From glittering heights to a tragic demise, Marilyn Monroe is remembered as one of the world's most adorned women.
s there a more scandalous or more sensational icon of the 1950s and 60s than Marilyn Monroe? A sex symbol and popular-culture icon, she was, at one stage, the highest banking actress of all time. However, there are those who remember the blonde bombshell as a 'shrewd businesswoman' with a tempestuous temperament. She was well lcnown among film directors and co-producers for her tardiness and difficult nature when working on set, despite her talent. As beautiful and graceful as she was, thanks to her multiple marriages to some of America's most influential and affluent men; her alleged affairs with men, women and the president; her ongoing struggle with drugs; and her ill fated suicide at the age of 36, she was immortalised as an icon of scandal. How did the woman who had the world eating out of her hand plummet to such a low that she would take her own life?
Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, she grew up in Los Angeles. Her mother, Gladys Baker, was financially and mentally unstable, and unprepared for the birth of her daughter. Monroe never knew the identity of her father, and for the first few years of her childhood was placed in the care of Albert and Ida Bolender. Gladys still remained a present figure in her daughter's life as she grew up, living with the Bolenders until her job forced her to move back into the city. In 1933, when Monroe was seven years old, her mother decided she was ready to take her daughter home. They moved to Hollywood, but Monroe's picturesque childhood was thrown upside down when her mother suffered a mental breakdown in 1934. As a result, Monroe was passed between foster families for eight years. While living with the Atkinsons during the first 16 months, she claims she was sexually abused. She stayed with her motheks friend, Grace McKee Goddard, who placed Monroe in an orphanage before her tenth birthday. Eventually, the orphanage encouraged Goddard to become her legal guardian. But within a few months of living with her new family, Monroe expressed in her later years that she was sexually molested by Goddard’s husband, forcing her to find a more permanent residence with Goddard's aunt. She was forced to return to the Goddards when the aunt's failing health prevented her from looking after Monroe.
Back with the Goddards, Monroe faced being made to return to the orphanage when the family decided to relocate to West Virginia.
Because Monroe had been declared a ward of the State (due to her mother's inability to look after her), she was unable to leave the State with the Goddards, and instead decided to marry who would become her first husband, James 'Jim' Dougherty, her neighbours’ 21-year-old son. The pair were married on 19 June 1942, just days after Monroe's 16th birthday. In 1943, Dougherty, a former factory worker, enrolled in the Merchant Marines. The married couple lived in Catalina Island until Dougherty was drafted out to the Pacific the following year. With her husband away, Monroe moved in with her in-laws. She began to earn a wage and contribute to the war effort that had engulfed America during World War II, working at the Radioplane Munitions Factory. It was here that Monroe's first shot at fame arose. Photographer David Conover, tasked with snapping morale-boosting pictures of the women in the factory for the Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit, met Monroe during his project at the factory. By January 1945, Monroe had quit her job and begun modelling for Conover and his friends. She moved out of her in-laws' home and signed a contract with Blue Book Model Agency in August 1945, defying her husband's and in-laws' wishes that she stay at home and be a housewife.
While modelling, Monroe worked under the name 'Jean Norman', and dyed her brunette locks blonde. Her curvaceous figure made her a better fit for pin-up modelling, and within a few short months, Monroe had appeared on the front pages of more than 30 magazines. The agency's owner, Emmeline Snively, remembers Monroe as ambitious and hardworking, and because of her work ethic, afforded Monroe with a contract with an acting agency in June 1946. Within two months, Monroe had scored a six-month contract with 20th Century Fox. The name 'Marilyn Monroe' was born of a discussion between the actress and the executive who had performed her screen text, Ben Lyon. Lyon liked the name Marilyn because of the memorable actress Marilyn Miller, while Monroe was chosen by the actress herself - it was her mother's maiden name. Dougherty was against the idea of his wife having a career, and in September 1946 they were divorced. Now a free agent, Monroe put all her efforts into her career, taking acting, dancing and singing classes, and spent a great deal of time observing her peers in the studio. After Monroe's contract was renewed in February 1947, she scored her first roles in Dangerous Years and Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! Despite her hard work and film roles, Monroe's contract was not renewed in August 1947, and she had to return to modelling and menial jobs at the studios.
