted to a mental hospital.
She has always been mentally unstable. But the crisis was provoked by a chain of misfortunes, which could lead even a stronger person to a nervous breakdown. Gladys had a hard time with the death of her mother in a mental hospital and since then she was very afraid of going crazy too. And in 1933, two blows fell on her at once - she learned about the death of her son and the suicide of her grandfather. The ghost of madness was very close. In an effort to get rid of him, she either worked until she lost strength, then drank a lot, or fell into fanatical religiosity.
And of course, all this not only did not help, but, on the contrary, became a catalyst for her illness. Grace McKee had to call a neurologist, but the pills he prescribed did not help, and one unfortunate day Gladys fell into a rampage, just like her mother had once done.
She was placed in a hospital, and little Norma Jeane remained in the care of Grace McKee - already the third “mother” in her short life. They didn’t tell her about Gladys’s madness; they simply told her that she was sick. Marilyn learned the truth only many years later.
In 1953, Marilyn Monroe said that at the age of nine she was the victim of a rapist.
A certain "Mr. Kimmel" took her into his room, closed the door and told her to be a "good girl." Apparently, this refers to Gladys's lodger, although in another version of this story Marilyn was talking about Grace McKee's husband. She recalled that she tried to complain to her mother (or Aunt Grace?), but she did not understand what exactly she was complaining about and slapped her for bad behavior. And then Mr. Kimmel, looking completely confident and calm, gave her a coin so she could buy herself some candy. But the final blow was that in church she felt dirty and sinful and tried to confess, and Mr. Kimmel, not at all embarrassed, went straight to communion, like a man who feels he is right.
How true is this story? Most likely only partially - at least Marilyn’s first husband confidently claimed that he got her as a virgin. And there were strong discrepancies in her stories about the identity of the rapist. But there was probably some kind of harassment from an adult man, and this greatly influenced Norma Jeane’s unstable psyche.
It was Grace McKee who first told Marilyn that she would definitely become an actress.
“Grace loved and admired Norma Jeane,” recalled Leila Field, Grace McKee’s work colleague. – If it weren’t for Grace, there would be no Marilyn Monroe... Grace admired Norma Jeane as if she were her own daughter. Grace said that Norma Jeane would definitely become a movie star. She had this feeling. Even conviction."
Grace was Gladys Baker's best friend, and she loved little Norma Jeane quite sincerely. When the girl remained in her care, Grace did everything to obtain the status of an official guardian. She received a certificate of insanity for Gladys, ensured that both the child and all of her friend’s property (consisting mainly of debts) were handed over to her, and was finally happily able to take Norma Jeane to her place. Her own nephews, whom she had cared for for many years, had recently left with their parents on the other side of the United States, and she was happy that she would again have a child on whom she could pour out untapped maternal affection.
It seemed that a happy and calm time had finally arrived in Norma Jeane's life. But it didn't last long.
In the summer of 1935, Grace McKee unexpectedly fell in love and got married. And Marilyn turned out to be the odd one out in the new family.
Neither Grace nor her husband had any money, they had difficulties with work, and in the end her husband convinced Grace to give Norma Jeane to an orphanage. Temporarily, of course. But for the girl this, of course, was a terrible blow. She managed to become attached to Grace and regarded such an act as a betrayal.
On September 13, 1935, Grace packed her adopted daughter's belongings and took her to the Los Angeles Orphanage. Many parents who did not have the means to support their children did the same. Probably half of the children in the orphanage were similar temporary residents, waiting for their parents to be able to take them back.
Norma Jeane lived in this shelter until June 26, 1937. Grace did not forget her; she regularly paid for the shelter and for clothes for the girl. In addition, she picked her up almost every Saturday and took her to the cinema, to a cafe, to shopping, dressed her in white dresses and said: “You are so beautiful, Norma Jeane. If not for the nose, it would be perfection. One day you will become a great film actress, the greatest actress of all time."
Marilyn Monroe recalled with horror the two years she spent in the shelter.
