MARILYN IN PERSPECTIVE

Marilyn Monroe
June 1, 1926   -  August 5, 1962 

It's not easy to be a sex symbol. It's even more difficult to live up to an illusion. All of Hollywood is an illusion, a fabrication, a fantasy devised solely to foster our delusions of what we imagine things to be.

When Marilyn Monroe died on August 5, 1962, she was only 36 years old but the pinnacle of her fame seemed to be slowly slipping and the fragility of her true self was taking its toll.

This isn't intended to be a biography of Marilyn, nor a saccharine tribute. It's just a few raw facts as I know them, which will perhaps - perhaps - put an illusion into perspective.

When I first went to Hollywood as a nineteen-year-old kid, I had a Marilyn Monroe obsession. I read all the Monroe biographies I could find. I saw the house where she died, on Fifth Helena Drive (not easy to locate, and there's a wall around it). I had a huge poster of her in my room.

 This is the poster I had in my room

What attracted me most was the depth of her insecurities, her low self-esteem, her emotional fragility. The inner person that nobody wanted to see. I could strongly identify with that.

The closest I ever came to Marilyn was that late autumn night at 3:00 a.m. when I wandered into the courtyard of Grauman's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. I searched the maze of foot and hand prints in cement until I finally found Marilyn's, right alongside of Jane Russell's. Drunk and tired, I laid down and fell asleep on Marilyn's prints - - until a cop poked me awake with his foot.

"What are you doing here?" he wanted to know.

"I spent the night with Marilyn, " I told him.

 He didn't seem amused.

Marilyn and Jane Russell

leaving their prints in cement

at Grauman's Chinese Theater

Marilyn Monroe is considered to be the undisputed Goddess of Hollywood - the  epitome of glamor, sex, and perfection.

Any possibility of her being imperfect is quickly expunged, blasted, disputed, denied. We desperately cling to the Grand Illusion, because without it there is nothing.

In reality, Marilyn was about as far from perfect as anyone could get - and I think that's what I always liked most about her. She was painfully aware of her real imperfect self, but dutifully (and masterfully) projected the public image of perfection.

She was plagued with anxiety, low self-esteem, self doubt, depression, and insomnia. She relied heavily on drugs and alcohol to function and to escape. She stuttered persistently and learned to overcome it only with extensive vocal training. Her inability to learn and retain the lines in her films wasn't due to being an airhead, it was solely caused by fear and anxiety.

Perhaps the most often-quoted example of this is when it took her over sixty takes to say "It's me, Sugar!" in the film Some Like It Hot. 

Marilyn Monroe's real name was Norma Jeane Mortenson. Her mother Gladys Monroe married Jasper Baker in 1917. They had two children, Robert and Bernice. After they divorced, Jasper kidnapped the two children and moved to Kentucky. Gladys then married Martin Edward Mortenson in 1924. Marilyn (Norma) was born in 1926.

Marilyn's biological father

Charles Stanley Gifford

At the time that Gladys was married to Mortenson, she was having an affair with a co-worker named Charles Stanley Gifford. It is nearly certain that Gifford was Marilyn Monroe's real father, although he and his family consistently denied it.

To say that her childhood was tragic is an understatement. Her mother Gladys  had no desire to raise her. She put Marilyn in a foster home and occasionally came to visit. Gladys - who suffered from bi-polar disorder - eventually had a nervous breakdown and was confined to a mental hospital.
Mental illness was prevalent in Gladys Monroe's family, and Marilyn was always terrified that she might inherit it.

 

Marilyn and her mother Gladys

 

Marilyn spent the duration of her childhood in an orphanage and no less than eleven foster homes, during which time she was sexually abused. When she was sixteen her current foster parents planned to move out of state and said that they couldn't take her with them. They gave her an ultimatum: either get married or go back to the orphanage. She married 21 year-old James Dougherty, who was a friend of the family.

While Jim Dougherty was in the service during WWII, Marilyn became obsessed with modeling and pursuing an acting career. The rest is history. She initially modeled using the names Jean Norman and Mona Monroe. She didn't legally change her name to Marilyn Monroe until 1956.

 Marilyn and first husband Jim Dougherty

A few people have gotten angry with disbelief when I told them that Marilyn Monroe had plastic surgery. It's an undisputed fact. She had her protruding front teeth fixed in 1948.

