0:00

Personology is a production of I Heart

0:02

Radio. Marilyn

0:13

Monroe born Norma Jean Mortenson

0:16

was one of the greatest female screen legends

0:18

of the Golden Age of Hollywood. An

0:21

actress, model, and singer, she

0:24

changed attitudes towards sexuality

0:26

in the nineteen fifties and sixties, eventually

0:29

emerging into a major icon

0:31

of popular culture. My guest

0:33

today is Charles Cassillo, the

0:36

author of two books about Marilyn Monroe,

0:38

The Maryland Diaries, a fictional

0:41

recreation of her lost diary, and

0:44

Marilyn Monroe The Private Life

0:46

of a Public Icon, a biography

0:49

that speaks to the many mysteries surrounding

0:51

the star. Marilyn

1:02

Monroe doesn't get more iconic

1:05

in terms of Hollywood movie

1:08

starlet sex, symbol of

1:11

the last century and

1:14

still of great interest today.

1:16

But she was born Norma

1:18

Jean Mortenson on

1:21

June one in Los Angeles

1:24

to Gladys Pearl Baker,

1:27

who was originally Gladys Monroe, who

1:30

was actually a poor Midwestern girl

1:32

whose family came to California

1:35

as many families did,

1:37

and she was

1:39

actually not her first child. So let's

1:41

talk a little bit about her her

1:44

family of origin. Gladys

1:47

being her mother. But Gladys was originally

1:49

married at age fifteen to four

1:52

year old John Newton Baker,

1:54

and that was not a good marriage. No

1:56

um. He was abusive and they

1:58

did have a daughter, and

2:01

Gladys Baker had emotional

2:04

problems too, but with the

2:06

information that's available, we don't

2:08

know if it was her emotional problems or if

2:10

it was his abusiveness or a combination of

2:12

the two that made the marriage not work.

2:15

So actually there was a child who didn't live that

2:17

long, Robert, I think a son and

2:20

Bernice, who actually Maryland

2:22

didn't even learn about as a

2:24

half sibling until she was twelve

2:26

and met as an adult, but really

2:28

had very little to do with. And

2:31

it is important to note what emotional

2:33

problems existed, because

2:35

when one's mother has mental

2:37

illness, basically it greatly impacts

2:40

their child. And so we

2:42

do know that there were probably already

2:45

mental health issues afoot, although

2:47

they didn't present until later in terms

2:50

of hospitalization in Gladys.

2:52

But maybe even important for the audience

2:54

to understand that mental

2:56

illness as a family history means

2:59

that one is genetically more

3:02

likely to experience. Doesn't mean you definitely

3:04

will, but you are more likely to experience

3:07

mental illness, and not only did

3:09

Gladys go on to be diagnosed

3:12

with paranoid schizophrenia, but

3:14

her mother reportedly had severe

3:17

depressions, including postpartum

3:19

depression, and even a great

3:21

grandfather on the mother's side who

3:24

actually committed suicide died by

3:26

suicide. So it's important

3:29

to know there's there's a real family history

3:32

of at the very least effective

3:34

disorder or depressions and even

3:37

schizophrenia. That is important to NOPE.

3:39

But this man who did abuse

3:42

Gladys and for whom she

3:44

divorced and left was not

3:46

actually Maryland's father, So

3:49

let's talk about actual

3:51

father, Martin Edward Mortenson,

3:54

who was Marilyn

3:56

Monroe Norman Jeans father. Gladys

3:59

left her first two children, Bernice

4:02

and the son with the first husband,

4:05

and then she tried to pull herself

4:07

together. She was working as a

4:09

film cutter in Hollywood, and

4:12

Mortenson actually isn't

4:15

Marilyn Monroe's father, Norman Jean's father.

4:18

That was as a result of an affair that

4:20

she had the name of her father

4:22

was Charles Stanley Gifford. It

4:25

was a brief affair. Gladys hoped

4:27

that she would be able to marry

4:30

him, but he did not want to marry her,

4:33

so after she became pregnant, he

4:36

entered the relationship and Marilyn

4:39

Norma Jean was actually born

4:42

out of wedlock, so I always say like she kind

4:44

of started her life on

4:46

the wrong side of the tracks or being an

4:48

unaccepted member of society, because

4:50

in the six when Norma

4:53

Jean was born, to be a legitimate

4:55

was like, you're starting off on the worst thing that

4:57

you could be. You know, you have a black stain on.

5:00

But Gladys, who was working

5:02

as a film cutter, was not mentally

5:04

fit to take care of young

5:07

Norma Jeane, and she put

5:09

her into foster care. And

5:12

actually it's really sad. I mean she she was really

5:14

struggling financially to make ends meet. Right

5:16

as you said, she was working as a film cutter, and

5:18

she tried. Initially it does sound like

5:20

she tried to keep

5:23

Norma Jean and be a fit

5:25

mother. She tried to. Basically

5:28

they got multiple people lived in a house

5:31

together, she and her daughter and

5:34

others, and she tried in

5:36

the early years to keep Norma

5:38

Jeane, but she she just couldn't really do it.

5:40

The story of that is after a few

5:43

days, her mother realized that she couldn't

5:45

take care of her. It was going to just be too much, so

5:48

she when Normajine was only a few days

5:50

old, she went over to stay with her first

5:52

foster parents. And then when she turned

5:54

five, Gladys felt that she was

5:56

in a better kind of place in her life and

5:59

that she was. She had these like ideas,

6:01

I'm going to get us a house. I'm gonna

6:03

buy a piano. I'm gonna be a mom. I'm going to

6:05

make Norma Jean give her a

6:08

life that she really really deserves.

6:10

But again the pressure only after

6:12

a very very very short time, she

6:15

couldn't take it. Like she would go to work, she

6:17

would draw Norma Geine off at the movie theaters

6:19

like the Grahama's Chinese Theater and just leave

6:21

her there for the whole day. And that was her

6:23

introduction to the movies, and she would

6:26

just watch. She'd start in the morning and then she would watch

6:28

the films one after another after

6:30

another, and then she would come

6:32

home and act them out. But she actually

6:34

witnessed her mother after just several

6:36

months. Well, a couple of important things happened

6:39

during her stay with her mom. Number one,

6:42

her mom had a picture of Norma Jean's

6:44

real dad, Charles Stanley Gifford, and she

6:46

would always show Norma Jean a

6:48

picture of him, this handsome guy in wearing

6:50

off a door hat, and she would

6:52

say, this is your real father. And

6:55

because up until that time, Norma

6:57

Jean's life had been so unhappy

7:00

be and she felt so isolated,

7:02

and she felt so much in need of rescuing,

7:05

she put all her hopes in her father

7:07

that this is a guy like kind of like a

7:10

night in shining armor type thing. He'll come

7:12

someday and he'll take me away

7:15

from all of this and he'll give me the home that I want.

7:17

So that just comes in later, when, like

7:19

most of her relationships were, she

7:22

was searching to find her father again. So

7:24

that was the first important thing. The second

7:26

important thing was that she actually saw

7:29

her mother be taken out by the men

7:31

in the white coats and straight jacketed and taken

7:34

away. So she she witnessed that.

7:36

And even though obviously it was because

7:38

her mother was seriously

7:40

psychiatrically ill and need

7:43

to be hospitalized, it's

7:45

still for a child, for a young child,

7:47

which she was like eight, it

7:49

still feels like an abandonment, whether

7:52

your mother means to or not is really not

7:54

the point. But to be so young and

7:56

to be removed from your mother, who

7:59

you're longing for and have just been

8:01

with, you know, in more recent times,

8:03

would be you know, as a trauma and as

8:05

an abandonment, especially as you point out,

8:08

in light of not having a present

8:10

father and in addition the family

8:12

that she lived with, the sort of

8:14

foster parents this is Albert and Ida

8:17

Bollander, who were Evangelical

8:20

Christians and tried to make a nice

8:22

home. But another thing that seems

8:24

to come up about Norma Jean

8:26

is sadly the question

8:29

of of having been sexually abused.

8:31

And it's not clear to me from

8:34

what I can find, whether there was concerned

8:36

that that happened in one of the foster home

8:38

settings or one of the houses

8:40

that she lived in where there were other people present,

8:44

or whether that didn't really happen

8:46

until she stayed with

8:49

the friend of Gladys. Basically once

8:51

Gladys was really institutionalized

8:53

and unable to come out, Grace

8:55

Goddard and her husband Dock guarded

8:58

whether that that is what happened

9:00

there. Well, it wasn't in her

9:02

first years with the devoutly religious

9:05

family. But that did scare

9:07

her, as we see in like some of her scribblings,

9:09

she never ever really kept a diary, but she would scribble. The

9:12

first thing was that she was taught that

9:14

loving movies or entertainment or

9:17

singing anything other than religious songs was sinful

9:20

and bad, and that the human body was

9:22

bad. And I think one of

9:24

the things that happened is that Norma

9:27

Jean had another foster brother who

9:29

that family actually adopted. They never adopted her,

9:31

but they were very very close. They looked alike, and they

9:33

used to be called the twins. And Ida

9:36

walked in on them playing

9:38

naked or what, experimenting like little

9:40

babies, you know, just looking at each other or something,

9:43

and she was livid

9:45

and she was Normalgine was

9:47

punished and told that this is sinful and

9:49

you'll burn in hell forever. And it it did

9:52

have an effect on her forever, because she

9:54

eventually she started dreaming about being naked

9:56

in church and walking down the

9:58

island, everyone looking at her in my hearing

10:00

her because she was so beautiful. And I think

10:02

that's a very very very important

10:04

and interesting fact about a child that

10:06

started having that dream as a result of

10:08

being told that it was wrong. Her

10:10

subconscious was telling her, no, the human body

10:13

is good, the human body is right, and I want

10:15

people to accept that in me. So

10:17

it's interesting that in these early years

10:21

she had these experiences

10:23

that on the one hand told

10:25

her or let's say, informed her

10:27

future feelings that, you know,

10:30

showing yourself as a beautiful

10:33

person, as a beautiful human, as a beautiful

10:35

woman physically is

10:38

okay, and in fact, she for the

10:40

times was really disinhibited in

10:42

some ways. And yet we then

10:45

see later in her career and wonder

10:48

why behaviors which we'll talk about later,

10:50

that insinuate low self esteem,

10:54

shame, even guilt,

10:56

and this perfectionism very hard on

10:58

herself. And you know, you have to think

11:00

about these early experiences

11:03

where on the one hand, she was admired

11:06

for being very beautiful, even

11:08

as a child, a beautiful child, her mother

11:10

was purportedly very beautiful. And at

11:12

the same time, as you're pointing out,

11:14

having these experiences where she's being told

11:17

to be admired or to show yourself

11:20

is sinful because you

11:22

would be bad in the eyes of God.

