The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Grace’s Upsetting Secret

One day in May 1953, Marilyn Monroe returned home from a day of shopping to find Grace Goddard’s car parked in front of her house. Grace was not in the habit of dropping by without calling first, so Marilyn must have suspected that something was wrong. “They were pretty inseparable during this time, after Gladys went back into the institution,” Grace’s stepdaughter, BeBe Goddard, confirmed. “I think Marilyn called her every single day. She still depended on her. Grace was doing office work for her, arranging her schedule, keeping things organized. Marilyn was always filling her in on what was going on at the studio or in her personal life with Joe. Grace loved hearing her stories, especially the show business stories. Everything that the two of them had dreamt about so long ago had come true. It almost seemed unfathomable that Norma Jeane had become this … sensation.”

After inviting Grace inside, Marilyn listened in stunned silence while her aunt shared a secret that she had been hiding from everyone in her life—she had cancer.

The concept of a life-threatening illness and its treatment was quite complex for Grace. She had been a Christian Scientist for a long time, and in recent years passionate about it. One of the core beliefs of the faith is that doctors are unnecessary. The body, as devout believers claim, has within it everything it needs to remain healthy. However, Grace had been feeling under the weather for many months and, despite her long-standing opposition to the medical profession, had secretly sought help at a Los Angeles clinic. That’s how she learned the devastating news that she had uterine cancer. Sadly, she was embarrassed by her condition and not sure how to cope with it. In the 1950s, many women felt uneasy about openly discussing so-called “feminine issues,” especially with the men in their lives. Marilyn had recently been diagnosed with endometriosis and practically no one knew about it. In Grace’s case, her husband, Doc, wasn’t aware that anything was wrong with her.

Marilyn was concerned, of course, but more than that, she was determined—determined to fight. She had become a firm believer in the medical profession, as doctors were an important part of the studio system at that time. Actors needed insurance, which required physicals, and they often needed (or believed they needed) treatment for conditions that were by-products of their stressful lives. There’s little doubt that Marilyn was dependent on sleeping pills by this time—doled out to her without concern by the studio physicians—and had also become used to the idea of taking other drugs to calm herself during times of stress. Marilyn convinced Grace that she needed to put her metaphysical beliefs aside for the time being and allow Western medicine the chance to heal her.

“I believe that Marilyn loved Grace more than anybody in the world,” BeBe Goddard would observe. “Grace had been a second mother from the time she was born and had been such a fair person, and as much a mother, or more so, than Gladys. Grace was the single most consistent factor throughout Marilyn’s life.”

After years of focusing on her own career, her own happiness, her own life, Marilyn decided it was time to change. A debt needed to be repaid. This wonderful woman, who had always worked so tirelessly to solve the problems of others, needed her—and Marilyn wanted to make certain she was going to receive the best care money could buy. It was to be a delicate dance, however, because Grace did not want Doc or the rest of her family to know precisely what was going on. As much as possible, they would hide Grace’s condition and the fact that she was seeking help from doctors. While she eventually would admit to receiving treatment, she would never explain just how intensive her medical quest had been. In some respects, there would be a covert aspect to the journey the two women would take—but this was something with which Marilyn had become quite familiar. Marilyn had come to believe that the “truth” was something abstract, malleable—and she easily enrolled Grace in that belief. After all, they were simply trying to save her loved ones from anguish and worry.

While Marilyn had nothing but the best of intentions, Grace Goddard’s experience in the following months would prove to be ghastly. Marilyn arranged for Grace to see numerous physicians, all of whom needed to examine her, of course. For a woman not familiar with any kind of medical examination to now have doctors studying the most intimate parts of her body was torturous. The experience was so draining, in fact, that after one day of tests, Grace told Marilyn that she could not go home to face her husband, Doc. Marilyn suggested that she stay with her for much of the summer. “We’ll have fun, just you and I,” Marilyn suggested. “It’ll be like the old days.” ^*