Once home it was back to work at Radioplane, and on the very day of her return, she was spotted by some photographers working in the plant. They liked the look of the fresh-faced brunette, and before she knew it, Norma Jeane had been whisked away from her duties in order to pose for photographer David Conover. Wearing her uniform of grey slacks and green blouse and with her Radioplane identity card clearly visible, the look on the young girl’s face says it all – this was far more exciting than inspecting or spraying parachutes.
The pictures taken that day at Radioplane changed Norma Jeane from a semi-content bride into an excited young woman, full of possibilities and ambition. Conover told her he would like to take more photos, and later returned to Radioplane, snapping her in a variety of different outfits. He told her that she could become a model; that he had a lot of contacts he wanted her to look into, but at first she believed he was only flirting with her.
However, after studying the photos he had taken, and discovering that she could earn $5 an hour modelling as opposed to working ten hours a day at the factory, she began to realize there might be a future there after all. She tried her hand at a few photo sessions and by 10 February 1945 had made enough money in order to buy back her mother’s Franklin grand piano from Aunt Ana. Unfortunately, the timing coincided with Jim returning home to California, so she decided to wait until his shore leave was over before taking on any more modelling jobs.
When Norma Jeane briefly discussed the idea of modelling with her husband, he seemed to like the idea: ‘I thought it was easier than working at Radioplane,’ he later said, but he did make it clear that when the war was over, he wanted to start a family and settle down. The pair went to Big Bear Lake for a week’s holiday, but although she later described it as ‘a grand time’, there were a variety of problems: Jim hated the discovery that his wife had started drinking alcohol; she became jealous when he played blackjack with some college girls; and they had an argument about Jim’s plans to have children.
Shortly after their return home, Jim rejoined his ship and Norma Jeane put her plans for modelling into action. When she wrote to Grace on 4 June 1945, she revealed that she hadn’t worked at Radioplane since January. What she forgot to say, however, was that she was still actually employed until 15 March, when the management finally grew tired of her phoning in sick and terminated her employment. She was relieved; life at the factory had exhausted her, she said; ‘I just don’t care about anything when I’m that tired.’
Thanks to David Conover, she was introduced to Potter Heuth, who agreed to take some photos of her on the condition that she worked ‘on spec’ – she would be paid if and when he found a buyer for the prints. Norma Jeane eagerly agreed and she discovered just how easy modelling came to her: it was fun, the photographers seemed to like her and she thoroughly enjoyed herself.
Unfortunately her new-found career did not have the same affect on Ethel Dougherty, who was worried about Norma Jeane’s marriage to Jim. She felt threatened by her daughter-in-law spending so much time working with other men; a feeling that wasn’t helped when she witnessed frequent arguments between the couple during Jim’s trips home.
Another thing causing friction was that Norma Jeane no longer had time to look after her dog, Muggsie. Before she had begun modelling, she had loved bathing, walking and brushing the dog, but when time grew short, Muggsie became somewhat neglected. ‘The last time I saw Muggsie she was tied to a tree and very dirty. She died soon after,’ remembered Jim Dougherty.
Finally, Norma Jeane couldn’t stand the frictions at the Dougherty home any longer, and decided to move back to the warmth of Aunt Ana’s home in West Los Angeles. This did not prevent problems, however, and Paul Kanteman remembered a particularly stressful episode: ‘Uncle Jim was on leave and called to see if I could go fishing in a couple of days’ time. He picked me up the next day, but Aunt Norma couldn’t be with us as she was modelling for a magazine cover that day. We had to get our fishing tackle together anyway, and we could kill most of the day doing that without any problem. The next morning Aunt Norma announced she couldn’t go with us that day either as they hadn’t finished shooting yet. Uncle Jim didn’t seem too thrilled as he really wanted to spend more time with her. Up the coast we went, to just south of the Malibu pier. She dropped us off with our tackle and a lunch with the promise to be back no later than mid-afternoon. Well afternoon came and went, evening came and went and no Aunt Norma . . . It was about eleven that night when we saw the little Ford Coupe pull up and stop. We scrambled into the car and off we went. Not a lot was said on our way back to Aunt Ana’s home in West Los Angeles. I do remember going upstairs to my room and passing by Aunt Norma’s room and hearing her crying. I went downstairs and told Uncle Jim what was going on. He immediately went to see what the problem was, as not much had been discussed about the day at that point. She told him she was shooting a cover for a magazine depicting the Thanksgiving Turkey, the set was an actual barn in the country with a large pile of hay, which is where they worked. Before they could begin, she had to remove her wedding rings as they certainly didn’t want a married woman posing for this cover shot, but in removing or putting the rings away, they became lost in about ten tonnes of hay. The afternoon had been spent trying to find them, but they were, however, found the next day – to everyone’s relief.’
