Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926 - August 5, 1962) was an American film actress. She was born Norma Jeane Mortensen in Los Angeles, California, but was known as Norma Jeane Baker ("Baker" was the last name of her mother's first husband).
| Table of contents |
|
2 Career 3 Marriages 4 Death and Legacy 5 Trivia 6 Films 7 External links |
The overwhelmed Gladys placed Norma Jeane in the home of Wayne and Ida Bolender on June 13, 1926; she lived with them until she was 7. The Bolenders were a strict and religious couple who supplemented their meager income by being foster parents. In her autobiography "My Story," (ghostwritten by Ben Hecht), Marilyn said she thought of them as her parents until Ida, rather cruelly, corrected her. After Marilyn's death, Ida claimed they remained in touch and had seriously considered adopting her (which they couldn't have done without Gladys's consent).
Gladys visited every Saturday, but, Marilyn recalled, she was remote and never hugged or kissed her, or even smiled. One Saturday, Gladys announced that she had bought a house for them. A few months after moving in, she suffered a breakdown. Marilyn recounted her "screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly removed to Norwalk, California State Hospital, where her parents had died.
Norma Jeane was declared a ward of the state. She was placed in an orphanage, then in as many as 12 foster homes in which she was subjected to abuse and neglect. She came to think little of herself, yet also developed a gritty, opportunistic side and a super-human drive. She was more intelligent - and more unhappy - than her screen image suggested.
In "My Story," she recounted how she chose her stage name. When Norma Jeane told Grace Goddard that "Marilyn" had been suggested by a Fox employee, Grace replied that it went well with Gladys's maiden name, Monroe, then told her she was keeping documents for Gladys proving she is a direct descendant of James Monroe. Those papers have never surfaced.
The next few years were lean. Biographers maintain she was a regular on "the party curcuit" when she posed nude for Tom Kelley. The model of the calendar from that shoot, Miss Golden Dreams, was billed as Anonymous. In 1952, a blackmailer threatened to identify the model as Marilyn, but she shrewdly thwarted the scheme by announcing the fact herself. Hugh Hefner then bought the rights to use the photo for the first issue of his new men's magazine, Playboy. Neither Kelley nor Monroe (who was paid $50) ever saw a dime of the millions it made.
By late 1951, Fox was convinced of her potential and gave her a build-up. Though she was the biggest star in the world by 1954, she tired of the sex-bomb roles Darryl F. Zanuck assigned to her. She broke her contract, and went to New York to study acting; she formed her own production company with photographer Milton H. Greene. These moves were met with derision by the film 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 film 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).
Dougherty, now retired from the Los Angeles Police Department, claims to have created the Special Weapons and Tactics concept (it was actually presented to Darryl Gates by officer John Nelson). In the documentary Marilyn's Man (slated to be screened at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival), he makes an even more absurd claim: that he created Marilyn Monroe. He lives in Maine, and was married to his third wife until her death in 2003.
Marilyn married Joe DiMaggio on January 14, 1954 at San Francisco City Hall, the culmination of a courtship that had captivated the nation's attention. He saw her picture with two Chicago White Sox players, and asked the PR man who arranged the stunt to set them up on a date; but she didn't want to meet him, fearing him to be the stereotypical jock.
Their union was complex, marred by markedly conflicting personalities, jealousy (his), and casual infidelity (hers). 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 filed for divorce just 274 days after the wedding, Oscar Levant quipped it proved no man could be a success in two pastimes.
She married Arthur Miller, first in a civil ceremony on June 29, 1956, then in a Jewish ceremony 2 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 the time she did Some Like It Hot, she was supporting the couple. Not only did she pay alimony to Miller's first wife; he also 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 behavoir - fueled by drugs and alcohol - was erratic; witnesses say she was utterly vicious toward Arthur. A Mexican divorce was granted on January 24, 1961.
On February 17, 1962, Miller married Inge Morath, one of the Magnum photographers recording the making of The Misfits. In January 1964, After the Fall opened, featuring a beautiful, child-like, yet devouring shrew named Maggie. The play upset all thier friends. His new play, Finishing the Picture, is based on the making of The Misfits. The Marilyn-based character never appears, but the other characters talk about her constantly.
DiMaggio re-entered Monroe's life as her marriage to Miller was ending. On February 7, 1961, Marilyn 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 didn't 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, Joe quit his $100,000 a year job to return to California and ask Marilyn to remarry him.
DiMaggio claimed her body, and arranged her funeral. For 20 years he had a dozen red roses delivered 3 times a week to her crypt. Unlike other men who knew her initimately (or claimed to), he never publically spoke about her nor wrote a book.
DiMaggio chose to have her interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, where Marilyn had buried Grace Goddard, because Grace's aunt - whom Marilyn loved - is buried there. Her make-up man, Whitey Snyder, jokingly promised to make her up when she died if her body was brought to him while it was warm. A few days later, he recieved a money clip: "Whitey Dear, While I am still warm, Marilyn." He fulfilled that promise with the help of a bottle of whiskey.
Gladys - diagnosed as schizophrenic - was released from a sanitarium after Marilyn's death, and moved into her daughter Bernice's home in Florida. She died of congestive heart failure on March 11, 1984 at a nursing home. She was never certain who Marilyn Monroe or Norma Jeane were. A woman so fascinated by movie stars that she named her daughter after one (Norma Talmadge) never knew she gave birth to one of the most famous women in history.
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" (1991) by Jasgur and Jeannie Sakol. Two of the pictures can be interpreted as showing six toes, although they can also 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.
Biography
She was born in the charity ward of Los Angeles City (now County/USC) Hospital. While biographers agree the man listed on her birth certificate, Martin Edward Mortensen, was not her father, her true paternity has never been firmly established. The most likely candidate seems to be Charles Stanley Gifford, a salesman for the studio where her mother Gladys worked as a negative film cutter. The just-divorced Gifford had no desire to be tied down again, and left Gladys when she informed him of her pregnancy.Career
In 1943, 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. This rekindled the dreams of movie stardom which Gladys and her best friend, Grace Goddard (who became Norma Jeane's guardian), had put into her head as a child. 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.Marriages
She was married three times. The first was to James Dougherty on June 19, 1942. Grace Goddard, moving with her husband, wanted Norma Jeane to get married to avoid going back to an orphanage. In "The Secret Happiness of Marilyn Monroe" and "To Norma Jeane With Love, Jimmie," he claims they were in love and would have lived happily ever after had not dreams of stardom lured her away. By contrast, she always maintained theirs was a marriage of convenience foisted upon them by Grace, who paid Dougherty to take her charge on dates. She divorced him in 1946.
Monroe and Miller on the set of The MisfitsDeath and Legacy
Marilyn died in her Los Angeles home at age 36, supposedly a suicide from an overdose. Circumstances surrounding her death have led many to believe she was killed because of her involvement with the Kennedy Family. However, a 1982 formal investigation into her death by the Los Angeles County District Attorney came up with no credible evidence of foul play, but that has not put to rest debate over the inconsistencies in the official version of events.Trivia
Films
See also: List of celebrities with illicit drug historyExternal links