Details of Marilyn Monroe’s personal life revealed

Marilyn Monroe is a name everyone knows. One of Hollywood’s most famous celebrities of all time and a timeless beauty, Marilyn Monroe was loved and adored by fans during her time and remains so today. However, her life wasn’t always glittering and glamorous. Born Norma Jean Baker in a small town to a single mother, her childhood was tough. Caring for Marilyn proved too much for Gladys, a mentally challenged single mother, and she suffered a mental breakdown. She was institutionalized and forced into foster care. Over the years, Marilyn learned to fend for herself and eventually enlisted in the army during World War II, where she worked assembling drones. There, she was discovered by a photographer, and her life changed completely…

Under the scalpel

Naturally, the world yearned to know even the smallest details of Marilyn Monroe’s personal life, a desire that only grew after her untimely death. Even so, Marilyn managed to keep some intimate details away from the public eye.

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Marilyn was no stranger to plastic surgery: she had a nose job and a chin implant to change her facial structure. It was very brave of Marilyn to go under the knife, as plastic surgery in the 1950s wasn’t as advanced as it is today.

The Einstein Affair

Although Marilyn always appeared in her films as a brainless, blonde bombshell (a character she hated), she was actually the complete opposite.

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She is said to have had an IQ of over 160, although there is no evidence that she ever took the standardized test. Still, that score is considered that of a genius. Monroe was also rumored to have been close to Einstein, although it is difficult to know if these rumors had any basis.

Working with explosives

During the war, Marilyn worked in an explosives factory, and interestingly, these photos of her are what initially launched her career.

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David Conover, an army photographer, was sent to his base to photograph the Women in War Work. He walked the assembly line photographing the most attractive employees when he came across a girl assembling propellers. He liked Marilyn’s appearance so much that Conover sent her directly to Hollywood.

Endless disappointment

Marilyn’s mother, Gladys, tried to lead a normal life. Trying to rebuild her life, her mother scraped together what little money she had and bought a house just for the two of them.

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Unfortunately, little Marilyn was too much for her, and Gladys, who already had enough on her plate, felt overwhelmed trying to support herself and her daughter. Sadly, a few months later, she suffered a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized.

Reaching for the stars

One of her first modeling jobs was for Douglas Airlines, when she was still Norma Jeane. Her curly hair, innocent smile, and curious sparkle in her eyes made her look completely natural every time she stood in front of the camera.

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She also appeared in magazines, but when photographer Raphael Wolff hired her for a shampoo ad and Marilyn bleached and straightened her hair, that’s when she really started getting more and more modeling jobs.

They never had a chance

James Dougherty, a retired Los Angeles police detective, made his name in Hollywood history when he married a pretty teenager named Norma Jean Baker in the early 1940s.

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Although he was the first of her three husbands, few know how much he changed Marilyn’s life, marrying her when she was just 15. After the end of their brief marriage, James revealed: “I never met Marilyn Monroe, and I don’t pretend to have any idea about her to this day. I met and loved Norma Jean.”

Die young

Born brunette, Marilyn bore no resemblance to her iconic younger self. When she signed her first modeling contract, the producer made a suggestion she thought was a perfect fit: Marilyn should dye her hair blonde.

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Marilyn still wasn’t entirely convinced and wasn’t sure she was ready to part with her natural hair color, but then the producer explained that it would look much more attractive than her current brown hair. That was all Marilyn needed to hear.

Hairy face

Known for being extremely photogenic, Marilyn sought out different ways to maintain her good looks, and was willing to try many strange and unpleasant techniques to achieve this.

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Marilyn once revealed one of her secrets by admitting that she applied a thick hormonal cream to her face several times a day. The cream caused a sort of peach fuzz to grow on her face, which, she claimed, gave her an intense glow evident in all her photos.

The interruption of his career

The Seven Year Itch was the most controversial topic discussed in 1955, especially the scene where Marilyn Monroe and co-star Tom Ewell leave a movie theater and a breeze from the subway passing underneath lifts Marilyn’s skirt.

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Instead of rushing to cover her legs, as any decent woman of the time would have done, Marilyn exclaims, “Isn’t it delicious?” Rumor has it that second husband and baseball legend Joe DiMaggio was furious with the director, claiming he had shot this particular scene too many times.

Difficult to work with

Maybe it was the pressure of having to step into her enormous shoes or trying to maintain a character she struggled with internally, but for Marilyn, the problem went beyond landing a role based on her good looks.

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Despite revealing her extensive book collection, it seems the blonde bombshell struggled to remember her lines. On camera, the actress often slurred her words, mumbled, and asked for them to be repeated, as the pressure was too much.