Norma Jeane’s relationship with Jim became worse and worse, to the point that every time Jim saw her he could almost guarantee an argument. When Lee Bush from the Schwarz Studio photographed her on 18 May 1945, she posed in a bikini, although Jim had previously begged her not to wear such a revealing outfit. Her response was typical: she had to do the shoot as the money would come in useful to fix their car. Jim let that slide, but made it clear that he intended to start a family very soon; an idea that still didn’t interest Norma Jeane in the least.
When Jim was away (and often when he was there), her mind was frequently on her career, and how to further it. She heard about a photographer called Paul Parry, and one day walked into his office wearing a pink sweater. There were two other men in the room, and when she asked Parry if he thought she could make it as a model, their reaction was plain to see. As it turned out, when Parry used her for a fashion layout, an advertising manager told him she’d never amount to anything as a fashion model, but this did not prevent Norma Jeane from wanting to pursue other avenues and other photographers. Shortly after an extended photo shoot with Conover, Norma Jeane got her chance to do just that.
William Carroll from the Ansco Color film processing and printing service in Los Angeles was looking for a model to use in an advertising counter display. As luck would have it, David Conover and Potter Heuth came into the shop regularly, and on one particular day Heuth was armed with some slides of Conover’s shots of Norma Jeane. ‘Those Conover pictures displayed a girl of outstanding charm,’ remembered Carroll in his book, Norma Jean: Marilyn Monroe 1945. ‘Not totally beautiful but fresh in a most delightful girl-next-door manner. And that was the exact type I wanted to decorate our point-of-purchase counter display for my laboratory services.’
Heuth gave Carroll Norma Jeane’s number, and he rang her that day. He remembered: ‘Norma Jeane was very calm and sounded serious as she questioned me as to the source of her number and my contacts with Potter and David. At this point in time I’d say she was concerned about my level of professionalism, to eliminate the potential trouble of working with an amateur photographer who is just trying to meet a pretty girl.’
And so it was that Carroll made the journey to Aunt Ana’s house early one summer morning, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that Norma Jeane was not only ready on time, but she also lived up to his expectations. She came with a supply of clothes, and also her make-up case, which she placed on to the seat next to her, before the couple headed off towards the sea and, in particular, Malibu: ‘Norma Jeane brought with her a good selection of personal clothing, all of which had been ironed and was ready to use. Note that this was not “model” clothing as I have no reason to believe she had any. Just a good clothes-closet selection from which we used almost everything.’
As they drove, Carroll explained his intentions for the photos, and Norma Jeane threw in her suggestions of informal shots and no bathing suits, so as to not offend the clients in his shop. They stopped at Castle Rock and Norma Jeane set about putting on her make-up, while Carroll took informal shots. The results from this photo session are quite beautiful; her hair was lighter than usual as a result of the summer sun, although the natural beauty is everywhere apparent.
‘She had no professional manner,’ remembered Carroll. ‘This is a point I must emphasize by comparing her conduct with the many other models photographed during that period. Norma Jeane was naturally a competent person who constantly demonstrated a strong desire to help me make the best possible use of our time on the beach. We had many laughs and shared ideas easily because her model-based reactions were simply that of a young woman seeking to give the best possible assistance to producing excellent pictures. Keep in mind that at this point she had little professional experience except for a two-week trip with David [Conover], whose pictures preceded mine by just a few months.’
Although still wearing her wedding ring, Norma Jeane shared some of her marriage woes with Carroll, who even now refuses to discuss what was said: ‘We did talk at length, during our lunch break, about personal problems and pleasures. I had recently ploughed through a difficult divorce and (probably) felt that talking with a non-involved neutral person, as Norma Jeane was, could ease my bad memories. Norma Jeane responded rather completely but her very personal comments were hers and should not be made a source of public concern.’
