Marilyn Monroe and James Dean

I recently posted a few pictures / paintings that featured Marilyn with James Dean. While it was obvious that most were photoshopped (the pics, that is), it did get me wondering, What was the relationship between Marilyn and James, and did they ever date???

Here's what I found:

(via Answers.com)

Marilyn Monroe and James Dean never dated. They never even met each other when they were alive. Monroe was several years older than him. While Dean was starting to establish his career and status in Hollywood, his life ended abruptly. Monroe died several years later as well. They each lead their own lives.

 However, both Monroe and Dean are considered icons in Pop Culture.
Both died very young. They are often depicted in art indicating that their beauty and tragic lives.

Monroe and Dean allegedly met once during the premiere of his debut film East of Eden(1955) and apparently disliked each other over 'Hollywood differences' (she enjoyed the spotlight and he hated it). They would've made an attractive couple though.

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Interesting, isn't it? And for some reason, it almost makes sense that they knew each other and dated briefly. But, didn't happen.

Just something else to dream about.....

Marilyn and Joe...Crazy Love?

Have you ever heard of The Wrong Door Raid? Possibly, if you're a Marilyn fan or Rat Pack fan, but surprisingly, many haven't heard of this outrageous tale.

Although Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio had quite the love affair, their union ended in divorce after less than a year of marriage. However, it's fair to say that Joe had a hard time getting over Marilyn.

(The following info / retelling is from June 5, 2011 L.A. Time article by Steve Harvey)

One version of the story holds that Joe DiMaggio and Frank Sinatra were having dinner at the Villa Capri restaurant in Hollywood on a November evening in 1954 when they got the tip: A private investigator phoned to say the ballplayer's estranged wife, Marilyn Monroe, was inside a nearby apartment building, possibly with a lover.

Without bothering to pay the bill, DiMaggio stormed out of the eatery, followed by Sinatra and various associates, as well as Billy Karen, the restaurant maitre d'.Someone volunteered to pay the bill later, but the maitre d' responded that the bill was no problem, he just wanted "in on this thing."

A few minutes later, the group kicked in an apartment door on Waring Avenue. They found not Monroe but a lone resident, Florence Kotz, who was in her bed, screaming in terror, witnesses later related.
 

 

One of the fascinating aspects of the Wrong-Door Raid, as it came to be known, was how easily it was covered up. Half a century ago, paparazzi didn't stake out celebrity haunts, so there was no initial alert that anything was up.

 

Later, police were called to the apartment building but, as was their job back then when big celebrities were involved in some sort of mischief, they just took a report and calmed everybody down.

No charges were filed.

Kotz didn't rush out and file a lawsuit.

And the scandal-wary Times published no story on the affair for more than two years.

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 Pictures of Marilyn from the press conference, where she announced her separation / divorce from Joe.

 

I've read a few accounts of The Wrong Door Raid. Some contend that Sinatra stayed in the car, others say he was part of breaking down the door--and that the door was broken down with an axe!

 

I've also read that Florence filed charges a year later and settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. 

 

Marilyn WAS in the apartment building, which was not a typical apartment complex that we tend to think of nowadays. She was in the apartment next door, visiting her friend Sheila.

 

Ah, the scandals of Old Hollywood.

 

 

 

 

 

Marilyn's Lost Loves, pt. 3

Joe DiMaggio

(most info from history.com)

It was the ultimate All-American romance: the tall, handsome hero of the country’s national pastime captures the heart of the beautiful, glamorous Hollywood star. But the brief, volatile marriage of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio–the couple wed on this day in 1954–barely got past the honeymoon before cracks began to show in its brilliant veneer.

In 1952, the New York Yankees slugger DiMaggio asked an acquaintance to arrange a dinner date with Monroe, a buxom blonde model-turned-actress whose star was on the rise after supporting roles in films such as Monkey Business (1952) and a leading role in the B-movie thriller Don’t Bother to Knock (1952). The press immediately picked up on the relationship and began to cover it exhaustively, though Monroe and DiMaggio preferred to keep a low profile, spending evenings at home or in a back corner of DiMaggio’s restaurant. On January 14, 1954, they were married at San Francisco City Hall, where they were mobbed by reporters and fans. Monroe had apparently mentioned the wedding plans to someone at her film studio, who leaked it to the press.