Hiding his true self

Increasingly aware of the fact that she had been given several opportunities in Hollywood because of her physical appearance, Marilyn had become an intensely self-conscious person.

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By hiding certain facts about herself, such as the fact that she loved to read and had even worn glasses, she believed her everyday personality—and therefore her success—could be maintained longer. Therefore, she hid her glasses and rarely, if ever, wore them in public.

Never seen before

The last film she shot before her untimely death was Something’s Got To Give. Her life was very turbulent at the time, and Marilyn struggled to show up for work, claiming to be sick.

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What it lacked in professionalism, it made up for in gimmicks: during one scene, Marilyn was supposed to swim in a pool in a flesh-colored swimsuit, but she chose not to. Sadly, Marilyn died before the film was finished, so it was never aired.

Severo Germaphobe

Running from one set to another and constantly on the move, Marilyn managed to make her little quirks go unnoticed.

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However, after running to the bathroom numerous times a day, rumors about the beauty icon began to spread like wildfire. The rumors were later silenced when the actress confessed that she often felt dirty. As a result, she washed her face about 15 times a day. Overall, Marilyn struggled to overcome her constant feeling of being contaminated.

Confining physical limitations

Although she regularly saw many speech coaches for help with her problem, Marilyn’s speech deficiency was very noticeable.

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Known for stuttering even more when put on the spot, Marilyn tried to calm her nerves and make coherent statements when facing the media. Since there was no denying how difficult and restrictive this problem was for an actress of her fame and range, the media seemed to turn a blind eye to it to make her feel more comfortable.

Big fan of politics

Although it may seem that both worlds are as far apart as possible, Marilyn often had fun trying to combine politics and Hollywood.

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Her romance with President John F. Kennedy remains infamous, but few know that Marilyn had a real interest in politics and was immensely inspired by one of the nation’s greatest leaders: Abraham Lincoln. In fact, her favorite book was A Biography of Abraham Lincoln, and she was seen carrying it everywhere.

I would do anything for money

Despite being discovered relatively young and attracting attention for her unique facial features and mesmerizing body, Marilyn had fared terribly poorly when she first tried to be recognized.

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In fact, her first modeling job was so poorly paid that it seems even more ridiculous compared to how much movie stars and fashion icons earn today. Although she was just trying to kick-start her career, Marilyn received a sum close to five dollars for her first modeling job.

Desperate to have children

After her troubled childhood, Marilyn desperately wanted to create a stable home for herself. She loved children and wanted a family of her own.

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Sadly, Marilyn Monroe suffered two miscarriages throughout her life. It has recently emerged that Marilyn Monroe’s friend, Frieda Hull, kept the colorized photos she took of her baby bump a secret. Unfortunately, the photos were sold as part of Frieda’s estate in 2016, along with a note stating, “It was never clarified whether this was due to a miscarriage or even an abortion.”

Unaccredited Inventor

One of Marilyn’s most well-known features is her voluptuous figure, but few know that she had an amazing talent for taking ordinary objects and transforming them into objects that enhanced her body.

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When she wanted to achieve a perkier look, she sewed marbles into her bras. Sometimes, if she didn’t have any marbles on hand, she would sew on a couple of buttons to achieve the same effect. Her invention was perfected into what we call the push-up bra today.

Clinical depression

“I’m so worried about Arthur’s protection, I love him – and he’s the only person – human being that I’ve ever met that I could love not only as a man that I’m attracted to practically out of my senses about – but he [is] the only person […] that I trust as much as myself.”

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Having written these words in Marilyn’s private diary, it’s understandable why she completely broke down when Miller left her for a photo archivist, Inge Morath.

In touch with your inner self

Although rarely considered a fitness icon, Marilyn Monroe has many talents in store. “I’m trying to find myself.

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“Sometimes that’s not easy,” Marilyn once said, but during a 1952 interview with LIFE magazine, she revealed that she lifted weights daily, and in a 1948 black and white photo set, she demonstrated some asanas. She was also rumored to be a student of Indra Devi, a Swedish-Russian Bollywood film star.

Priceless moment

“Happy birthday, Mr. President,” she sang in a saucy, saucy voice, and so, on the eve of JFK’s birthday, everyone was staring at Marilyn Monroe.

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More than five decades later, that 60-second performance remains a topic of conversation, and in November 2016, the Jean Louis dress Monroe wore to sing Happy Birthday to JFK went up for auction, a gleaming memento of her tragic final days. The flesh-colored gown she wore that evening, studded with 2,500 glittering rhinestones, sold for a record-breaking $1.26 million.