At the end of the session, Carroll drove his model home, paid her $20 for the day’s work, and then rang her about a month later: ‘She told me she had signed with the Blue Book Agency. Her daily rate (set by Blue Book) had jumped to $50 a day; a figure I decided I would not pay so never used Norma Jeane again.’
The Blue Book Agency was run by a woman called Emmeline Snively and based in the grounds of the Ambassador Hotel. Through her contact with Potter Heuth, Norma Jeane walked into Snively’s offices on 2 August 1945, in the hope of being signed. Studying the photos on the wall, she was anxious to know if she too could one day become a cover girl. Snively noted that: ‘She was cute-looking, but she knew nothing about carriage, posture, walking, sitting or posing. She was a California blonde – dark in winter, light in summer.’
She also saw that Norma Jeane’s curly hair was completely unmanageable and knew that if she was going to be in the least bit successful, it would have to be bleached and straightened. ‘When she bent over, nothing happened,’ remembered Snively. ‘Not a hair moved. We wished she could get her hair straightened but she couldn’t afford it.’
That said, she did see potential in the ‘round-faced girl with an astonishing bust which made her size 12 dress look too small’. She asked for a photo, and was presented with one of David Conover’s shots, which impressed Snively enough to recommend Norma Jeane attend a $100, three-month long modelling course, which she could pay off with her modelling jobs. Norma Jeane was thrilled, and filled out the application form immediately, lying about her age (claiming to be twenty instead of nineteen), and noting that her hair was blonde and curly, and her height 5 foot 6. She mentioned no ambitions to act, but did say she danced a little, and sang too.
When she was successfully enrolled, Norma Jeane walked into her first modelling class and was friendly to everyone, despite the fact that the other girls all had their mothers with them, while she had arrived alone. Snively gave her lots of attention because of that and the young model soaked it up; mastering hand positions, posture and make-up techniques, as taught by Maria Smith and Mrs Gavin Beardsley. She began studying photos of herself given to her by photographer Potter Heuth and Bob Farr, and learned how to improve her photographic technique, asking the photographers to tell her where she was going wrong. She never repeated a mistake, nor did she ever miss a modelling class, which led Snively to declare that with her gumption, she would become a big star.
However, although she was extremely determined and gifted in front of a camera, Snively did note that clothes were a problem for Norma Jeane. She only seemed to own two different outfits: a white dress with green yoke and teal blue tailored suit ‘that didn’t do a thing for her’. Later, much to Snively’s chagrin, she wore the blue outfit for one of the first photographic jobs she had with the agency: ‘a photo shoot with Larry Kronquist for an American Airlines booklet which was shot at the Douglas Aircraft Company.
On 2 September 1945, a test was shot of Norma Jeane and eight other girls in the grounds of the Ambassador Hotel, then on 5 September 1945 Snively got her a job as a hostess in the Holga Steel Files booth at an industrial show. Her job was to showcase the files and give out leaflets, and she was a hit – the report coming back from the company that she was excellent. Being paid $90 for ten days work, Norma Jeane immediately turned all of it over to Snively in order to pay for her studies. From that moment on, Snively knew she was working with ‘a fair, honest and very fine girl,’ and made a point of getting her as much work as she possibly could.
Norma Jeane attended audition after audition, and built up a good relationship with every photographer she worked with, including Lazlo Willinger, John Randolph, and Larry Kronquist, who had shot the American Airlines photos. Snively recalled: ‘She was sincerely eager. She made everyone she talked to feel as if he were the only guy in the world. She did this naturally without design or premeditation.’
After a failed audition for a Montgomery Ward catalogue, Snively decided that maybe Norma Jeane should specialize in pin-ups because of the way her body looked in a bikini. This did not stop the young model being criticized, however, and her photos were surprisingly difficult to sell, as art directors complained that her nose was too long and her smile cast shadows. Snively later remarked that, ‘She smiled too high, that’s what was wrong, and it made deep lines around her nose. We taught her how to bring her smile down and show her lower teeth.’
During this time she was still having problems within her marriage, and although Snively was aware of this, Norma Jeane never discussed her personal problems with her. Instead, Snively believed that she was still faithful to her husband and refused to date other men: ‘Many of my other girls whose husbands were overseas dated several nights of the week. But not Norma Jeane.’
Marilyn spoke about this herself in 1953 when she said, ‘I used to meet a lot of wolves among the buyers . . . I didn’t have much trouble brushing them off. I found if I just looked sort of stupid or pretended I didn’t know what they were talking about, they soon gave up in disgust.’
