Everyone wants a piece of Marilyn
Fifty years after her death, screen goddess and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe still continues to be as mysterious and as elusive as before. Here are glimpses of the enchanting actress.
The beginning
On June 1, 1926, a little girl named Norma Jeane was born. The sad story of her childhood would be one much repeated and capitalised upon when this child became the most famous female star in Hollywood history. Norma Jeane did spend considerable time in foster homes, and very little of her childhood with her mother, Gladys. But the tales of childhood woe told later in her life were often exaggerated. Nonetheless, Norma Jeane had a difficult childhood, and suffered emotional problems throughout her life as a result of her lack of stability in childhood, and her feeling of being unwanted. She tried to replace the father and mother, the family she never really had, through her marriages and by attaching herself to the families of others.
Trivia
Read and wrote poetry. Her favourite poets were Walt Whitman and John Keats.
Monroe was a stutterer, a little known fact that was easily covered thanks to studio vocal coaches who provided her with dictation lessons.
Champagne was her drink of choice and Dom Perignon was her personal favourite. There are over 600 books written about her.
Her “Happy Birthday Mr. President” dress sold for $1,267,500.00, a world record for the most expensive piece of clothing ever sold, and is in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Candle in the Wind, Elton John’s song, was originally written about her, and was lyrically re-changed to fit Princess Diana upon her death, in 1997. Coincidentally, both legends died at age 36.
Marilyn’s husbands
Norma Jeane married James Dougherty in June of 1942, when she was just 16. He was older, something common to all of her husbands. The marriage was not, from most reports, particularly unhappy, but it was doomed to failure. Norma Jeane had higher aspirations than just being Mrs Dougherty. In 1944, while working at a parachute factory, a new model was discovered, and Norma Jeane Dougherty’s face began to appear on numerous magazine covers. Her rise to stardom had begun. In 1946, Norma Jeane got a divorce, a new name, and set herself on the path to a new career as an actress. The name was Marilyn Monroe.
In January 1954 Marilyn married Joe DiMaggio, a handsome baseball player. But though the public loved it, the marriage was as doomed as Marilyn’s first marriage. Joe was a conservative man who found it difficult to understand the need for Marilyn to flaunt her body. Marilyn would not give up her career. The marriage lasted only nine months.
Arthur Miller( June 1956-January ). In the summer of 1956, two things happened. Marilyn married playwright Arthur Miller, and her latest film, Bus Stop, was released. The Miller marriage would last longer than any other.
For the record, it is alleged that Bob Slatzer was married to her for a few days in Mexico in October 1952 but there is no marriage certificate to prove it.
Monroe’s musings
Before marriage, a girl has to make love to a man to hold him. After marriage, she has to hold him to make love to him.
I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.
I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.
Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die, young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know yourself…
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 kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty.
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