Do Gentlemen Prefer Blondes? The Many Loves of Marilyn Monroe

9:01PM May 27, 2022

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marilyn monroe

dress

greatest accomplishment

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sex symbol

career

arthur miller

most iconic

obsessed

joe dimaggio

book

diana

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I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes. I'm out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you don't serve me at my best. While sure this could apply to any of us, the woman who first said it is one of the most iconic people of all time, the sexy, the smart, the one and only Marilyn Monroe. I'm Alisha Rai.

And I'm Sarah Wendell. Welcome to lovestruck daily where we bring a true love story to your your dreams each and every weekday. Love with love with you. Hello, workwise Hey, Sarah, are you ready for a New York Times 36 questions to love Question of the week. You know,

I love this quiz. And we're using it to get to know each other better. So yeah, I'm ready.

I would also like to invite anyone who is listening to answer these questions with us. Oh, yeah, that

would be really cute. Yeah, answer.

Let us know your answers. I would love to know what your answer is to the following question. What do you consider your greatest accomplishment? Wow. Yeah, well, because we with the caveat, obviously that we're not done yet. Right.

We're not done yet. And I think that's one of the issues. We're doing stuff with evaluating like this, because I don't know what's around the corner. But so far, let's say up to up to today. Yeah, June 2022. I would say my greatest accomplishment is my career. I think my books every time I finish a book, I'm, I'm amazed that I finished a book. Like I don't understand, I genuinely, you cannot. Like every time I start writing a book, I go, I don't know how to do this. Somebody in my life goes, you've done this many times. And I go, that doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how I get from like writing one word to finish a book in my hands. It blows my mind every time. It happens. So writing writing books, but not just that, but like writing them during a pandemic. during hard times during my life like it is probably my greatest challenge. And the thing that I'm proudest about

answering the question, what do I consider my greatest accomplishment is really hard. Like, I'm proud of my proud of my children. I'm proud of my family. I'm proud of my husband, I'm proud of myself. I'm proud of the fact that my home is a tranquil place where the people who live here feel like they can be themselves and can tell me their problems. But the thing that's been on my mind most often. And this is probably one of if not my greatest accomplishment is the job I've created for myself. I created my own job. I don't know very many people who do what I do. But what this allowed me to do was opt out of a lot of toxic, awful things about working in corporate America. Yeah, I don't have to deal with being sexually harassed in my workplace. The only being that harasses me right now is the cat. Yeah. And he just wants me to give him I have opted out of commuting, I have created a safe environment for my creative work. I'm really proud of myself. You should be really proud of it.

I'm proud of you.

I'm very fortunate. Thank you. I'm very proud of you. And to be completely honest, I wouldn't be able to do what I do if I didn't have a spouse who had that sexy, sexy health care. The biggest the biggest question when I quit my full time corporate job 12 years ago was what will we do for health insurance because we had children. And without that support, without that support through his work, I would not be able to do it. I do. So it's not as if I did it by myself, but I'm very proud of what I have accomplished as he should be. Well, thank you. So should you Thank you. Well, today we have a story, several stories, but also today is a very important day. It's June 1, which is the start of our birthday month.

It is it is the start of our birthday. Both of our bread things Yeah,

we're both June babies. We need to plan some things for our birthdays for the show

them big time Gemini stuff.

It's there's that's why there's two of us. There's actually four of us because we're both Geminis. Yes, it is our birthday month. And today June 1 is actually Marilyn Monroe's birthday another very accomplished young woman. Yes. Also a very misunderstood Yeah. Among my favourite pictures of her are the ones where she's like, all curled up reading a book. Yeah, just casual I love pictures of Marilyn Monroe reading, but Marilyn Monroe is probably one of the most iconic symbols of female beauty and celebrity in American culture. And although her career ended in 1962, with her death, her image her fashion her personal life, the iconography of Marilyn Monroe is still very much relevant and still copied today, even like two weeks ago at the Met Gala, which was quite a lot of controversy. Maryland's marriages and relationships are still talked about, and there are still discussions and we will probably never know the full truth about them, which is good because it's like totally not our business, but we're gonna do our best to talk about some of them, and about celebrity today. So here are Maryland's relationships. First marriage was to a man named James Doherty, and it was one of convenience. Marilyn who was born, Norma Jeane Mortenson had grown up in and out of the foster care system, which was not any better than than it is now. And finally found a family she loved that they had to move, and they were legally unable to bring her with them. So she married her next door neighbour James Doherty at the age of 16, to avoid going back into foster care. He was a Marine, and he left for a two year tour. And while he was away, she began modelling which he did not like. It was against his wishes. But then she was spotted by an executive and signed her first major film contract, where she adopted her now iconic name Marilyn Monroe. And back then when you signed a contract with a studio, like that was still in the era where I think the studio contract dictated so much of what you did like you belong to that studio. You were there actress and you were going to be in all of their films, was like being on a like a baseball team. Speaking of baseball, her next husband was Joe DiMaggio, a few people have heard of him. He was a very famous player for the Yankees. And when they met, she was absolutely a sex symbol, one of the most famous people and they bonded because they both had painful, chaotic childhoods that ended in an almost absurd amount of fame. So they were both lonely people with difficult childhoods, and probably a lot of trauma. Who were both very famous, which gives them a lot to talk about, like we were talking about with the love is blind contestants, right? You've been there. You don't know what it's like. Right, right. Joe DiMaggio once described their intense physical attraction, as quote, like the gods were fighting. There were thunder clouds and lightning above us and quote, okay, sounds like an intense scene. They were both divorced, so they couldn't get married in a church. So they got married at the courthouse, and almost immediately, their careers get in the way. He's 40. He's almost at the end of his career as an athlete, and she is still very much in demand in Hollywood. And her being a sex symbol was initially what attracted him to her, but then it kind of became a problem.

