Marilyn Monroe- a Life From Beginning to End Read online

  MARILYN MONROE

  A Life From Beginning to End

  Copyright © 2017 by Hourly History.

  All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Norma Jeane Becomes Marilyn Monroe

  From Foster Child to Movie Star

  I’ve Got Joe

  The Honeymooners

  The Scene with the White Dress

  Marilyn the Jew

  Diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia

  Marilyn’s First Overdose

  The Presidential Affair

  Locked in the Psych Ward

  Marilyn’s Last Year

  Conclusion

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  Chapter One

  Norma Jeane Becomes Marilyn Monroe

  “Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.”

  —Marilyn Monroe

  Marilyn Monroe was born into this world as Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California. Her mother Gladys was not yet ready to be a parent when Norma Jeane was conceived and had her placed in the care of two foster parents named Albert and Ida Bolender.

  Residing in the small town of Hawthorne, Southern California, the Bolenders were a family of Christian fundamentalists who sought to instill these values on the young Norma Jeane. Her mother in the meantime was soon relegated to just visiting on the weekends, during which she would take her daughter back to Los Angeles to shop and treat her to the occasional movie. Some say that it was those weekend trips to the cinema that sparked Norma Jeane’s lifelong interest in the arts.

  The Bolenders eventually wished to make the young girl a permanent part of their family, but Norma Jeane’s mother Gladys had regained her feet enough by that time and was granted custody of Norma Jeane in 1933. Gladys had bought a small house in Hollywood, and for a short period, things were well. Just a little over a year later, however, Norma Jeane’s mother was institutionalized and diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

  She would go on to spend the rest of her life in and out of state-run institutions, and her daughter would be shifted back and forth between state institutions as well; becoming a complete ward of the state at the tender age of nine. A friend of Norma Jeane’s mother, a woman named Grace Goddard, eventually assumed a guardianship role over the girl and oversaw her placement in various foster homes.

  Grace would bring Norma Jeane into her own home when she was 15, but soon realized she couldn’t handle the burden, so she arranged to have the teenager married off instead. Luckily, she had a friend whose son was a young, single man by the name James Dougherty. Although their relationship was conceived as a marriage of necessity more than anything else, the two seemed to enjoy each other’s company, and James Dougherty would later insist that they were in love at the time.

  A couple of months after her sixteenth birthday, James and Norma Jeane were married. But just as World War II was drawing to a close, James took up a position with the Merchant Marines and was stationed overseas. According to James, Norma Jeane hated to see him go and was at first quite saddened at this interruption of what had been a relatively idyllic domestic life. James was her first real piece of security, and now he was going to be shipped off thousands of miles away. James recalls that before he left, Norma Jeane practically begged him to get her pregnant so that she could have a “little piece of him” to remember him by in case he was lost at sea.

  While Dougherty no doubt was flattered by some of the melodrama that had erupted in his honor, he insisted that the time wasn’t right; she was too young, and furthermore, if he was lost at sea, it wouldn’t make any sense for her to have the burden of being a single mother. Norma Jeane who recalled her own mother’s struggles with being an unprepared parent soon agreed with his argument. As fate would have it, after declining the opportunity to have a baby with her first husband, she would never be a mother during her sojourn on this Earth and would die childless.

  Accepting her role as the lonely newlywed, Norma Jeane moved in with her mother-in-law, and not long after James left to fill his post with the Merchant Marines, she began her first nine-to-five job, working at a local radio plane factory. Here she was one of many women trying to do their part for the war relief effort during World War II. Norma Jeane worked hard, spraying airplane parts with fire retardant and examining military parachutes as part of a quality control team. It was here that she would encounter her first rendezvous with fate when she was discovered by photographer David Conover who was on the site doing a piece on the female contributions to the war.

  After Conover introduced Norma Jeane to a modeling agency, she received her first official contract in the industry. And it wasn’t long after signing on as a model that Norma Jeane would begin to craft the image that would make her famous; sheering her long hair and bleaching it blonde. She soon became the agency’s most successful model and appeared on the cover of several magazines.

  Norma Jeane made such an impression that her husband James claims he first saw her on the cover of a magazine when he was still overseas in Buenos Aires. According to James, after he got over his shock of seeing his wife’s picture printed on the front page, he pointed out as much to his comrades in arms, and they wouldn’t believe she was his spouse.

  This extra exposure as a model soon landed Norma Jeane a screen testing with the film company 20th Century Fox. The aspiring actress was initially given a six-month contract and a weekly salary of $125, and in more ways than one, it was here that Marilyn Monroe was conceived. The suggestion to give up the name of Norma Jeane Dougherty came from a talent scout named Ben Lyon. After accepting the first name of Marilyn which Lyon had suggested, Norma took on her mother’s maiden name of Monroe, and thus, Marilyn Monroe was born.

  Chapter Two

  From Foster Child to Movie Star

  “In Hollywood a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You’re judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood’s a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer enough and held out for the fifty cents.”