They called her rude

She may have been a laughingstock to many, but those who actually had the advantage of working with Marilyn were surprised to discover that her devotion to her work exceeded the levels of many others.

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Despite being called a bitch toward the end of her career and life, Marilyn was so focused on her work that she often refused to break character during breaks from filming, and avoided mingling with fellow actors whom she perceived as not taking their jobs seriously.

Inner demons

It’s no secret that Marilyn’s mother was diagnosed as clinically depressed and had suffered from numerous other mental illnesses, all of which had greatly affected Marilyn. What few people know is that Marilyn’s entire family had a history of mental instability.

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Marilyn herself spoke of her inner demons on more than one occasion, saying she feared the moment when suicidal thoughts and a depressed state would take over. After all, her mother, uncle, and great-grandmother also took their own lives.

Secret body

Her flawless physique and go-for-it attitude were every young woman’s deepest desire in Marilyn’s time, and it’s easy to see why.

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Marilyn Monroe, who has caused more sensations than the highest-paid actress and turned more heads than the most famous model, let one of her secrets slip: she had double-jointed knees, which required her to lock them in order to walk properly. This locking of her knees gave her the characteristic swoop of her hips.

Naked and used

Marilyn posed nude for a series of photos – “I decided I’d be safer [with a friend] than with some rich old man who might catch me in a moment of weakness when I was hungry and didn’t have enough to buy me a square meal.”

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He told me he would camouflage my face, but it turned out everyone recognized me.” That same friend later admitted to having paid Marilyn only $50, while he sold the rights to a calendar manufacturer for $500. When the calendar was published, some 8 million copies were sold.

Experimenting

Marilyn Monroe was adept at learning techniques like makeup, hand positioning, and body posture. However, Marilyn Monroe was one of the first stars to contour her face with makeup.

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Since her facial features made for a fantastic canvas, her makeup artist thought it best to mix things up and try a new approach. Instead of the typical cat-eye and red lips, he contoured her nose with blush to make it appear smaller.

Natural but fake

Natural beauty was important in Marilyn’s time, although this talent had the gift of adding external elements to her face and her outfits that gave her an overall flawless appearance.

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Marilyn wanted to look more dreamy while keeping her makeup routine simple, so she started applying semi-lashes to her eyes, deciding she wanted them to look full but natural. She ended up applying false half lashes to the outer corners of her eyes, a trick makeup artists still use today.

Single mother

Gladys Baker was a complicated woman. Alone when Marilyn was born, Gladys was determined to care for her new child, even though single mothers were frowned upon by society.

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Even so, Marilyn lived without her mother for nearly seven years, but stayed with the Bolenders, who cared deeply for her and wanted to adopt her. Gladys was distraught, having already lost two children when her first husband took them out of state after their divorce.

Blamed for her brother’s death

Gladys then decided to move Marilyn into a house she shared with the Atkinsons, an English couple who worked in film.

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Shortly after they moved in together, it was learned that Gladys’s grandfather had committed suicide and that her son Robert had tragically died. These two events were enough to push her over the edge, and she found herself blaming Marilyn for their deaths, yelling at her that she should have been the one to die instead.

It almost ruined his career

She was a rising star, and yet everything threatened to come crashing down when it was discovered not only that she had posed nude, but that her mother, whom she had been declaring dead for years, was actually alive and living in an institution.

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These revelations nearly meant the end of her career, but Marilyn took a deep breath and decided to tell the truth. She claimed she had taken the nude photos because she was broke and needed money. As for her mother, she wanted to keep her whereabouts a secret to protect Gladys, not herself.

Secret notebook

In 1956, Marilyn and her then-husband, playwright Arthur Miller, arrived in London to film The Prince and the Showgirl.

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However, this proved to be a horrifying moment for Marilyn, who discovered Arthur’s secret notebook, in which he elaborated in great detail on how disappointed he felt with his new wife. Her marriage to Miller dissolved after he wrote the role of Roslyn for her in The Misfits. She felt her character was too personal, and by the time she finished it… they were done.

She already knew it

Marilyn suffered numerous miscarriages throughout her life. After marrying Arthur Miller, they seemed to be a recurring epidemic. Unwilling to give up, Marilyn underwent several unsuccessful surgeries in her attempt to conceive.

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Her last operation was in 1959, when the doctor informed her it hadn’t been successful. “I know,” she told the doctor before he could give her the news. It was the final straw for poor Marilyn, who already felt like a failure.