11:24

It started an enormous amount of conflicts

11:27

in her because she's you don't forget. She was in Los

11:29

Angeles, where beauty was

11:31

one of the most important commodities a person

11:33

could have, and you know, people

11:35

were telling you she was beautiful, and then on the other hand,

11:37

she was getting signals from the person that

11:39

was taking care of her saying that

11:42

it was wrong to be looked at and almost

11:44

wrong to be, you know, considered beautiful.

11:47

So it started very early planting

11:49

all these conflicting ideas of beauty

11:52

and acceptance and all

11:54

of those kinds of things, with these thoughts to parents,

11:57

and really from somewhere between the ages

11:59

of eight twelve she had this moving

12:01

around from an orphanage, which

12:04

albeit was considered a very good orphanage,

12:06

but an orphanage is still an orphanage. You know,

12:08

you don't have a family home of family

12:11

life. It's kind of like being in a school all

12:13

the time, or you know, it's an institution. And

12:16

then the family of Grace Goddard

12:18

and her husband, which apparently

12:20

she liked better certainly,

12:23

But did something happen

12:25

in that home? I think that's that's

12:27

been a question, whether some sexual

12:30

impropriety happened in that home, because

12:33

at that time she also started

12:35

to develop this stutter that she had

12:38

a shyness and a stutter. Actually,

12:40

the way she told the story, it was before

12:43

the first time she was sexually abused. She was around

12:45

seven. It was shortly after her mother was institutionalized.

12:48

She was shuffled into a foster home. And it was in that

12:50

foster home whose name of the people there

12:52

we don't know, but it was a woman who

12:54

was running a boarding house. And

12:57

she was staying with this woman who was running a boarding house,

12:59

and one of the tenants lured her into

13:01

his room and sexually abused her and then

13:03

gave her a nickel and told her not to tell

13:06

anyone. And when she tried to

13:08

tell the foster mom and she

13:10

usually called him Aunt so I. I

13:12

don't know if it was like Aunt Louise or whatever it

13:14

was, but she told him what he did, and she smacked

13:17

her and said, he's one of my best tenants.

13:19

Don't you dare say

13:21

anything about Mr So and so

13:24

so. Again, these deep

13:27

seated problems were being planted in her from

13:29

a very early age because this

13:31

woman was also religious. And when when they were

13:33

at service, she saw this guy at

13:35

the service praying fervently, you

13:37

know, about righteousness and all of those other

13:40

things. And here she was carrying this secret

13:42

that he abused her, and no one

13:44

would believe her anyway. But then she

13:47

was shuffled. She recounts so many

13:49

foster homes. It was like she went to different schools.

13:51

She was uprooted. She would get comfortable in one

13:53

place, and her mother's friend, Grace Goodard,

13:56

always would tell her, oh, you're so beautiful, you're gonna

13:58

be an actor. She would try to take her, uh. Her

14:01

Grace's life was number one, you

14:03

know so, and she was trying to be an actress herself,

14:05

and she was very theatrical. She

14:07

met a guy who was much younger. His name

14:09

was Doc, and when they briefly

14:13

took her in, and that's it said that

14:15

this guy Doc abused her too. But

14:17

she told people various things throughout her

14:19

life. But it was more than

14:22

just two people. It was because in

14:24

those days foster care it wasn't

14:26

really supervised the way that it would eventually

14:28

become. You're placed into a family,

14:31

a young, pretty child, with

14:33

these men who looked at her like I

14:35

said, she's a damaged commodity. No one wants

14:37

her. She doesn't belong to anyone. I could

14:39

do what I could do what I want with her. And

14:41

then in the end she learned that if

14:44

that happened to her, she was victimized,

14:47

it was her fault. I mean, that was right.

14:49

That was the message from the women in the home who

14:52

I mean, she's she's wishing for a mother,

14:55

and she gets women

14:57

who basically say either I don't want to know

14:59

or don't want to hear about it, or it's your fault,

15:02

and it's your fault for being seductive

15:04

or evil in some way, which

15:07

is really terribly traumatic. She

15:11

ultimately in school,

15:14

she is considered a pretty average

15:17

student, maybe like a mediocre student,

15:19

except that she is considered a good

15:21

writer. She writes for the newspaper. And

15:24

it's important to you know she, of

15:26

course, for most of her career was really portrayed

15:29

as dumb, as unintelligent,

15:32

and you might be an average

15:34

student, meaning not a superstar

15:36

student. But that's certainly she was not

15:38

a poor student. She was not a poor student, and

15:41

she did have this aptitude for writing. And

15:43

it's important to understand that because even though those

15:45

are the parts she portrayed in

15:48

the way that she ended up directing her

15:50

career, we have a lot of evidence

15:52

that she was a reasonably intelligent

15:54

person. She loved poetry, she

15:57

loved learning. She always said, I'm not an intellectual,

15:59

but I admire intellectual people. She

16:02

was very hungry for knowledge and bettering her mind,

16:04

which is why she gravitated towards you

16:06

know, people like Arthur Miller and very great

16:08

intellectuals or renowned

16:10

people. She always wanted to better herself.

16:13

I mean, she loved Carl Samberg. She had a great friendship

16:16

with Carl Samberg. But I think

16:18

that one of the reasons that maybe she was, you

16:21

know, in in school writing. Well, first of all,

16:23

I think she wasn't a good student, not because she was. I

16:25

think that when you come from a situation like her,

16:28

it's more about survival. You're worried about

16:30

surviving from day to day, getting through the day,

16:33

not being made fun of. She was very ashamed

16:35

of, you know, not having a family, not belonging

16:37

to anyone, and as you said,

16:39

she did start stuttering. She was made fun of. She was very

16:41

tall for her age. They used to call

16:43

the string being normaging. The human being

16:46

was one of the things that they called her. So she was kind

16:48

of I wouldn't say she was bullied, she

16:50

was she was separate, so

16:53

writing was also something that she could. You know, you can do that

16:55

by yourself. It's not a team thing.

16:57

So I think that may be one of the reasons why she excelled

16:59

it eating and now, and you bring up a great point.

17:01

Try being a great student when you essentially

17:04

are in a different home all the time, or in an

17:07

orphanage and don't have an ongoing

17:09

parent, don't actually have a parent today.

17:12

You know you that would be you could imagine

17:14

how difficult that would be. And she did

17:16

continue on one the lessons school until

17:20

the age of sixteen when Doc

17:23

and that's who she was living with it the

17:26

Godter got relocated his

17:28

job to West Virginia. When she was

17:30

fifteen, they they found out that they were going to be

17:32

relocating and there was an elderly woman who

17:35

was getting too old that they've tried, you know, they were going to

17:38

keep her with her. It was actually someone that

17:40

normal Gine loved very much. She called her aunt Anna.

17:42

But she couldn't take her. She couldn't

17:44

move with the Godards because the

17:47

Doc had children of his own, so

17:51

they couldn't afford it. They couldn't really afford to

17:53

take her. Yeah, so it became either

17:55

she was going to go back into an orphanage or she got

17:58

married. So Grace, being the resourceful

18:00

woman that she was, started looking around for a potential

18:02

husband for the fifteen year old, and she

18:05

literally went to the boy next door asked

18:07

him to take her out. They

18:10

got along, and his mother said it would be

18:12

really nice if you married her so she doesn't

18:14

have to go back to the orphanage. And

18:16

so they waited until she was sixteen, and two weeks

18:18

after she was sixteen years oldly married. Wow.

18:20

So this was James Doherty right. I

18:23

think he was a factory worker basically

18:25

at that point. He was like one years old,

18:28

so older than her. Not old,

18:31

handsome by all accounts,

18:33

a nice guy, perfectly

18:36

nice person. She called

18:38

him daddy, by the way, and that's a recurring

18:41

thing that always she always called her husband's

18:43

daddy. Okay, well that you

18:45

don't need a psychoanalyst to explain the

18:48

edible meaning of that to you. So,

18:51

yes, she was in search of a

18:53

father and romanticizing a father

18:55

who would rescue her, and in this

18:57

sense, James Doherty was rescuing

19:00

her from going back to the orphanage that he

19:02

was going to supposedly provide her stability

19:05

and someone to take care of her, and

19:08

that was it was the first time in her life

19:10

she belonged to someone. So it was in the first

19:12

i would say months, maybe to the first year,

19:15

she was content. She was content. His

19:18

expectation was that she would be

19:20

a homemaker, and so

19:23

she quit high school. She

19:25

dropped out of high school, which wasn't

19:28

was not that unusual for the times,

19:30

but still for someone who

19:33

wanted to learn and better herself, not

19:35

not exactly the path you would think she would

19:37

take, but she was sixteen and she really

19:39

had no options. So she

19:42

said she was happy. And then

19:44

about a year in he joined

19:47

the Merchant Marines their

19:49

stations at Santa Catalina

19:51

Island. Things are fine, let's

19:53

stay fine, stable, But then

19:55

in the next year he is shipped

19:57

out to the Pacific for two years. He's

20:00

gone, and she's alone, and it's

20:02

the war and she

20:05

needs to work and make money, and

20:08

so she moves in with his parents and

20:11

works at the radio plane company,

20:14

the munitions factory, as many young

20:16

women did. She worked in the parachute like

20:18

assembly line, packing the parachutes, which

20:20

was actually what a lot of young women did

20:23

during the war time. For the wartime efforts

20:25

and to support themselves. And

20:28

this is where she is first sort of spotted,

20:30

let's say, by a

20:32

photographer who comes to pictures really for the

20:34

for the wartime efforts, to you know, hear the

20:36

window supporting the boost morale and

20:39

show what women were doing for

20:41

the war effort. And she was a

20:43

pretty teenager really, and

20:46

so he asked her to pose and when he got

20:48

the photos, he said, you could be

20:50

a professional model. You

20:52

really have something. And

20:55

that started the wheels turning in her because it goes back

20:57

to that beautiful thing, Like you know.