  —Marilyn Monroe

  Shortly after signing the contract with 20th Century Fox, Marilyn Monroe served her husband with divorce papers. According to James, there was no real malice involved in the separation; it was more or less a mutual understanding since they both knew she couldn’t remain his adoring housewife and vigorously pursue her career in Hollywood at the same time.

  During her first six months with 20th Century Fox, Marilyn was hopeful that she would be able to land her first big break. Unfortunately, she was mainly relegated to small walk-on roles such as the minute part she played in the lackluster Scudda Hoo Scudda Hay in 1947. After final editing, her time on this film had been reduced to just one clip, in which she walked on screen for a few moments to say hello to one of the main characters of the film.

  Adding insult to injury, shortly after the final release, 20th Century Fox let Marilyn know that they did not intend to renew her contract. She was devastated, but she wasn’t about to give up, and simply returned to her successful career in modeling while she relentlessly sought to make new connections in the movie world.

  Her determination paid off when she was assigned another six-month contract, this time with Columbia Pictures. In this deal, she was promised a starring role in what turned out to be a rather low-budget musical called Ladies of the Chorus.

  Marilyn was indeed cast in a leading role, but the film was not the box office success she had hoped and quickly faded from memory. After this latest stint in Hollywood, her contract came to an end again and was, to her disa
ppointment, not renewed. For the rest of the late 1940s, Marilyn got by through filming some of the very first commercials for television, famously starring in a Royal Triton gasoline advertisement.

  These roles were not paying her enough money, however, and as 1949 was ending, Marilyn Monroe was desperate to break out of this stagnation in her film career. It was during this period that she made the acquaintance of a photographer by the name of Tom Kelley. Kelley asked Marilyn to pose nude for pictures that would appear in a calendar series; strapped for cash Marilyn reluctantly agreed.

  For her, the photo shoot was just a way to pay the rent, and she could never have foreseen the lasting controversy that these pictures would create in the years to come. Fortunately for Marilyn, she soon found other ways to pay the bills, including a small role in the 1950 film Asphalt Jungle in which she played Angela Phinlay, the girlfriend of a gangster.

  In this movie, she was able to break out of her usual typecast roles and show that she could excel with dramatic parts if she was given the opportunity. Shortly after this film, she was cast in the movie All About Eve in which she played the character of Miss Caswell, an aspiring actress who often had to resort to using her sexuality to score acting roles; something Marilyn could certainly relate to.

  This character was supposed to be the antithesis of the aging actress Eve played by Anne Baxter, who was depicted as using her cunning and conniving to get promoted rather than having to use her body. Despite some of the irony with her own life that was inherent in the plot, Marilyn’s performance was fairly well received, and she showed that she could more than hold her own when placed alongside more seasoned stars such as Anne Baxter.

  This success enabled her to sign on once again with 20th Century Fox, this time for a seven-year contract that began in force in December 1950. The following year proved to be a pivotal one for Marilyn’s career, starting in March 1951 when she was made the official presenter of the 23rd Academy Awards, putting her on the national stage like never before.

  Later that year she was busy with several supporting roles in films such as Home Town Story, As Young as You Feel, Love Nest , and Let’s Make it Legal. Although the roles were small, she received a fair amount of praise for her portrayals in the films, and despite the dumb-blonde stereotype she was often typecast into, she was cited as “one of the brightest up and coming actresses.”

  Marilyn was elated to receive such accolades, and she was just as determined not to let her supporters down. Serious about developing her craft further she enrolled in acting classes and became a student of the seasoned actor and director Michael Chekhov. As her ability grew, so did her fan base; it is said that by 1951 she was receiving several thousand letters every single week. Marilyn Monroe had made it.

  Chapter Three

  I’ve Got Joe

  “A smart girl leaves before she is left.”

  —Marilyn Monroe

  Marilyn Monroe began 1952 with a bang. She had acquired the leading role in the movie Don’t Bother to Knock in which she played the part of a mentally disturbed babysitter who is abusive to the ones she is supposed to be babysitting. By all accounts, this film has been categorized as a B-movie, but despite the low-budget quality of the piece, Marilyn’s performance is widely viewed as one of her best.

  Shortly after she finished up Don’t Bother to Knock, Marilyn was introduced to famed baseball player Joe DiMaggio. After just a few dates, the two seemed to be smitten with each other and would develop a long-lasting relationship. Meanwhile, her dramatic prowess in Don’t Bother to Knock led her to be cast in the thriller Niagara in 1953.

  In this film, Marilyn was playing the role of yet another mentally disturbed woman, this one with murderous intentions against her husband played by celebrated actor Joseph Cotton. This film was Marilyn’s first big-budget movie and proved that she could hold her own in an A-list film.

  But with success came trouble; her past indiscretions would come back to haunt her when in December 1953, a man named Hugh Hefner would purchase the prints to the nude calendar photos from Marilyn’s early career. They ended up being published in a magazine Hefner was developing called Playboy. Although rather mild by today’s standards, in the social mores of the early 1950s this created a publicity crisis for the starlet, and her handlers were sent in for immediate damage control. Against the wishes of 20th Century Fox, however, Marilyn sought to bring the media storm to a close by being honest about the affair and openly admitting to her role in the photos.

