Norma Jean BAKER aka Marilyn Monroe

Norma Jean Baker aka Marilyn Monore

Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angles, Los Angles, California

      1. Norma Jean BAKER ¹  was born on 1 Jun 1926 in Los Angles, Los Angles, California. She died on 5 Aug 1962 in Los Angles, Los Angles, California.  The cause of death was overdose of Nembutal and Chloral Hydrate. She was buried²  in Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angles, Los Angles, California.

Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926 - August 5, 1962) was a twentieth-century movie star, sex symbol and

pop icon. Known for her comedic skills and remarkable screen presence, many now consider her a

legendary screen actress.

Early life

Marilyn Monroe was born on June 1, 1926 in the charity ward of the Los Angeles County Hospital. Her

registered name was Norma Jeane Mortenson, but her grandmother, Della Monroe Grainger, later had

her baptized as Norma Jeane Baker. For a while most biographers believed her biological father was

very likely to be Charles Stanley Gifford, a salesman for the studio where Monroe's mother, the late

Gladys Pearl Monroe Baker Eley, worked as a film-cutter.

Gladys was unable to persuade her mother Della to look after the baby Marilyn, so Marilyn was placed

with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, California, southwest of Los Angeles, where

she lived until she was seven years old. In her autobiography My Story, Monroe states she thought

Albert and Ida were her biological parents until one day, rather rudely, Ida corrected her. Monroe's book,

however, has not been considered a reliable source as it was ghostwritten by Ben Hecht and used as a

publicity vehicle. After Monroe's death, Ida claimed that she and Albert had considered adopting her, for

which they would have needed her mother Gladys' consent.

Again according to My Story, Gladys visited Norma Jeane every Saturday, but never smiled, hugged or

kissed her. At some point, Gladys announced that she had bought a house for herself and her daughter,

but a few months after they moved in, she suffered a mental breakdown. Marilyn recalled Gladys "

screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly removed to the State Mental Hospital in Norwalk,

California, the same hospital where Gladys' mother Della had died in August 1927. Gladys' father, Otis,

had also died in a mental hospital (near San Bernardino, California) as a result of syphilis.

Consequently Norma Jeane was declared a ward of state and Gladys' best friend, Grace McKee (later

Goddard) became her guardian. After Grace married in 1935, Norma Jeane was sent to the Los

Angeles orphanage and then to a long succession of foster homes where it is alleged she was

subjected to abuse and neglect. There is little evidence, however, that she lived in as many foster

homes as has sometimes been claimed and Monroe herself is known to have given exaggerated

information about her childhood during interviews.

In September 1941, Marilyn was reunited with her mother. The Goddard family, however, were moving

to the East Coast and felt it would be best if the fifteen-year old Norma Jeane were to marry, as

otherwise she would have to return to the orphanage. She had been introduced to a neighbor's son,

James Dougherty, who would become her first husband.

Career

While her husband was away fighting in the Second World War, the young Norma Jeane began work in

a factory, where she was discovered by photographer David Conover. He immediately saw her potential

as a model and she was soon signed by The Blue Book modelling agency. She became one of their

most successful models, appearing on hundreds of magazine covers. In 1946 she came to the attention

of talent scout Ben Lyon who arranged a screen test for her with 20th Century Fox. She passed and was

offered a standard six-month contract with a starting salary of $75 per week. She was given the name

Marilyn after the actress Marilyn Miller and suggested her mother's maiden name Monroe as her

surname. Thus the twenty-year old Norma Jeane Baker became "Marilyn Monroe".

During her first six months at 20th Century Fox, Monroe was given no acting work but instead learned

about hair, make-up, costumes, acting and lighting. After six months Fox decided to renew her contract

and in the following six months she was given minor roles in two movies, Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!

and Dangerous Years, both released in 1947. Both films failed at the box office and Fox decided not to

renew her contract again. Monroe returned to modelling work and began to network and make contacts

in Hollywood. In 1948 a six-month stint at Columbia Pictures saw her star in one movie, Ladies of the

Chorus, but it was not a success and she was dropped. She then met one of Hollywood's top agents,

Johnny Hyde, who had Fox re-sign her after MGM had turned her down. Although Fox vice-president

Darryl F. Zanuck was not convinced of Monroe's star potential, she began to make her mark with

performances in films such as All About Eve and The Asphalt Jungle.