20:59

The an interesting thing is like when she went from

21:01

eleven to twelve, a

21:04

very interesting thing happened to her life. People

21:06

started paying attention to her when she

21:09

was twelve because her body developed.

21:11

She became a pretty girl. She would walk to school

21:13

and guys would beat the horn. So

21:15

for her that was like it's really kind of the first

21:17

time she was accepted. So

21:20

I think it became important to her if

21:22

beauty is the thing that's

21:25

going to get me attention and make people

21:27

like me, then I'm going to be as beautiful as

21:29

I can be. Mm So,

21:31

so it's like an antidote to abandon

21:34

it. Right, Yeah, your father never wanted

21:36

you at all and never showed up. Your

21:38

mother marginally seemed

21:41

to and is incapacitated

21:43

and and in a shameful way. I mean in

21:45

those days, to be in a mental institution

21:48

was a total mark of shame.

21:51

And so she from

21:53

being completely unwanted and abandoned,

21:56

you would definitely desperately be

21:58

looking for any way to be accepted

22:00

and maybe even more importantly admired,

22:03

to be admired. So here

22:05

she was naturally very

22:07

beautiful and was admired.

22:10

Yeah, and so this was her ticket into

22:12

a life of being more accepted and more

22:14

just part of the world. Um. One interesting thing

22:17

about her father that I should say is like when she first

22:19

married and she was feeling secure with her first husband,

22:21

jim'derty, she called her father.

22:24

Her mother had by then told her what his name was,

22:26

and she called him and she said, you

22:28

know, I'm I'm, I'm glad he's Baker's

22:30

little girl, and and he froze

22:33

and said, call my lawyer and hung up.

22:35

So that was another rejection for her,

22:38

absolutely, especially if you've

22:40

been fantasizing that one day, right, he'll

22:42

come and be be thrilled. To have

22:44

you. But the interesting thing is

22:46

that David Conover, the photographer

22:49

who took these pictures, they didn't get

22:51

picked up and used for the purpose that

22:53

they were they shot. She was not one of the ones

22:55

selected to be used for the wartime

22:57

purposes. He just on the side said

23:00

to her, but you really have something, and I

23:02

personally would be very happy to take pictures

23:04

of you for modeling purposes

23:07

and for my friends who are also in this

23:09

business to do that. And I

23:11

just say that is there were a lot of risks

23:14

at that time and at all times,

23:16

I suppose for young women

23:19

to feel like they have to put themselves in risky positions

23:22

to make it, you know. And she, who

23:25

had no one protecting her, was lucky

23:27

in the sense that nothing terrible happened,

23:29

but that she ever talked about.

23:31

I'm pretty sure terrible things

23:34

happened to her by the wolves, as

23:36

she came to call them. I mean, they'd already happened

23:39

to her as a child, and so

23:42

her ability to

23:44

you know, her dealing with it so to speak,

23:46

or not being shocked by it is probably

23:48

true. But it sounds like this early experience

23:51

at least was really a man saying, hey,

23:53

you really, you really could be a model,

23:56

and I'm going to treat you like a model. Yes,

23:58

And he introduced to her to owner

24:00

of a modeling agency, the blue Book Modeling Agency.

24:03

This woman called Emmiline's snivey, great

24:05

name, and she went

24:08

to see her with photos that Conniver had

24:10

taken of her, and she looked at them and said, well,

24:12

she saw dollar signed. She said, we can you

24:15

know you're you're the girl next door and we can make

24:17

a lot of money on you. And she

24:20

one important thing that she said is but

24:22

you know, blond's make

24:24

a lot more money. So Norma

24:27

Jean became a blonde and she worked a lot.

24:29

Let's take a quick break here, we'll be back

24:32

in a moment. We're talking now,

24:35

she becomes Gene

24:37

Norman. She stops calling

24:40

herself Norma Gene, so

24:42

she's Gene Norman and

24:44

she makes her hair straighter and

24:47

blonde. And

24:49

also that particular head

24:51

of the modeling agency said that

24:54

she had never seen a

24:56

young woman worked as hard as

24:59

as norm magine, she really worked

25:01

hard at this and actually ultimately

25:03

over this time period was on like

25:06

thirty three covers. I mean, she was successful

25:09

at least for let's say the genre,

25:12

which admittedly were probably a lot of

25:14

men's magazines, etcetera and

25:16

moda, pin ups that that kind of stuff,

25:19

bathing suits and shorts,

25:21

and you know, it was like they had magazines

25:23

like they were called like Peak Peek

25:25

a Boot and things like that. And she did a lot of

25:28

negligent stuff and bathing suits stuff.

25:30

So she she was avidly working

25:32

something that apparently her husband,

25:35

James was not too happy about, not

25:38

what he envisioned as his homemaker, and

25:40

he wanted her to stop. So that

25:42

became a problem a because at this point

25:45

she basically felt the later part

25:47

of their marriage was I think she put

25:49

it incredibly boring, that they were just

25:51

they were just a mismatch, and she was bored

25:53

by him. And then in addition, he

25:56

was, you know, increasingly

25:58

pressuring her to stop, and

26:00

in fact, really at a time when not

26:03

only did she not want to stop what she was doing, but she

26:05

was really having aspirations for turning

26:07

this into something more like being an actress.

26:10

While he was gone, she changed

26:12

her name. She became Marilyn

26:14

Monroe. And he came back and she said, my new name

26:16

is Marilyn Monroe, and it was it just,

26:18

you know, he didn't. It wasn't what he boggained for. He didn't

26:20

marry into that. He didn't marry into a career

26:23

woman or an aspiring actress. It was

26:25

you know, Norma Jeane was this lonely

26:27

little girl basically that he

26:30

was going to take care of and they were gonna have children and raise

26:32

a family, and so um

26:34

they separated. You know, it's interesting

26:36

because at this juncture, just her saying

26:39

I'm out and I'm going to be more and I'm going

26:41

to be an actress is really interesting

26:43

in the face of all of the trauma that

26:45

she suffered, that she really

26:48

at this juncture at least shows

26:50

her willingness to stand up to

26:52

a man and say no

26:55

and aspire to even

26:58

in the face of a lot of uncertain t and unknowns,

27:01

that she had the resilience. I guess that's what I'm saying.

27:03

It's it's amazing that, you

27:06

know, with a severely mentally

27:08

ill and institutionalized mother,

27:11

and I think that she later does

27:13

talk about her fears that she

27:15

might have what her

27:18

mother had and end up

27:20

the same way, and despite

27:22

those fears and despite the

27:24

recurrent trauma, that she really

27:27

has a lot of resilience and

27:29

strength, an extraordinary ambition.

27:32

And I think what helped her is that now she

27:34

was starting to be surrounded by people that believed

27:36

in her. As much as she was rejected,

27:38

Like any up and coming actor or actress,

27:41

a model, you know, there was lots of rejections, there was

27:43

always someone from this point on who

27:46

really saw something different and

27:48

special in her. At this point,

27:50

she had started to be photographed by this

27:52

photographer name Andre d de Ennis, and

27:56

he took some of the most remarkable photos

27:58

of her while she was trying positioning from Norman

28:00

Gine into Marilyn Monree and he

28:03

was successful, and people

28:05

friends would go to his apartment and they'd

28:07

be the walls would be covered with photos

28:09

of Norman Gine and they look at her and say, she's very

28:12

pretty, but she's not that special. I

28:14

don't know what he saw something

28:16

in her, because he dealt with beautiful women

28:18

all the time, that's the kind of photography he did.

28:21

But he saw something in her. And I think that those

28:23

kinds of people, she had a knack for

28:26

finding them and surrounding herself

28:28

with the men and women who believed

28:30

in her, and that gave her a little

28:32

extra encouragement and just

28:35

she had really no confidence at all, so she had to

28:37

rely on other people's confidence to kind of get her through.

28:39

And people like that gave her

28:42

a little bit more of a backbone to stand up for herself

28:44

and to go on. So it's it's

28:46

interesting she sort of found like

28:49

mothers and fathers all over the place

28:51

to nurture her and

28:54

be proud of her and put her forward.

28:56

And as she said, she but she did have some

28:58

sort of rhythma and ability

29:01

to connect. Even though she's

29:03

described as shy. She is described

29:06

by others as a shy child. It's

29:09

not that she's outgoing or bubbly. But

29:11

yet she had some ability to

29:15

be charismatic enough to draw

29:17

in certain people. And

29:19

people were very attractive. See, it was like

29:21

she was I always say she was like a cocktail. There

29:24

was a combination of this vulnerability

29:26

and sensitivity along with her physical

29:29

allure, along with her ambition,

29:32

along with her she was very witty when she chose

29:34

to be in a hunger to know more, she's very

29:36

interested. It all combined together form

29:39

this charisma that really hasn't been duplicated since.

