Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1954)

If Marilyn Has a Little Girl ( Continued, from page 74) letters pouring into her studio every week, she was besieged by reporters and columnists who wanted to know what Marilyn thought about women, dresses, other actresses and men— anything, in fact, that would give them a new peg on which to hang another story about this young woman. And yet, with all the people she knew and all the millions who felt they knew her, when the hospital attendant asked that simple question, Marilyn Monroe had no name to give except the name of Dave March, who was about to become her business manager. That’s what she was thinking about on that late, quiet afternoon when I happened to mention something about my own children whom I was about to join in the East within a few days. That, I tried to explain, was why I had come along with Dave to see Marilyn. There wouldn’t be time for the interview I’d hoped to have with her at the studio after all, so I just came, really, to visit. “You must be so glad to be getting back to them,” she said, those very beautiful blue eyes of hers dreaming out the window as she talked. “I know how I’d feel if I had children. I’d want to be with them every minute. I’d never want them to feel I didn’t love them more than anything else in the world. If I ever have a little girl, I think I’ll be a wonderful mother to her, because I’ll remember all the things I used to wish would happen to me.” . . . And as she talked, quietly and unemotionally, and as I listened, not so unemotionally, I saw again how strong is the thread that connects our childhood with our adulthood. And there is a lesson for every parent in the realization of how deep are the wounds of childhood and how lasting the scars that very often remain for an entire lifetime. The young woman lying in the high, narrow hospital bed was saying, “When I was a little girl, nobody ever bothered to tell me I was pretty. They used to tell me that I was smart or good or neat or clean, but they never told me I was pretty. All little girls want to be told they’re pretty, and when I have a little girl, I’ll comb and brush her hair until it shines, then I’ll let her know I think she’s the most beautiful little girl in the world.” Marilyn told me on that day how, living in one foster home after another, she’d wait for her turn to be combed or to have a dress buttoned up. She’d listen to another little girl’s mother lavishing praise on her, but when Marilyn’s turn came, she was just a duty. “I don’t blame them,” Marilyn added quickly. “I couldn’t expect to be treated the way they treated their own children. They were good to me, but they just didn’t have the time to give me a whole lot of affection.” And there wasn’t money for pretty clothes, so Marilyn dropped out of high school because she was sick of having the other girls laugh at the awful things she had to wear. It doesn’t take a psychologist to see why Marilyn went in for the most attention-getting clothes she could find, once she had the money with which to buy them. Marilyn said, “I dress for men. I’m sorry that some women don’t like it.” But, of course, what Marilyn dressed for in those early days when success first began to shine on her was Marilyn. She dressed to get even with all those kids who had laughed at her dowdy, handme-down, made-over clothes. She dressed to be able to say to herself, “Now my clothes are as good as anybody’s. Everybody notices me now.” JMy little girl,” said Marilyn wistfully, recalling and remembering that unhappy time, “will always have pretty clothes. Even if something happens and I don’t have a lot of money, her clothes will always be as pretty as anyone’s.” And she’ll have a room of her own, this fortunate little girl whose mother can still remember so vividly those slights of her childhood. She’ll have her own room and her own bookshelves, and she’ll never know the moments Marilyn knew in those foster homes, when she’d sneak a book out of the other little girl’s room only to have it snatched away with a sharp cry of, “You can’t have that. That’s my book! What are you doing in this house anyway? I don’t want you here.” . . . “But I didn’t really mind,” said Marilyn. “I mean, I knew they couldn’t help saying things like that. But I guess that’s why I was such a daydreamer. I used to dream Clark Gable was my father, and he had four little girls all told, but I was the one he liked best, and I was the one he always picked up first and hugged when he came home at night. That’s why I didn’t mind going to bed early — I used to lie awake in the dark and dream . . .” What did she dream about mostly, lying there in the dark? She dreamed about the day when she would be grown up, at last. She dreamed of the day when she’d be an actress. She dreamed of the day when people wouldn’t laugh at her any more. Her young husband laughed at her when she said she’d be an actress. “Don’t be silly, you’re not pretty enough to be an actress.” And the kids in school and in all those strange foster homes laughed at her when she said, “Some day I’ll have a big house with lots and lots of books, you’ll see. And everyone will love me, and I’ll have all the new clothes I want and I’ll never again have to borrow anything.” Marilyn Monroe has all those things now, but perhaps it’s well that those young hurts are still able to throb once in a while. It’s just as well, perhaps, that Marilyn can say, “When I teach my little girl about religion, I’ll teach her that God is love, and not somebody who’s going to hurt her if she does something wrong.” The twelve-year-old Marilyn, who was Norma Jean Baker, cowered all one afternoon and night in a small attic bedroom because she’d slipped off and gone to the movies when she should have been in Sunday school. The minister and his wife with whom she was living at the time didn’t know about it, but Marilyn was certain that God would tell them, and that lightning would strike her dead for having told a lie the minute she walked out of the house. She couldn’t believe her luck when she found herself still alive and well two days later. “Religion,” said Marilyn, “shouldn’t be like that. People should love God, not be afraid of him. And that’s the way I’ll raise my little girl, to know that He really is her father, loving and kindly and understanding and wanting to help her not to hurt her.” And Marilyn knows now that when people are loved as children, when they grow up believing they’re wanted and there’s a place for them in the world, they’re able to trust people. That’s something Marilyn found it hard to do. When she first began to make a salary of $750 a week, she’d cash her salary check and pay bills out of pocket rather than put it in the bank. The money, like the incredible fact of finding out she really was pretty, was just something she couldn’t quite believe in. And, of course, this hunger for attention got Marilyn into endless trouble early in her career, made enemies for her and drove one columnist to say indignantly, “What’s with this girl, anyway?” The real Marilyn still has a childlike frankness — which is a great part of her charm — and a breathless kind of excitement about everything. When she went to Korea recently, for instance, she really meant it when she said, “For the first time in my life, I feel like a movie star.” This is the Marilyn Monroe that Joe DiMaggio married after a long courtship. This is the lonely, insecure little girl who grew up into a lonely, distrustful, insecure young woman, who is only now beginning to find an emotional security in her life. No longer does she have to prove, over and over again, that she is desirable. Now at last she can look ahead to rich happy years of wifehood and motherhood. And Joe DiMaggio, too, knew that his Marilyn would make a wonderful mother for his future children because she’s grown up enough now to be able to give love instead of merely to take it, grown up enough to mean every word as she said to me, “When I have a little girl I’ll let her know that I love her better than anything else in the world and if I can help it, I’ll never be away from her for a minute.” The End 1 NEW! Exciting stories about EDDIE FISHER MARION MARLOWE “PCU4 MARTIN BLOCK'S Advice to Teenagers All in the Big OCT. Issue of TV RADIO MIRROR TRAD tO 1 MIRROR now on sale at all newsstands 94