The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Gladys’s Plea to Norma Jeane

In December 1945, Jim Dougherty returned from his tour of duty for the Christmas holidays. He had been gone for eighteen months. In that time, things between him and Norma Jeane had definitely changed, and he knew it as soon as she greeted him at the train station. “She was an hour late,” he recalled. “She told me she had a modeling job, and that was her excuse, which didn’t exactly make me happy. She embraced me and kissed me, but it was a little cool. I had two weeks off before resuming shipboard duties along the California coast, but I don’t think we had more than three or four nights together during that time. She was busy modeling, earning good money. It was my first inkling of her ambition.”

Norma Jeane wasn’t totally finished with her marriage. She still hoped that she would wake up one day to find that Jim had had a sudden change of heart. “Yes, yes, yes,” he would tell her in her fantasy. “I get it now. I understand. And yes, I approve of your career!” Perhaps she hoped for just such a reaction when she showed him her recent photos taken by a rather famous photographer named André de Dienes. She hoped he would like them—she knew they were very good—and perhaps they might convince him that she had found her calling. She also displayed some of the many magazine covers on which she had appeared of late. She was keeping a scrapbook, which she also proudly displayed, thumbing through the pages and explaining where each photo was taken and for what purpose. By this time, she had even been doing pinup modeling in bathing suits—which she must have known wouldn’t make him very happy. The cumulative effect of all of this accomplishment was impressive even to her, as perhaps it would have been to most people, considering how many covers she had racked up in such a short time—how could her husband not be amazed at her achievements? How could he not want her to continue? How could he not want her… to be happy?

“So far as I was concerned, she was turning into another human being,” he later recalled. “She showed me the pictures, her new dresses and shoes—as if I cared about such things. She was proud of her new popularity at Blue Book [the modeling agency with which she had signed] and she expected me to be, too.” Jim’s lackluster reaction did not bode well for him or his marriage. Norma Jeane was disappointed and couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t at least try to act as if he were happy for her.

Jim felt that he needed time alone with his wife so that he could talk to her and try to resolve some of their issues—in other words, get her to acquiesce to his desire that she quit her career. He decided that the two of them should drive to Oregon and visit Gladys at her Aunt Dora’s home. Norma Jeane agreed, though reluctantly. She knew she had to see her mother, but she also knew that every time she had done so in the past she had regretted it. She also probably had ambivalent feelings about being alone in a car with her husband for so many days, especially since they were not getting along.

The visit did not go well, according to Jim. “My first encounter with Gladys was a little of a shock,” he later recalled. “She didn’t seem to connect with me at all. Her mind was out in left field somewhere.” Jim also was surprised at how much Gladys and Norma Jeane resembled each other. “You could almost see what Norma Jeane was going to look like when she got to be that age. Gladys was a pretty woman. With proper makeup and her hair done, she would have been a gorgeous person.”

Gladys sat upright in a wicker chair and was completely unresponsive when he and Norma Jeane walked into the room. She was wearing a white nylon dress and blouse and white stockings and shoes—her “nurse’s uniform.” Norma Jeane knelt at her mother’s feet and held her delicate hands, gazing into her vacant eyes, trying to divine what it was she was thinking, how she felt about seeing her.

“How are you, Mother? Are you happy to finally be out?” she asked her, somewhat tentatively.

Gladys smiled absently.

Still on her knees in front of her mother, Norma Jeane tried to fill the void by talking about her recent trip to see Berniece. “She can’t wait to come and see you, Mother,” she told Gladys. However, it didn’t matter what anecdote Norma Jeane relayed, nothing seemed to interest her mother. “Mother, please,” Norma Jeane said, a searching expression on her face. Gladys answered her plea with total silence. But then, suddenly, Gladys tightened her grip on Norma Jeane’s hands, leaned in, and whispered in her ear that she wanted to come and live with her.

Norma Jeane looked at her, a startled expression lingering on her face. She didn’t know how to respond. Truly, that was the last thing she’d expected, or even wanted. She was getting ready to leave an old life—her marriage—behind, and, hopefully, begin a new one—her career. Gladys represented a huge responsibility. No doubt, if the two had enjoyed a warm relationship over the years, she would have been much more inclined to take on such a burden. However, this woman before her was one she didn’t know at all, and was also unstable and unpredictable. Yet, still, she was her mother. Quick tears came to Norma Jeane’s eyes. She let go of Gladys’s hands and stood up. “We have to go now, Mother,” she said, gathering her coat while shooting Jim a desperate look. “I’m going to leave you Aunt Ana’s address and phone number, so you know where I am. Call me anytime.” Then, with tears by now streaming down her face, she bent down and kissed Gladys on the forehead. Gladys had no reaction. Norma Jeane and Jim turned and walked away.

The days driving back to Los Angeles were spent quietly, Norma Jeane deep in thought and terribly unhappy. The trip certainly did not go as Jim had planned. He didn’t have the chance to really talk to Norma Jeane about his concerns relating to their marriage and her career. However, when they got back to Aunt Ana’s, it all came out. “I’ve had enough of this modeling business,” he told Norma Jeane, putting his foot down. “I’m not going to put up with it another moment. Here’s what’s going to happen. When I get back here in April on my next leave, I want you back in our own house. And I want you to have made up your mind that you’re finished with this silliness, and then we’re going to have children. Do you understand, Norma Jeane?” She nodded, but didn’t say a word. She would later recall her heart pounding so much that evening, she couldn’t sleep. A photographer had given her a bottle of prescription sleeping pills in case she was unable to get a good night’s sleep before a session, but she was afraid to take them.