Sam Weller - Shadow Show

Norma Jeane skipped school one day. She went to the movies. She went even though she knew she would get in trouble.

She saw a Bosko cartoon and a Fox Movietone newsreel and a movie called Sea of Dreams and a Laurel and Hardy movie. Laurel was the skinny one. Hardy was the fat one. They had a piano to push up a long flight of stairs. The heavy piano made a painful noise on each step. Then the piano fell down all the stairs. They had to shove it all the way back up. Then they learned there was a road they could have used so… they carried it back down the stairs!

Laurel and Hardy were funny and sad. They reminded you of everybody.

Then the movies were finished.

Norma Jeane did not want to leave.

She knew she was in serious trouble.

So she stayed.

The movies started again.

That was how it worked.

She got tired.

She leaned way back in her seat and looked up.

Pathways of light.

Then Stan Laurel is in the seat alongside her. He takes off his derby and balances it on his knee.

She is not surprised. She is glad.

—I had a dream that I was awake and I woke up to find myself asleep, Stan Laurel says.

She knows what he means.

—I’m in trouble, Norma Jeane tells him.

—Neither do I, too, Stan Laurel says.

—That’s silly, Norma Jeane says. —That’s funny.

—Why yes, Stan Laurel says. —You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led.

He smiles and slowly fades away, becoming glimmering dust motes that rise and swirl into the light streams above.

It is almost sunset when Norma Jeane returns to the Los Angeles Orphans Home.

—We were all quite concerned, Miss Daltrey, the assistant director, said, recalling the incident some years later.

—Once we knew she was all right, I was going to punish her…

—Then she started, well, whimpering , whimpering in a high-pitched voice. She scrunched up her little face, and her mouth stretched and turned down—really, it was like the mask of tragedy, a crescent, and she was scratching the top of her head and blinking both eyes in slow motion…

—This is another fine mm-meh—mess I’ve gotten myself into, is what she said.

—She was just like him, you know, the skinny one, and Norma Jeane stuttered, I mean, she really stuttered, and you certainly did not want to laugh at that, but it was just so funny. I let her off with two extra days drying dishes. There was a shine to our Norma Jeane. I remember thinking she was a natural talent and that she would become a comedienne like Carole Lombard or Jean Harlow.

Funds were a problem. No Christmas tree in the Orphans Home. Norma Jeane decided a tree would be delivered by Santa Claus. She made up a song and sang it. (She did not stammer when she sang.)

The other children made fun of Norma Jeane. Even the real little kids knew Santa Claus was not real. It was the Depression.

Norma Jeane made up a new song.

Marilyn Monroe is dying.

Her diaphragm has quit working and her breathing is now all from the stomach. Her skin has a bluish cast, and if you were to take her wrist, you would find her pulse only with difficulty.

In this dark room, with no one to see, points of light, little stars, are gathering.

A glowing dome of light covers her.

Jean Harlow died. Age: 26.

Norma Jeane left the orphanage. Something had happened, she was not sure what, but now Aunt Grace wanted her… Aunt Grace would take her in.

Norma Jeane stood in front of the Los Angeles Orphans Home Society. She wished she had a derby to tip in farewell.

A thought came to her, and she claimed to remember it years later.

—Jean Harlow was dead. It was not right that the world did not have a Jean Harlow. That meant I would have to make things right and become Jean Harlow—or maybe I already was… It was a very strange feeling. I still feel that strange feeling sometimes.

Then she got into Aunt Grace’s Buick and went home.

Norma Jeane waited in the long line at Grauman’s Chinese. The film, Saratoga , had been released the previous day.

It starred Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.

It was Jean Harlow’s final film.

Norma Jeane watched the movie.

And without watching—not exactly—she seemed constantly aware of shifting waves of light above.

Norma Jeane married the boy next door. Nice guy: Jim Dougherty. She was sixteen. He was twenty-three. She married him to stay out of the orphanage. (Aunt Grace could not keep her any longer.) Jim married Norma Jeane because he was a nice guy.

That’s part of it; there were other reasons.

Jim was away for a long time with the Merchant Marine.

Norma Jeane had a factory job, but she was pretty and had a va-va-voom figure. She soon got other jobs: modeling in shorts and skimpy tops and bathing suits. She did one picture looking back over her shoulder like Betty Grable. Her smile was not as perfect as Betty Grable’s, but her tush was better than Betty Grable’s.

Lots of guys saw pictures like that of Norma Jeane in Wink and Laff and Picture Parade and Caper and Gala .

Nice guy Jim did not like all the guys looking at photographs of Norma Jeane’s tush.

So they got divorced.

“She told me she wanted to be a movie star. I told her with looks like that, she was a natural. She asked if I meant it. Sure, I meant it, I told her. She asked if I could give her a buck for a sandwich and coffee. I gave her a buck for a sandwich and coffee. Then she said she just had to do something nice for me, so I let her, you know what I mean? Marilyn Monroe, for cryin’ out loud.”

Norma Jeane posed nude.

Calendar Girl.

Marilyn in the flesh on swirls of red velvet.

Photographer Tom Kelley had no problem with lighting.

She glowed. She was the light.

Tom Kelley called the picture Golden Dreams.

He understood.

And so:

Got a nose job.

Gave some blow jobs.

Changed her name.

Marilyn Monroe.

Muh-Muh-Marilyn Monroe.

—No, goddamnit! Marilyn goddamnit Monroe goddamnit.

Unbilled extra.

—How about a tumble?

Extra. Two days.

Took voice lessons.

Took acting lessons.

Marilyn Monroe.

Walk-on.

Chorus girl in Love Happy with Harpo and Groucho Marx.

Banged Groucho.

Banged Harpo.

John Carroll (B-movie star) and his wife, Lucille (Director, Talent Department, MGM). Three-way.

Banged Joe Schenck (Chairman, 20th Century-Fox).

Banged Harry Cohn (President, Columbia Pictures).

Banged Johnny Hyde. She called him “the kindest man in the world.”

Johnny Hyde said —Marry me. I’ve got a bad heart. I’ll croak soon, leave you fixed like the Queen of the Nile and not a poor shiksa nafke .

She said —No.

He died.

Second billing in Ladies of the Chorus .