Losing your mind

Just a few days after filming The Misfits, Marilyn’s co-worker, Clark Gable, died. His widow blamed Marilyn for his death, sending her into a spiral of self-pity and hatred.

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In an attempt to escape the emotional roller coaster, Marilyn checked into a hospital to rest, but accidentally ended up in a ward for patients with serious illnesses. Since only Joe DiMaggio could sign her out, she called him. The hospital released her after Joe threatened to dismantle the hospital “brick by brick” if they didn’t.

Suicide seemed logical

In death, Marilyn Monroe is as fascinating as she was in life. One of the reasons suggested for her abrupt end was suicide.

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According to the report, the coroner’s initial conclusion was probable suicide due to depression: “Miss Monroe has suffered from psychiatric disorders for a long time. On more than one occasion… when disappointed or depressed, she has attempted suicide. On these occasions, she had been rescued. It is our opinion that the same pattern was repeated [on August 4] except for the rescue.”

The cover-up

Skeptics of the suicide theory argued that if Marilyn had overdosed on pills, traces of food should have been found in her stomach during the autopsy, which was not the case.

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What seemed more likely was a cover-up, as the stories told by the people who found her were inconsistent. The official story explains that Marilyn’s housekeeper woke up at 3:30 a.m. and saw Marilyn’s light on and the door closed. She called the psychiatrist, who arrived shortly after and immediately called the police. But in later interviews, the housekeeper said she discovered the body “around midnight.”

Something smelled bad

Cover-up buffs also claimed that a 1982 investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney revealed that an ambulance was called to the home while Marilyn was still alive.

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The ambulance crew chief who took Marilyn to the hospital explained that Marilyn “died at the hospital,” a very different statement than had been given before. Furthermore, the first police officer to arrive at the crime scene, Jack Clemmons, believed the death scene had been staged. The room was tidy, the linens fresh, and the housekeeper was even doing laundry.

Murder mystery

Marilyn Monroe was often linked to Bobby Kennedy, as the two were rumored to be having an affair. Spy Bernard Spindel publicly stated that he had bugged Marilyn Monroe’s home.

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Spindel claimed to have overheard an argument between Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe on the night of her death, during which he allegedly heard a loud bang. Spindel was convinced the bang meant Marilyn had been struck hard, resulting in her death. The tapes were seized by the U.S. Attorney in 1966 and “routinely destroyed.”

Devastated by the death of her first mentor

Just as Marilyn Monroe’s career was finally taking off in the 1950s, her agent and mentor, Johnny Hyde, vice president of the William Morris Agency, died suddenly of a heart attack.

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His death was especially inconvenient considering that just days before his passing, he had secured a seven-year contract for Marilyn Monroe. The budding star felt as if her promising future was about to dissolve, as the only man she’d learned to trust had left her alone in the world.

Ridiculed for defending herself

Determined to break out of her sexy girl pigeonhole, Marilyn endured several battles with her production company over the films she worked on.

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Feeling like she wasn’t being taken seriously despite her numerous threats, Marilyn reconsidered and established that she was the only one who had her personal interests at heart. Marilyn went on to create her own company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, which was immediately ridiculed by the press.

Betrayed by her greatest love

After her marriage to Miller fell apart, Marilyn was still forced to work with him on The Misfits. Unfortunately for Marilyn, Miller began a new relationship during filming, which he casually flaunted on set.

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To cope with the agony it caused her, Marilyn wrote in her diary: “From tomorrow on I will take care of myself, because that is all I have and, as I see now, I have ever had […] I still feel hopeless. I think I hate it here because there is no love anymore.”

Fired for faking

Something’s Got To Give’s budget was getting tight, so the film’s executive had to do something about it.

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So, despite knowing perfectly well that Marilyn had sinusitis and needed a lot of rest, studio bosses spread rumors about her, accusing her of faking her illness. Once the groundwork was laid, they were able to sue Marilyn for $750,000 in damages, but at the insistence of her co-star Dean Martin, they finally attempted to resume filming before his untimely death.

His own words

Few people know that Marilyn was a secret poet, thanks mainly to her many psychologists who pushed her to write down her deepest and darkest thoughts:

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“I think I’m so alone; my mind is racing. Now I see myself in the mirror, frowning—if I look closer I’ll see—what I don’t want to know—tension, sadness, disappointment, my [“blue” is crossed out] dull eyes, cheeks flushed with capillaries that look like rivers on maps—hair lying like snakes. My mouth is the saddest, next to my dead eyes…”

Ahead of her time

The queen of contouring may often be associated with reality stars descended from the Kardashians, but it was Marilyn who nailed the trick of using multiple shades to better tone the face.