29:42

But and and the other thing that's very important

29:44

is that she was very shy, but

29:46

something happened when she was in front of a camera. The

29:48

shyness just dropped. She

29:51

had a love affair with the camera and it loved

29:54

her back. So it's interesting how many

29:56

actors and actresses and models

29:59

and people who do public

30:02

work basically are actually introverted

30:04

people who need their

30:07

private time, their quiet time. That's how they

30:09

recharged themselves. Its energy expansion

30:11

to have to Unlike for extroverts

30:14

who get their energy from being with people,

30:16

introverts right get their energy from there alone

30:19

time. And being an introvert

30:22

doesn't mean that you don't

30:25

find pleasure from

30:27

doing something that would be public in front

30:30

of other people. That actually is still

30:32

doing your own thing. It's not, you know, acting

30:34

isn't the kind of relating that a

30:36

social interaction is. It's different.

30:39

But what it does speak to is the pleasure

30:42

that she did get via her

30:45

exhibitionistic impulses, which which

30:47

we all have. We all have some amount

30:49

of enjoying showing ourselves

30:52

and looking the other side voyeurism,

30:55

look exhibitions and voyeris um so people

30:57

often have some enjoyment of both those things.

30:59

But she had a good dollar right

31:01

they being seen and being

31:04

appreciated, being looked

31:06

at. That was something that was clearly

31:09

enjoyable for her, and as

31:11

you said, she lit up doing it

31:13

in a certain kind of way that others found very

31:15

appealing. It was during this time that

31:18

she moves into acting. She signs

31:20

with twenty century Fox, but they

31:22

give her six month contract because really Zane

31:25

does not think much of her, but he doesn't

31:27

want someone else to sign her, so he signs

31:29

her but for this short term. But this

31:31

is where she becomes Marilyn

31:33

Monroe, Monroe being basically

31:36

her mother's maiden name and choosing that.

31:38

And she gets divorced, so she's

31:41

now a free agent and she's

31:43

off. But she really has her first

31:45

number of years, she doesn't make

31:47

much of an impression as an actress. They

31:50

dropped her after the six month option. She only

31:52

did a bit part where it was

31:54

no no way to judge her. I mean, she's seen in

31:56

the distance. She has one line which is hello,

31:58

So they didn't they didn't have any

32:01

belief in our respect her for her, and she

32:03

was dropped after the six month option. So then she

32:05

was sort of like like many

32:07

other struggling actor going

32:09

on auditions and being rejected

32:12

and looking for that break,

32:14

and that's what she was like. It was it was a tough

32:16

that this was a tough period for her because you

32:19

know, she was a successful model, but sometimes

32:21

there was dry spells and she couldn't pay the rent

32:23

or you know, there were oftentimes when

32:25

she felt very alone. She was looking

32:28

for, um, those substitutes that are the family

32:30

substitutes, the mom substitute, the dad's

32:32

substitute, the lover substitute.

32:34

You know, so she was floundering. It was a do you

32:36

know, she went through a lot of dark periods, and there

32:38

was a dark period in between her

32:40

modeling and before she started, you

32:43

really acting, working as an actress. Even

32:45

though these were hard periods, we don't have

32:47

reports really that I'm aware of,

32:49

of periods of depression that incapacitate

32:52

her. At the stage of her life. It

32:55

was hard, but she kept working, she kept functioning.

32:58

You don't hear about drug abuse in this period

33:00

of her life or you know, seeking out substanance

33:03

to you know, dull the pain.

33:06

She seems to be functioning, and you

33:08

don't none that doesn't really seem

33:10

to present until later in her life,

33:12

which is interesting because of course this on

33:14

the one hand, seems like a very insecure time.

33:17

But on the other hand, I suppose

33:20

she's not being judged in

33:22

the harsh way that later she will be

33:24

judged. That the she's not yet

33:26

presented with the possibility of feeling

33:29

the imposter syndrome that

33:32

she later, you know, a sort of I'm supposed

33:34

to be larger than life, but I don't feel like that

33:36

on the inside that she later experiences.

33:39

But she signed by William Morris Agency.

33:41

In forty nine, she meets Johnny

33:43

Hyde, whom she ends up having

33:45

a sexual relationship with an apparently

33:47

proposes marriage, but she does not accept.

33:50

But he he champions her. He really

33:52

champions her. If there wasn't a Johnny

33:55

Hyde, there wouldn't be a Marily Monroe. He

33:58

was a very powerful man in the industry. He worked

34:01

with all the big stars. And they

34:03

met at a New Year's Eve party and he

34:05

saw her from across the room and he's one of those people

34:07

that I was talking about that recognized something

34:09

in her that was extraordinary. And

34:11

he went up to her and he said, I worked with all

34:14

the big stars, Lana Turner, Rita

34:16

Hayworth, Betty Grable, and

34:19

none of them have what you have. And

34:22

he became very, very very more

34:24

than smitten, maybe less than obsessed,

34:26

or maybe I think he did. She did become this obsession.

34:29

He started calling the movie studios and saying,

34:31

I've got this girl and you've got to see

34:33

her, and it's Marilyn Monroe.

34:35

And they would say, oh, we we saw her, you

34:37

know, we we we saw and he would say,

34:39

look at her again. You know, there's really something,

34:42

there's something there. And he started

34:44

getting her big parts, but important

34:46

parts, parts that showcased

34:48

her and you know, the abilities that she had at

34:50

the time. And he did leave his family to

34:53

be with her, but she wouldn't marry him

34:55

because she felt it was dishonest because she wasn't

34:57

and she loved him, but she wasn't in love with

34:59

him in that way. So although

35:01

she would have been a very rich woman if

35:03

she married him, because he would tell her, Marilyn,

35:06

I'm not going to live long because he had heart,

35:08

very severe heart problems, and you will

35:10

be a very very very wealthy woman and

35:13

marry me, and she she said, no, I just can't.

35:16

She lived with him, they were a couple

35:18

and all those things which she would not marry him. Wow,

35:20

And she would have been a very rich woman. Because after

35:23

basically like weeks

35:26

after she signed the seven

35:28

year contract that he helped her get with

35:31

twentieth Century Fox, he died of

35:33

heart attack. I mean he died shortly thereafter,

35:36

did he In fact? Is

35:38

there actual evidence that he, you

35:41

know, sort of saw her through getting some plastic

35:43

surgery. There is evidence because

35:45

through the years, you know, many decades later her

35:49

the plastic surgeon was interviewed

35:52

and he gave away some of the things and this

35:55

is and this is the story that the plastic surgeon

35:57

told. When she was starting to

35:59

get pa arts, she was very

36:03

you know, it's it's she's always a diechonomy because

36:06

part of her was she was alive in the camera, but the other

36:08

part of her was that she was insecure, and

36:11

Johnny Hide thought that getting

36:14

something done to her face would

36:16

give her more confidence. He didn't think that she

36:18

needed it. So what the doctors

36:21

ended up doing is um trimming a little

36:23

bit off the front of her nose. People, there's this

36:25

rumor going around that Maril Monree had her

36:28

face redone um No, there's

36:30

enough photos of her as normal gine

36:32

when she was already a very successful model

36:34

and she had made a very low budget film

36:37

called Ladies of the Chorus before she

36:39

met Johnny Hyde. And that's as close

36:41

as you could see normal gine in action

36:43

with no plastic surgery just now. And she's very

36:46

lovely. She's a very lovely person, doesn't

36:48

There's nothing of Maril Monroe in that

36:50

particularly in that film. Um, she's

36:53

an ingenue, which she never played.

36:55

She said, I wasn't born to play an augina. Later on

36:57

she said that. So she

36:59

did have this minor plastic surgery

37:01

on her nose, and then later on

37:04

she had some cartilage injected

37:06

in her chin to make her chin more pronounced.

37:08

But in those days it was it was cartilage and it dissolved,

37:10

so it was that wasn't even a permanent thing.

37:13

So it's sort of like today is filler or

37:15

whatever. Basically that

37:18

okay, so interesting.

37:20

So he it's not that he thought she

37:22

needed. It's it's that he did that. He

37:24

encouraged her to do this, to feel even more

37:27

confident, to an extra,

37:29

an extra, yeah, more beautiful, more confident.

37:32

She then does go

37:34

on and he dies, and she

37:37

is working for twentieth Century

37:39

Fox. This is when she really starts doing films.

37:41

She's really doing films, and she's

37:43

really doing romances, she really

37:46

is. She gets involved with Kazan

37:49

and Peter Lawford and You'll Brenner

37:52

and ultimately Joe Di maggio. But

37:55

she's really in Hollywood at

37:57

that point, working but

37:59

not getting admired

38:02

really for her acting roles. She's

38:04

sort of there. Twenty century

38:06

Fox had no respect in her

38:08

acting talent at all. They didn't believe in her, and

38:11

they wouldn't have given her a contract if

38:14

it wasn't for Johnny Hyde's

38:16

belief and you know, kind of pressuring

38:18

them to do it. His power got her and

38:20

so they were throwing her away in these little bit parts. What

38:22

started to get her the attention, interestingly, was

38:25

the cheesecake photos that she kept posing for

38:27

and they were going to the newspapers, but even

38:30

you know, the studio didn't recognize her. But like she had

38:32

done while Johnny Hyde was still alive, he got her a role

38:34

in this film called The Asphalt Jungle, and

38:37

it was a gangster film

38:39

and lots of important actors, and then she had

38:41

a bit part, a couple of scenes and

38:43

it was an exciting film and people loved it, but they walked

38:46

out of the theater saying who's the blonde,

38:48

who's that blonde? So, as Marilyn

38:50

said, it's always like, if

38:52

anybody ever made me a start, it was the public. No

38:56

man, no film

38:58

studio, no photographer. It's

39:00

the public that made me a start because they're

39:02

the ones that recognize her. And then some studios

39:04

are money making machines, so they're like, well, if we

39:06

can make money on her, let's use her more. So

39:09

that's really basically how I grew. They didn't um

39:11

like they did with so many stories in those days, like sort

39:14

of sponsor them and groom them

39:16

for stardom. No, Marilyn was grooming herself

39:19

during those first couple of years under contract, and

39:21

really initially what she groomed herself to be

39:24

was the biggest sex symbol that

39:26

she just she emerged as

39:28

the as a gossip columnists

39:30

referred to her nineteen fifty the girl,

39:33

but the it girl in the form of

39:36

a sex symbol up a blonde bombshell,

39:39

and that's that's how she groomed herself.