She told reporters that she “slept in a room with twenty-seven beds”, described gloomy rooms, washing with ice water, barracks discipline and the constant use of children as free labor in dirty work - “washing a hundred plates, a hundred cups three times a day , a hundred knives, spoons and forks, and so on - seven days a week... scrubbing toilets and bathtubs...”
But judging by the recollections of other people, Marilyn again fantasized more than she told the truth. The orphanage had dedicated staff for cooking and cleaning, and the children were assigned only light work to develop a sense of responsibility. For this they were paid five or ten cents a week.
Norma Jeane's 1935 personnel file states that she was "a normal, healthy girl who eats and sleeps well, appears content, does not complain, and says she likes her class."
Why did she come up with all these horrors? Most likely, it was about her resentment towards people, her childhood melancholy and loneliness. The shelter became a scary place for her, but she was afraid that people would not understand why it was so scary, and she came up with a more accessible and simpler option for them.
In June 1937, Grace McKee took Marilyn from the shelter and brought her to her home.
But not for long. In November, the girl was again given, although not to a shelter, but to a foster family. Why Grace decided to do this is unknown. Perhaps it was again about money, perhaps they were cramped in one small house, or maybe even the rumors were true that Grace’s husband was molesting the growing Norma Jeane.
She spent the following years in one foster family or another. How many were there? It is difficult to establish an exact figure - some biographers believe the stories of Marilyn Monroe herself and believe that there were at least five such families, while others claim that she invented most of her childhood dramatic adventures, and there were only two adoptive families. Most likely, if we collect all the versions and compare them, there were still three families: a married couple from Compton, with whom Norma Jeane lived for the first time after the orphanage, then Ida Martin, the mother-in-law of Gladys’s younger brother, and therefore, to some extent, a relative and Marilyn herself, and finally, Edith Ana Lower - Grace McKee's aunt, who became one of the closest people in the world for the girl.
At Ida Martin's house, Marilyn met her cousins and brother.
It would seem that she finally found herself in a normal family, and not with strangers, but with relatives. But alas, everything was not as rosy as it might seem at a quick glance. Marion Monroe, Norma Jeane's uncle, left home in 1929 and disappeared forever. According to American law, in order for a person to be recognized as dead and benefits to be paid to his family, he had to be absent for ten years, so his wife and three children were left without a livelihood. Actually, that’s why they took Norma Jeane into custody - Grace paid for her, and even these few dollars a month were serious financial support for the family.
But for the formation of the character of the future Marilyn, it was important that in this family the weak link was the man. She grew up without a father, she had nothing but trouble from her husband Grace, and here she again saw a family whose problems were all because of a man. Her cousin later recalled: “I remember Norma Jeane constantly repeating that she would never get married. She said she would become a teacher and have lots of dogs.”
In 1938, two events occurred in Marilyn’s life that greatly shook her psyche.
First, Grace McKee told her that her mother had been transferred from a regular asylum to an insane asylum after she tried to escape. Doctors decided that she had advanced schizophrenia because she claimed that her late second husband, Martin Edward Mortenson, was calling her. In fact, unfortunate Gladys suffered from someone else’s mistake - Mortenson was really alive, he was declared dead, confused with some deceased namesake. And he really tried to call her, considering it his duty to somehow help his sick ex-wife. But the doctors did not know this and considered Gladys crazy.
For Norma Jeane, this terrible news was worse than being told about her mother's death. She already knew about cases of madness in their family and was terrified that this would happen to her.
The second trauma was the dirty advances of her cousin, which strengthened Norma Jeane in the belief that men could not be trusted, and in many ways laid the foundation for her subsequent sexual coldness.
When Marilyn was twelve years old, Grace took her from Ida Martin's house and took her to Los Angeles to live with her aunt Anya Lower.
