Marilyn Monroe - My Story

It may be different in other places, but in Hollywood “being virtuous” is a juvenile sounding phrase like “having the mumps.”

Maybe it was the nickel Mr. Kimmel once gave me, or maybe it was the five dollars a week the orphanage used to sell me for, but men who tried to buy me with money made me sick. There were plenty of them. The mere fact that I turned down offers ran my price up.

I was young, blonde, and curvaceous, and I had learned to talk huskily like Marlene Dietrich and to walk a little wantonly and to bring emotion into my eyes when I wanted to. And though these achievements landed me no job they brought a lot of wolves whistling at my heels. They weren’t just little wolves with big schemes and frayed cuffs. There were bona fide check signers, also.

I rode with them in their limousines and sat in swanky cafés with them, where I usually ate like a horse to make up for a week of skimpy drugstore counter meals.

And I went to the big Beverly Hills homes with them and sat by while they played gin or poker. I was never at ease in these homes or in the swanky cafés. For one thing my clothes became cheap and shabby looking in swell surroundings. I had to sit with my legs in such a position that the runs or the mends in my stockings wouldn’t show. And I had to keep my elbows out of sight for the same reason.

The men like to show off to each other and to the kibitzers by gambling for high stakes. When I saw them hand hundred and even thousand dollar bills to each other, I felt something bitter in my heart. I remembered how much twenty-five cents and even nickels meant to the people I had known, how happy ten dollars would have made them, how a hundred dollars would have changed their whole lives.

When the men laughed and pocketed the thousands of dollars of winnings as if they were made of tissue paper, I remembered my Aunt Grace and me waiting in line at the Holmes Bakery to buy a sackful of stale bread for a quarter to live on a whole week. And I remembered how she had gone with one of her lenses missing from her glasses for three months because she couldn’t afford the fifty cents to buy its replacement. I remembered all the sounds and smells of poverty, the fright in people’s eyes when they lost jobs, and the way they skimped and drudged in order to get through the week. And I saw the blue dress and white blouse walking the two miles to school again, rain or shine, because a nickel was too big a sum to raise for bus fare.

I didn’t dislike the men for being rich or being indifferent to money. But something hurt me in my heart when I saw their easy come, easy go thousand dollar bills.

One evening a rich man said to me, “I’ll buy you a couple of real outfits, fur coats and all. And I’ll pay your rent in a nice apartment and give you an eating allowance. And you don’t even have to go to bed with me. All I ask is to take you out to cafés and parties and for you to act as if you were my girl. And I’ll say good night to you outside your door and never ask you to let me in. It’ll just be a make-believe affair. What do you say?”

I answered him, “I don’t like men with fancy schemes like you. I like straightforward wolves better. I know how to get along with them. But I’m always nervous with liars.”

“What makes you think I’m lying?” he asked.

“Because if you didn’t want me you wouldn’t try to buy me,” I said.

I didn’t take their money, and they couldn’t get by my front door, but I kept riding in their limousines and sitting beside them in the swanky places. There was always a chance a job and not another wolf might spot you. Besides, there was the matter of food. I never felt squeamish about eating my head off. Food wasn’t part of any purchase price.

My chief problem next to eating, stockings, and rent, was my automobile. I had made a down payment on a small, secondhand car. But the hundred and fifty I still owed on it was Sweepstake money.

The second month I received a letter saying if I didn’t make the fifty dollar monthly payment the company would have to repossess the car. I inquired of a girl I knew at Central Casting what the word meant and she told me.

The third month a man knocked on my door, showed me a document, and repossessed my car.

“On the receipt of fifty dollars,” the man said, “the company will be glad to restore the car to your custody.”

A movie job hunter without a car in Hollywood was like a fireman without a fire engine. There were at least a dozen studios and agents’ offices you had to visit every day. And they were in a dozen different districts, miles away from each other.

Nothing came of these visits. You sat in a waiting room of the Casting Department. An assistant came out of a door, looked over the assembled group and said, “There’s nothing today. Leave your names and phone numbers.” That was almost a break—the second sentence. “Leave your names and phone numbers.” Usually they uttered only the first sentence.

In the Agency office it was a little more complicated. Because the agents weren’t as sincere as the Casting Departments. They were inclined to string you along, utter a few wolf calls, make promises, and try out a wrestling hold or two. Nothing came of it, but you had to keep coming back. Agents sometimes had “ins” and jobs.

Ring Lardner wrote a story once about a couple of girls who saved up their money and went to Palm Beach, Florida, to mingle with the social elite of that famous resort. He said they stopped at a swell hotel, and every evening “They romped out on the veranda to enjoy a few snubs.” That’s the way it was with me. Except without an automobile, I could do very little romping.

I did everything possible to get the car back. I spent days tracking down the Marshall and the Sheriff of Los Angeles. I visited the company that had done the repossessing. I even contemplated calling up a few millionaires I knew. But I couldn’t. When I started to dial one of their numbers a hot angry feeling filled me, and I had to hang up. I realized this wasn’t quite normal, but all I could do was throw myself on the bed and start crying. I would cry and yell and beat the wall with my fists as if I were trying to break out of someplace. Then I would lie still for a day or two and go without food and wish I were dead—as if I were Norma Jean again looking out of the orphanage window.

The phone rang. It was a photographer I knew named Tom Kelley. He and his wife Natalie had been nice to me. I had posed for some beer ads for Tom.

“Come on over,” he said. “I’ve got a job for you.”

“This is a little different than the other jobs,” Tom said when I got to his place. “But there’s fifty dollars in it for you, if you want to do it.”

I told Tom and Natalie about the repossessing of my car.

“For fifty dollars, I am ready to jump off a roof,” I said.

“These pictures are for a calendar,” said Tom, “and they will have to be in the nude.”

“You mean completely nude?” I asked.

“That’s it,” said Tom, “except they will not be vulgar. You’re ideal for the job not only because you have a fine shape but you’re unknown. Nobody’ll recognize you.”

“I’m sure unknown,” I said.

“It would be different if you were a starlet or some such thing,” said Natalie. “Then somebody might recognize you on the calendar.”

“With you there’ll be no such trouble possible,” said Tom. “It’ll just be a picture of a beautiful nobody.”