39:41

It goes to what I was saying earlier

39:44

about when she started getting attention

39:46

for being beautiful, it was like, if this

39:48

is what's going to do it if this is what it's

39:50

going to make people notice me and love me, because

39:53

it was all about love. You know, she didn't have love. Now she's

39:55

being loved, she's being more. Then I am going to

39:57

be the sexiest, the

40:00

most beautiful, the most desirable.

40:03

And she basically threw

40:06

her attributes and her ambition

40:09

and canniness. She did it. She

40:11

did it. At the same time

40:14

that she did do it

40:16

was doing it on

40:18

set. She started

40:20

to develop this reputation of being

40:23

quote difficult to work with. And

40:26

you know, there are two sides to this coin. You could

40:28

say what was up that she she would

40:31

come late or not show up

40:33

or not fully know her lines. And

40:36

when you try to understand behavior, you know, why

40:38

was somebody who's trying to make it that

40:41

much and has been working that hard

40:43

to get there do do those things?

40:46

And you have to also then acknowledge that

40:49

the fear of screwing

40:53

up, of not being viewed

40:55

well enough, of the perfectionism involved

40:58

the low self esteem that she struggling

41:00

with, the high expectations that

41:03

she was facing, and that

41:06

one would develop a lot of anxiety about

41:08

being on set. It was all about fear.

41:10

It wasn't and co workers

41:13

have said this about her many of her co workers,

41:15

that it wasn't about being a diva or

41:17

a power trip or anything like that. She was fearful

41:19

of the camera because at

41:21

this point she was saying, Okay, now I want to be loved

41:24

and I want to be admired, and I want people to want

41:26

me. This is the moment that

41:28

I'm going to be judged on these few This

41:30

scene here that we're filming today is

41:33

going to be my make or break things.

41:35

So it was enormously intimidating

41:38

for her to um face the

41:40

camera because she and then when she started

41:42

to getting notoriety, it became each time it became

41:44

more difficult because she hadn't actually had to live up to something

41:47

exactly. And in addition, there

41:50

are a lot of reports or she reported really

41:52

being often sort of bullied

41:55

even or you know, treated not

41:57

so well by directors, by

41:59

by co stars who

42:02

didn't want to be upstaged or didn't

42:05

even want to be respectful to

42:08

her in her sex symbol role

42:11

that was an intellectual or that wasn't

42:13

you know what real actors and actresses

42:16

are, and so she was often treated

42:18

poorly, something that you

42:20

know, for as we talked earlier about

42:22

a young girl who is used

42:24

to being treated poorly, could

42:27

really undo, you could make

42:29

it. It could be very difficult to stand up to the

42:31

bully when you've been bullied earlier.

42:34

I think she developed a lot of hatred for

42:37

the studio people, the men in the studio

42:39

system, the directors and the

42:41

executives high up, because she

42:44

sensed and it was true, they did

42:46

have a low opinion of her because of her background

42:49

and when she came from and she had been she was

42:51

on the certain there was a thing in those days. It was called a party

42:53

girl, and there was these the

42:55

executives of the studios would have these like poker

42:57

parties on Friday nights, away from their families

43:00

and everything, and they would have the starlet's

43:02

come in empty ashtrays and get

43:04

their drinks, and they were treated very

43:06

disrespectfully. And one time,

43:08

m somebody just reached over and grabbed Marilyn's

43:11

gown and ripped the top off, and

43:13

they were all laughing at her, and she laughed

43:17

with them because that's what was expecting of her. But

43:19

you can only imagine the rage that

43:21

was building up. I mean, she didn't really have a voice,

43:23

She had no protection so she had to put

43:26

up with that kind of treatment to get to her to

43:29

you know, to her goal to basically

43:31

be abused. Yeah, they weren't. They weren't

43:33

respectful of her. This is the days of the

43:35

casting couch and the expectation

43:38

that you are an object

43:40

and you do

43:42

whatever the powerful man says,

43:45

or you won't have a job. There was no other way

43:48

in those days. You know. I think

43:50

it was Claudete Colbert who said, you know, every

43:52

almost every star, every

43:54

female star that came through, we had to go through the casting

43:57

couch. It was the days. Let's not forget I don't I don't

43:59

like to make you know, but political

44:01

talk or whatever. But it was the days before feminism

44:04

and women in Hollywood were treated like commodities.

44:07

It was horrible when you think about it, and Maryland

44:09

was you know, it was one of them. There weren't women

44:12

in leadership roles who would

44:14

be protecting you that. That's the other thing, that all of all

44:16

leadership roles were men who

44:19

protected each other. It

44:22

was then in ninety

44:24

two, at about this time when

44:26

she started developing insomnia,

44:31

difficulties with mood,

44:34

and somebody

44:36

well was giving her barbituates

44:39

and emphetamines to manage her

44:41

sleep difficulties. You know, barbituates to go

44:43

to sleep, emphetamines to wake up, which

44:45

is a vicious cycle. And and she started drinking

44:47

alcohol. So sometimes

44:50

you know, I mean the old terms

44:52

are referring to to sort of self medicating for

44:55

mood issues. And it wasn't in those days

44:57

difficult to get pills at all. You could just go to a studio

45:00

doctor and they would prescribe you, you know, something

45:02

to sleep, something to pep you up. I mean, so many

45:04

of them in those days, Judy, I mean a lot of

45:06

them got addicted to pills because it's like

45:08

you know, it was also like the

45:11

film studios in those days, it was a

45:14

grindhouse of like you have to get up in the morning, you

45:16

have to work a full day, you have to sleep at

45:18

night, look good for the cameras and and be peppy

45:20

and do the whole thing all over again. It was there

45:22

was costume fittings, and there was tests, and there

45:24

was there was a photo sessions,

45:26

and it was it was it was a really full day and

45:29

somebody like Maryland, who you know now, the pressure

45:31

is on her to deliver. So

45:33

she did self medicate of course,

45:36

what you know, what's sad about once someone

45:38

starts using barbituates

45:40

or amphetamines is you, over

45:42

time you need more of the same

45:44

thing to have the same effect. That's you

45:46

know, did you develop tolerance? And that's

45:48

when you develop a substance abuse

45:50

problem? And that, you know, ultimately

45:53

is what grew for Maryland over

45:55

the ensuing you know, decade

45:58

really until the end of her life. It's

46:01

interesting also at this time though, is when

46:03

she starts to really be

46:05

in films and and try to

46:07

be in films where she does

46:09

some of the best films of her life, you

46:12

know, Diamonds or Girl's Best Friend, Gentlemen

46:14

prefer blonds. And yes, they were

46:16

roles that she had issue

46:18

with in terms of wanting to play more

46:20

serious roles and and these being

46:23

still very kind of glamy roles, but

46:25

they are the roles that got her noted

46:28

as an important actress. I think

46:30

that at first she was okay with

46:32

the like I don't think she. I think she was glad to do

46:34

gentlemen for her blondes. And it does show

46:37

a lot of comedic skill, you know.

46:39

Then it was like how to marry a millionaire and there's

46:41

no business like show. But it was after she had done

46:43

several of them she started thinking like, I could

46:46

I do something else? I would like to do more. I want to She

46:48

was always interested in acting. She had studied

46:50

acting, and she wanted to do but

46:53

it was like if she was going to make

46:55

money this way, the studio only wanted to make

46:57

money. They weren't, you know. They were like, why can't

46:59

you be happy? Any One of the things they said to her

47:01

is like, people want

47:03

to be Marrily Monroe. You are Marilyn Monroe.

47:05

Why can't you just be satisfied with that?

47:08

Of course they were at the same time they were saying that to

47:10

her. They were making a lot of money, but because

47:12

she signed a seven year contract, she wasn't

47:14

making anymore. She wasn't making him more money. She didn't even

47:16

have a dressing room. She had a fight for a

47:18

ddressing room during Gentlemen for Blondes. I mean Jane

47:21

Russell, her co star, had addressing

47:23

room to herself as a star should. Marilyn

47:26

was in with the you know, the supporting players,

47:28

and in a big so she finally

47:30

she went to them and she said, gentleman, I

47:32

am the blonde. Whatever else you think

47:34

of me, I'm the blonde and I'm in gentleman prefer

47:37

blonde. And they finally gave her addressing room. She said,

47:39

it came to that I had to do that. They never offered

47:41

it to me. She really had to fight for equal

47:44

anything, and she did. She did ultimately

47:46

do that. She was helped by

47:48

she married Joe DiMaggio,

47:51

which really, let's say it

47:53

increased her brand, you know, made

47:55

her even more popular. He was so popular.

47:58

And she shot seven

48:00

Year Itch, which uh

48:03

with the with the famous skirt scene that

48:06

is iconic, and you know, but she was

48:08

really noted for her acting in that film,

48:11

which did change the game for her, although

48:13

unfortunately it also impacted her marriage.