Monroe was eventually signed by Columbia Pictures in 1948 following her departure from 20th Century Fox, but the blonde bombshell had to, in the meantime, endure disappointments, and entertain influential male guests at studio functions. As a result of her friendship with Joseph M Schenck, an executive at Fox, she was signed to Columbia Pictures. While at Columbia Pictures, Monroe scored her first leading role in a low-budget musical rendition of Ladies ofthe Chorus. Around this time, Monroe’s iconic look was beginning to take shape. She paid to have her hairline raised through electrolysis, and dyed her hair platinum blonde. Her vocal coach, Fred Karger, paid to have her slight overbite corrected. Monroe left Columbia Pictures after her six-month contract expired and was not renewed. From here, she latched onto Johnny Hyde, the vice president of the William Morris Agency, and became his protégé. Although their relationship developed into a sexual one, Monroe turned down Hyde's multiple marriage proposals, but the wealthy businessman paid for a silicone prosthesis in her jaw and scored her a part in the Marx Brother's 1950 film Love Happy. In what would be one of his last acts of love for Monroe, Hyde negotiated a seven-year contract for her with 20th Century Fox. He died of a heart attack just days later. A grieving Monroe pursued her career, which was now gathering momentum In 1951 Monroe appeared in several films created by Fox. Her roles began to show the 'girl next door’ blossom into a sexual sensation on the big screen. A critic of the Los Angeles Times said that Monroe was "one of the brightest up-and-coming” actresses for her performance in Love Nest. While she developed a relationship with "one of the most honoured and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history", Elia Kazan, she also dated several other men before finally settling on retired New York Yankee centerfielder Joe DiMaggio. She was named the 'It girl' of 1952, as well as the "best young box-office personality." Nothing could rock Monroe, even when she admitted in a magazine interview that she had posed nude for photographs taken by photographer Tom Kelley in 1942. Such a move could have damaged the career of any talented actress at the time but, a result of her honesty, Monroe gained even more admiration from the public.
Monroe began to grapple with the fact that directions typecast her in comic roles that focussed on her growing sex appeal. She wanted to star in roles that showcased her acting range and professional talent, as opposed to roles in which she played a prostitute or haphazard, 'childish' and 'dumb blonde' secretary, or was paraded in front of the camera in sexy and revealing outfits. At such a time Monroe began to become 'difficult' to work with. She was regularly late on set, sometimes not showing up at all. When she was present she often forgot her lines, or was such a perfectionist concerning her performances and would demand several retakes of scenes untii she was satisfied with her performance. She became borderline reliant on her acting coaches, much to the annoyance of directors. Her attitude on set was put down to anxiety issues, which Monroe alleviated along with her chronic insomnia with the use of barbiturates, amphetamines and alcohol. Monroe could be functional on set, but self-medicated her problems behind closed doors. In 1953 Monroe starred in three major films: Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How To Marry A Millionaire. By the end of the year, her status as a sex symbol was engraved in the pages of Playboy when Hugh Hefner showcased her as not only the front-page feature, showing Monroe at the Miss America Pageant parade in 1952, but also as the centrefold image, which was one of her nude photographs shot by Kelley.
Monroe was growing annoyed at Fox's executive, Darryl Zanuck, for preventing her from performing roles outside of the musical-comedy genre the public had grown to expect of Monroe. Hitting back at Zanuck, Monroe refused to begin filming a film version of The Girl In Pink Tights. The studio suspended her on 4 January 1954. Ten days later, she married DiMaggio at San Francisco City Hall, and by March had returned to the studio under an agreement that a new contract would be made later in the year, and that for the lead role in the film version of the Broadway musical The Seven Year Itch, she would receive a bonus of $100,000. While filming a scene on Lexington Avenue, Monroe wore a white dress and stood over a subway grate. The air from beneath her sent her skirt billowing against her fair skin, flashing a raunchy and seductive peak of her underskirt. It became one of the most famous scenes in her career, but also the final nail in the coffin as far as her marriage was concerned. DiMaggio was furious about the stunt. Already growing tired of his possessive and controlling ways, Monroe filed for a divorce in October. But by the time the divorce was finalised a year later, Monroe had moved on to playwright Arthur Miller, and the pair were married by the following June.
After filming for The Seven Year Itch was finished, Monroe launched Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP) with photographer Milton Greene. She began a year-long battle with Fox over their failed duties to the actress, such as the payment she was promised. Eventually a compromise was reached where Monroe was to worlc with Fox and produce four movies over seven years. As a result she was granted the right to choose her own projects, directors and cinematographers, and in return would be allowed to make one film a year with MMP. While shooting The Prince And The Showgirl
in August 1956, Monroe detested director Laurence 01iver's condescending attitude towards her. In retaliation, she became increasingly difficult to work with. "She never arrived on time, never said a line the same way twice, seemed completely unable to hit her marks on the set, and couldn't and wouldn't do anything at all without Consulting her acting coach, Paula Strasberg," said cinematographer Jack Cardiff. By this point, Monroe's drug use was ever present in the background as she navigated her way through the myriad of show business. She also became pregnant, rumoured to be the result of an affair with Yves Montand, but she miscarried. She was pregnant again the following year but, it was ectopic and had to be terminated. According to Monroe's nearest and dearest, she longed for a child, but her endometriosis played havoc with her fertility. She suffered a second miscarriage the following year.
By this time Monroe was on a hiatus, which lasted 18 months before she finally returned to Hollywood to star in Some Like It Hot. But her demanding and diva-like attitude quickly returned. Monroe forgot her lines, refused to act as directed, and manipulated scenes in order to have them done her own way. After the production had finished, a tired Monroe took another hiatus until late 1959, returning to star in Let's Make Love.
