In all the wedding ceremony went without a hitch, and immediately afterwards there was a small celebration at the home of the Howells. This arrangement had caused some tension just days before the big day, as Elyda Nelson recalled: ‘Someone brought up the question of who would give the reception after the wedding. Norma Jeane spoke up promptly and said, “The bride’s parents are supposed to take care of that.” “I know dear,” one of the catty feminine neighbours said, “but you have no parents.” The look of sadness Norma Jeane gave me I’ll never forget, and to this day I detest the thought of that offending woman.’
After the reception, Jim’s brother Marion thought it would be funny to ‘kidnap’ Norma Jeane and force both her and Jim to go to the Florentine Gardens, a nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard. This too caused tension, however, when a waiter accidentally spilled soup all over Jim, and then he was persuaded to dance on stage with a chorus girl, much to Norma Jeane’s chagrin.
Years later, Jim reflected on the evening and decided that possibly Norma Jeane was looking for a reason to argue with him, as she was not looking forward to their wedding night. Plagued with insecurities, she had asked Grace Goddard if it were possible to ‘just be friends’ with her husband, and had ploughed through a sex education book given to her by Aunt Ana. Neither the talk nor the book made her feel any more confident, however, and on the wedding night itself, she spent a long time locked in the bathroom.
Although Norma Jeane tried her hand at cooking – baking bread every other day and experimenting on her new relatives – her lack of skills soon became very apparent: she put salt in Jim’s coffee by mistake, and famously cooked carrots and peas just because she liked the colour. Things were made worse by the fact that Jim’s brothers, Tom and Marion, had thought it a good idea to stock the newlywed’s cupboards with food. Unfortunately, the kindly gesture wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, as Paul Kanteman remembered some sixty years later: ‘They decided stocking the cupboards would be a great wedding present, as Uncle Jim and Aunt Norma would surely appreciate this. These guys were practical jokers and took all the labels off every item on the shelf. A lot of cans look alike as far as size is concerned, especially when they are undressed. Aunt Norma asked me to have lunch with her at the new house, and it was like a treasure hunt, shaking this can and that can until we found one that sounded right. We were going to have tuna salad sandwiches that day, but the can of tuna turned out to be water-chestnuts, and the peas turned out to be fruit cocktail! So when I say the lunch was different it really was, but Aunt Norma kept a stiff upper lip and laughed about it.’
At age sixteen, Norma Jeane had gone from a footloose young girl to a married woman in just a few short months. She quickly learned how to keep a clean, tidy house, and often spent time gossiping over the back fence with the other neighbours on the street. ‘It really keeps me busy cleaning the house and fixing meals,’ she wrote to Grace Goddard on 14 September 1942. ‘Everybody told me that it is quite a responsibility being a housewife and boy, I’m finding it out. But it really is a lot of fun.’
Fun it may have been, but the emotional upheaval of being married at such a young age was huge. Neither Jim nor Norma Jeane knew how to react in an argument, and she once went tearing out of the house in her nightclothes after a fight, only to be followed by a stranger in the street. On another occasion Norma Jeane furiously hit Jim over the head with a trashcan, after he’d criticized the fact that she’d mistakenly fed him raw fish. Jim tried to cool her off in the shower, only to find that this made her even more irate and he was forced to walk the streets until she had calmed down.
She also struggled with a lack of life-skills: she divided a bottle of scotch between four people; threw a cup of coffee over a sparking electrical socket; and she didn’t like nor understand the jokes told by Dougherty’s friends. Although he didn’t mean to hurt Norma Jeane’s feelings, Jim made the mistake of mocking her naivety and later reflected that he perhaps teased her too much. ‘I think my teasing was the one thing that made her unhappy during our marriage,’ he said. ‘I was young myself and didn’t know very much about how to treat a woman.’
Of course, Norma Jeane wasn’t Jim’s first serious partner, as he had been in a relationship with Doris Drennen for a long time before that. Since Norma Jeane had not had a serious boyfriend before, this ‘other woman’ bothered her considerably, as she later wrote to Grace Goddard: ‘Doris Drenen [sic] is Jim’s ex – remember? I remember only too well.’