Monroe played her first role as a leading lady in Don't Bother To Knock, portraying a deranged

babysitter who, in a rage, attacks the little girl in her care. Although it received mixed reviews, Monroe

later claimed it to be one of her favorite performances. Her performance in Niagara (1953), however,

left little doubt about her on-screen sex appeal. It was around this time that nude photos of Monroe

began to surface, taken by Tom Kelley when she had been struggling for work. Prints were bought by

Hugh Hefner and in December 1953 appeared in the first edition of his new magazine, Playboy. To a

journalist asking what she had on during the photoshoot, she famously replied: "The radio!" To a

journalist asking what she wore in bed, she famously replied: "Chanel No. 5!"

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, both released in 1953, catapulted Monroe

into A-list status and she quickly became the world's biggest movie star. Her next two films, River of No

Return and There's No Business Like Show Business were not as successful and she began to tire of

the "dumb blonde" roles that Zanuck assigned her. After completing work on The Seven Year Itch in

1954, she broke her contract and fled Hollywood to study acting at The Actors Studio in New York. Fox

would not accede on her new contract demands and insisted she return to start work on productions

she considered inappropriate, such as Heller In Pink Tights and How To Be Very, Very Popular.

However, The Seven Year Itch raced to the top of the summer 1955 box office takings and other Fox

starlets Jayne Mansfield and Sheree North were not as well-received, so Zanuck agreed to draw up a

new contract with Monroe and she returned to Hollywood.

The first film to be made under her new contract was Bus Stop, directed by Joshua Logan. Critics

immediately noted a change in Monroe's acting and generally praised her performance as Cherie, a

saloon bar singer who falls in love with a cowboy. Monroe, however, was devastated to find that Fox

had cut many of what she thought were her best scenes and believed it cost her the chance of an

Academy Award and wider critical acclaim.

Practically unheard of at the time, Monroe was the first woman to form her own production company

with friend and photographer Milton H. Greene. Marilyn Monroe Productions released its first film The

Prince and the Showgirl in 1957 to mixed reviews. As well as producing the film, she starred opposite

the acclaimed British actor Laurence Olivier, who directed it. Unfortunately their chemistry was lacking

and Monroe's reputation in the film industry for being difficult only grew. Despite this setback, in 1959

she scored another huge hit starring alongside Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder's comedy

Some Like It Hot, a film now consistently rated as one of the best comedy films ever made.

By 1961, Monroe's third husband, the playwright Arthur Miller, had written and worked on what became

her and her co-star Clark Gable's last completed film, The Misfits. She made her last significant public

appearance in May 1962, singing Happy Birthday, Mr. President at a televised birthday party for

President John F. Kennedy. Monroe returned to Hollywood to resume filming on an already troubled

picture, Something's Got to Give. After shooting what was claimed to have been the first ever nude

scene by a major motion picture actress, Monroe's attendance became even more erratic due to illness.

Already in a financial strain due to production costs of, Cleopatra, Fox used Monroe's absences as an

excuse to drop Monroe from the film and replace her. However, a clause in co-star Dean Martin's

contract gave him approval over the film's leading lady, so, as he was unwilling to work with anyone

else, Monroe was rehired for double her original salary. It was at this time Monroe conducted a lengthy

interview with Life Magazine, did a photo shoot for Vogue, and began discussing a future film project

with Gene Kelly.

Before shooting resumed, however, Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles home, on the morning

of August 5, 1962. Her death, officially ruled to be probable suicide by drug overdose, has since been

found to contain instances of unprofessional handling of the investigation. The death of Marilyn Monroe

has become the subject of many conspiracy theories, but these have done little to dent her iconic status

as the archetypal sex symbol and movie star.

Marriages

James Dougherty

Aged sixteen, Monroe married James Dougherty on June 19, 1942. In the books The Secret Happiness

of Marilyn Monroe and To Norma Jeane With Love, Jimmie, Dougherty claimed that he and Monroe

were in love and would have lived happily ever after had dreams of stardom not lured her away. Monroe,

however, always maintained that the marriage was a marriage of convenience foisted upon them by her

foster mother Grace Goddard. Marilyn divorced James Dougherty on September 13, 1946.

