The new friends ended up in a Las Vegas restaurant called Corey’s. There Norma Jeane told Bill that she was in the city to obtain a divorce from her husband, James Dougherty. ‘She left the impression that she just wanted to be free,’ says Bill. ‘She was not bitter.’ That night the couple went to see a movie, and from that moment they became firm friends and spent almost every day together.
Bill remembers: ‘She was a beautiful gal. We were just two young adults going out; we’d go to the movies, the lake, and all over the place: we went to Mount Charleston, west of Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, and to Lake Mead, which was a great place to go for a swim as well as fishing or boating. We would find a café or somewhere out of the way and sit opposite each other. She would stare right into my face and it would make me nervous because she was so beautiful. We would often write notes to each other on napkins and pass them to each other while we were dining.
‘One Sunday we drove to Southern Utah to visit a National Park. It was crowded that day and I noticed there was quite a bit of attention from a gathering of girls. A female park ranger approached and recognized Norma Jeane from a magazine cover she had done, which explained the attention we were drawing.
‘We also visited Bryce Canyon, where many western movies have been filmed. It was along there where Norma Jeane told me she would like to become a movie actress, and I think also it was the first time we kissed.’
As well as spending time with Bill, Norma Jeane also took time to get to know his family, and was a dinner guest on at least two occasions at the family home at 925 South 3rd Street.
‘She was a lovely, lovely girl; a very sweet girl,’ remembered Bill’s sister, Jeanne Chretien. ‘She could have been the girl-next-door – my mom liked her a lot and Mom was very particular about people! In fact Norma Jeane later wrote to Mom, who was very approving of her going out with Bill. She would also speak with her on the phone – she wouldn’t speak to just anyone, but she loved Norma Jeane.’ Jeanne was married and both she and her husband Henry would tease Bill about the relationship: ‘What a beauty – how are you getting such a gorgeous doll?’ was one of their light-hearted comments. Around the dinner table, however, their talk was that of a more serious nature: ‘She was a very down-to-earth person,’ said Chretien. ‘She was very intelligent, smart, sweet and wholesome. She liked poetry and talked a lot about the poet Carl Sandburg.’
‘She dearly loved his writing,’ recalled Bill Pursel. ‘She loved to read and Sandburg was at the top of her list.’
Bill remembers the relationship Norma Jeane developed with his mother. ‘Mom was very inquisitive about the girls my brother and I dated. There seemed to be an immediate close relationship between Mom and Norma Jeane, and Mom was very impressed by the way Norma Jeane pitched right in to help get supper on the table and to clean up afterwards. The connection they had impressed me because they took to each other so naturally.’ However, while Mrs Pursel may have liked her young visitor, that still didn’t stop her demanding to know if Norma Jeane had washed her hands before allowing her to help with dinner, much to the amusement of the other house guests.
While Norma Jeane left a good impression on the Pursel family, she seems to have been just as fond of them. ‘You’re really swell and I enjoyed your company very much,’ she later wrote to Bill.
There have been countless rumours that Norma Jeane travelled back and forth to Los Angeles when she was supposed to be resident in Las Vegas, but Bill Pursel doubts this: ‘I don’t know if she went back and forth to LA during her time here, but I doubt it because after we met we saw one another nearly every day. She also would call me at the service station where I worked, and, she brought her little Ford in for me to service. I think she stayed the whole six weeks, and I think she stayed at this same home on South 3rd Street.’
She was certainly a resident in Las Vegas when Jim Dougherty telephoned her. He had received a letter and divorce papers from her lawyer while he was at sea, and was gutted. He didn’t return the papers, nor did he write to his estranged wife; instead, he cancelled her allotment (the portion of military pay set aside for dependents). The moment he reached dry land, he tracked her to Las Vegas and dialled the number. In shock and not wanting to believe what he had read in the letter, he was dismayed when she answered the phone with a bright, ‘Hi Bill.’ When she realized that she was speaking to Jim and not Bill Pursel, she proceeded to scold him for cutting off her allotment, which she said she found out about when she was in the hospital. Still in denial, Jim decided to visit his wife when he arrived in Los Angeles shortly afterwards.