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To make her lips appear fuller, Monroe applied five different shades of lipstick and gloss, creating dimension. The darkest reds were applied to the outer corners, while the lightest reds were applied to the center of her lips. This created a 3D shadow effect that gave her lips a fuller appearance.

Who was he really?

Monroe was so self-conscious that her friends often commented on how different she acted when she wasn’t “in character.”

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The writer Truman Capote noted that he once caught her looking in a mirror and asked her what she was doing, to which she replied, “Looking at it.” Monroe’s Misfits co-star, Eli Wallach, recalled strolling with her in New York: “No one realized who she was because she was just herself; suddenly her walk, her attitude, and her appearance would change, and in a moment everyone would be staring and asking for her autograph.”

The bad side

Few people know that rock musician Marilyn Manson took his stage name from Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson. When asked why he chose those two names in particular, Manson replied that it was to project a dichotomy between good and evil.

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But interestingly, in his autobiography, Manson smirked as he stated that no one ever suspected that half of Monroe could be as dark as half of Manson. “Marilyn Monroe had a dark side, just as Charles Manson has a good, intelligent side,” he wrote.

Thinner than most

Somehow, the rumor spread that Marilyn Monroe was a size 16, but Sara Buys, fashion editor of The Times of London, completely denied that rumor, having had the opportunity to try on some of Monroe’s clothes.

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“Quite the opposite,” Buys wrote. “Though she was undeniably voluptuous—possessing an ample bosom and a derriere that would look right at home gyrating in a J-Lo video—for most of the early part of her career, she was a size 8, and even at her fullest, she didn’t grow any larger than a 10.”

Continues to be successful after his death

Forbes magazine ranked Marilyn Monroe as the sixth highest-earning deceased celebrity of 2013, placing her on a very prestigious list after Michael Jackson, Elvis, Charles M. Schulz, Elizabeth Taylor, and Bob Marley.

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Furthermore, in October of that same year, she was named the face of Chanel No. 5, something that should have happened long before, considering that in her prime, she also volunteered to advertise the perfume. One of her most famous quotes was her response to the question, “What do you wear to bed?”—to which she replied, “My Chanel No. 5.”

Threat to National Security

The FBI investigated Marilyn Monroe because they believed she was a communist sympathizer. They compiled a 34-page dossier monitoring the actress for ties to communism in the years leading up to her death.

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The Monroe dossier focuses on her travels and associations, looking for signs of leftist views. For years, the FBI files on Monroe have intrigued researchers, biographers, and those who disagree with the belief that her death in her Los Angeles-area home was a suicide, but the FBI never found evidence that she was a member of the Communist Party.

Until the end

Marilyn Monroe is the very embodiment of an insecure woman wearing a mask of confidence. Emmeline Snively, the agent who signed the young Norma Jeane Dougherty, said that Marilyn “didn’t feel like a qualified actress, [but] how could she feel otherwise?

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“She’d signed her first contract before even having her first acting class. God, I wanted to cry for her then. This can be the loneliest city in the world, and it’s even lonelier for you if you’re at the top.”

Nobody really knew her

Marilyn Monroe had a huge library in her home containing more than 400 books. Reading was Monroe’s favorite pastime, and she once claimed she could understand the entire plot of a book after skimming just 10 pages.

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This fact is surprising considering that she became famous for playing comic “dumb blonde” characters. Feminist biographer Oline Eaton wrote on her blog that “the power of the phrase ‘Marilyn Monroe reading’ lies in its application to Monroe and in our assumption that she wouldn’t know how to do it.”

A woman with many identities

Born Norma Jeane Baker, Marilyn was a small-town girl trying to make it in the glitzy Hollywood bubble.

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After initially changing her last name to Dougherty, the actress’s new name didn’t have the life-changing effect she’d hoped for. When she finally signed a contract with 20th Century-Fox, agents recommended she change to a more appealing name. Monroe, a surname on her mother’s side, was chosen, and before she knew it, Norma Jean Baker was dead.

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Abuse and foster homes

Marilyn had a troubled childhood – her first memory of her mother, Gladys Pearl Baker, was her attempting to suffocate her with a pillow.

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As a lonely child abandoned by a mentally ill mother, Marilyn admits that she was deeply scarred by having a father who suffered from schizophrenia. Eventually, Marilyn was sent to a foster home, and Gladys was in and out of various psychiatric hospitals for the rest of Marilyn’s life. The Secret Life touches on what truly tormented Marilyn: the paralyzing fear that her mother’s madness was hereditary.

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