48:16

Joe DiMaggio was rethinking

48:18

his love of being married

48:20

to a sex symbol. He really did

48:23

love her. I think he's one

48:25

of the few people that genuinely loved

48:27

her. But he wanted her

48:29

to be again. He wanted her to be a housewife like the

48:31

first husband. Like he wanted her to give up the career cook

48:34

Italian Dennis for her, have him have

48:36

children and sit in front of the TV

48:38

set. And that wasn't

48:40

for her. That wasn't for her. Well, that wasn't who

48:43

he married in the first place. Also

48:45

interesting is how she turned to

48:48

Lee Strasburg and the Actors Studio

48:51

and she really studied

48:53

acting. She really wanted

48:55

to be serious

48:58

and learned method acting. And

49:00

the one thing that was difficult about this is

49:02

so all of them were recommended to

49:04

be in psychoanalysis, which I find so interesting

49:06

is the psychoanalyst in order to actually

49:09

dig up and process and understand

49:12

their past traumas and then be able to harness

49:14

them and use them in the service of acting

49:16

that they weren't when they were acting. They weren't

49:18

supposed to be acting. They were supposed to be

49:21

reliving the difficult

49:23

emotions that they had experienced from their

49:25

past. That was method bringing,

49:28

bringing up the feelings that relate to a scene

49:30

that she was doing, digging and bring it

49:32

up and use it, use those emotions for reality

49:35

to enhance the performance. Marilyn

49:37

left after the seven year edge. She

49:40

left Hollywood and moved to New York to study with

49:42

a Lie Strasbourg and also

49:44

to start her own film company because she at this

49:46

propite this point, she had realized the studio

49:49

wasn't going to give her the kinds of roles she wanted

49:51

to play, and if she was going

49:54

to broad in her career, she was gonna have to do

49:56

it herself. So she found

49:58

a photographer who was very intelligent and

50:00

resourceful and believed in her. One of these people that saw

50:03

what she was and what she could possibly do, you

50:06

know, what's her potential. His

50:08

name was Milton Green, and she formed a

50:10

company with him, and their intention was

50:12

to make great films. Let's take a quick

50:14

break here, we'll be back in a moment.

50:17

Amazing that she in some ways

50:19

was a savvy businesswoman at a

50:21

time when you know, certainly no one taught her

50:23

that, and no one to her where she came right,

50:25

No one taught her anything. She really was self taught.

50:28

She was really self taught. But the method

50:30

acting, you know, it caused psychological

50:34

turmoil for for many people. She

50:37

was damaged before, but

50:40

she was pretty wrecked after

50:42

the psychoanalysts that year in New York.

50:45

Digging down to all that and living with it

50:48

all the time, her dreams were horrible.

50:51

She was always in insomniac.

50:53

Now she never slept at all, and

50:55

her pill taking and and and drinking

50:58

increased enormously. It

51:00

was difficult to now

51:02

in the public eye, and every

51:05

move you made is examined under the microscope.

51:07

And then have all these childhood

51:10

traumas and these insecurities and

51:12

this damage and this you know,

51:15

we're living on a constant reel in your head.

51:17

It was almost an impossible situation.

51:19

So, you know, psychoanalysis is a

51:21

treatment. It's not supposed to be

51:23

used as an acting tool. And

51:26

so it's one thing to take out

51:28

all of this difficult material and

51:30

examine it in the service of

51:33

removing your guilt and removing your shame,

51:35

and getting rid of the conflicts

51:37

and and accepting who you are and

51:40

and building some some coping

51:42

tools. It's an entirely other thing

51:44

to say, I'm gonna examine this so

51:46

I can take it out every day and relive it.

51:49

So clearly that proved to

51:51

be not good open

51:55

a can of worms. But it didn't give her anywhere to go with

51:57

the can of worms other than just living it all

52:00

the time. So that was really tragic

52:02

and obviously made things worse for her. She

52:04

and Joe DiMaggio get divorced. She's

52:07

quickly involved with Arthur Miller, and

52:11

it's interesting to me that she marries

52:14

him converts to judaism

52:17

for him. Even as she's being so

52:19

successful. This is when she she wins a Golden

52:21

Globe for Best Actress. I mean she is

52:23

really soaring, but

52:26

still the men in her life, you

52:28

know, have the ability to say, you

52:30

know, be this for me. Be you

52:33

know, I'm telling you do this, and you

52:36

do this. So that's fascinating.

52:38

It does seem at that time that she wants

52:40

to have a child, and she

52:43

had nick Topic pregnancy, she had a miscarriage,

52:45

she had this terrible endometriosis, which

52:47

may have been why she has to have surgery

52:50

for that. But I think people

52:52

don't realize or know that,

52:54

you know, wanting to have a child at

52:57

a certain stage and having were current

52:59

difficulties like in a Topic pregnancy

53:01

and a miscaras those are tragic losses. Those

53:03

are really traumatic events in a woman's

53:06

life. She's unable to conceive

53:08

and has losses like that, and

53:11

I don't think people think about that. Marilyn

53:13

Monroe and that that's a big part.

53:15

I mean, that was enormous failure

53:18

for her and a source of pain. Another

53:20

thing with Arthur Miller, I dislike, like, you

53:22

know, bad mouthing people, but for the purposes

53:24

of this conversation. Arthur Miller

53:27

was not a good match

53:29

for her at all. He was ashamed of

53:31

her. He married her because

53:34

well, one of the reasons he married her was because

53:36

he was under investigation from

53:38

the House of American Activities

53:40

for you know, communism in those days could destroy

53:43

a career. And he announced

53:46

his engagement to Marilyn Monroe from the

53:48

steps of a hearing she he hadn't even asked

53:50

her yet. But he didn't

53:52

really have respect for her as

53:54

a woman. I think he saw her as a muse, like

53:57

someone his career was kind of like in in turmoil

53:59

he is looking for, you know,

54:01

it's kind of like a midlife crisis. And here

54:04

was this exciting, beautiful, interested,

54:07

interesting woman and he married

54:09

her. But he was ashamed of her past, her

54:11

past with men, her past with the casting

54:13

couch. And how do we know this? I mean, I'm not pulling this

54:15

out of thin air. First of all, he

54:18

kept a diary and she she read it. He

54:20

left it out for her to read how disappointed he

54:22

was in her. And then after she passed away,

54:25

everything that he wrote with her as a character is

54:27

very derogatory towards her. And he

54:30

almost wrote almost every play had a Maril Monroe

54:32

character in it, particularly After the

54:34

Fall. I mean, if if ever you really want to know

54:36

what off the Miller thought of Marilyn Monroe, it's

54:39

in the play that he wrote directly after she died,

54:41

called After the Fall, and the character

54:43

is not flattering it at all. So,

54:46

I mean, she looked to these men as

54:48

savers, as daddy, as my father. He's gonna

54:50

save me, He's gonna take me away from all of this, Arthur

54:53

Miller. He's so smart. I'm gonna be respected now,

54:55

I'm gonna be protected now, and

54:57

even even like I'm going to get some of this intell,

55:00

actual prowess for myself. You know that

55:02

desires she was always She loved poetry,

55:04

she liked reading. She wanted to acquire knowledge,

55:07

and acquiring a knowledgeable man

55:09

is another way of doing

55:11

that. Then to have that knowledgeable

55:14

man actually

55:17

basically say you know, you can't

55:19

have it because you're you're too unintelligent

55:21

and embarrassing, and to make

55:24

it known to her is in

55:26

that cruel way. Um

55:28

is an abuse of sorts. Oh sure it

55:30

was. It wasn't a happy marriage

55:32

for her. I think that they both Yeah,

55:35

she wasn't an easy person either. Let's put it. It can't

55:37

put her all the blame on Arthur Miller. I mean, but she

55:39

she was difficult to with her mood swings and

55:42

her demanding conditional

55:45

love every moment you have to show me you love me, you

55:47

have to. It was probably

55:49

for him a very, very difficult thing. So it

55:52

just wasn't a good match. And Marilyn's

55:55

career was never the same after that. She

55:57

shouldn't work as much, that's for sure. You

56:00

know, after their marriage, she everything

56:02

became more difficult, every partially because

56:04

of him, partially because of her fame

56:06

now was completely out of her control. It

56:08

was an impossible thing to live up to. It wasn't even

56:11

a person. It was this omnipresent

56:13

commodity, you know, thing

56:16

to live up to, completely out of

56:18

her control. And so it was

56:21

the marriage wasn't good for them.

56:24

After the divorce, I mean, her her health

56:26

takes a turn for the worse. I

56:28

think it's important for people to understand

56:30

that depression and

56:32

physical health. Mental health and physical health

56:34

are intimately connected, right, the mind body connection.

56:37

And she had gallstones, she

56:40

had surgery, as I said, for this endometriosis.

56:42

She was not feeling well. She was

56:44

taking a lot of

56:47

substances and using them

56:49

to try to probably manage

56:51

her moods, certainly manage her sleep. But

56:55

even though she was in treatment with Ralph

56:57

Greenson, she certainly had a

57:00

a psychiatrist and therapist. And

57:02

I think it's important that people also understand

57:04

sometimes, you know, when psychiatric

57:07

illness becomes severe, certainly if substance

57:09

abuse is involved, having

57:12

a treating doctor may not solve the problem.

57:14

You know, someone has to be willing to to stop

57:16

substances and to be able

57:19

to really treat a mood disorder.

57:22

There's no evidence that I'm

57:24

aware of that she really at

57:27

any point presented like her mother, that she really

57:29

looked like she had schizophrenia or paranoid

57:31

delusions. Directly after her

57:33

divorce from Arthur Miller, they had made a film. He

57:36

wrote it for her, and it was a very taxing

57:38

film. It was made in the desert. It took a long time.

57:41

At this point, she was occasionally

57:43

suicidal. She had her during

57:45

the making of that film. She was put in a hospital

57:48

because she was too addicted to film.

57:50

You know, her eyes would not focus and

57:52

she overdosed and had her stomach pumped.

57:54

She made She made a few a few suicide

57:57

attempts with overture did Arthur

57:59

Miller and pulled her in from the ledge of

58:01

their apartment high up above Manhattan.

58:04

She was standing on the ledge and he pulled her in. She

58:07

was suicidal at times, and

58:09

she had a fascination, almost a love affair with

58:11

death. But she was institutionalized.