She would also drive herself home after photo sessions to avoid any embarrassing episodes with photographers, but her driving almost got her killed when she had an accident in the little Ford that she and Jim owned at the time. When she telephoned Elyda Nelson that night, she was laughing but on the verge of tears: ‘I guess I must have been dreaming again,’ she said, ‘because I drove head-on into a street car. You should see our poor car, it’s completely demolished.’ Luckily, Norma Jeane survived with just a bump to the head; ‘I guess it’s a miracle that I’m alive,’ she told her shocked sister-in-law.
Snively had many photographer friends who were interested in ‘discovering’ a new model, and both she and Norma Jeane jumped on this opportunity, often arriving at studios for ‘test shots’, even though she was already becoming quite established. As a result she was ‘discovered’ by an assortment of photographers, but Snively never considered this to be dishonest, since Norma Jeane’s style was forever changing, making her ‘new’ all the time.
Shortly before Christmas 1945, Jim came home on shore leave, only to be told that Norma Jeane would be leaving to go on an extended modelling trip along the coast with photographer Andre de Dienes. He was understandably perturbed and urged her to cancel, but she refused, stating that if she refused to go, she’d lose that job and anything that came along in the future. They argued once again, and Norma Jeane left the house to spend the next few weeks in the company of another man, much to the dismay of her husband.
Norma Jeane first met de Dienes after he had asked the Blue Book Agency for a girl who might be willing to pose nude. She had arrived at his hotel room wearing a pink sweater with her hair tied in a bow, and although she was wearing a wedding ring, de Dienes claims she told him she was in the process of getting a divorce. ‘Do you love your husband?’ he asked. ‘No,’ she replied.
After posing in a bikini at a nearby beach, de Dienes asked if she would be willing to go on location with him, and after a meeting with Aunt Ana, it was agreed that Norma Jeane could, indeed, go on the trip. Alongside de Dienes, Norma Jeane travelled by car to the Mojave Desert, Darwin Falls, Las Vegas, Cathedral Gorge, Yosemite, Portland and Death Valley, where on 15 December, Norma Jeane sent a postcard to Jim, telling him how much she missed him.
The card (addressed ‘My Dearest Daddy’ and signed ‘All My love, Your Baby’) shows no sign of any problems in the marriage, but it is interesting to note that she mentions nothing about the trip at all. Perhaps she didn’t want to rock the boat by talking about it, or maybe it just wasn’t turning out the way she had originally hoped. Certainly by the end of the journey, Norma Jeane and de Dienes had lurched from one disaster to another: they were accosted by strange men at Cathedral Gorge; they suffered various flat tyres; he discovered he’d left his wallet in one hotel room; and in another their belongings were stolen when Norma Jeane left to go shopping. She was so upset by the latter event that she decided to telephone Jim and return home, but was persuaded not to by de Dienes, who by this point had fallen in love with the girl and begged her to marry him. ‘I wanted to marry this nice young girl. What was wrong with that? I was a nice young boy myself,’ he said in 1962.
Since Norma Jeane was already married, and they had only known each other for a short time, it is hard to know what possessed de Dienes to ask her to be his wife, and it would certainly seem that marrying someone else was the last thing on Norma Jeane’s mind. But her lack of interest did not discourage him, and after a disastrous trip to visit her mother (in which Gladys barely noticed that they were even in the room), de Dienes claims that he and Norma Jeane slept together.
By this time de Dienes was completely besotted and after making love again the next day, he drove her back to Aunt Ana’s house, promising that he would marry her soon. It would take a variety of unanswered letters and tense phone calls before de Dienes realized that marriage to another man was the last thing on Norma Jeane’s mind: ‘I phoned from New Mexico and she said, ‘Andre please don’t come [to Hollywood]. I can’t marry you. Forgive me.’
1946 brought a variety of changes both professionally and privately, and started with Norma Jeane finally agreeing to have her hair straightened and bleached. Emmeline Snively had tried unsuccessfully for months to get the model to do something with the ‘unruly, shapeless, mop,’ telling her that not only did frizzy hair prevent her from wearing hats properly, it also stopped her fulfilling her potential, since blondes were definitely more in demand. But Norma Jeane had always resisted the temptation, declaring that if she had her hair bleached, she would have to continue doing so and just couldn’t afford it.
