She is born on 1 June 1926 to a single mother whom her father deserted. She never met her real father. Her mother suffered a nervous breakdown soon after she was born and young Marilyn had to be placed in foster care.
Her mother later showed her a picture of Clarke Gable and told her he was her father. Later Marilyn, whose real name was Norma Jean Baker, would co-star with Clarke Gable in a movie, during which he died. Many would blame her capricious and erratic behavior for his death. Gable suffered a heart attack on set as they were filming in the middle of a heatwave and Marilyn would demand they did each scene several times and she was often late-onset or forgot her words.
She thus felt responsible for killing her own ‘’father’’.She grew up in orphanages and foster families. One of her ‘’stepfathers’’ molested her when quite young. Her stepmother sent her away telling her, however ‘’ I wish I could have kept you instead and send him away’’.
She married her first husband at 16 so as to avoid going back to another foster family or even worse an orphanage. She dropped out of high school. She became Mrs. Dougherty.
Her husband used to take her half naked pictures and show her to his colleagues. A photographer saw her and offered her a job as a model.
She posed naked for Playboy which she later justified by claiming she was poor and could not afford to pay her rent.
Indeed, instead of being scrutinised for her ‘’sinful’’ past she gained people’s sympathy. By then she had become a movie star, like her idol Jean Harlow.
Though people flocked to the movies to see her she was hugely underestimated and she was in fact paid less than her co stars whom no one even remembers. She was trapped in the ‘’ brainless beauty’’ image. However, she started her own production company and she soon had Hollywood studios at her feet. Her lack of professionalism got her fired later on.
At 27 and at the height of her fame she marries Joe Dimaggio a 39-year-old baseball player. They honeymoon in Japan. The marriage is turbulent and brief. It lasts only 9 months.
Joe Dimaggio is jealous of her and beats her. She marries again famous playwright Arthur Miller.
He regrets marrying her and he writes it on his journal. She reads it and she is devestated. He cheats on her. She suffers a miscarriage to what would have been a boy. They get a divorce. He marries his mistress.
Marilyn is divorced and depressed. She suffers from insomnia. She needs sleeping pills. Her behavior becomes more and more erratic. She is not hired in Hollywood.
Monroe is rumored to have had affairs with both John and Robert Kennedy.
Many people believe that her death, attributed to suicide, was, in fact, a government cover-up to prevent her from revealing her relationship with Bobby Kennedy. Joe Dimaggio, her second husband who brought white roses on her grave twice a week for 20 years, implied that the Kennedys, who were both murdered, ‘’got what they deserved’’.
Or was he jealous that the woman he adored had an affair with both of them? Or do we want to believe she was murdered because we can’t accept that someone as beautiful and radiant as her would want to take her own life? Marilyn Monroe did make many fake suicide attempts for attention.
| On 5 August 1962 Norman Jean Baker is found dead.
She is only 36. Her death is ruled a suicide. Barbiturate overdose. Marilyn Monroe however never dies, instead, she is immortalized.
She becomes a timeless and global icon of beauty and sex appeal.
By the way, she was an excellent cook. She even wanted to publish a cookbook. I think she would have been much happier as a homemaker and a mother rather than a Hollywood star. RIP Marilyn.
