J. Taraborrelli - The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Indeed, red flags were being raised all over the terrain of Marilyn’s new relationship with DiMaggio. For instance, he was clearly jealous of the attention she generated from other men wherever she went. When she was at the stadium with him, of course she would be the subject of great fascination. She had always attracted men, but never like in the 1950s. By this time, she was in full-fledged Marilyn Monroe mode, meaning that the transformation from Norma Jeane had been total. The way she spoke—a honeyed voice so whispery and seductive. The way she moved her lips—a kiss always imminent. The way she moved her body—a striptease always a possibility, but never quite a reality. When she was in public in front of her adoring fans and the ever-present glare of the photographers’ flashes, she instantly became Marilyn Monroe . She didn’t even have to think about it anymore. The persona she had created was now such a part of her being it just… was. She was quickly becoming a rising sex symbol for an entire generation. It was only going to get worse for him (and for her!), not better, as her star continued in its ascent. Yet the heart wants what it wants, and the couple ventured forth anyway. Of course, Natasha Lytess had a strong opinion about it. “This man is the punishment of God in your life,” she told Marilyn, disguising neither her contempt for him nor her disapproval of their relationship.

In July, Joe took her home to meet his family. Once there, she clearly saw why Joe wanted his wife to be domestic—women stayed home, raised children, cooked and cleaned, and it had always been that way in the DiMaggio family. Marilyn was not that kind of woman at all.

At the end of the summer of 1952, Joe dropped a real bombshell: He thought it would be best if Marilyn abandoned her career. It only caused her great stress anyway, he argued, so why do it? It was becoming abundantly clear that this was a man who didn’t understand Marilyn. Her career—meaning fame—was her greatest passion. Acting was important to her and she did whatever she could to improve her skills. However, Marilyn Monroe wanted to be famous. In just a few months she would tell her stand-in on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes , “I want to be a star more than anything. It’s something precious.”

“I didn’t want to give up my career,” Marilyn later recalled, “and that’s what Joe wanted me to do most of all. He wanted me to be the beautiful ex-actress, just like he was the great former ballplayer. We were to ride into some sunset together. But I wasn’t ready for that kind of journey yet. I wasn’t even thirty, for heaven’s sake.”

The physical attraction between Joe and Marilyn was intense, and it definitely contributed to their desire to be with each other. However, it was clear that they had very different values. The many differences between them can be boiled down to this: He was conservative. She was not. And neither was willing to compromise. Given these facts of their personalities, there seemed no way a romance between them was going be anything but tumultuous.

Gladys’s Surprise Visit

T hough Gladys Baker had been saying for some time that she wanted to visit her daughter Berniece in Florida, Berniece and Marilyn were really not sure she was serious about it. When Marilyn offered to take care of her expenses for such a trip, all was quiet with Gladys.

Then, true to form, Gladys—always one for a surprise appearance or disappearance—showed up in Florida without warning during the first week of September 1952. How she got the money for her trip (and by airline, no less, because Marilyn intended to send her by railway) remained a mystery. She definitely did not get the funds from Marilyn, though, because if she had, Marilyn would have warned Berniece about her impending arrival. Instead, Berniece’s daughter, Mona Rae, picked up the telephone one morning and it was Gladys on the other end telling her she was at the airport—and why wasn’t anyone there to pick her up? When Marilyn found out about it, she was frantic with worry. She couldn’t imagine how Gladys had made the trip. The mere fact that she was capable of such surprise maneuvers was something Marilyn found very troubling. “I don’t know how to keep an eye on her,” she said. “It’s becoming more than I can handle.”

The same could have been said for poor Berniece, because the next few weeks would prove to be very difficult. Gladys wasn’t exactly the ideal houseguest. The apartment in which Berniece and her husband, Paris, and daughter lived was very small, and now there was a fourth occupant. Not surprisingly, Gladys was demanding and difficult, argumentative and disruptive. She wouldn’t help with any household duties and spent her days complaining and making long-distance telephone calls. Berniece did everything she could to make Gladys happy, but nothing worked. Gladys’s emotional problems were complex. She needed to be managed very carefully, and Berniece simply didn’t have the skills necessary to do that. Ultimately, she was at a loss, especially when she got the bill for the first month of telephone calls—long-distance costs were unbelievably exorbitant back then and Paris was very unhappy about the charges. When Berniece asked Gladys about the phone calls, she became defensive and explained that she had simply forgotten to mention them. Confused, Berniece called Marilyn to ask if she thought Gladys was being forgetful or just plain inconsiderate. Marilyn decided it was probably a little bit of both.

From an analytical viewpoint, Marilyn found the unhappy interaction between Gladys and Berniece interesting because for years she had wondered if it was just she who could not get along with Gladys. Maybe she should have tried harder, she often thought. Maybe she hadn’t been as patient as she should have been, or as understanding. However, when she learned of Berniece’s troubles with Gladys, she felt at least somewhat vindicated. From a practical viewpoint, what were they going to do about Gladys now? Marilyn had an idea: What if she paid for Gladys to move into an apartment near Berniece? Since Gladys did seem to like Florida, perhaps she could live there, Marilyn would take care of her expenses, and Berniece could keep an eye on her. The sisters agreed that this was a good idea and they felt certain that their mother would approve of it. However, when Berniece approached Gladys with the idea, she wasn’t happy about it at all. She became very angry because she felt that Berniece and Paris were just trying to get rid of her. Her feelings now hurt, she didn’t want to discuss it any further—and, moreover, it seemed as if she were not going to be ending her stay with Berniece anytime in the foreseeable future.

While Gladys was with her, Berniece took the opportunity to ask her about Marilyn’s father. Gladys came out very bluntly with the information that Edward Mortenson was not Marilyn’s father. Did Marilyn know? Yes, Gladys said, she knew because Grace told her. (Here, she was probably referring to the time Grace visited her in the sanitarium and Gladys told her that Charles Gifford was Marilyn’s father.) Berniece wondered how Marilyn had reacted to the news. Gladys said she had no idea (which was true—she had been in the hospital when Grace gave Marilyn the news). As Berniece pressed on about the subject, Gladys became increasingly agitated. Finally, she snapped at her daughter, “Look, if you want to know all of the details, ask Marilyn .” Berniece dropped the subject.

After almost two months of domestic turmoil, Berniece—feeling terrible about the entire situation—called Grace Goddard on October 30 to ask her advice. Grace sympathized with her. She had known Gladys for many years and she knew how difficult she was. She assured Berniece that Gladys didn’t mean any harm, that she was just sick and there had never been anything anyone could do about it. Grace had been using Christian Science as a tool in the healing of Gladys’s mind, but that didn’t seem to be working at all. Just two days earlier, she had sent Berniece a note telling her that Gladys “did not get a complete healing.” She wrote that she was afraid they were going to have to send her back to Agnews in San Jose, or maybe they should place her in the Rock Haven Sanitarium in La Crescenta, California. *