58:14

When she came back from that making that film

58:16

and started proceedings for Dwarf from Martha

58:18

Miller, she was seeing her doctor Daly. This

58:20

wasn't Greens and he was in l A. She was in New

58:22

York and it was Dr Maryann Chris, famous

58:25

psychoanalyst. Thought that she might kill

58:27

herself. She was so down and she was so depressed,

58:30

and she was She was hospitalized at Payne Whitney

58:32

near Presbyterian Hospital, which is actually by

58:34

hospital where I trained and where I'm on

58:36

the faculty. But sadly, she

58:39

certainly wrote about her experience there being

58:41

a horrible She was strait

58:44

jacketed, which must have been so traumatic,

58:46

having watched that happened to her mother, who never

58:48

came out of the hospital. Really, it was so traumatic

58:51

for her. She was put on the floor for the dangerously

58:53

and saying she was before

58:55

they straight jacketed her, she said, well, if

58:57

they're gonna think I'm an, I'm gonna act like a nut. And

58:59

she her door of

59:01

her room had a little window, and she started

59:03

she had there was a chair in the room, and she started throwing

59:06

it against the window and throwing it against the

59:08

window and it wouldn't break, but it like shards

59:10

started to come off, and she held when

59:12

and she waited for someone one's come in, and she threatened that she

59:14

was gonna damage herself, and that's when

59:17

they pulmitted her, and you know, they they

59:19

wrestled with her and got her in a straight jacket and brought her

59:21

to the next floor, which was really like for

59:24

the off the wall people. And

59:26

she said when she was talking about

59:28

it later, the orderlies and

59:30

the nurses and all they would come in and look at her. And

59:33

she told one of her friends that

59:35

they touched her. So

59:37

for her, it was

59:40

a really really horrible situation.

59:42

She wrote. She tried to get to her

59:45

teacher, the Strasbourg's

59:47

Lee Strasburg and his wife Paul, and she wrote a note

59:50

which exists, and we haven't about how horrible

59:52

it was there. I think it starts off they have

59:54

me locked up with all these nutty people, and if you don't

59:56

get me out of her, I'll end up a nut She she

59:58

must have had a terrible fear at

1:00:00

that point that she was her mother, that

1:00:02

she was you know, that that this had happened to her.

1:00:05

That was her biggest feary. Now she's in an institution,

1:00:07

she's straight jacketed, she's they're

1:00:09

not listening to her. They weren't they

1:00:11

She was trying to explain express that

1:00:14

she was seeing and she was cocaring, and they just

1:00:18

wouldn't. She felt they weren't listening to her. They were

1:00:20

obviously terrified that they had a giant

1:00:22

starlett who was going to kill herself on their watch.

1:00:25

That she's holding a piece of glass and saying she's going to

1:00:27

cut herself. And it's certainly nothing

1:00:29

about this hospitalization experience left

1:00:31

her feeling that there was someone in her

1:00:33

corner and she was being helped. Unfortunately,

1:00:36

quite the opposite, quite the opposite, And so

1:00:39

you know, then she comes out having

1:00:42

and you know, obviously people

1:00:44

who make repeated suicide attempts are

1:00:47

a really high risk for suicide,

1:00:49

and her mood issue continues,

1:00:53

the hospitalization really hasn't helped her, and

1:00:55

in fact, if anything, it's left her with the idea

1:00:57

that, you know, this safety net is

1:00:59

not a safety net at all. And

1:01:01

now she's divorced. She's

1:01:04

the movie The Misfits. I mean,

1:01:06

it sounds like it's going terribly. She's

1:01:08

often not showing up, she's coming

1:01:10

late, she can't remember lines, and

1:01:13

it just sounds like a real downward

1:01:15

spiral from there. She never made a film

1:01:17

again after The Pain Whitney. She never finished

1:01:19

the film. She started one, but she never completed

1:01:21

it. It's interesting too that the only way she got

1:01:23

out of The Pain Whitney was she was some A

1:01:26

nurse took pity on her and let her make a phone

1:01:28

call, and she called Joe Dimaggia

1:01:31

and he flew in, and he went

1:01:33

to the front desk and said, if you don't let my

1:01:35

wife out of here, I'll take this hospital

1:01:37

apart, brick by brick, and

1:01:39

you know you have a destroyed Joe DiMaggio standing

1:01:42

at the front. They released her the next day, but he wasn't and

1:01:44

they weren't married, but so he rescued

1:01:46

her from that. But the year and a

1:01:48

half that remained to her, it

1:01:50

was the darkest period of her life. So she was

1:01:52

depressed a good deal of that time. She

1:01:55

most of it, if not all of that. She was seeing a psychiatrist

1:01:57

every single day. And what

1:01:59

was playing in with all, you know, the marriage

1:02:02

that didn't work, not being able to have children.

1:02:05

All of her foundation of her career

1:02:07

was built on being beautiful. Now

1:02:11

she was thirty five years old. You know,

1:02:13

you do you say that's a baby? I say that's a baby.

1:02:16

But in nineteen sixty one

1:02:19

two for a sex symbol, and

1:02:22

they started printing this in the columns and

1:02:24

in the papers. She's over the help. What's

1:02:26

going to happen to her? You know? She's done

1:02:29

so that fear playing in with all

1:02:31

the other problems that she has. Now she's worrying about I

1:02:34

have all this love. Finally, everyone loves

1:02:36

me. Everyone wants to know me. Everyone wants to meet

1:02:38

me. Presidents, kings, you know, the

1:02:40

poets, the greatest people want to know me.

1:02:43

I'm going to lose that now. I have to give

1:02:45

that up now. Well, not only that, but in

1:02:47

all the wanting to know her, they want

1:02:49

to know her, but they don't want to love and stay

1:02:52

with her. Right So she none

1:02:54

of these marriages have worked out, she's

1:02:56

not been able to have a baby. From a

1:02:58

biological clock perspective of right,

1:03:00

that window is closing. And

1:03:03

that must have been just completely frightening. I

1:03:05

mean, because her biggest

1:03:08

fear, which had happened to her in her

1:03:10

whole growing up abandonment, right

1:03:13

becomes her reality

1:03:15

that she is alone and

1:03:17

her her body and her age

1:03:21

mean that, you know, her ability

1:03:23

to not be alone right

1:03:26

is dwindling, and

1:03:29

it must have been completely terrifying. And

1:03:32

you mix that with the unfortunate

1:03:34

reality that by this point she is

1:03:37

often taking pills and you

1:03:39

know, using substances, and

1:03:41

that she has made repeated attempts before.

1:03:43

She is a person who knows how to make

1:03:46

a serious and lethal attempt, not a

1:03:48

gesture. And ultimately

1:03:51

it appears that that that is exactly

1:03:54

what happened. There

1:03:56

was a lot of things going on in her life

1:03:58

that summer that she died, a lot

1:04:00

of it had to do with rejection. She

1:04:02

was looking to men, but she always looked

1:04:04

for herself forth through the eyes of men. And she

1:04:06

was involved that year, that last year

1:04:09

with Frank Sinatra, who

1:04:11

was like the epitome of entertainment

1:04:14

world and she had a flirtation.

1:04:16

There's a big debate about what her relationship

1:04:18

was with the Kennedy's President Kennedy.

1:04:21

She made it into more than what it was. It was something,

1:04:24

but it wasn't this big romantic

1:04:27

love affair with John F. Kennedy. It

1:04:30

was a flirtation. It was a flame. It

1:04:32

was a flame, but it was a well,

1:04:34

there's a different was it a flirtation as in they

1:04:37

talked in rooms and were flirtatious

1:04:39

to each other, But then they we

1:04:42

know at least one I mostly

1:04:44

there's one accepted undisputed

1:04:47

time when they spent a

1:04:49

couple of days together in Palm Springs at

1:04:51

being Crosby's Ranch, so

1:04:53

that that was at least once. I think

1:04:56

that there was maybe up to

1:04:58

three more times. But then

1:05:00

when he was warned by

1:05:02

several people that he could

1:05:04

no longer be involved with this. It was too dangerous,

1:05:06

she was too famous, he had to distance

1:05:09

himself, and I think that Bobby stepped

1:05:11

into be like a buffer for that

1:05:14

the rejection. But he, in

1:05:16

my opinion, really

1:05:18

did twelve under

1:05:20

her spell as men had before, and

1:05:23

there's became a little bit more intense. But

1:05:25

again, he had no intention of

1:05:27

leaving his family and being with her or anything.

1:05:30

But they were involved, and in her

1:05:32

eyes and this vulnerable,

1:05:34

fragile, dark

1:05:36

time, here's my savior.

1:05:38

This wonderful, brilliant, powerful

1:05:41

man haunts me. The

1:05:44

studio may not want me. She kept getting

1:05:46

involved in seeing these potential rescues

1:05:48

or even let's say, and accruing of

1:05:50

power for herself by getting

1:05:52

the powerful man. But at

1:05:54

the end they each used

1:05:57

her for a while. That was sort of what right.

1:05:59

Nobody left any wives

1:06:01

or wanted to be with her

1:06:03

in a permanent way. On that last night,

1:06:05

she was expecting to see Bobby at the

1:06:07

petal Orford Beach House and he

1:06:10

canceled. He was with his family in San Francisco,

1:06:12

and there were other things. There was a lot of contributing

1:06:14

factors, but she

1:06:17

was fired from her film. She was

1:06:20

thirty six years old. On

1:06:22

the news stands at the time of her death, they were

1:06:24

saying Marilyn Monroe desperate

1:06:26

poses nude because she had done a little

1:06:28

nude interlude in her swimming

1:06:31

and her film that she got fired from

1:06:33

for not showing up because she couldn't face the cameras

1:06:35

anymore. So she was in this really dark place.