Norma Jeane was supposed to stay in Las Vegas until 10 July 1946, but actually she stayed a week longer than that, leaving on 18 July. Bill Pursel offered to drive with her, and together they set off in her Ford Coupe: ‘We got about 90 miles south of Vegas to a town called Baker. We were driving down Baker Grade when the car started missing . . . we just made it to a service station. I realized we had lost the fuel pump and told the mechanic . . . then we walked about a mile up the road to a place called “Failings”. We returned, only to find the mechanic had stripped the car and had parts everywhere. We then walked all the way back to “Failings”. Norma Jeane complained that her feet were getting hot and she could feel the heat through her sandals. I carried her for about forty yards before we finally reached the restaurant.’
While the couple were back in the café, Bill wrote a light-hearted poem about their dilemma, after which Norma Jeane thanked him for helping with her car problems; folded up the poem and popped it into her shirt. The couple stayed a few hours before heading back to the service station and resuming their journey. ‘As we drove on we reached a checkpoint at Yermo where we were asked whether we had any fruit or veg in the car. Norma Jeane was wearing a white halter and shorts and her hair was pulled back with a ribbon. The male officers at the checkpoint ordered her to get all her suitcases out of the trunk and she became angry because they made her open all of her luggage, which entailed three cases and an overnight bag. Norma Jeane was furious and crying as they searched her clothes and cosmetics, but they eventually put everything back, closed the trunk and told us we could leave. When we continued our drive she was still crying so I pulled over. She scolded me for not interfering with the search, and after explaining that there was nothing I could have done, she eventually calmed down. I told her that she was most beautiful when she was angry and it was true!’
To cool off the couple found a park in San Bernardino and soaked their feet in a pond. Norma Jeane was happy, recalls Pursel, laughing like a child while splashing her feet in the pond. She was finally free and looking forward to the future.
‘I had no money to get a motel or buy supper, so told Norma Jeane that I would be boarding a Greyhound bus back to Vegas while she continued her drive to Los Angeles. She interrupted saying I could stay at her Aunt Ana’s house, but I did not feel comfortable with that and besides, I had to be at work for 6 a.m. I asked her if she knew the way back from where we were; she said she did and started to cry. I told her I would come to see her soon, put her in the car, kissed her goodbye and sent her on her way. Twenty minutes later I was on a bus back to Vegas and it suddenly dawned on me that I missed her. I missed her very much.’
While driving back to Los Angeles, Norma Jeane became even more upset when she found herself being followed by a male admirer. In a letter to Bill, she complained: ‘After I left you yesterday and got back on the highway some wolf followed me all the way home. He drove like a crazy person, he would drive his car real close to mine and kept saying “When are we going to get together?” Something new – a highway wolf!’ She also thanked Bill for his company and asked him to keep in touch: ‘I would like very much to hear from you Bill; how you got home, how you are, what you’re doing etc. So please drop me a line. Don’t forget when you’re ever in LA to stop by to see me.’
But while Norma Jeane may have looked forward to Bill’s visit, one visitor she wasn’t so sure about came in the shape of he
r mother, Gladys, who had moved into Aunt Ana’s Nebraska Avenue home. In July 1945, she had been released from the mental institution, on the condition that she would move in with her Aunt Dora Graham, in Oregon. The idea was that she would be able to adjust to her new life away from the hospital, and that after a year she would be allowed to look after herself.
Gladys embraced this new freedom with both hands, and spent her time ‘healing’ sick people with her Christian Science practices. However, she became bored of living within the confines of Aunt Dora’s home, and before her adjustment year was finished she decided to travel to Los Angeles, where she was met at the bus station by Norma Jeane and her then husband Jim. She then proceeded to move in with Aunt Ana while her daughter was in Vegas, eventually sharing a room with Norma Jeane on her return from Nevada.
