The late Marilyn Monroe could have been well-known for her incredible, enduring model and memorable film roles, however the well-known actress additionally had a number of marriages. Past her life on the silver display screen starring in motion pictures together with Gents Choose Blondes and Some Like It Scorching, Marilyn had some epic romances that reside on in Hollywood lore. Right here’s all the pieces to learn about Marilyn Monroe’s three husbands, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, playwright Arthur Miller, and police officer James Dougherty.
James Dougherty
Marilyn was all of 16 years previous when she married James, a 21-year-old police officer and childhood pal, and he or she wasn’t even often called Marilyn Monroe but — the gorgeous teenager nonetheless glided by the title of Norma Jean Baker. It was a wedding of comfort and function, as she was set to return to an orphanage after her foster mother and father moved. Her 1942 marriage to James saved her from that destiny, although she did drop out of college to turn into a housewife. The wedding solely actually lasted till the beautiful teen was seen by a photographer in 1944, and Marilyn subsequently divorced James in 1946.
James later acknowledged that he was in love with Norma Jean, however not Marilyn, whose profession he adopted all through the remainder of her quick life. “Individuals discover it onerous to grasp,” mentioned Dougherty in a 1976 interview revealed in The Salt Lake Tribue. “I used to be in love with Norma Jean. Marilyn Monroe is an individual I didn’t know.” The younger magnificence, in fact, was destined to turn into a legendary intercourse image, however James believed that fame destroyed her. “Fame was injurious to her,” he advised the Related Press in 2002. She was too light to be an actress. She wasn’t robust sufficient for Hollywood.” James wrote a ebook about his marriage to Norma Jean in 2000 entitled To Norma Jean, With Love, Jimmie and he handed away in 2005 after being married twice extra and having three kids.
Joe DiMaggio
“Yankee Clipper” Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn started courting in 1952, and the connection was intense from the start. Though the press tried to cowl the couple’s romance from each angle, they saved a reasonably low profile, lastly marrying on January 14, 1954 at San Francisco Metropolis Corridor, Marilyn famously sporting a wise black go well with gown for the blissful event. However the marriage would solely final 5 months — Marilyn’s now world-famous subway grate scene from The Seven 12 months Itch touched a nerve with Joe, and after an enormous struggle, the 2 determined to half methods in October of 1954.
Though the wedding was quick, Marilyn and Joe appeared to like one another deeply. “The reality is that we had been very a lot alike,” Monroe mentioned to creator and ghostwriter Ben Hecht in her memoir My Story. Marilyn publicly introduced the cut up whereas brazenly crying, citing “psychological cruelty,” and Joe responded in a private letter. “I really like you and need to be with you. … There’s nothing I would love higher than to revive your confidence in me. … My coronary heart cut up even wider seeing you cry in entrance of all these individuals,” he wrote, in keeping with Biography.
When Marilyn succumbed to a barbiturate overdose on August 4, 1962, it was Joe that claimed her physique, and the heartbroken baseball nice would go on to have roses delivered to her crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Cemetery in Los Angeles for twenty years following her demise.
Arthur Miller
Marilyn subsequent married Pulitzer Prize profitable playwright and screenwriter Arthur Miller, with whom she’d had a short fling in 1951, previous to assembly Joe. Miller divorced his first spouse to marry Marilyn on June 29, 1956, however once more, the issues began virtually instantly. It didn’t assist that throughout the Chilly Battle paranoia of the period, he was below suspicion of being a communist sympathizer, however their fully completely different existence and backgrounds finally proved an excessive amount of.
The odd couple introduced their plans to separate on November 11, 1960, and the divorce was finalized January 20, 1961. Her demise in August of 1962 adopted rumors of an affair with then-president John F. Kennedy and substance abuse issues, however her legend solely grew within the aftermath of her demise. Arthur famously didn’t attend her funeral, however his biographer Professor Christopher Bigsby insisted that he beloved her deeply. “He was fully shocked by her,” he mentioned of Arthur, in keeping with The Unbiased. “It was definitely a love affair. Considered one of his love letters to her was an virtually adolescent outpouring of affection.”