While Monroe and DiMaggio were on their honeymoon in Japan, Monroe was asked to travel to Korea and perform for the American soldiers stationed there. She complied, leaving her unhappy new husband in Japan. After they returned to the United States, tension continued to build, particularly around DiMaggio’s discomfort with his wife’s sexy image. One memorable blow-up occurred in September 1954, on the New York City set of the director Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch. As Monroe filmed the now-famous scene in which she stands over a subway grate with the air blowing up her skirt, a crowd of onlookers and press gathered; Wilder himself had reportedly arranged the media attention. As her skirt blew up again and again, the crowd cheered uproariously, and DiMaggio, who was on set, became irate.

DiMaggio and Monroe were divorced in October 1954, just 274 days after they were married. In her filing, Monroe accused her husband of “mental cruelty.”

In February 1961, she was admitted to a psychiatric clinic; it was DiMaggio who secured her release, and took her to the Yankees’ Florida spring training camp for rest and relaxation. Though rumors swirled about their remarriage, they maintained their “good friends” status. When the 36-year-old Monroe died of a drug overdose on August 5, 1962, DiMaggio arranged the funeral. For the next two decades, until his own death in 1999, he sent roses several times a week to her grave in Los Angeles.

Although Joe made his mark as husband no. 2, it's fair to say that their relationship lasted beyond their marriage. In fact, Joe and Marilyn had reconnected, and shortly before her death, there was even talk of them reuniting. Perhaps, despite his flaws, Joe was the love of her life. They made a decent couple, both had a lot going for them. Even in this picture, it's obvious they had chemistry and seemed to be a good fit. Reportedly, the last words on Joe's lips? "At last, I get to see Marilyn."

Marilyn's Lost Loves, pt. 2

Arthur Miller

(most info from HistoryToday.com)

Marilyn Monroe married Arthur Miller on June 29th, 1956. The marriage lasted five years. In the early months of 1956 Marilyn Monroe was preparing to star in Bus Stop, discussing with Laurence Olivier a role in The Prince and the Showgirl and romancing Arthur Miller, who was divorcing his wife, Mary. She was also formally changing her name from Norma Jeane Mortenson to Marilyn Monroe and being attacked by red-baiters for associating with the playwright, an alleged Communist sympathizer.

In February Walter Winchell broadcast an item about ‘America’s best-known blonde moving picture star’. Said to have been directly inspired by J. Edgar Hoover himself, it described her as ‘now the darling of the left wing intelligentsia, several of whom are listed as Red fronters’. The filming of Bus Stop was completed by the end of May. Miller’s Reno divorce came through in June and Marilyn joined him in New York, besieged by swarms of pressmen. On June 29th they held a press conference at Miller’s house in Roxbury, Connecticut, whose local newspaper had dryly announced the day before, ‘Local Resident Will Marry Miss Monroe of Hollywood’, adding, ‘Roxbury Only Spot in World to Greet News Calmly’.

Once the 400 pressmen had gone away, the couple sneaked off to the Westchester County Court House in nearby White Plains, where they were married by Judge Seymour Rabinowitz shortly before 7.30 pm in a ceremony that lasted all of four minutes. The bride was thirty years old to the groom’s forty. Miller’s cousin, Morty Miller and his wife, were the witnesses and there was not a solitary pressman or flash camera in sight. This was the civil ceremony out of the way. A traditional Jewish rite was planned for July 1st at the home of Miller’s agent, Kay Brown, near Katonah, which went ahead although Marilyn was now having severe misgivings and almost refused to go through with it. The wedding rings were inscribed ‘Now is forever’ and the bride was given away by her acting teacher and guru Lee Strasberg. There were twenty-five guests and the ceremony was performed by Rabbi Robert Goldberg. The writer George Axelrod made a witty speech congratulating the happy couple and adapting George Bernard Shaw to wish that their children would have Arthur’s looks and Marilyn’s brains: which was uncomfortably near the knuckle.

The newlyweds soon went off to London for the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl. Some days later, Marilyn happened to come across Miller’s notebook lying open on a table, looked at it and discovered that he was disappointed in her, feared that his own creativity would be threatened by this pitiable, dependent, unpredictable waif he had married and was seriously regretting the union. Marilyn told friends that he also wrote, ‘The only one I will ever love is my daughter’, though Miller could not recall having written that. It was a blow from which the marriage would never recover. Things went steadily from bad to worse and although Miller wrote the script of The Misfits for Marilyn, the pair separated in 1960 and divorced the following year.