For both Norma Jeane and her sister, Berniece, this period would be a time of great optimism and change but, ultimately, disappointment.
Chapter 6
‘This is the end of Norma Jeane’
Coming home from Las Vegas, closer than ever to being a free woman, Norma Jeane must have had mixed feelings about living with her mother. ‘It seems rather nice to be home again,’ she wrote to Bill Pursel, ‘but I do miss Vegas a little – I think the place sort of grows on one.’
Although still in the safety of Aunt Ana’s home, this was the first time she had had any prolonged contact with Gladys since she was a small child, and the relationship was strained, so when Bill Pursel came to visit it must have come as a welcome relief. He installed himself at the home of his Aunt Louise at 11611 Blix Street, North Hollywood, and remembered seeing Norma Jeane’s mother when he arrived at Nebraska Avenue to visit: ‘Norma Jeane and I were leaving Aunt Ana’s one day around noon when an attractive lady was emerging from an apartment basement below Aunt Ana’s home. Norma Jeane introduced me to this lady as her mother; the lady acknowledged the introduction with a smile and then promptly turned and retreated back down the few steps to the basement apartment. I wondered what I said to cause this rather hasty exit. Norma Jeane just stood there for a few seconds, then said, “Let’s go.” I didn’t ask any questions but I knew something wasn’t right. This lady was neatly dressed; I would guess she was in her forties, rather slim, quite attractive, but noticeably shy and when she walked away I thought she had maybe forgotten something. Little did I know that Norma Jeane’s mother had mental problems – such a thing never dawned on me and I had thought that perhaps as the divorce wasn’t final yet, that maybe Norma Jeane’s mother resented her daughter dating so soon. There was no voluntary explanation from Norma Jeane which also puzzled me. But it was none of my business so I asked no questions and just let the whole thing drop.’
Although Jim Dougherty never mentioned it in either of his later memoirs, he also encountered Bill Pursel during this trip. Bill remembered: ‘I did meet Jim Dougherty when he came to Aunt Ana’s home to get some keys from Norma Jeane. She was expecting him because she had the keys ready to hand to him when he came through the door. Aunt Ana let him in, and Norma Jeane introduced me to Jim in a polite way – she didn’t identify me as anyone special. He acknowledged the meeting with a friendly handshake; he was very polite and I think he said, “Glad to meet you” to me and “thanks” to her . . . I noticed no animosity or jealousy on his part, nothing seemed awkward or confrontational and he left immediately without any conversation with Norma Jeane.
‘One thing I did notice (which is important because I saw it directed towards me in August 1950) was that Norma Jeane was standing – looking right into the eyes of Jim Dougherty – smiling politely but no talking except a short friendly acknowledgement. There was no bitterness, just very matter of fact and almost cold . . . We did not discuss the meeting afterwards – I felt it was not my business to ask her anything; in fact Norma Jeane never talked about Jim or her family, and I never questioned her or pressed her for answers. She was a very fragile gal mentally but strong physically; she loved to laugh and to just be happy without any pressure. I stayed away from prying into her past; we only talked about the present and the future and I liked that.’
Her need to keep her private life to herself is testified by many others in her life. For instance, aside from Jim, the Dougherty family had no idea Norma Jeane had a sister; while friend Dorothy Muir later told the National Tattler: ‘All we ever learned was that she was an orphan – father dead, mother hospitalized. Questions regarding her mother’s health she managed to evade. She would laugh and talk without apparent reservation, at the same time carefully avoiding anything personal.’
Aside from tying up loose ends from her past, July and August were full of hope and new starts for Norma Jeane, not least of which was the possibility of a movie career. During the summer she’d been in Vegas, she had appeared on a variety of magazine covers, one of which was a publication called Laff. Entrepreneur Howard Hughes saw the young model and asked his office to call Emmeline Snively and express an interest. Snively was thrilled, and made sure that the newspapers knew all about it. This resulted in Norma Jeane’s first gossip column mention, but did not lead to any further notice from Hughes, or his company. However, the talk generated by the newspapers led several studios to pay attention to the young model, and before she knew it, Norma Jeane was invited to Twentieth Century Fox for a meeting with Ben Lyon, Head of Talent.