Doris was unaware of the jealousy, however, as she recalled seventy years later: ‘The few times I saw her I would describe her as insecure and lonely, but truthfully I didn’t give her much thought. At that time her hair was more or less like mine, brown with blonde highlights from the Southern California sun, like a dishwater blonde. I was nineteen at the time and I was old enough to be rather sure of myself when it came to boys. I had no idea that she was jealous of me, if she really was.’
Norma Jeane held the grudge towards Jim’s ex-girlfriend for quite some time, though she really needn’t have worried, as by December 1942 Doris was married to Lieutenant George Grandstaff McCann Jr and would stay with him until his death in 1984. However, Norma Jeane wasn’t the only one prone to jealousy, as witnessed by Bob Stotts, who hadn’t seen his friend since she’d started dating Jim Dougherty: ‘I ran into Norma Jeane on the street for the first time in several years. She invited me home to meet her aunt, but when we got there the aunt wasn’t there. I stayed and we sat in the room – her on one side and me on the other – when suddenly the front door almost came off its hinges and there was Jim Dougherty, obviously expecting to see something not right. I met with him very briefly but then said I had to go, and quickly left.’
But in spite of the couple’s petty jealousies, the marriage did provide Norma Jeane with a stable and secure relationship. She clung to that idea ferociously, calling her new husband ‘Daddy’ and dramatically threatening to jump from the Santa Monica Pier if things ever went wrong between them. Her insecurities ran high and when Jim worked the graveyard shift at Lockheed, he never told her how dangerous the job was, for fear of how it would affect her. As it was, if he forgot to kiss her goodbye she would think she had done something wrong, and if she forgot to hide a small note in his lunchbox, she would apologize profusely when he returned.
‘Jimmy is so swell to me,’ she wrote at the time. ‘In fact I know that if I had waited five or ten years I couldn’t have found anyone who would have treated me better.’
Norma Jeane saw to it that she placed her husband’s interests above her own, and although she never liked to fish or hunt, she went along with Jim on hunting expeditions, learning to shoot a rifle that he had given to her as a present. Interestingly, his ex-girlfriend Doris Drennen had done the same: ‘Jimmy was always gentle and kind to me, but I would describe him as the “rugged type”; a man’s man. In high school he played football and was a star. He loved to hunt and shoot guns; he taught me how to shoot and [brother-in-law and sister] John and Joan would go hunting with us. I never really cared for that type of life style and somehow I can’t think of Norma Jeane as a hunting- shooting type either but she probably went along with it in order to fit in. I know I did.’
James Dougherty later remembered the interests he and Norma Jeane enjoyed together: ‘On a weekend we might go to a ranch in Lancaster called “Marcotti’s”; they grew alfalfa for cattle and we would hunt rabbits until we became sleepy and then curl up in the front seat of our Ford and sleep. Then sometimes we would pack a lunch and go to Lake Sherwood; rent a boat and row out on to the lake and fish. We always caught enough fish for a meal – we enjoyed the fresh air and the sunshine. For a night out it would be the movies or once in a great while the Coconut Grove where we dined and danced. Then there was Gobel’s Lion Farm in Thousand Oaks; that’s where a lion peed on Norma and she was mortified. We would visit the farm when they fed the lions and boy did they roar!’
Norma Jeane bonded well with Jim’s family and al
though Marion Dougherty was too much of a tease for her to form a real bond with him, Paul Kanteman remembered that they ‘got along just fine and she thought he was pretty funny’. She loved Jim’s brother Tom, and Jim later remarked that she thought his father was ‘the greatest guy in the world’. Paul Kanteman agrees with this prognosis: ‘When Grandpa met Norma Jeane he thought she was a treasure and the feelings were mutual. From their first meeting there was an attraction for each other that made a bond that was as if they had been together since birth. Maybe she was like a granddaughter to him and her feelings seemed to be the same towards him. She looked up to him and respected all that he said. They were great friends from the first meeting.’
