Marilyn Monroe

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Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962) was an American actress of the 20th century. Her sizzling screen presence and premature death would make her a perennial sex symbol and later a pop icon.

Contents

Early life

She was born Norma Jeane Mortensen, and baptized Norma Jeane Baker, in the charity ward of Los Angeles County Hospital (now County-USC) in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Gladys Pearl Monroe. While biographers agree the man listed on her birth certificate, Martin Edward Mortensen, Gladys' second husband, was not her biological father, her paternity has never been firmly established. The most likely candidate seems to be Charles Stanley Gifford, a salesman for the studio where Gladys worked as a film-cutter. The just-divorced Gifford had no desire to be tied down and left Gladys when she informed him of her pregnancy.

Gladys was the daughter of Otis Elmer Monroe (1865-1909) and Della Hogan (1876-1927). She first married John Newton Baker, who kidnapped their two children, Robert Jasper "Jackie" Baker (January 16, 1918-August 16, 1933) and Berniece Inez Gladys Baker (born July 30, 1919), after he and Gladys split up. She then married Mortensen. They separated before she became pregnant with Norma Jeane.

Unable to persuade Della to take her baby, an overwhelmed Gladys placed Norma Jeane with Wayne and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, southwest of Downtown Los Angeles. She lived with them until the age of seven. The Bolenders were a religious couple who supplemented their meager income by being foster parents. In her autobiography, My Story, ghostwritten by Ben Hecht, Marilyn said she thought they were her parents until Ida, rather cruelly, corrected her. After her death, Ida claimed they remained in touch and had seriously considered adopting her (which they could not do without Gladys' consent).

According to My Story, Gladys visited Norma Jeane every Saturday, but never hugged or kissed her, or even smiled. One day, Gladys announced that she had bought a house for them. A few months after moving in, she suffered a breakdown. Marilyn recalled her mother "screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly removed to the State Mental Hospital in Norwalk, where Della had died; Otis died in a mental hospital near San Bernardino.

Norma Jeane was declared a ward of the state. Gladys' best friend, Grace McKee, later Goddard, became her guardian. After Grace married in 1935, Norma Jeane was sent to Los Angeles Orphanage, then to as many as twelve foster homes, in which she was subjected to abuse and neglect. Then in September 1941, Grace took her in again. She was then introduced to a neighbor's son, James Dougherty, who would become her first husband. The Goddard family was moving to the East Coast and felt marriage would be the best solution for the teenaged Norma Jeane. Norma Jeane had come to think little of herself, yet also developed a gritty, opportunistic side and a super-human drive. She was very intelligent and more unhappy than her screen image suggested.

Start of career

In 1945, Norma Jeane worked as a parachute inspector while her husband was in the Merchant Marines. One day, a photographer spotted her and asked if he could take her picture to boost morale for the war effort. Soon afterwards, she moved out of her mother-in-law's house and signed with a modeling agency, which led to her first studio contract with Twentieth Century-Fox.

In My Story she recounted how she chose her stage name. When Norma Jeane told Grace that "Marilyn" had been suggested by a Fox employee, Grace replied that it went well with Gladys' maiden name, Monroe, then told her she was keeping documents for Gladys proving she is a direct descendant of President James Monroe. No such papers have ever surfaced. Marilyn's maternal grandfather, Otis Monroe, was the son of Jacob Monroe (1831-1872), so such a descent is unlikely.

The next few years were lean. Biographers maintain she was working "the party circuit" when she met Johnny Hyde, a partner of the William Morris Agency, on December 31, 1948 at a party thrown by producer Sam Spiegel. Like Grace Goddard, he believed she was destined to become a great star; unlike Grace, Hyde - who discovered Lana Turner and counted Rita Hayworth among his clients - had the power to do something about it. Despite being married and old enough to be her father, Hyde fell madly in love with her. Due to his persistence, Marilyn landed the two movies that put her on the map: The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve.