I think Marilyn sincerely tried in her relationship with Miller. For him she was a prize, but for her, she was hoping that she'd found what she needed all along--a father figure. Reportedly, both had affairs during the marriage, perhaps a sure sign that divorce was inevitable. Plus, I think Arthur grew bitter toward her, felt that she was more work than he wanted, and that few perks manifested from being her husband. But once again, Marilyn was on the hurting end, having endured painful remarks from Arthur. Of all people, Marilyn was most fragile when it came to criticisms.

She deserves credit for trying and for surviving yet another broken heart.

Marilyn's Lost Loves, pt. 1

James Dougherty

(most info from about.com)

How Jim and Marilyn Met:

Marilyn's foster mom was a good friend of Jim's mother.

Wedding Date and Info:

On June 19, 1942, Marilyn and Jim were married at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Chester Howell in Westwood, California. The short wedding ceremony was officiated by Reverend Benjamin Lingenfelder of the Christian Science Church. Their reception was at Florentine Gardens in Hollywood. Marilyn was 16 years old when they married and James was 21 years old. They did not have a honeymoon.

"To avoid another orphanage stay a family friend orchestrated a marriage proposal when she was sixteen years old."
Source: Official Marilyn Monroe Website

James: "Norma Jeane wore a pure white, long silken dress, with a short veil attached to her thick, curly hair. It was a borrowed dress, but that didn't matter to either of us."
Source: Jim Dougherty. To Norma Jeane with Love, Jimmie. 2001. pg. 31.

Divorce:

James and Marilyn were divorced on September 13, 1946. She took up residency in Nevada on May 14, 1946 so they could be divorced there.

 

Later in life, James said, "I never knew Marilyn Monroe," referencing the fact that she became a superstar after they separated and divorced. To him, she would always be Norma Jeane.

 

Anyone else think she resembles Judy Garland in this picture?

A Jackie-Marilyn 'encounter'

Interesting article from Everlasting Star.... #marilynmonroe #oldhollywood #jacquelinekennedyonassis

http://blog.everlasting-star.net/2011/07/art-and-photography/jackie-kennedy-and-marilyns-allure/

Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn’s ‘Allure’

Posted on July 5, 2011 by marina72

Diana Vreeland, the formidable editor of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, included this photo of Marilyn (taken by Cecil Beaton in 1956) in her 1980 book, Allure.
Vreeland worked with Jackie Kennedy on the project, as William Kuhn recounts in Reading Jackie, a new study of the one-time First Lady’s career in publishing.

“Marilyn Monroe had a brief affair with JFK, and by 1980, when Vreeland’s Allure was published at Jackie’s behest by Doubleday, this was well-known…Monroe had committed suicide during the very week that Vreeland was taking over the editorial position at Vogue. She began work just as the outgoing editor was putting together the finishing touches on an issue which, by chance, included an article with a tribute to Monroe and several photographs. Vreeland’s colleague wanted one of the photos taken out. It was too ‘triste’ in light of what Monroe had just done. Vreeland replied, ‘You can’t leave that out! You cannot! It’s got all the poignancy and the poetry and the pathos of the woman in it!’ That was in 1962. In the late 1970s, Vreeland explained what she loved about this photo…‘Marilyn Monroe! She was a geisha. She was born to give pleasure, spent her life giving it – and knew no other way’…What did Jackie say to Vreeland about the Monroe photograph? Probably nothing, but the fact that she silently allowed Vreeland to include it shows Jackie content to acknowledge Monroe’s ur- sexiness, a quality that Jackie did not think she shared with the screen icon.
It seems as if Jackie was able to separate her editorial self from the woman whose husband had a public fling with Monroe. She was thrilled, about the same time she was working with Vreeland on Allure, when a proposal came from Doubleday that promised pictures from Bert Stern‘s last photographic session with the actress. ‘Marilyn Monroe!!!’ Jackie wrote in a memo to her colleague Ray Roberts. ‘Are you excited?’…Vreeland’s treatment of Monroe was probably like this for Jackie too: a publishing opportunity rather than a moment to reflect on a personal injury. In any case, if injury there had been, she was able to rise above it.”

Later in the book, Kuhn reports an interview with biographer David Stenn, who wrote about two Hollywood sex symbols pre-dating MM – Clara Bow and Jean Harlow – with Jackie’s support:

“Stenn also recalled a conversation he had with Jackie about Marilyn Monroe, a topic that he had avoided touching upon. That’s why he was surprised when she brought it up. Jackie didn’t mention Monroe in the context of JFK but rather as part of a continuum with Jean Harlow: both of them were blondes who made their sexual appeal the center of their screen personalities. As with Vreeland, Jackie was willing to discuss Monroe with Stenn in a completely dispassionate, even admiring way.”