In Autumn1942 Norma Jeane attended a baby shower for Nellie Atkinson, daughter of former foster-parents George and Maude. ‘She got so many lovely things and I had such a nice time,’ Norma Jeane later wrote.
She also spent time with Jim’s sister: ‘She was the most beautiful little creature I had ever seen,’ Elyda later said. ‘Not only did she have beauty, but everything else it takes to make a lady. I loved her from the beginning.’ Jim would always take Norma Jeane to visit on Sundays, and as time went on, Jim’s young wife and Elyda spent more and more time together: ‘During the first year, Norma Jeane came to my home many times, to play with my son, Larry. “My first baby has to be a boy,” she told me. She was wonderfully kind and patient with me while I was carrying my little Denny, who was two weeks overdue. At the time I was staying with my mother in Van Nuys, so Norma Jeane stayed with me during the day, and Jim picked her up at night.’
When the baby was eventually born, Norma Jeane helped look after him, and as a result she became extremely fond of all Elyda’s children, as Paul Kanteman remembered: ‘Aunt Ana was a Christian Scientist and Norma Jeane went along with their teachings and practices. I remember one incident that related to my brother who at the time was a baby about ten or eleven months and had become very ill with Scarletina and bronchial pneumonia. He was in very bad condition and Aunt Norma and Aunt Ana both went to work on him in prayer and whatever else they do, and he recovered. He is now retired and is about 6 foot 3 so I guess something worked.’
The first Christmas spent as a married couple was almost certainly spent at the home of Jim’s parents, which was the biggest of all the Dougherty homes. It was always the gathering spot for family get-togethers and holidays, and was a haven of fun and music. Paul Kanteman remembered: ‘My grandfather played the fiddle, guitar, banjo and chorded piano, while my mother played the fiddle and a little violin and sang. Aunt Norma would just sit there with her eyes glued on Uncle Jim when he would sing a love song to her or some cute holiday song that was directed to her. She would occasionally join in and sing a little but as I recall would rather just watch.’
In January 1943 the lease on the Vista Del Monte apartment ran out at the same time as Jim’s parents were out of town. As a result, the couple moved into the Dougherty family home at 14747 Archwood Street, which they shared with Jim’s brother Tom. It was during this time that Norma Jeane received news that was to change the course of her life forever. Gladys decided it was time for Norma Jeane to discover who her father was, and sometime between September 1942 and February 1943, she was informed. Jim Dougherty later remembered: ‘Her mother told Grace that Stanley Gifford was her father, and Grace told my mother, who told Norma Jeane.’ The young woman was bowled over by this news, and on 16 February 1943, she wrote excitedly to Grace, sharing her plans to visit Mr Gifford as soon as possible, and declaring that the discovery of her father had made her a new person. ‘It’s something I have to look forward to,’ she told her former foster-mother.
Norma Jeane was determined that Gifford would be pleased to see her, so when a friend read her fortune and predicted that they would successfully meet, she became even more excited. But when she finally found the confidence to contact him by telephone, it was all in vain. Jim Dougherty remembered: ‘She called him and he hung up on her. It took a lot of tender loving care to bring her out of the disappointment.’
Shortly after this incident, in spring 1943, the couple moved into a new home, this time located at 14223 Bessemer Street. During Norma Jeane’s stay at this house, she was particularly distressed one day to notice a cow standing out in the rain. As Dougherty arrived home, he was shocked to see his wife trying desperately to pull the creature into the house and even more surprised when she asked him to help. Jim’s nephew Wes Kanteman remembers: ‘The cow was a young Jersey Heffer that had beautiful eyes and Norma Jeane used to stand by her pen and just stare at her, remarking at how pretty she was. Then the torrential rain came one night and the cow was standing by the fence and Norma Jeane apparently thought she wanted in so she opened the gate and was going to bring her into the house. After much conversation about the matter, Uncle Jim convinced her that she really belonged in her pen and Norma Jeane finally gave in and it was over, but she still thought that the cow would have been better off in the living room!’