This was not just another change of house - for Marilyn this move became fateful. Many years later, she recalled Ana Lower: “She changed my whole life. This woman was the first person in the world whom I truly loved and who loved me. She was an amazing person. I once wrote a poem about her, long lost, and the friends I showed it to simply cried... It was called “I Love Her.” She was the only one who loved me and understood me... This woman never hurt me, not even once. She just couldn't. It was kindness and love itself.”
“Aunt Ana,” as Norma Jeane called her, belonged to the famous Christian Science sect, but she did not suffer from fanaticism. On the contrary, she was reasonable, compassionate and tolerant. Once a week she visited Lincoln Heights Prison, where she read the Bible to the prisoners.
And perhaps in Marilyn’s entire life, only Ana Lower truly loved her...
In Los Angeles, Marilyn went to seventh grade at Emerson Junior High School, which Grace had chosen for her.
At school, she quickly realized that status here was determined by place of residence - some of the children were from a gated community nearby, some from a neighborhood of middle-income houses, and the rest, like herself, from the Sawtell area, where lived mainly immigrants, unemployed and all poor people. Gladys Phillips, a high school friend of Norma Jeane's, recalled: "There was a strong sense of class among the people of Los Angeles, which unfortunately extended to school life as well."
Ana Lower was a completely respectable American, but because of her place of residence, Norma Jeane immediately began to be considered a girl from the lower social classes, and she had few friends at school - she herself did not communicate with marginalized people, and “decent” children looked down on her.
However, she studied well, and was not at all a pariah in the class, so she later recalled her studies at the Emerson School as far from the worst period in her life.
Marilyn Monroe said that at school many people called her Mouse - she was so quiet and inconspicuous.
Teachers described her as a pleasant, but uncommunicative and inactive girl. Most of her classmates simply did not notice her. “In the first year of my stay at the Emerson School, I had only two light blue suits, which I got from the orphanage. Aunt Ana widened them, otherwise I had grown a little and spread out, but they still didn’t suit me... I probably wasn’t on the list of best-dressed girls,” Marilyn later recalled.
But Norma Jeane's isolation and constraint were associated not only with her poor outfit. What's more important is that she had no experience making friends. She simply did not know how to join the team, and therefore was doomed to loneliness.
However, despite this, she did not feel as unhappy as before. Even though Ana Lower couldn’t give her a sense of family and didn’t help her learn to communicate with peers, Norma Jeane found a real home with her, where she felt safe.
In 1939, a big change occurred in the life of Marilyn Monroe - quiet, inconspicuous Norma Jeane suddenly became the most popular girl in the class.
The reason was simple - she began to turn from a teenager into a girl and suddenly became prettier. Marilyn recalled that the revolution in the views of her classmates happened literally in one moment. One day her blouse was torn and she borrowed a sweater from some girl. It was too small and hugged her figure very tightly, which turned out to be much more feminine than that of most of her peers.
“As I walked through the class to my place,” Marilyn recalled, “everyone was staring at me, as if I had suddenly grown two heads. This was partly true. The curves stood out under the tight sweater. At recess, half a dozen boys surrounded me. They joked and stared at my sweater as if it were a gold mine. I already knew that I had quite large breasts, but I didn’t attach any importance to it. But she made a strong impression on my classmates. After school, four boys walked me home, carrying their bicycles. I was delighted, but I didn’t show it as if all this was in the order of things.”
Since the fall of 1939, when she first realized she was attractive, Norma Jeane began to gradually turn into the future Marilyn Monroe.
Now she no longer envied those whom their parents drove to school in cars, because on the way from home and back she was always accompanied by several guys arguing about who would carry her bag.
She became uninterested in studying, but she began to pay a lot of attention to her appearance. She didn’t have the money for a decent wardrobe, so she bought inexpensive boyish trousers, turned her woolen jacket inside out and, appearing in this form, again caused a sensation in the class. “Suddenly everything began as if all over again,” she later recalled with pleasure. – I walked to school, and it was a real pleasure. All the men honked their horns... slowed down and waved at me, and I waved at them too. The world suddenly became friendly.”