Fame

Image:Pb1253.jpg She posed nude for photographer Tom Kelley on May 27, 1949, and was paid $50.00. The model of the Miss Golden Dreams calendar from that shoot was billed as "anonymous." In 1952, a blackmailer threatened to identify her as Marilyn, but Monroe thwarted the scheme by announcing the fact herself. When asked by reporters why she did it, she shrugged, and said, "I was hungry." Hugh Hefner bought the rights to use the photo for the first issue of his new men's magazine, Playboy.

A dying Hyde repeatedly asked Marilyn to marry him, assuring her that she would be a rich widow. But she refused. She loved him, she explained in My Story, but was not in love with him. According to Donald Spoto's biography, she renewed contact with producer and "party circuit" host Joseph Schenck, ignoring Hyde for weeks at a time. But, when Hyde suffered a fatal heart attack in Palm Springs on December 18, 1950, Marilyn, who had refused to join him, blamed herself for his death. His family threw her out of his Beverly Hills estate. The day after his funeral, she attempted suicide.

By late 1951, Fox was convinced of her potential and gave her a big buildup. Though she was the biggest star in the world by 1954, she tired of the dim bulb roles Darryl F. Zanuck assigned her. She broke her contract and went to New York to study acting at The Actor's Studio; she formed her own production company with photographer Milton H. Greene. These moves were met with derision by the movie industry. Yet, when Jayne Mansfield and Sheree North failed to click with audiences, Zanuck finally admitted defeat. Her new contract gave her more creative control and the right to make one non-Fox movie a year; the first project under the deal was Bus Stop. Her co-stars during these years included Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, Joseph Cotten, Richard Widmark, Jane Russell, Lauren Bacall, Ethel Merman, Charles Laughton, Tony Curtis, and Yves Montand (with whom she had an affair during the filming of Let's Make Love).

Marriages

She married James Dougherty on June 19, 1942. Grace, moving with her husband, wanted Norma Jeane to marry to avoid going to an orphanage. In "The Secret Happiness of Marilyn Monroe" and "To Norma Jeane With Love, Jimmie," Dougherty claims they were in love and would have lived happily ever after had not dreams of stardom lured her away. By contrast, Monroe always maintained it was a marriage of convenience foisted upon them by Grace, who paid Dougherty to take her charge on dates. She divorced him in 1946.

Image:Dmm.jpg In 1951, Joe DiMaggio saw a picture of Marilyn with two Chicago White Sox players, but waited until after he retired from baseball to ask the PR man who arranged the stunt to set them up on a date. But she did not want to meet him, fearing him the stereotypical jock. Their January 14, 1954 elopement at City Hall in San Francisco was the culmination of a two-year courtship that had captivated the nation.

The union was complex, marred by conflicting personalities, his jealousy and her casual infidelity. DiMaggio biographer Richard Ben Cramer asserts it was also violent. One incident allegedly happened after the skirt blowing scene in The Seven Year Itch was filmed on New York's Lexington Avenue before hundreds of fans; director Billy Wilder recalled "the look of death" on DiMaggio's face as he watched.

When she announced she would seek a divorce - just 274 days after the wedding - (on grounds of mental cruelty), she was quoted as telling 20th Century Fox that "our careers just seemed to get in the way of each other." Oscar Levant quipped it proved no man could be a success in two pastimes. Image:Miller&Monroe.jpg She later married playwright Arthur Miller in a civil ceremony on June 29, 1956, then in a Jewish ceremony two days later. When they returned from England after she wrapped The Prince and the Showgirl, they learned she was pregnant. Sadly, she suffered from endometriosis; the pregnancy was ectopic and had to be aborted to save her life. A second pregnancy ended in miscarriage.

By 1958, Monroe was financially supporting them. Not only did she pay alimony to Miller's first wife, he reportedly bought a Jaguar while they were in England, shipped it to the States, and charged it to her production company. His script The Misfits was meant to be a Valentine to her. Instead, by the time filming started, the marriage was broken beyond repair. Marilyn's behavior—fueled by drugs and alcohol—was erratic, and she was utterly vicious toward Arthur. A Mexican divorce was granted on January 24, 1961.