  She went on the record to admit that it was her in the images, and when a reporter asked her what she “had on” during the photo shoot, she glibly answered, “The radio.” And that was all it took; Marilyn seemed to prove the old expression correct that honesty is the best policy and with it, she seemed to reshape the American conception of morality. With Marilyn’s admission, it was no longer quite so scandalous for a movie star to be seen in such a compromising position.

  The drama soon blew over, and if anything, it only helped her popularity. The following year she would star in the blockbuster film, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes which—as the name might imply—worked to cement her infamous characterization as the ditzy blonde bombshell that would, for better or for worse, become her legacy. In the movie, she played the character of a showgirl named Lorelei Lee who was an expert gold digger.

  The scene that would become her most famous on-screen appearance would involve this character’s singing of the song, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Shortly after the release, Marilyn and her fellow actress in the film, Jane Russell, pressed their hand and foot prints into the cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, further securing Marilyn Monroe’s fame and legacy into the hearts of millions.

  The films that she would star in afterward would all capitalize on the same formula: Marilyn playing a knockout blonde with a low IQ. But when the films finally began to flounder in the box office, Marilyn had had enough. And when producers at Fox began demanding that she return to finish up her contract and appear in a brand new mediocre film calledThe Girl in Pink Tights, Monroe refused. The executives at 20th Century Fox were enraged at this development and suspended her from the company on January 4, 1954. The story garnered considerable attention in the media, but Marilyn ignored any negative attention and refused to budge on the issue.

  Around the same time, Marilyn was busy preparing for her wedding her long-time boyfriend Joe DiMaggio. Joe being the observant Catholic that he was, wished to have a Roman Catholic priest oversee their marital vows. But there was one small problem with this plan; the local archbishop of San Francisco, a man named John J. Mitty refused to recognize the marriage. According to the archbishop, the church had never officially recognized his divorce from his first wife Dorothy, and if he were to go forward with his marriage to Monroe, he would face excommunication from the church.

  George Solotaire, a close friend of DiMaggio’s, said that the baseball legend reacted to this verdict by stating, “I’d rather head for hell in due course than give up my Garden of Eden. In other words; let them excommunicate me.” Determined to move forward with or without the official blessing of the Catholic Church, the two were wed in a private civil ceremony on January 14, 1954.

  This privacy could not be maintained outside of the municipal building they were married in, however, and as soon as they stepped out the door, the press was there to greet them. Thousands of camera flashes erupted as soon as they caught sight of the couple, and a flood of questions ensued. One reporter asked Marilyn, “What do you want out of this marriage?” At which Marilyn famously responded, “I’ve got what I wanted. I’ve got Joe.”

  Chapter Four

  The Honeymooners

  “It is wonderful to have someone praise you, to be desired.”

  —Marilyn Monroe

  Shortly after the wedding, 20th Century Fox had Hollywood attorney Lloyd Wright give the newlyweds a call and—as if they were delivering Marilyn a wedding gift—announced the lifting of the susp
ension of her contract. However, Lloyd stipulated that 20th Century Fox would do so only if Marilyn agreed to return to work immediately after her honeymoon to begin rehearsal for the film role that she had already declined, in the production of The Girl in Pink Tights.

  Both Joe and Marilyn were upset with the bargain that 20th Century Fox was attempting to strike, but the news seemed to affect Joe DiMaggio the most. DiMaggio took the casting of his newlywed wife in such a sultry role as nothing short of a direct affront to him and his marriage. He told Wright in no uncertain terms that he would never sign off on a contract that would have his wife running around “half-naked,” portraying a “woman of easy virtue.”

  By the time Joe had hung up the phone, Lloyd and his Hollywood associates knew that now they weren’t just dealing with Monroe, but they also had to play ball with Joe DiMaggio. At first, Marilyn Monroe enjoyed the paternalist protective qualities of her husband, and she most certainly did not want to return to the same type of roles she had grown so tired of before. Their partnership seemed to have developed on a unified front that was refreshing for them both. However, it wasn’t long before Marilyn started to become a bit too stifled under Joe’s avid protection.

  Shortly after they delivered their rebuff to 20th Century Fox, Marilyn and Joe traveled to Japan to finish the rest of their honeymoon in the Far East. Post-war Japan was just beginning to get excited about baseball, and Joe DiMaggio had received an invitation from the regional newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun to come and kick off the Japanese baseball season. But before they even landed the plane, a U.S. military general by the name of Charles Christenberry intercepted the couple with a special request. After congratulating them on their wedding, he broached the topic, “How would you like to visit Korea for a few days and entertain the American troops currently stationed in Seoul as part of the UN occupation force?” The Korean War had just ended a few months before in July 1953, and it was quite common for American entertainers to be asked to perform for the bored soldiers still stationed along the 38th parallel.