Although widely believed that the meeting between Lyon and Norma Jeane took place on 17 July (followed by a screen test on the 19th), in reality she did not leave Vegas until 18 July. Instead, the meeting took place a week later, and on 25 July 1946 Ben Lyon sent a memo to a colleague, instructing him to draw up an optional contract for Norma Jeane. As well as that, a screen test was arranged for 14th August, as Bill Pursel remembers: ‘Norma Jeane came up with a short script which we practised at my Aunt Louise’s home in North Hollywood. I don’t know if the skit she had was the same one used at the studio or if there was more than one skit, but the script we practised had two parts, one female and one male.’
The couple practised for four or five hours, with Bill urging her to get into the part, but even at that early stage of her career, Norma Jeane made hard work of learning the lines, as Bill’s sister Jeanne remembered: ‘Bill said that he knew Norma Jeane’s lines long before she did – she didn’t learn them very quickly.’ Bill confirms this: ‘She froze; wouldn’t read her part of the script. This was a shock to me and I asked what was wrong. She was afraid I think, so we just wrapped it up right then.’
On 14 August she arrived at Twentieth Century Fox for the screen test, while Bill waited impatiently at Nebraska Avenue with Aunt Ana. ‘Norma Jeane came home,’ remembered Bill, ‘and came running up the walk, flying into the house all bubbly and excited. She was smiling and happy because after the black and white test they had taken a second test in Technicolor, which, she told us, was supposed to be important.’
The test was indeed an important break for Norma Jeane, and it led to her first contract, which she signed on 24th August 1946. However, the name Norma Jeane wasn’t in the least bit ‘star like’, so it was decided that it would need to be changed. Ben Lyon told her that she reminded him of the actress Marilyn Miller, and decided he’d like her to be called Marilyn. Monroe was her personal choice, since it was her mother’s maiden name.
Bill Pursel remembered speaking with Norma Jeane about the name change: ‘She didn’t make a big deal about it to me, but she wasn’t happy about it. She didn’t like Marilyn (and told me she couldn’t even spell it) but the Monroe part she liked OK because it was a family name, or something. The part she was irked about was that she wasn’t consulted before it was a done deal – I think she wanted the name Jeane kept because she was fond of Jean Harlow. I congratulated her on the spunk she showed with the studio and I continued to call her Norma Jeane because this is who she really was – calling her Marilyn seemed distant then, and it does now.’
That night, the couple went out to celebrate her new career. ‘I think we ha
d three drinks apiece, which brings up an important point: Norma Jeane did not smoke or drink or mess with drugs when I knew her. She had a pure soul and she guarded it well.’
Later that evening, Norma Jeane said good night to Bill and returned home. Standing before a mirror she picked up a lipstick and scribbled, ‘This is the end of Norma Jeane.’
Marilyn Monroe was born.
Things moved quickly for Marilyn after being signed to Twentieth Century Fox. A studio biography was prepared, describing her as an orphan who was discovered whilst babysitting for a studio executive. It was pure fantasy but she went along with it, not overly concerned to admit that both her mother and father were alive. Each day she would report to Twentieth Century Fox at 8 a.m. and take part in all kinds of lessons there: pantomime and dance three times a week, as well as acting, music and speech. She also spent a lot of time at the studio ‘gallery’ where she would pose for publicity photos, and sometimes she would ride in parades and take part in banquets, but for the most part she would ‘hang around’ the studio and try to soak up as much information as she could.
After spending all day at the studio, Marilyn travelled back to Aunt Ana’s home and practised what she’d learned, all the time being criticized by her mother, who was showing every sign of not approving of her daughter’s acting aspirations. Her sister, Berniece (who visited in late summer 1946), tried to get their mother to encourage Marilyn in her new career, but it was not to be: ‘I don’t like her business,’ was all the woman had to say.
Marilyn Monroe Page 10