Retired from the Los Angeles Police Department, Dougherty claims in the 2003 documentary, Marilyn's Man, that he was her Svengali, the creator of "Marilyn Monroe." No biographer has ever come across any evidence to support this, or Dougherty's claims that she was "forced" by Fox to divorce him or that they remained friends. The fact that Monroe was furious when Dougherty claimed to Photoplay magazine in 1953 that she had been so in love, she threatened to kill herself if he left her, and that he did not attend her funeral, would seem to dispel these claims. He lives in Maine, and was married to his third wife until her death in 2003.

DiMaggio re-entered her life as her marriage to Miller was ending. On February 7, 1961, she was admitted into a psychiatric clinic, reportedly placed in the ward for the most seriously disturbed. He got her out and took her to another facility. After her release, she joined him in Florida where he was a batting coach for his old team, the New York Yankees. Their "just friends" claims did not stop remarriage rumors from flying. Bob Hope even "dedicated" Best Song nominee "The Second Time Around" to them at the 1960 Academy Awards. According to DiMaggio biographer Maury Allen, he quit his $100,000 a year job with a military post-exchange supplier to return to California and ask Marilyn to remarry him.

On February 17, 1962, Miller married Inge Morath, one of the Magnum photographers recording the making of The Misfits. In January 1964, his After the Fall opened, featuring a beautiful, child-like, yet devouring shrew named Maggie. It upset all of Monroe's friends. His newest Broadway-bound work, Finishing the Picture, is based on the making of The Misfits.

Death and aftermath

Marilyn Monroe was found dead in the bedroom of her Brentwood, California, home at age thirty-six from an overdose of barbiturates. Circumstances surrounding her death have led many to believe she was murdered because of her involvement with the Kennedy Family (President John F. Kennedy had recently broken off their affair). However, one problem with this theory is that Kennedy's many other alleged girlfriends, including Judith Campbell Exner (who was also the paramour of mobster Sam Giancana, and acted as a secret go-between for the two men), outlived the president.

"After spending six hours with him (her psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Geenson), she was found dead of a drug overdose" [1]. Marilyn's body was discovered by live-in housekeeper, Mrs. Eunice Murray, a supposed nurse assigned to Marilyn's care by Dr. Greenson. Some believe that the night Monroe died, as many as five hours may have elapsed from Monroe's death before the authorities were called in. Marilyn's body may have been taken to St. John's hospital in Santa Monica in this interim, but the hospital may have refused it because of concerns about notoriety. This uncertain timeframe about Monroe's passing versus the arrival of the police to the house on Fifth Helena later in the wee hours has led over the years to speculation that Murray may have known more than she ever divulged.

Interestingly, Murray attempted to cash a $200.00 check made out to her by Monroe several days after Monroe's death. City National Bank of Beverly Hills declined to pay Murray because Monroe was by then of course publicly known to be deceased. Further, Murray, a widow of modest means, left the country two months later for an extended European cruise on the Queen Mary. Murray maintained a friendship with Monroe's personal publicist Pat Newcomb over the years. Eventually, Murray and her ghostwriter, Rose Shade, told Murray's own version of Monroe's passing in, Marilyn, The Last Months, published directly in paperback in the 1970s. It is of note that Shade's maiden name is Murray, as the two women were related by marriage. The book was written while Eunice Murray was living in a guest house in Santa Monica at the time; Newcomb and Shade were frequent visitors then. Shade has since written extensively on Astrology, but apparently never again wrote another nonfiction biography. Some have said that Murray was a member of the Communist Party; others that she followed Wikka and espoused The Tarot. In her later years, Murray moved back East, possibly to Martha's Vineyard, remarried for a short time, and oddly survived the passing of her second husband within very short order. Murray has since passed away.

A formal investigation in 1982 by the Los Angeles County District Attorney came up with no credible evidence of foul play, but the stories persist. Dr. Thomas Noguchi, who performed the autopsy (and the autopsies of Robert F. Kennedy, Natalie Wood and William Holden, among other celebrities), wrote in his book Coroner that Marilyn's death was a highly likely suicide.