During an interview in 1960 for the film, Monroe was asked by Marie Claire's editor in chief, Georges Belmont, what she wore to bed. Monroe answered: "I wear Chanel No.5," a famous and now iconic perfume by designer Chanel. The media took it to mean she wore only perfume to bed, whereas Monroe had answered the question regarding something special she wore to bed along with her pyjamas. It would end up being one of the most controversial answers she ever gave to the media, who sensationalised her interview with the quote: "Marilyn Monroe sleeps naked, wearing only Chanel No.5." The film however, was rather unsuccessful, as was Monroe’s marriage to its writer. Monroe and Miller divorced after filming was finished for what would be Monroe's last production, The Misfits, in 1961. Her health - both mentally and physically - was declining, and her drug addiction was sadly on the incline.
Pictured together at numerous events, the 'affair' between President John F Kennedy and a movie- star Monroe was never officially proven, but nor was it ever officially disproven. On 24 March 1962, the pair were guests at a party at Bing Crosby's Palm Spring home, a meeting arranged through the president's brother-in-law, Peter Lawford. According to Marilyn Monroe's biographer, Donald Spoto, Monroe's personal masseuse, Ralph Roberts, confessed that he was called to the room in which the president was staying by Monroe, where the trio had a discussion about Kennedy's back problems. Roberts later claimed that Monroe had confided in him that the pair had sex that night. He went on to claim that it was a one-time event that never happened again, according to Monroe. Author Christopher Andersen wrote in his 2013 book These Few Precious Days: The Final Year OfJack With Jackie, that Monroe had in fact phoned the First Lady to boast that her husband was intending to leave the First Lady and their family for her. The next time JFI< and his alleged mistress were in the same room was at his birthday celebrations in May just months before she died.
In the early hours of 5 August 1962, Monroe's psychiatrist discovered the movie-star mogul dead in her Brentwood home. It was determined that the actress had died between 8.30pm and 10.30pm. A toxicology report revealed that she had died from acute barbiturate poisoning. Due to her history of depression and mood swings, and the fact that she had overdosed in the past, her death was ruled as probable suicide. Even in death Monroe caused a scandal among the media, as conspiracy theories about her death began to circulate. The rumours gathered such momentum that a threshold investigation was conducted 20 years after Monroe died to further decide if any criminal investigation should be opened. However no evidence of foul play was found. Monroe’s death, just as her life had been, was a media circus.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. PRESIDENT
The breathy chorus from Marilyn for President Kennedy was a bold and daring performance that earned her even more notoriety.
At President Kennedy's 45th birthday celebrations in Madison Square Gardens in 1962, which his wife did not attend, Monroe wore the most scandalous dress of her entire life. Designed by Oscar-winning designer Jean Lewis, the nude-coloured dress was arrogantly littered with 2,500 sparkling rhinestone jewels covering the star’s modesty (she wore nothing underneath the sheer layers of fabric). The dress was so tight fitting that she had trouble getting into it, but when she peeled back her ermine fur coat on stage to reveal her outfit, the audience literally gasped in amazement. As Monroe had such a reputation fortardiness, JFK’s brother-in-law, British actor Peter Lawford, continuously teased the crowd by introducing her on the stage; each time she failed to appear untii she was introduced as ’the late Marilyn Monroe’. In front of 15,000 guests and accompanied by jazz pianist Frank Jones, she sang 'Happy Birthday’ to the leaderofthe US, combining the traditional 'Happy Birthday’ song with a snipped of Thanks For The Memories. Followingthe performance, a birthday cake was presented to the president who told Monroe: "I can now retire from politics after having had Hoppy Birthday sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.” This public display was one of Monroe’s last public performances before her death less than three months later.
MONROE'S MONTAGE OF AFFAIRS
Monroe was linked to numerous men and women who she had affairs with as she racked up husbands and divorce papers.
Frank Sinatra
For several months in 1961, Frank Sinatra and Monroe had an affair, having known each other for several years. Sources indicate that Marilyn was completely infatuated with Sinatra and wanted to marry him, but that in the falL he broke off their relationship.
Bobby Kennedy
News broke in late 2016 that letters between Monroe and Bobby Kennedy 'confirmed' their romantic involvement after centuries of rumours circulatingthe mill. Correspondence from John and Roberfs sister stated: "Understand that you and Bobby are the new item! We all think you should come home with him when he comes back East!"
Joan Crawford
An author, who claims to have been close to Monroe as she grew up alleges in her book Marilyn Monroe: My Little Secret that she had a sexual encounter with Monroe and that the "free spirited" actress also had similar encounters with Joan Crawford and Elizabeth Taylor.
Yves Montand
While filming Let's Make Love in 1962, it was rumoured that Monroe and herco-star, Montand, a French actor, began an affair, bonding over their difficulties with the film. Fox manipulated the rumours to gain the production publicity. When Montand returned to France after filming was complete, the affair ended.
Elia Kazan
"Fm not sorry about it," said movie director Kazan in a letter to his wife confessing to his affair with a 29-year-old Monroe a few years earlier. "She is not a big sex pot as advertised. At least not in my experience," he continued.
In "All About History - Book of Scandals", UK, 2019, excerpts pp.21-25. Digitized,adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.