Marilyn Monroe, the wife of many men and no love
His life was marked by loneliness, addictions and a chronic neurosis; She tried to mitigate helplessness with stormy and truncated relationships; love x-ray of a dissatisfied diva
"Alone. I'm alone. I am always alone. Either way". This is perhaps the most forceful phrase that Norma Jeane Mortenson Baker has written in her personal diary, the vulnerable woman who masked herself in the costume of the powerful Marilyn Monroe. Nine words that uncovered the true essence of a being disintegrated by the fragility of emotional deprivation and dependence on addictions. Her personal diary is a legacy that describes her phobic profile, contaminated in the dynamics of various panics and the inability to take control of her life.
The most desired diva in the universe, the blonde symbol of sensuality and eroticism, suffered a life full of depression and toxic substances. And, above all, traversed by the uneasiness of seeing broken, over and over again, the couple's bonds that she managed to build with effort and that always, unfailingly, crumbled, leaving her plunged into a new disappointment. I had it all. And she had nothing.
Are the keys to a painful adulthood encrypted in her harsh childhood? Her mother was a woman who suffered from serious emotional imbalances. A being unable to raise his daughter with a certain degree of coherence, containment and mental health. Her father? An absent figure. The uneasiness of emotional deprivation marked the blonde forever and ever. Marilyn inherited the family pathology. The clinical picture defined her as neurotic and depressive. She lived surrounded by men. In them she sought not only love and physical contact, but also to calm the immeasurable feeling of loneliness. Quench your thirst for affection and contention in bed. She had many loves. And yet she always felt lonely.
Such was the chaos in the family home that Norma was about to be admitted to an orphanage, in an attempt to preserve her from the horror. She was only 16 years old and an incipient beauty that already placed her as an extremely attractive teenager. But she herself, as she always did, twisted that course and rebelled against the mandate. The solution she found at her fingertips was to get married.
First love?
His name was James Dougherty. He was a Los Angeles police officer and fought in World War II. The blonde was escaping the possibility of a confinement and he was her lifeline. She needed it; the 21-year-old loved her. But while he was fighting on the battlefield, Norma went on to become a sought-after model in Los Angeles who would soon become the great Marilyn of Hollywood. In 1946, the lights of the sets ended up dazzling her and she decided to abandon that routine marital life. Her thing was not being a housewife. In addition, the film industry did not allow her to be married to sign succulent contracts. The cameras or her husband. And she opted for 20th Century Fox cameras, to make Marilyn shine and bury Norma forever. First divorce.
Her love life was intense, but the legends around her further magnified the mystery. Stealth was used commercially to increase the myth of the great "man eating Hollywood." This is how in her long list of lovers appear names of little consistency. Too much was invented and, on many occasions, it was the interested gallants who attributed unverifiable romances with the star.
In this regard, there is no evidence of a link to writer-director Robert Slatzer. He confessed a week of marriage in 1952. Myth or reality? In 1954, without fable in between, she married Joe DiMaggio, the Yankees baseball star. The physical attraction was immediate. The passion of an idyllic bed united them so intensely that it too dissolved. They were stunned with sex. They lasted together only nine months. Marilyn was already Marilyn. And her emotional twists and turns were beginning to sap her life. It does not affect fidelity, she began testing with various lovers and consuming everything that came to her bedside table. Joe, on the other hand, was very conservative and could not bear what his wife generated in men. It is said that the fights were tremendous: yelling, insults and complaints. Despite the passion, the trembling ended up separating them. Worlds too incongruous to beat in the same orbit. Over the years, a pleasant memory remained between them. To the point that, when she died, Joe sent flowers, for twenty years in a row, to the grave of his beloved.
At that time it was her friend Truman Capote who suggested that she hone her acting skills at the Actor's Studio. There Marilyn went, taking a hiatus in her career just before opening her own film production company. They did not share breakfast at Tiffany's with the author of In Cold Blood, but they did share intense early mornings.