She got up early to have time to dress up, do her hair and makeup (this is where Grace's lessons came in handy). There was talk at school that she spent all her breaks in the girls' restroom in front of the mirror. Norma Jeane's life was now completely subordinated to the care of beauty.
In 1940, Marilyn met Chuck Morin, who became her first, almost childhood, love.
Chuck went to the same school, was handsome, popular, played sports, was considered a rebel and was very popular with girls. Of course, yesterday’s “mouse” was happy that such a guy paid attention to her. She went to dances with him, laughed at his jokes, allowed herself to be touched a little, but when things went too far, she gave a serious rebuff. “Poor Chuck had nothing to gain from this,” Marilyn later recalled, “his legs only hurt, and he wasted his energy fighting me. But I thought to myself: well, he simply has no right to anything more. Besides, I really wasn’t too eager for sex, and that probably had its good sides.”
In the fall of that year, they separated - Chuck went to study at the university high school. He spent the next two years sending Norma Jeane Valentine's Day cards, but then he was kicked out of school for bad behavior, enlisted in the army and died at the age of twenty.
In 1940, Marilyn Monroe had her first girlfriend. She became Elinor Goddard, Grace's stepdaughter.
Ana Lower became seriously ill at this time, and Grace took Norma Jeane with her. To her relief, the girls got along right away - in Eleanor's company, Norma Jeane finally learned to laugh.
Elinor Goddard was truly cheerful and outgoing, but her childhood was a nightmare. She also had a crazy mother, and unlike Gladys, a truly dangerous psychopath. The girl spent her entire childhood in foster families, changing more than a dozen of them. She was beaten, starved, and humiliated. All this could not but evoke sympathy from the equally unfortunate girl, deprived of a family. “What I told Norma Jeane that first winter,” Eleanor recalled, “made a huge impression on her. She showed me deep compassion and very quickly we became close friends.”
By the way, most of the horror stories that Marilyn told about her childhood were actually taken from Elinor’s life. Apparently, when Norma Jeane became Marilyn Monroe and she needed to evoke public sympathy, she remembered her friend’s stories.
In 1941, Marilyn met her future husband, Jim Dougherty.
He was twenty years old, worked at an aircraft factory, drove around in an open blue Ford and had affairs with different girls. At Grace's request, he gave Elinor and Norma Jeane a lift from school and at first perceived them only as cute teenagers, nothing more. “I noticed that she was a very sweet and pretty girl who thought I looked fabulous in white shirts,” he later said, “but to me she was nothing more than a child, because at our age five years is a huge difference.” .
But Norma Jeane really liked him, she literally fell in love with his mustache, with which he reminded her of Clark Gable. True, even then the five-year difference seemed like a huge gap to her; she even called Jim “dear old man.”
But time passed, Norma Jeane grew up by leaps and bounds, Jim had just broken up with his girlfriend, and Grace really encouraged their acquaintance. Therefore, it is not surprising that by the beginning of 1942 their relationship developed into a romance. Although, of course, neither one nor the other was thinking about marriage then.
In January 1942, Grace's husband got a job on the East Coast of the United States, and the whole family began to prepare to move. But they were not going to take Marilyn with them.
The move required large expenses, and the Goddards simply could not support an extra person. But Norma Jeane, of course, took this as another betrayal - she was kicked out of the family, again deprived of her home, returned to the number of orphans who have a serial number instead of a name. From that moment on, she was completely disappointed in Grace.
However, she was not entirely right; Grace did not intend to send the girl to the orphanage again - by that time she had already developed another plan. She decided to marry her ward to a decent man and thereby ensure her future. Ana Lower was seriously ill at that time and also could not take Norma Jeane into her home, so she supported Grace’s decision.
Jim Dougherty became such a suitable decent groom. “At that time I didn’t think at all about marrying her...” he recalled, “but I agreed, because I was soon to go into the army, and I had a feeling that under the wing of my mother she would find a home for herself. Well, I, of course, considered her a wonderful girl with whom I would feel good.”