In the 2004 documentary Marilyn's Man, Dougherty made three significant claims: that it was he who

had invented the "Marilyn Monroe" persona; that Fox had forced her to divorce him; and that she had

always yearned to return to him. To date, however, no evidence to support these claims has been

published, nor any evidence that Monroe and Dougherty remained in touch after their divorce. Monroe

was reportedly furious when Dougherty gave an interview to the fan magazine Photoplay in 1953 and

claimed that she had threatened to jump off the Santa Monica Pier if he ever left her. Later he later

appeared as a contestant on the gameshow To Tell the Truth as "Marilyn Monroe's real first husband".

Dougherty's own actions did not support his claims of being Monroe's Svengali, nor her only true love.

He remarried only a few months after Monroe divorced him; when informed of her death, the New York

Times reported that he had simply said "I'm sorry" and continued his LAPD patrol; and he did not attend

her funeral. In an interview for the A&E Network, Dougherty admitted that his mother had been

approached by Grace Goddard and afterward had asked him if he'd be willing to marry Norma Jeane to

prevent her from being sent to an orphanage.

James Dougherty remained married to his third wife until her death in 2003. He lived in Maine until his

own death from complications due to leukemia on August 15, 2005.

Joe DiMaggio

In 1951 the baseball star Joe DiMaggio saw a picture of Monroe with two Chicago White Sox players,

but waited until his retirement from baseball before asking the man who arranged the picture to set up a

date. At first Monroe did not want to see him, fearing a stereotypical jock, but after a two-year courtship

they eloped and married at San Francisco's City Hall on January 14, 1954. During the couple's

honeymoon, Marilyn was asked to take a detour to Korea to entertain the troops. She performed ten

shows over a four day tour in freezing temperatures. Her audience consisted of more than 100,000

soldiers and marines.

Unfortunately the marriage would quickly prove to be undermined by DiMaggio's jealousy over

Monroe's sexpot image. Although they both claimed to want to settle down, Monroe still longed to

perfect her craft and gain respect from her peers. Friends claimed that Joe became posessive and

controlling as Marilyn became more and more defiant of his wishes. After filming the notorious skirt-

blowing scene in The Seven Year Itch, for example, director Billy Wilder recalled the "look of death" on

DiMaggio's face as he watched alongside fans and extras as her panties were revealed over and over

again. Marilyn's makeup man, Allan "Whitey" Snyder, also recalled that soon after the skirt scene,

Marilyn appeared on set with bruises on her upper arms. Furthermore, DiMaggio's biographer Richard

Ben Cramer claims that DiMaggio was so "disgusted" by Monroe's "sloppiness" that he began to abuse

her. On October 27, 1954, 274 days after their marriage, Monroe was pressured by 20th Century Fox to

obtain a divorce from DiMaggio on the grounds of mental cruelty. Strangely enough, on her 29th

birthday, DiMaggio escorted Monroe to the opening of the movie that essentially ended their marriage.

Arthur Miller

On June 29, 1956, Monroe married the playwright Arthur Miller, whom she had first met in 1951, in a

civil ceremony. A Jewish ceremony followed two days later, prior to which Monroe had converted to

Judaism. After she had finished shooting The Prince and the Showgirl, Monroe and Miller returned to

the States from England and discovered she was pregnant. However, Monroe suffered from

endometriosis and the pregnancy was found to be ectopic, so it was aborted in order to save her life. A

subsequent pregnancy ended in miscarriage.

By 1958, Monroe was the couple's main breadwinner. Not only did she pay alimony to Miller's first wife

but Miller reportedly charged her production company for buying and shipping a Jaguar car to the

United States. His script for the film The Misfits was meant to be a Valentine gift, but by the time filming

started in 1960 their marriage was broken beyond repair. A Mexican divorce was granted on January 24,

1961 and on February 17 Miller married the German-born Inge Morath, one of the Magnum

photographers recording the making of The Misfits.

As her marriage to Miller was ending, Joe DiMaggio re-entered Monroe's life. A few days after her

divorce from Miller, Monroe's psychiatrist arranged for her to be admitted to the Payne Whitney

Psychiatric Clinic in Manhattan, where she was reportedly placed in the ward for the most seriously

disturbed. Six days later DiMaggio managed to have her discharged and she joined him in Florida.