1:06:38

What happened that night. Now we know her

1:06:40

doctor, her her medical doctor. She

1:06:43

was seeing her medical doctor and her psychiatrist

1:06:45

every day. Her

1:06:48

medical doctor has said she

1:06:50

was bipolar, and

1:06:54

the two doctors had this deal that they weren't

1:06:56

going to prescribe her any pills without conferring

1:06:59

with each other. But she lied

1:07:01

to the medical doctor and said that my

1:07:04

psychiatrist says, it's okay, you can prescribe

1:07:07

me twenty five nembutols. He

1:07:09

did prescribe it, and he forgot to tell

1:07:11

the psychiatrist that she

1:07:13

had them. So that day,

1:07:16

that last day, that Saturday, she

1:07:18

was so distraught. The psychiatrist went to

1:07:21

see her and he talked

1:07:23

to her and he said she was very depressed,

1:07:26

and he had a dinner party. So he left and

1:07:29

he didn't see any nembutol

1:07:31

on her night table. And

1:07:35

that's the that's the dose that killed her. So

1:07:38

it was it was the dose that the medical doctor had

1:07:40

prescribed her ostensibly for

1:07:42

sleep. For sleep, I think that would

1:07:44

happen that night. I think she

1:07:46

did intend to kill herself, and

1:07:49

then when she started to go

1:07:52

under, she changed her mind and

1:07:54

she started calling people to

1:07:57

help her, to come and rescue her and

1:08:01

there's a famous phone call that she called

1:08:03

Peter Offord and said, say goodbye to the

1:08:05

President, and say goodbye to Bobby Kennedy, and

1:08:07

say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice

1:08:09

guy. And that set his alarm

1:08:12

off, and he started calling her. Now the phone was

1:08:14

off the hook because she started going under.

1:08:17

He never went into He should have at

1:08:19

least called an ambulance or something to go. But

1:08:22

I think that she went under before she could get the help

1:08:24

that she was trying to get. But

1:08:27

that being said, I in

1:08:29

my opinion, if she was rescued

1:08:32

that night, as she had been in the past, the

1:08:34

next month, or two months later

1:08:36

or the following year, she would have eventually succeeded.

1:08:39

Well. There had been a number of attempts

1:08:41

and and certainly things did not seem

1:08:43

to be improving for her psychologically

1:08:45

or psychiatrically speaking. The question

1:08:47

of bipolar disorders is difficult

1:08:49

to know, in the sense that there's

1:08:52

no evidence that she was treated for bipolar

1:08:54

disorder. You wouldn't just give them utal

1:08:56

to somebody with bipolar disorder.

1:08:59

Even in those I don't know how much they knew

1:09:01

about it. In nineteen sixty two, Engelberg

1:09:04

was her doctor, and Dr Engelberg he was

1:09:06

u a famous you know, Hollywood,

1:09:09

Beverly Hills doctor, and

1:09:11

he didn't talk until like thirty forty

1:09:13

years after her death. He's passed now, but like

1:09:15

he was an elderly man when he was talking about and he

1:09:17

said, we she

1:09:20

was manic suppressive. We don't call

1:09:22

that anymore. But I I like that term

1:09:24

because it really describes what she was. I

1:09:26

think what they were treating was her insomnia, because

1:09:29

that a lot of her problems stemmed

1:09:31

from that. If you have bipolar disorder, not

1:09:34

getting enough sleep can definitely precipitate

1:09:36

an episode of either depression

1:09:39

or hypomania romania, so

1:09:41

that on the one hand, that's understandable. On the other hand,

1:09:44

even at that time, lithium or an

1:09:46

attempt to stabilize the mood overall

1:09:49

would be the primary goal. And

1:09:51

in fact, there is an overrepresentation

1:09:54

of people with bipolar disorder in the arts

1:09:57

of all the arts because in fact, sad

1:10:00

Lee, it confers this possibility

1:10:02

of symptoms of depression alternating with

1:10:04

uh these periods of expansive mood

1:10:07

and flight of ideas and so on,

1:10:09

on the negative side. On the plus side, people

1:10:12

with bipolar disorder are often unusually

1:10:15

creative, unusual original

1:10:17

thinkers, have this

1:10:20

charisma and this incredible verbal

1:10:22

ability that has

1:10:24

been shown in studies. That is,

1:10:27

you know, beyond the

1:10:29

typical person that does not have bipolar

1:10:31

disorders. So there are particular strengths

1:10:33

that often come along, particularly with bipolar

1:10:35

disorder, that you see over

1:10:38

representation in the arts. So that wouldn't

1:10:40

be surprising. On the one hand,

1:10:42

it's just surprising that

1:10:45

there wasn't sort of a treatment

1:10:47

plan that would be more consistent with

1:10:49

bipolar disorder. I tend to agree that

1:10:51

she was bipolar from her behavior, Like she would

1:10:54

go through like a period of

1:10:56

being very upbeat and optimistic

1:10:58

and productive, like she would fly to Mexico.

1:11:01

She bought a house, and she would fly to Mexico and by

1:11:03

all the furnishings there and be

1:11:05

very social, and then she would like collapse

1:11:08

for two weeks. And it was the same thing

1:11:10

even when she was filming that last film that she never completed,

1:11:12

Like she'd go in for two days, work really

1:11:15

well, be very into it and everything, and then not show

1:11:17

up for another nine days. You know, it's interesting

1:11:19

because of course paranoid schizophrenia

1:11:21

looks completely different we understand

1:11:23

today from bipolar disorder, but sometimes

1:11:27

people with schizo effective disorder,

1:11:29

meaning they have some mood component ups

1:11:31

and downs that look like bipolar, but they

1:11:34

have more psychotic symptoms can

1:11:36

look like people with bipolar disorder who

1:11:39

in their mania also becomes psychotic,

1:11:41

have a break with reality, and so

1:11:43

you just sort of wonder. Genetically speaking, you know,

1:11:46

given her mother did have this

1:11:48

diagnosis, which could have been correct or incorrect

1:11:51

in those early days, you know that she

1:11:53

was institutionalized for you kind

1:11:55

of wonder about that. Her psychiatrist

1:11:58

did say that she had some paranoiac

1:12:01

episodes and things like she

1:12:03

had an assistant who put a blonde streak in her

1:12:05

hair, and Marilyn felt that she was trying to take

1:12:07

over her soul, you know, that kind

1:12:09

of a thing like she was. It became like a

1:12:12

lesbian thing, that this woman was obsessed

1:12:14

with me and she's trying to be me, and so

1:12:16

things like she did have behavior like that too

1:12:18

that was becoming questionable in those

1:12:20

last months. Unfortunately, even

1:12:23

in manic episodes or in major

1:12:25

depressive episodes, one can have psychotic

1:12:28

moments, psychotic thinking if it's severe

1:12:30

enough, and so you know, without

1:12:32

someone who really has gone

1:12:35

checklist by checklist, through her history

1:12:38

and through her symptoms, we you know

1:12:40

today, it would be hard for us to say what

1:12:42

was going on. And actually, if we did sit there and

1:12:44

do that with her, then we wouldn't be able to say

1:12:47

because of confidentiality, it wouldn't be appropriate

1:12:49

to say what was really going on with her. So

1:12:52

it's left open, but it's It is certainly clear

1:12:54

from both the symptoms that she suffered

1:12:57

in her later years and her

1:12:59

death that she certainly

1:13:02

struggled with some mental health issues.

1:13:05

And there's certainly discussion of character

1:13:07

logic issues that were

1:13:10

at that time referred to a sort of histrionic

1:13:12

personality disorder, the you

1:13:14

know, over sexualization, the

1:13:17

overexpansive look at

1:13:20

me, look at me. I my life is

1:13:22

full of high drama all the time. I

1:13:24

gravitate towards high drama.

1:13:26

That used to be called we don't even do

1:13:28

this anymore. It used to be called histrionic

1:13:30

personality disorder, and there have been

1:13:32

wonderings about that as well. But to

1:13:35

have someone who had so much trauma

1:13:37

and difficulty in their early life, it would be

1:13:40

surprising to not have a

1:13:42

lot of the issues especially

1:13:45

as you ascended to such a public position

1:13:48

as Marilyn Monroe did so in that

1:13:50

respect not really surprising and not

1:13:52

really shocking, but certainly tragic. And

1:13:54

of course, even though she felt

1:13:56

that she was getting older, she died so young

1:13:58

at thirty six. We have no idea what she would have gone

1:14:00

on to do, right, but you know, the one thing

1:14:02

that I would like to look to was, like, how

1:14:05

commendable was that she did manage with all

1:14:07

of her things, that she achieved what

1:14:09

she did achieve in a short time incredible,

1:14:12

I mean, really a testament to

1:14:14

an incredible talent. And

1:14:16

as you pointed out, ambition and drive

1:14:19

and ability to connect, to

1:14:21

connect with an audience, to connect with others

1:14:24

that propelled her into this incredible

1:14:26

position, this gift of like you know, as dark

1:14:28

as she was on the inside, she gave a flight.

1:14:31

That's why people don't want to accept that she was

1:14:33

so troubled, because she makes them feel

1:14:35

so good. Yes, that's actually

1:14:37

that that's because often people shy away

1:14:40

from people with depression because they feel sucked

1:14:42

into it. They fell pulled into their depression

1:14:44

and they don't want to be with her, which

1:14:47

may have been part of the difficulty in her more

1:14:49

intimate life. You know that if you

1:14:51

really were in her inner circle, her lover,

1:14:54

her, you know, her close friend, that

1:14:56

you would have felt pulled into her

1:14:58

depressive episode. But for the public

1:15:01

at large, right in her performance,

1:15:04

she could transmit the

1:15:07

beauty and the light as you said,

1:15:09

and people felt pulled in. That

1:15:21

wraps things up for this episode. Thank

1:15:23

you to my guests Charles Casillo, And

1:15:26

if you want to know more information about Marilyn

1:15:28

Monroe, you should check out his books

1:15:31

The Maryland Diaries and Marilyn

1:15:34

Monroe The Private Life of a Public

1:15:36

Icon. If you'd like to know more about

1:15:38

the concepts in personology, my

1:15:41

book is The Power of Different The Link

1:15:43

between Disorder and Genius. For

1:15:46

psychological and mental health advice,

1:15:48

you might want to listen to my other podcast,

1:15:51

How Can I Help? Follow

1:15:53

me on Twitter at Dr Gail Salts

1:15:56

and until next time. Personlogy

1:16:00

is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive

1:16:03

producers are doctor Gayle Saltz and Tyler

1:16:05

Clang. The associate producer is Lowell

1:16:07

Brulante. For more podcasts from My Heart

1:16:10

Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple

1:16:12

Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.