On June 19, 1942, Marilyn Monroe married Jim Dougherty.
The wedding would have taken place earlier, but they had to wait until Norma Jeane turned sixteen. She immediately dropped out of school, which, by the way, she later very much regretted; she and Jim rented a one-room apartment and began family life.
But in truth, Norma Jeane was completely unprepared for marriage. She had matured physically, but was still a child at heart. She allowed herself to be persuaded, believed that there was no other way out, convinced herself that she loved Jim, but in fact she did not want to be a wife at all. Shortly before the wedding, she even asked Grace if it was possible to get married and not have sex. Was she really that naive or was this an attempt to show her guardians that she did not want to get married? Grace didn’t think about this question and casually replied that there was nothing wrong with it - she could easily learn sex.
However, Norma Jeane was afraid of more than just sex. In her entire life, she had never seen a single truly happy and successful marriage. Therefore, I didn’t expect anything good from marriage for myself.
Marilyn Monroe's first marriage was doomed from the start.
“I am the captain, and my wife is the chief mate,” was Jim Dougherty’s opinion of the ideal marriage. “And if so, then the wife should be happy with the fact that she is on the ship, and not interfere with me managing and commanding it.” He needed a calm, respectable, thrifty and loving wife. And Norma Jeane was too young, too beautiful and too frivolous. No, of course, she tried her best, but the fact remained that she needed a father, not a husband.
However, neither Jim nor Marilyn subsequently considered their failed marriage something terrible and did not blame each other for all mortal sins. She admitted that she was a bad wife, did not know how to cook and, of course, it was difficult for Jim to be with her. But despite all their quarrels, she always treated him well because he saved her from her orphan complex. He, in turn, remembered his young wife with a certain tenderness, agreed that he could not give her what she needed, and regretted that Grace had put dreams of becoming a star into her head.
One of the few issues on which Marilyn and her first husband were unanimous was that it was too early for them to have children.
Norma Jeane was still almost a child herself, so the thought of pregnancy filled her with horror. Purely theoretically, she was not against children, but preferred to push this issue to the very distant future. In the meantime, she preferred to tinker with her husband’s nephews, whom she loved to nurse, bathe, and tell them fairy tales. She had the makings to become a good mother, but first she herself had to grow up.
End of introductory fragment.
Movies
At the age of 17, the actress began working at the Padioplane aircraft factory. In 1944, U.S. Air Force photographers were sent to the site to create a series of propaganda photographs to bolster the morale of soldiers fighting in World War II. Then Norma met David Conover, a photographer who offered the blond blonde to work as a model. It is unknown what attracted the man so much to the pretty, but at the same time ordinary and simple girl, but soon this meeting turned out to be decisive in the fate of the world celebrity. In January 1945, Norma left the factory and began earning money by posing for Conover and his photographer friends.
Marilyn Monroe in her youth
David advised the young girl to contact a modeling agency, and in August Norma signed a lucrative contract. At the same time, the young model was advised to change her image and take a pseudonym. Norma dyed her hair platinum and was already acting under the name Jean Baker. The new image brought popularity, the woman quickly became a successful model in the agency. This is how Norma was seen by billionaire and media mogul Howard Hughes, who became interested in the participation of the spectacular blonde in the filming of films.
At the insistence of Ben Lyon, executive producer of the film company 20th Century Fox, Norma again changed her creative name. The girl took her mother's maiden name, and the name was suggested to her by Ben, to whom Norma reminded the Broadway diva Marilyn Miller. This is how the world famous name Marilyn Monroe appeared.
Marilyn Monroe in her youth
For a long time, the actress did not receive invitations to the world of big cinema, but this did not upset Marilyn. The girl spent her free time from filming on dance and vocal lessons, as well as on learning as many details of film production as possible. In 1947, the contract with the actress was extended. Until the second contract expired, Marilyn appeared in several roles that did not attract much attention, but allowed her to gain experience to continue her career.