DiMaggio claimed her body and arranged her funeral. According to her half-sister, Berniece Baker Miracle, who flew to the West Coast as soon as she was notified, he just took over and she allowed him to. For twenty years he had a dozen red roses delivered three times a week to her crypt. Unlike the other men who knew her intimately (or claimed to), he never publicly spoke about her nor wrote a book.

Marilyn is interred in a crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. She had Grace Goddard interred there because Grace's aunt - who cared for Norma Jeane briefly - is there. Just as her career took off, she asked her make-up man, Whitey Snyder, to promise he would make her up when she died. Snyder joked he would if her body was brought to him while it was warm. A few days later, he received a money clip: "Whitey Dear, While I am still warm, Marilyn." He fulfilled that promise with the help of a bottle of whiskey.

When Gladys was between mental hospitals, she married her last husband, John Stewart Eley, who died in 1952. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, she walked out of a sanitarium in the early 1970s and flew to Florida, where her daughter, Berniece, picked her up at the airport. She died of congestive heart failure on March 11, 1984 at a nursing home. Obsessed by Christian Science, she would refuse to discuss Norma Jeane or Marilyn Monroe, perhaps unable to relive the past. A woman who was once so fascinated with movie stars that she named her daughter after one, Norma Talmadge, apparently never knew she had given birth to one of the most famous women in history.

Filmography

Trivia

  • Childhood pictures show that Marilyn was born a blonde, but her hair turned "mousy" (brunette) as she grew up. She dyed her hair several different shades of blonde as an adult.
  • The song Candle in the Wind (1973), which was written by Bernie Taupin and performed by Elton John, was about Marilyn Monroe. In 1997, Elton John rewrote the song for Diana, Princess of Wales and performed it at her funeral.
  • Unlikely fans of Marilyn included Albert Einstein and Ayn Rand.
  • When Prince Rainier III of Monaco was looking for a famous wife to marry, Marilyn was suggested to him. He married actress Grace Kelly, whose fame gave Monaco an additional aspect of the fame it has today.
  • Marilyn's features are copyrighted to her estate, and are not allowed to be copied exactly.
  • The $200.00 check that Eunice Murray attempted to cash right after Monroe's death is on display in an exhibit at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum at the old Max Factor Building in Hollywood.
  • Hugh Hefner bought a crypt next to Marilyn for $85,000 and the other crypt next to her was sold for $125,000. There are no empty spots available near Marilyn.
  • A myth that Marilyn was born with six toes resulted from the publication of photos taken by Joseph Jasgur in March 1946. The pictures were published in The Birth of Marilyn: The Lost Photographs of Norma Jeane by Jasgur and Jeannie Sakol. Two pictures can be interpreted as showing six toes, although they can be explained as tricks of light. Since there is no corroborating evidence from other photographs or written records, the story is commonly dismissed as an urban legend.
  • Marilyn won the crown Miss Artichoke in a beauty pageant in 1946.
  • Marilyn had to wear two pairs of white underwear for the dress blowing up scene in movie The Seven Year Itch, as the director could see just a little too much when he watched that scene afterwards.
  • Director Billy Wilder (who made two movies with Marilyn: The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot) said that Marilyn had breasts like granite and a brain like Swiss cheese. Billy Wilder has also said Marilyn was a genius, so one could say it was an on/off relationship.
  • People rarely looked past the image Marilyn portrayed, but she was said to be quite intelligent - it was hidden behind her image as a dumb blonde with beautiful features. She herself always regretted not being able to continue with high school and wrote poems and was very much involved in literature.
  • Celebrity photographer George Barris claims he took the last pictures of Marilyn. However, it was confirmed Allan Grant took the last pictures of Marilyn during her interview with Life magazine on July 7, 1962.

References and Further reading

  1. ^ Citizen's Commission on Human Rights about Marilyn Monore

The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe (argues for Kennedy connection to Monroe's death) ISBN 0688162886

See also

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Marilyn_Monroe


References

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