Wet cows aside, the couple settled nicely into their home, until the Second World War prompted Jim to leave his employment at Lockheed to do something for his country. He decided to join the merchant marines and was sent to San Diego for basic training, before moving to Catalina Island to take up the post of physical instructor at the Maritime Service Training Base. It was just a short time later that Norma Jeane joined her husband in a $35-a-month hillside apartment (possibly 323 Metropole Avenue, Avalon), which boasted a living room, bathroom and kitchen.
Life on the island was idyllic in many ways: ‘We had a very normal life,’ Jim later recalled. ‘Norma cooked and cleaned and I was the breadwinner.’ She also spent time shopping at local stores, and wrote to her sister, Berniece, urging her to move to the island too. She would spend hours washing her hair and face, and gave just as much attention to her dog, Muggsie, whom she adored: ‘She spent hours bathing him, grooming him, teaching him tricks,’ remembered Elyda Nelson. ‘They were inseparable when Jim was not home.’
In the evenings, the couple would sit on the porch and make plans for the future, or Jim would play guitar and sing; sometimes they invited friends around to dance to tunes on their new record player. ‘We would visit the beach and swim or skin dive for abalone and bosters or just lay in the sun,’ Dougherty later remembered. His nephew, Paul Kanteman, confirms this: ‘Norma Jeane thought it was really something that her guy could disappear into the Pacific Ocean and come up with something on his spear for dinner that evening.’ Unfortunately, watching Jim dive wasn’t the only thing that interested Norma Jeane, who revelled in the attention given to her by the other men on the beach. Understandably Jim didn’t appreciate this half as much, especially when one of the lifeguards took an overly keen interest in his wife.
The attention Norma Jeane received whilst at the beach – any beach – was recalled by Grace Goddard’s great niece, Jo Olmstead: ‘I do remember that my Mom [Diane Knebelkamp] said Norma Jeane took her to the beach a few times and that she was so beautiful the boys just stared at her.’
At Christmas 1943, a dance was held at the Catalina Casino, which Norma Jeane had visited ten years before during a rare trip with her mother. The evening was not a success, however, as Jim became upset with the comments and dance requests from male admirers aimed at his young wife. Eventually he’d had enough and told Norma Jeane that they were going to leave. ‘Well I will come back as soon as you’re asleep,’ she threatened, but Jim stood firm; she could come home with him now or not at all. They returned home together.
Although Jim was keen to start a family, Norma Jeane did not share his enthusiasm. She questioned her sister-in-law about child-rearing, and despite telling her that she certainly wanted to have a baby one day, the idea of becoming a parent terrified her. This fear of childbirth was sparked during her upbringing with Grace Goddard. The women in her family had a long history of problems, miscarriages and still births, and Grace’s sister, Allis Atchinson, was the only one who’d had a
ny living children. Unfortunately, she was to die herself in 1931 whilst giving birth to her daughter, Diane.
‘Allis already had one child,’ remembered Diane’s daughter, Jo Olmstead, ‘but was warned by her doctor that it would be dangerous for her to become pregnant again. She desperately wanted a child though, and it resulted in her death.’ The child’s father gave permission for Allis’ elder sister, Enid Knebelkamp, to adopt the child and forever more the death of Allis would add to the sorrow and fear that had haunted the Atchinson women for many years.
According to Catherine Larson, friend and neighbour of Enid Knebelkamp, the entire family – including Norma Jeane – talked endlessly about the subject of death in childbirth. ‘That whole family positively had a terror of – an obsession with – death in childbirth. I’ve never seen any other family like it!’ Catherine later said. Catherine’s friend, James Glaeg, recalled: ‘Enid Knebelkamp lived in constant fear of death in childbirth, and Catherine told me it was discussed on innumerable occasions with Marilyn/Norma Jeane.’
‘I don’t remember that fear was specifically discussed but rather sorrow,’ recalled Jo Olmstead. ‘I have no doubt that these things were discussed with Norma Jeane; my mother and grandma Enid discussed them with me when I was a young child. I can certainly understand why Norma Jeane would fear childbirth.’
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