In 1948, Monroe returned to work as a model, and in March she entered into a new agreement with Columbia Pictures. Work in this studio did not bring the girl any notable roles or fame, but it helped her further development as an actress. Marilyn met several talented stage workers who gave the film actress a number of valuable tips on her image and appearance.
Marilyn Monroe in a swimsuit
In 1950, the film star returned to the 20th Century Fox studio and there she received her first role, thanks to which viewers noticed the girl. In the film “The Asphalt Jungle,” Monroe appeared in the frame for only a few minutes, but film critics responded favorably to the young performer. A few months later, another film featuring Marilyn was released. The film “All About Eve” was destined to become a classic of Hollywood cinema, and the press spoke enthusiastically about the film, which won 6 Oscars. Young Monroe also received her share of fame.
Marilyn Monroe in the movie "All About Eve"
1951 was an extremely successful year for the actress. Monroe starred in several comedies; critics and journalists spoke favorably of the young star and predicted quick fame for her. And so it happened, especially since the actress’s popularity was affected by numerous scandals of a piquant nature, ranging from discovered photos of naked Monroe to the difficult personal life of a Hollywood star.
In 1952 and 1953, Marilyn gained fame as a film star, sex symbol and the hottest actress in the United States. The young and charismatic actress starred in a number of extremely successful films, and many Hollywood stars became her partners on the set: Cary Grant, Fred Allen, Jane Russell.
Monroe’s reputation as a sex symbol was cemented by her participation in the film “The Seven Day Itch,” and the episode with the “flying dress” (white dress) of the actress has long been considered a cult one. Unfortunately, at that time, Marilyn acquired the image of a “silly, charming blonde,” which the star would never get rid of for the rest of her life.
The world also remembers the songs performed by Monroe in films. The song “I Wanna Be Loved By You” from the film “Some Like It Hot” became especially popular.
For some time, Monroe did not even agree to roles that differed in style from her already familiar work. The film star has repeatedly stated her desire to embody a serious dramatic image, but for a long time no one risked carrying out such an experiment. Only in 1961, a couple of months before her death, Marilyn Monroe played a girl named Roslyn Taber in the film The Misfits, an intelligent and sensitive person looking not for marriage or adventure, but for human warmth.
Personal life
Scandals related to numerous novels constantly unfolded around the film star. The first marriage of the future star with American baseball player Joe DiMaggio officially lasted several years, but in fact, just six months after the wedding ceremony, the spouses stopped having feelings for each other, having lost mutual sympathy.
Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio
In 1955, Marilyn married Arthur Miller, whom she spoke of with admiration and respect. In this union, the woman tried to become a mother, but the pregnancy turned out to be ectopic. The couple divorced in 1961. Soon the playwright committed suicide under unclear circumstances.
Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller
There were loud rumors about Marilyn Monroe's affair with US President John Kennedy and his brother Robert, but there was no confirmation of this version in official sources.
Marilyn Monroe has forever remained an example of femininity and a symbol of beauty. The American actress’s appearance, figure (height – 166 cm, weight – 52 kg), charm and creative character hide an elusive spark of talent, incomprehensible to many.
Marilyn Monroe and John Kennedy
It is assumed that the legend of world cinema had rhinoplasty, as evidenced by the records of the plastic surgeon of the Hollywood star Michael Gurdin. From the conclusion drawn up by an American doctor, it follows that Monroe had damage to the nasal septum, probably caused by a fall.
Marilyn Monroe
The life of an American woman is a grandiose novel where a fairy tale, a love story and a detective story are mixed together. The fate of a beautiful, famous and endlessly unhappy woman did not give peace of mind even to scientists who tried to study in detail every event that happened to the celebrity. Nevertheless, unsuccessful marriages, dozens of abortions, as well as a stay in a psychiatric clinic forced us to look at the other side of the life of the Hollywood legend. Psychoanalysts Susan Israelson and Elizabeth McAvoy, having studied the life and work of the legend of world cinema, named a special type of inferiority complex in honor of the movie star - Marilyn Monroe syndrome.