Their "just good friends" claims did not stop rumors of remarriage and during the 1960 Academy

Awards telecast entertainer Bob Hope even dedicated Best Song nominee The Second Time Around to

them. According to DiMaggio biographer Maury Allen, on August 1, 1962 DiMaggio quit his job with a

military post exchange (PX) to return to California and ask Monroe to remarry him.

Death and aftermath

Monroe was found dead in the bedroom of her Brentwood, California home on August 5, 1962, by her

live-in housekeeper Mrs. Eunice Murray. She was thirty-six. Her death was apparently caused by an

overdose of barbiturates, although as with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, several

theories have sprung up around the circumstances. Most try to make a case for murder due to her

connection with the Kennedy family (John F. Kennedy in particular) and there has also been speculation

about the relationship between Mrs. Murray, Monroe's psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson - who hired Mrs.

Murray - and Monroe's personal publicist, Pat Newcomb, who joined the Kennedy administration a few

months after Monroe's death.

A formal reinvestigation in 1982 by the Los Angeles County District Attorney uncovered no evidence of

foul play in Monroe's death. Monroe's body was autopsied by County coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, who,

in his memoir Coroner, states that it was "highly likely" that Monroe's death was suicide. He concedes,

however, that no trace of the barbiturates Monroe purportedly took were found in her stomach or

intestines. This has led some theorists to suggest that Monroe had been rendered unconscious (for

instance via chloral hydrate) and the overdose administered by intravenous injection, or, more likely, by

rectal suppository.

On August 5, 2005 the Los Angeles Times published an account of Monroe's death by former Los

Angeles County prosecutor John W. Miner, who had been present at Monroe's autopsy. It also

published his claim that notes he had taken from tapes supposedly recorded by Monroe for Dr.

Greenson shortly before her death indicated that she was not suicidal. The tapes themselves, however,

remain lost or destroyed, so there would seem to be no way to verify Miner's story.

Monroe's body was claimed by DiMaggio and he arranged her funeral. According to Monroe's half-sister,

Berniece Baker Miracle, DiMaggio took over and she allowed him to do so. For twenty years he had a

dozen red roses delivered to Monroe's crypt three times a week. Unlike other men who had known her

(or had claimed to have known her) intimately, the highly-private DiMaggio never spoke publicly about

Monroe nor wrote a book about his life with her. He died on March 8, 1999.

Gladys, Monroe's biological mother, had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic and between periods in

mental hospitals had married her last husband, John Stewart Eley. He died in 1952. In the early 1970s

she walked out of a sanitorium and flew to Florida, where Berniece Miracle met her at the airport. She

died on March 11, 1984 at a Florida nursing home, refusing to the end to discuss either Norma Jeane or

Marilyn Monroe.

Monroe is interred in a crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, the

cemetery where the aunt of her foster mother Grace Goddard was buried and where Monroe in turn had

arranged for Grace to be buried.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe

Norma married³  (1) James DOUGHERTY  on 19 Jun 1942. The marriage ended in divorce.James was born⁴  on 12 Apr 1921 in Los Angles, California. He died⁵  on 15 Aug 2005 in San Rafael, California.

Norma married⁷  (2) Joe DIMAGGIO ⁶  on 14 Jan 1954. The marriage ended in divorce.Joe was born on 25 Nov 1914. He died on 8 Mar 1999.

Norma married⁹  (3) Arthur MILLER ⁸  on 29 Jun 1956. Arthur was born on 17 Oct 1915. He died on 10 Feb 2005.

Appendix A  -  Sources

  1.  Scott Pfitzinger, World Connect Project pages of Scott Pfitzinger  (http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GED&db=:3183927).

  2.  Find A Grave  (http://www.findagrave.com/).Westwood Memorial Park Los AngelesLos Angeles CountyCalifornia, USAPlot: Corridor of Memories, Crypt 24GPS (lat/lon): 34.05847, -118.43979Maintained by: Find A GraveRecord added: Jan 01, 2001 Find A Grave Memorial# 725.

  3.  Wikipedia  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe).

  4.  Wikipedia .

  5.  Wikipedia .

  6.  Wikipedia .

  7.  Wikipedia .

  8.  Wikipedia .

  9.  Wikipedia .