The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Final Confrontation

Jim Dougherty was in service in Shanghai at the end of May 1946 when he received the “Dear John” letter. He later said it had come directly from Norma Jeane personally, but actually it was much more impersonal than that: It was written by her lawyer, C. Norma Cornwall, who informed him that she had filed for divorce in Las Vegas. As it happened, Norma Jeane had made up her mind that she wanted the marriage to be ended. She wasn’t sure how to proceed, but she knew of one woman who was always able to think of a solution to any problem: “Aunt” Grace. Of course, Grace had encouraged Norma Jeane into a marriage of convenience, and her plan had worked in that Norma Jeane was spared the misery of another orphanage. Now she was twenty and ready to be free. Grace knew that the quickest way to obtain a divorce was to file in Las Vegas and then live there for the six months it would take for residency to be established and the paperwork to be filed. Conveniently, Grace had an aunt there. So Norma Jeane was off to Las Vegas in early May to begin the process.

The first thing Jim Dougherty did when he got the letter announcing Norma Jeane’s intention was to cut off the stipend that wives of military men received at that time from the government. He was angry. In his view, Norma Jeane had gotten what she wanted and now she was done with him. Certainly he knew what she had gotten out of the deal; he just wasn’t sure how he had benefited from it. In his view, he could have been single for the last few years and enjoying the benefits of being a bachelor in the military. One thing was certain: He wasn’t going to make it easy for his wife to get out of the marriage. He was determined not to sign the papers until he was able to meet with her. He later admitted that he secretly felt he could change her mind if they had sex. Many years later he still wouldn’t admit that the marriage wasn’t perfect. In fact, he began to insist that the reason Norma Jeane filed for divorce was because she was trying to get a movie contract at MGM and was told they’d never sign her if she was married. Why? Because she might get pregnant and the studio’s investment would then be lost. Of course, this wasn’t the case at all. He also said that Norma Jeane later proposed that she “just be my girlfriend” and not his wife in order to placate the studio. Again, not true. In fact, there was never a deal on the table with MGM. Yes, movie studio honchos at the time preferred their new actresses to be single, but this had nothing to do with Norma Jeane’s decision. She was unhappy with him and wanted out of the marriage.

When he returned to the States in June, Jim planned to drive to Las Vegas to meet with Norma Jeane. Much to his surprise, though, she was not in Nevada. She was in Los Angeles at Aunt Ana’s, where she’d been staying. When she answered the door of her apartment in Ana’s duplex, the first thing Jim noticed was Gladys sitting on the bed in the one large room. She looked nervous, as if she thought there might be some sort of confrontation. Norma Jeane apologized for not being able to talk to him at that moment and asked if they could meet at another time. Jim left wondering why she hadn’t apologized for wanting to divorce him. “I was losing most of my determination to hang onto her,” he recalled. “She was no longer the anxious-to-please young woman I married. She was calculating, something she had never been before. She made sure that Gladys would be living there when I made my last appearance—that her mother would have my place in the only bed in that apartment. What she would do with Gladys—a woman who was only capable of looking on passively and putting her trust in God—I couldn’t guess.”

Jim and Norma Jeane met several times over the next few days to try to sort out their problems. At one point, Jim went directly to Ana to appeal to her. He hoped she would talk some “sense” into Norma Jeane. However, he was surprised to learn that she fully supported Norma Jeane’s goals. She had always been Norma Jeane’s great ally. He said later that Ana seemed “awestruck by the very notion that Norma Jeane might be a movie star.” More likely, she was just very enthusiastic about Norma Jeane following her dream. Jim’s appeal to Ana, though, does demonstrate how desperate he was to find a way to save his marriage—but for what reason? “He truly did not want to sign the divorce papers,” says his friend Martin Evans, “but it had gone beyond love. It was now a matter of ego.

“He brought Norma Jeane to my house because he said he wanted a quiet place to talk to her. His mother was always around, or Aunt Ana or Gladys. So I said yes. When they showed up, I could see that she was miserable and didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She had on a floral-print dress, I remember, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. To me, she looked beautiful. Jim kept saying, ‘Look at her, Martin. She hasn’t slept in days she’s so upset.’ Didn’t seem that way to me, though. They sat in my living room and I was ready to leave when Jim said, ‘No, stay. Maybe you can help me talk some sense into her.’ I felt very awkward about it, but stayed.”

Once the three were seated, Norma Jeane said, “I think you two are going to gang up on me now. And I don’t like it one bit, Jimmie.”

“We’re not doing that, Norma Jeane,” he said, according to Martin Evans’s memory. “We just want you to know that acting is a tough business. You don’t have the strength for it. I don’t know who you have been talking to at that modeling agency, but they’re filling your head with stupid ideas, Norma Jeane. This isn’t for you.”

Norma Jeane let his words sink in for a moment. Then, before she could respond, Jimmie verbally attacked her. He was angry, he said, because he felt she had used him to stay out of the orphanage and was now finished with him. She then asked him how many times she would have to thank him before they could just go on with their lives. He said she was unstable and, worse, that she had a lot in common with Gladys—suggesting, of course, that they were both mentally ill. With that, Jim stormed out the door leaving Norma Jeane with his friend, Martin. “She sat down and just started crying,” Martin Evans recalled. He said he watched her for a bit, noting how beautiful she was, even in tears.

Finally, she turned to him. “Take me away from here,” Norma Jeane said, standing tall. “Take me away from this place, and take me away from this time.”