In 1949 her agent (and lover) Johnny Hyde paid for her to have a nose job and chin implant. The surgery was performed in the Los Angeles office of Dr. Michael Gurdin, but the doctor who actually did the surgery was John Pangman. 
Marilyn didn't need radical surgery, but she got just enough to modify her features and make her look perfect.

Incidentally, the chin implant was a type of plastic sponge that Pangman was experimenting with. The implant began to dissolve over time, which compelled Marilyn to make a return visit to the doctor in 1958.

 Before surgery

 ...and after

A few random facts about Marilyn:
Height: 5' 5 1/2"
Weight: 118 lbs.
Eye color: blue - - not exactly, they were more of a hazel or light brown.
Dress size: 12
Bra size: 36D
I beg to differ - her boobs appeared to have been a smaller size. Most of the 1950's sex starlets were stuffed with those humongous torpedo bras.
Social Security #: 563 32 0764

ID card when she was married to Joe Dimaggio

Did Marilyn do her own singing in films?

Well, some of the time, but difficult passages and high notes were dubbed by Marni Nixon.

Nixon also dubbed Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.

There are rumors of abortions and miscarriages. Since Marilyn loved children it's highly unlikely that she would have willingly had an abortion (unless it was required by a studio due to filming schedules). She was supposedly a good cook, liked poetry and fine art. She enjoyed being nude.

Marilyn Monroe was the very first centerfold in Playboy Magazine - Playmate of the Month 1953 (at that time they were called "Sweethearts", not "Centerfolds." She was paid $50 for the nude photos.

The infamous sexual encounter that she had with President Kennedy in reality only lasted one weekend in Palm Springs. This was confirmed by Marilyn's friend Ralph Roberts and several secret service agents of JFK.

The legend of an on-going affair was partially fueled by the sultry, sexy rendition of Happy Birthday that she sang to JFK during his birthday bash in May, 1962. The rumors began long after Marilyn and Kennedy were dead. She never had an affair with Robert Kennedy.

Two months before she died, in June, 1962, Marilyn's nose was slightly fractured - supposedly from a fall. In truth, she was beaten up (or at least punched) by her psychiatrist Ralph Greenson. He accompanied her when she went to her plastic surgeon Dr. Gurdin. It was decided that further surgery on her nose was unnecessary.

By August, 1962, Marilyn's life seemed to be suspended in a drug-hazed limbo. She had been fired by 20th Century Fox on June 8th during the production of Something's Got to Give. This was due to her perpetual absence from the set because of health issues and drug-induced stupors.

Another important factor - which is often overlooked - is the fact that 20th Century Fox was heavily in debt with the nightmarish production of Cleopatra (starring Elizabeth Taylor ) which was being filmed in Rome at that time. In a financial panic, the studio was eager to drop other productions.

On July 13, about three weeks before her death, Marilyn did a photo shoot on the beach at Santa Monica for her photographer friend George Barris. She wasn't exactly pleased with her physical appearance in the photos. She was only 36 - a "baby" by today's standards. At that time, however, when a sex Goddess was pushing 40, the end of her career was usually in plain sight.

From the photo shoot at Santa Monica in July, 1962

a few weeks before her death 

Marilyn was plagued with health problems: sinusitis, an ulcerated colon, and endometriosis - which caused pain and discomfort in the uterus and abnormal vaginal bleeding.

She died on August 5, 1962, of a barbiturate overdose (nembutal, also known as pentobarbital - used to induce sleep). The telephone receiver was clasped in her hand.

Was her death suicide? I seriously doubt it. She was anxious and depressed, but that was her standard psychological mode. She wanted escape, wanted blessed oblivion - - but not death. She was reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" at the time of her death, and planning to pick up some new furniture for her house the next day.

Was she murdered? Highly unlikely. Another preposterous rumor that has been elevated, inflated,  and perpetuated by the conspiracy fanatics. The usual suspects.

I think that biographer Fred Lawrence Guiles said it best in his biography Norma Jean: the Life of Marilyn Monroe.
"All that was missing was the rescue."

Marilyn was expecting the rescue that never came. She hadn't counted on the prospect of eternal sleep......

copyright 2015 by Jon Varga


My personal favorite Marilyn films:

Don't Bother to Knock 1952
Niagara 1953
The Seven Year Itch 1955
Some Like it Hot 1959

Her worst film:
The Misfits 1961
and possibly Bus Stop 1956

Okay, my criticism of "Bus Stop" might be unduly harsh...but I intensely dislike "The Misfits".



Note:
I wrote this post several years ago but recently made a few slight revisions.    Jon