"Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world."
"Your clothes should be tight enough to show you're a woman, but loose enough to show you're a lady."
"Beneath the makeup and behind the smile I'm just a girl who wishes for the world."
These and many other quotes can be found beside various pictures of one infamous, blond bombshell. That bombshell, of course, is Norma Jean Baker - famously, Marilyn Monroe. But many young people today haven't seen a single one of Marilyn Monroe's films, or even have any clue about what Norma Jean's life was truly like.
Norma was born in Los Angeles in 1926, to a mother, Gladys, who was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and who couldn't identify a father. Being only 12 days old, Gladys left Norma to the care of the neighbors, the Bolenders. Gladys went to work and paid the neighbors five dollars a week to care for her child and would visit Norma every Saturday; Norma remembered her as "the lady with the red hair," rather than her mother. The Bolenders were extremely religious; Marilyn recalled in several interviews that she was told that she was going to Hell several times a week.
In 1933, Gladys reclaimed Norma and they lived together for several years. However, Gladys was overcome with depression and, in 1935, she experienced a breakdown. Some stories report that Gladys approached her closest friend, who was called in to calm Gladys down, with a knife. When Norma's mother was admitted to an asylum, Norma was passed from foster home to foster home, encountering sexual assault multiple times.
To escape the foster homes, Norma chose to marry her boyfriend, Jimmy Dougherty, at age 16. Norma had already dropped out of high school. When her husband was sent to to the South Pacific, Norma went to work in a munitions factory. There, she was discovered by a photographer. By the time Jimmy returned in 1946, Norma's career had changed from factory worker to model, and her name had changed from Norma Jean Baker to Marilyn Monroe. They got a divorce that year, and Marilyn signed her first movie contract.
The movie contract tempted Marilyn to change her image; her hair went blond for The Asphalt Jungle. Her sex-bomb look snowballed from there. Contrary to appearances, Marilyn chronically lacked confidence in her acting abilities. Her anxiety sometimes caused physical illness and tardiness to movie sets that angered her coworkers.
Those closest to Marilyn knew that she was unhappy. Truman Capote recalled a lunch with Marilyn. She had been away from the table for some time, so he went searching for her. He found her in the powder room in front of a mirror. He asked her what she was doing, and she replied, "Looking at her." Another tale exists of Marilyn walking the streets with a friend, going unnoticed. She turns to her friend and says, "Do you want to see me become her?" And her friend witness the transition from Norma Jean to Marilyn Monroe, and people suddenly were aware of the blond starlet among them.
It's clear that Norma and Marilyn were two separate beings. That can put stress on any simple person. Marilyn died of a suspected overdose in 1962. She was 36. And she was unhappy.
There's a funny thing about the internet: people can put just about anything out there and someone is bound to believe it to be the truth. The first quote at the beginning of the article was actually said by Bette Midler. Edith Head said the second quote. And the third is a from paraphrase of Alona Kimhi. The truth is, many young people today only know Marilyn Monroe as the red-lipped beauty pushing her white dress down. Few people recognize the struggles that built Marilyn Monroe.