Finally, in February 1946 she was persuaded to visit Frank and Joseph’s salon, where they gave her hair a straight permanent to make it more manageable; a regular permanent at the ends after shaping; and an all-over bleach. The result was phenomenal and resulted in a successful job for a shampoo advert.
Once her hair had been fixed, Snively decided that it was time for Norma Jeane to be ‘discovered’ again and on 6 March she sent her along to photographer Joseph Jasgur for some more ‘test shots’. Jasgur didn’t think much of her to start with, deciding that her hips were too broad, her clothes too tight and her figure imperfect, but he did like her eyes; he took test shots of her on a street behind Beverly Boulevard and then took her for something to eat afterwards. Snively later revealed that he believed she was too thin and unsexy, and would always feed her hamburgers when he thought she looked hungry.
And so began a quick succession of modelling jobs for the newly transformed model. On 10 March she had another session with Jasgur, this time at the Don Lee Towers, above the Hollywood sign, and then on 11 March, she posed for photographer Earl Moran, who painted her portrait for potential advertising customers. On 12 March 1946, she was snapped by a young photographer called Richard Miller (who was to use her throughout March and April), and on 18 and 23 March she went with Jasgur to Zuma beach, where she was photographed alone in the sand, and also with the cast of a local production called The Drunkard. (Many years later, Jasgur published a book entitled The Birth of Marilyn, which included a photo of Norma Jeane apparently showing six toes. These photos caused huge media interest and are still talked about today, but the extra ‘toe’ in the Jasgur photos is merely a bump in the sand.)
Amongst the abundance of modelling jobs coming her way, Norma Jeane was also being told she should get into the movies. This got her thinking about the next stage in her career, and she mentioned briefly to Emmeline Snively that she might be interested in doing bit parts. She didn’t immediately share this with her husband, however, who was later shocked when he found a screen test script when he came home on leave.
Declaring that she just had the script out of curiosity, Jim tried to persuade his wife that thousands of young women wanted to be a star, but it fell on deaf ears. ‘I used to confide in my husband sometimes, my childish dreams of becoming an actress. He’d laugh and assure me I’d never make it,’ she remembered. Shortly after, Jim reluctantly drove his wife to a screen test, only for her to discover that it wasn’t a real test at all; the ‘producer’ had borrowed the office from a friend. Once in the room, he told Norma Jeane to recite her lines while performing a variety of reclining poses. ‘He was getting sillier by the minute and I maneuvered over toward the door and made a hasty exit,’ she recalled in 1953. As she got back into Jim’s car, she slumped in the seat and looked at her husband. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘They’re just a bunch of fresh guys.’
Old flame Bob Stotts was to bump into Norma Jeane that year, after his discharge from the Army. He saw immediately that she had turned into a beautiful woman but noticed a subtle change in her personality – as if she was acting a part in front of him. Norma Jeane told Bob that she was modelling and interested in getting into the acting business. ‘She seemed all starry-eyed about the whole thing, but she didn’t see it as the ultimate goal in her life. I had seen a news stand with half a dozen magazines, all with her image on them and she told me that modelling was more fun than acting tryouts. Screen tests were hard, difficult she said and certainly not as easy as modelling.’
In the entire time Stotts knew her, Norma Jeane had never mentioned a career in the movies: ‘If she had any theatrical aspirations, we never knew about it. Her main ambition seemed to be to eventually become a good housewife.’
‘The last thing in the world that I would have picked was a movie star,’ wrote Stotts’ mother Dorothy. ‘She was a good dancer, but a movie star, well . . .’
Norma Jeane asked Bob to dinner that night, but knowing that her husband was overseas he decided against it. This was the last time any of the Stotts family saw Norma Jeane. ‘We often wished we’d kept in touch somehow,’ wrote Dorothy. ‘Possibly doing so would not have altered the course of events, but friends – real friends – might have made a difference.’
Meanwhile, Norma Jeane was receiving far too much attention from men desperate to ‘make her a star’, and this led Snively to introduce Norma Jeane to Helen Ainsworth, a theatrical agent at the National Concert Artists Corporation. She walked into the office, and immediately the string on her hatbox snapped, leaving a trail of hairpins, lipstick, curlers and make-up strewn all over the floor. Ainsworth’s colleague, Harry Lipton, looked up from the magazine he was reading and saw a young girl who was flushed, confused and looked like ‘a freshly cut piece of strawberry shortcake’. Picking up the entire contents of the box, he made a joke, and was happy when Norma Jeane smiled and seemed to relax.
