
Fortunately, however, she was finally noticed by powerful agent Johnny Hyde, who put her forward for the small but important role of Angela in The Asphalt Jungle. However, her career stalled on several occasions, with un-renewed contracts and a role in Scudda Hoo Scudda Hay which ended up on the cutting room floor.
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She didn’t mind that they wanted to change her last name to Monroe, but Marilyn? She had no idea how to spell it, she later told friends.īut whatever she thought of the name, from now on she was Marilyn Monroe. As a result she was signed to a contract, but was disappointed to learn she would have to change her name to Marilyn Monroe. Indeed, she was so well-known from magazine covers, that by the time Norma Jeane returned to Los Angeles, she was invited to a screen test at Twentieth Century Fox. During one outing, Bill was intrigued by the attention she was receiving from groups of girls and was surprised to discover that his new friend was a model, and a popular one at that. Whilst in Las Vegas, the young model met fellow resident Bill Pursel, and the two became firm friends, travelling around the area together dining in local restaurants and enjoying each other’s company. She responded by heading to Las Vegas and filing for divorce much to the shock and despair of her husband. Jim went along with it, though assured his wife that when he returned from war, she’d have to give it all up and start a family. These photographs led to a modelling career and she left the defence plant job as soon as she could. She was bored and lonely, so took a job at a defence plant, where she was discovered by a photographer taking photos for the war effort. The marriage lasted four years, during which time Jim went to war and Norma Jeane moved in with her in-laws. Read: Top 10 Oscars Beauty Looks Of All Time Read: The Exhibition – Monroe By Bert Stern “It was like being retired to a zoo,” she later said. She wanted to be kept out of the orphanage, but marriage? It wasn’t something that crossed her mind. Grace discussed the matter with Jim Dougherty’s mother and together they approached the couple with the idea of marriage.įor Jim, it was a chance to ‘save’ her he could be a knight in shining armour and he embraced the challenge wholeheartedly, though Norma Jeane was conflicted. The couple had been occasionally dating when it was discovered that Norma Jeane’s foster family were moving east and needed someone to care for their charge. ‘Aunt’ Ana, as she was affectionately called, was eager to care for the energetic youngster, yet her health wasn’t up to it, so Norma Jeane was, again, transferred to another foster home.įinally in 1942, when faced with yet another stint in an orphanage, Norma Jeane married Jim Dougherty, a neighbour of the Goddard family, where she was living at the time.

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She came to believe that Gladys had died a belief that became even more profound when her new guardian (and Gladys’ best friend), Grace Goddard, packed the child’s bags and took her to the Los Angeles Orphans Home, where she lived for the next year.Ī series of foster homes followed most notably with Ana Lower, Grace Goddard’s aunt, who became one of the most influential people in Norma Jeane’s life.


She was sexually assaulted by a new lodger in the home, and to make things worse, nobody would tell her what had happened to her mother. Shortly afterwards Gladys suffered a nervous breakdown that sent her in and out of institutions for the rest of her life.įor Norma Jeane, her mother’s disappearance was more than she could bear. “Why couldn’t it have been you?” she screamed at her bewildered child. Gladys had always been emotional and these two events were enough to push her over the edge. Shortly after moving in together, news came through that Gladys’ grandfather Tilford Hogan had committed suicide, and her son Robert had been tragically killed. Read: The Murder Of Marilyn Monroe: Case Closedįrom that moment on, Norma Jeane’s life became a maze of insecurities and confusion. By 1933 Gladys decided to move Norma Jeane into a house she was sharing with Mr and Mrs Atkinson, an English couple who worked in the movies. She was determined to never go through that again. Gladys was appalled by this, as she had already lost two children when her first husband took them out of state after their divorce. Marilyn Monroe as a baby with her mum, Gladysįor almost seven years Norma Jeane lived with the Bolenders, who cared deeply for her and wanted to adopt her.