Broken glass
In 1951 they saw each other for the first time, Arthur Miller was already a consecrated intellectual. His plays marked the scene with their own style and Marilyn was dazzled by the verb of this man who prompted her to convert to Judaism to seal a marriage under a religious office. They were married on June 29, 1956, but they did not last long, only four years, although for Marilyn's time it was not so little. What could link a man with an exquisite pen with a woman of worldly life and plot films with little specific weight? Love is a mystery. And her exercise, a wonderful secret celebration.
It is said that she found a father in him; perhaps to that absent father who never accompanied her. And it is said that Arthur found in Marilyn the freshness that her life needed. Despite the ten years he had led her, they had fun like boys. In the circuits in which the writer moved, the blonde generated curiosity. It was the third and last formal link of the actress. Although her love life continued to stumble. Even, still linked with Miller, she did not deprive herself of dabbling with Yves Montand, but the adventure was temporary. It is also said that, before breaking up with her husband, she flirted with Tony Curtis. The actor confessed that she was her lover. This relationship would coincide with a spontaneous abortion that plunged her into one of her greatest depressions and that would have been the trigger for her definitive addiction to alcohol.
The Diary of Shattered Pages
Elia Kazan cradled her when she was going through unbearable heartaches. And with Marlon Brando the sheets were shelter for long talks rather than love sessions. The personal diary was still written with pages of anguish. On more than one occasion, she broke the writing herself. Reading it, she could not tolerate such distress. Despite everything, the cinema continued to bring him box office successes and a millionaire fortune with titles such as The Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or The Prince and the Showgirl.
Marilyn was never satisfied. The eternal feeling of loneliness led her to choose badly. To set her sights on men with whom she could not formalize, despite her desire. Frank Sinatra was one of them. "La Voz" fell in love with the blonde and the idyll lasted for years. But between them an excessive competition arose. Jealousy and divisms on both sides. They came and went. They loved each other, they hated each other and they separated.
Meanwhile, her panic attacks became a habit and began to alter her life to affect her work. Late arrivals to the filming or forgetting the lyrics marked the imminent decline.
Diverse diva
“People started saying that she was a lesbian. I smiled. There is no wrong sex if there is love in it ”. Marilyn's words do not confirm, but neither do they deny. The versions about love affairs with other women marked some period of her life. The loudest rumor linked her to her acting teacher Natasha Lytess, who would have confessed that indoors, Marilyn walked without clothes, oblivious to all kinds of modesty. But the names of Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford also came up. The actress played with the mystery and with everything she knew that her name generated.
The sheets of power
The link was as fleeting as it was scandalous. It is said that not only President John Fitzgerald Kennedy enjoyed the benefits of the blonde. Robert, his brother and attorney general of the United States, also would have shared pleasant moments with the star. This rumor could never be verified. On May 19, 1962, John had his birthday and decided to celebrate it with a big party at Madison Square Garden. In that exclusive gala, Marilyn whispered in her ears that famous "Happy Birthday Mr. President" that was immortalized forever. The stanzas shook those present. The actress in her purest form could not spread more sensuality.
There was too much said and speculation about this controversial link between Kennedy and Marilyn, from versions of what the fiery romance was like to plots with political consequences. The truth is that three months after that pompous birthday party, the actress was found dead in California. The Los Angeles police chief had received a call from Marilyn's psychiatrist. The news was irrevocable: the actress lay lifeless. Witnesses gave weak testimony and the body appeared in an unorthodox position. In the first tests, the glass of water that later appeared on the scene was not seen and was recorded in countless photographs. In spite of everything, the cause was labeled death from a barbiturate overdose.
With Marilyn a world cinema era died. That August 5, 1962 at 4.55 in the morning, the entertainment industry lost one of its greatest exponents. To the sexiest woman to ever hit the big screen.
Her writings in the personal diary gave account of the eternal emotional exhaustion of a woman with a serious neurosis. She used to confess that she felt an immense fear of dying in a neuropsychiatric hospital like her mother, but her death was much worse. The Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles welcomes hundreds of daily visitors who seek to get closer to its aura, the undisputed symbol of mystery, beauty and sensuality. She had as much of a man as she wanted, and yet her heart only knew of the havoc wrought by the aridity of loneliness camouflaged in a perfect body and an immaculate face.