The interview went well but she didn’t speak much and changed the subject immediately when asked about her personal life; the only thing she did divulge was that she had always dreamed of being an actress. At the end of the interview, both Ainsworth and Lipton agreed that she had possibilities and signed her to the agency, assigning her to Lipton to handle personally. This was the start of Norma Jeane’s venture into the movies, and she couldn’t have been happier – professionally at least.
At home, things couldn’t have been worse. She and Jim were still arguing and on 9 March, when he shipped out again, he left a note for his wife, saying, ‘I’ve gone. After I’ve finished sailing and can settle on the beach we can give it another try if you like. Don’t think there’s someone else, there isn’t, but well I’ve told you how I feel.’ Determined not to give up on the relationship, Jim left on his trip hoping that things could be patched up, but it was not to be.
On 26 April 1946, Norma Jeane appeared on the cover of Family Circle for the very first time, and shortly after started jotting down reasons why she wanted to divorce Jim Dougherty. ‘My husband didn’t support me,’ she wrote. ‘He embarrassed me; he ridiculed me, and treated me like a child’. Finally, she made plans to travel to Las Vegas, where she would have to stay from May to July, in order to legally divorce Jim, who was at this time blissfully unaware that their problems had come this far.
In the months prior to the trip, Norma Jeane become close to her agent, Harry Lipton, often calling him at odd hours of the night, just to be able to talk to someone. She told him that she believed Jim had married her because otherwise she would have had nowhere else to go, but described him as ‘a very nice man’. As a result of her opening up to Lipton, he helped arrange the trip to Vegas, but as he put her on the train, he noted that she showed, ‘neither relief nor joy nor distaste at getting a divorce. Her reaction was that of someone leaving a fairly close acquaintance – not a husband.’
Once in Las Vegas, Norma Jeane settled into 406 South Third Street, home of Grace Goddard’s aunt, Minnie Willett, the widow of Uncle Kirby who had died in a traffic accident almost ten years before. Minnie, aged sixty-nine, was a very well-respected member of the Las Vegas community who was active in civic affairs and establishments such as the Rebekah Lodge, the Old Timers club auxiliary and various other organizations. She was friends with a number of high-profile Las Vegas families, and after her husband’s death had continued her hobbies with great abandon.
While Minnie’s days were a great rush of activities and goals, she hadn’t had the easiest of lives. Before she had married Grace’s Uncle Kirby, she had given birth to a boy named Frank, who was later raised as one of the Willett family. Frank was a sporty boy who took part in basketball and boxing, but he also had his problems; going missing for weeks at a time and forcing his family to advertise in newspapers to trace his whereabouts.
In 1923 he married Annie Beadle, but the marriage was unhappy and ended in 1928 when she shot herself with Frank’s shotgun, moments after he had stormed out after a huge argument. All this news was reported back to Grace in Los Angeles and it is safe to say that Norma Jeane would have been privy to this family scandal during the course of growing up.
By the summer of 1946, Frank had long since moved away and Minnie was quietly living alone, continuing her civic affairs and organizing various get-togethers. As a result, when Norma Jeane moved into the house she was immediately invited to days out with prosperous Las Vegas families, but even so, she was not at all happy at the thought of staying in Nevada for the entire summer. She didn’t want to leave her Los Angeles modelling career; there were rumours of movies in the pipeline; and to make things worse her health was not excellent. In a letter to an unknown friend, she lamented: ‘I was in the hospital twice – first with an acute mouth infection (I had four wisdom teeth pulled). I was out of the hospital for just one day and they put me back with the measles. Oh what an awful time.’
However, her luck changed one day when she walked on to Aunt Minnie’s porch, wearing white shorts and a halter top, with her hair pulled back and tied with a ribbon.
At that moment, a young man by the name of Bill Pursel was talking to a former high-school friend who was raking the yard. ‘My friend introduced her to me, and she came off the porch so we could shake hands. There was a picket fence between us but our eyes were locked. Her first words were, “Pleased to meet you” and I said “Same here.” We then just stood there staring at one another for a few seconds. Finally I said, “Would you like to go for a walk?” She said “Sure” and we took off.’
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 her 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.