Husbands and lovers of Marilyn Monroe
1 husband - James Dougherty
2nd husband - Joe DiMaggio
3 husband - Arthur Miller
Johnny Hyde
Marlon Brando, an American politician and film star, claimed in his autobiography Songs My Mother Taught Me that he had an affair with Marilyn Monroe.
One of Marilyn Monroe's novels was with actor Yves Montand. This happened during the filming of the film Let's Make Love.
Natasha Lytess is an actress. After Marilyn Monroe moved in with her, journalists often wrote about their lesbian relationship.
Tony Curtis is an actor. Played the role of Josephine in the film Some Like It Hot
James Bacon is a famous journalist.
Milton Green is a photographer for Look magazine. One of the most faithful friends.
Frank Sinatra began courting her in 1960. Six months after they started dating, there were even rumors about their wedding
John Kennedy
Robert Kennedy
Biographers sought confirmation that Marilyn actually had an affair with the president, but this is not officially recognized. Authors of books about Monroe build their own theories, sometimes well-founded, regarding her relationship with the Kennedy brothers. The only photo of them together was published in the summer of 2010. The photograph became the central exhibit of an exhibition dedicated to Marilyn Monroe:
This photo was taken in the evening after Marilyn Monroe's performance at the concert dedicated to the president's birthday. Despite the fact that rumors about the love affair between the singer and Mr. Kennedy were officially denied, it was forbidden to distribute photographs of Monroe and Kennedy in the country - all photographs were confiscated by the FBI. Even the official White House photographer had no right to photograph them together. The photographer accidentally managed to save this photo: the photo was in the dryer when FBI agents searched the house, and they did not take it along with the others.
In 2005, a message appeared on the website of the American television channel ABC News, which nevertheless testifies to the connection between Marilyn Monroe and John Kennedy. In particular, it talks about a gold watch that the actress allegedly gave to the American president. Marilyn presented the gift on May 19, 1962. The watch was engraved with the inscription: JACK, With love as always from MARILYN, 29th 1962. But John Kennedy asked his assistant Kenneth O'Donnell to get rid of the gift. Kenneth did not comply with the president's request. All these years the watch was kept by O'Donnell's daughter and in 2005 the watch was sold at auction for 120 thousand dollars.
Death
The film star passed away in 1962 at the peak of her career. This caused a storm of speculation and versions around what happened, and American society immediately started talking about the causes of Marilyn’s death.
It is known that the body of the dead actress was discovered by the actress's housekeeper, Eunice Murray. Monroe was lying on the bed, clutching the telephone receiver, and there were empty bottles of medicine in the room. Doctors who arrived at the scene of the tragedy confirmed the first guess: the actress died from an overdose of sleeping pills.
Marilyn Monroe's grave
The position of the body (Monroe lay stretched out with her face in the pillow), the strange fact that Marilyn did not leave a suicide note, and the fact that nothing in her behavior the day before foreshadowed such a desperate step led the public to suspect that the death of a celebrity - not suicide. In addition, constant gossip around the relationship of the Hollywood actress with President Kennedy added a political shade to this tragedy. The mysteries of the star's death still remain unsolved.
However, the official version of the investigation claims that the famous blonde committed suicide. One thing remains indisputable: with Monroe’s death, Hollywood lost a brilliant style icon who became a legend during her lifetime.
Monument to Marilyn Monroe
After the death of the film actress, American directors often tried to be the first to bring her life story to the screen. Director Terry Sanders created the documentary film "The Legend of Marilyn Monroe" in 1966. This picture will be called the most truthful film, in which the creators tried to show the actress as different, but also realistic. In the film, director John Huston also presented the actress's personality from an unusual perspective. Previously, Houston invited the movie star to participate in the film “The Misfits.”
The rapid and brilliant, but at the same time tragic fate of a mysterious woman who, from an ordinary girl, became a symbol of the era - a dramatic story of the twentieth century that forever won the minds and hearts of millions.