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He was married to her when she did that iconic scene and the seven year itch where she stands on the subway grate and the wound from the subway blows her skirt up. It made him so angry that there are allegations that he attacked her, although no one knows for sure what happened. But he was deeply deeply embarrassed by all of the commentary that surrounded that scene. They divorced nine months into their marriage, both because it was contentious and some presume also because there were allegations of abuse. But they remained close friends and she forgave him and he is the one who collected her body and arranged for her funeral after her death 10 years a little bit less than 10 years later, and three times a week. For the rest of his life. He had flowers sent to her grave. Wow. Her third marriage is to the man I consider her nerd husband Arthur Miller was a playwright. She dated a whole bunch of men, including Marlon Brando. Yikes. But began this incredible whirlwind romance with Arthur Miller who wrote the crucible and Death of a Salesman. He was a pretty controversial figure because his play The Crucible was considered to be a veiled endorsement of communism, and just for starting a relationship have with him the FBI opened a file and Marilyn Monroe and monitor her actions. Wow. Yes. And they really wanted to start a family, but she could not get pregnant and continue to have miscarriages and allegedly suffered from endometriosis. Which as someone who has endometriosis, my girl pain, ouch, awful. Her infertility was also complicated by her dependency on barbituates. And even though her career was flourishing, she was in a bit of a spiral. So even though she couldn't get married in a church with Joe DiMaggio, she and Arthur got married in a traditional ceremony following a quick trip to the courthouse. And he wrote her a starring role in one of his scripts, but her drug use got in the way of her starring in that role, and they divorced after five years of marriage. Can you imagine? Yeah, because she was a she was a really good actress.

Yeah, I do wonder what

he envisioned for what could have been. Right. Yeah. And it's interesting that Marilyn Monroe is still a famous celebrity and she died in 1962. Yeah, like a long time ago, but just the iconography of her celebrity. And the way that celebrities have modelled themselves after her. Yeah, there was Madonna. And then there were other artists. And then there was Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala. Which, that was a whole thing. Yeah, that was a whole thing.

Oh, that was so wild. First of all, can we talk about why? Ripley's Believe It or Not, of all places has such an important piece of memorabilia like Marilyn Monroe's, one of her most iconic outfits. It's just such like, Shouldn't that be in DC at a Smithsonian?

Shouldn't that be my guess? And this is purely an uneducated guess from me. My guess is that Ripley's had deeper pockets and outbid them for the dress or offered more money for the dress. Yeah,

that's just that's so wild to me. Like that should be somewhere where anyone can see it for free. It's It's so weird. But yeah, there was a lot of criticism. I watched a lot of fashion tech talkers talking about how

are very curious costumes about fashion Tik Tok. Yeah,

I mean costumers on Tik Tok. And on Twitter, too, they were talking about how even like the video of them working the dress up her hips, like to try on was wildly damaging, like it could have easily rip the dress or damaged because they weren't using gloves. So it was Yeah, I think it's a scandal in so far as Kardashian scandals go, not very big. But

it's just another person who's obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. Apparently, disrespect. very disrespectful. Yes, yes. It's very disrespectful. I've also heard that there's very likely that was not the real dress. I know she she put on a

dupe of it afterwards. Like as she said, she only walked up the red carpet. And then afterwards, she got into like a mock up of it. And yeah, I have heard that it was never there's no way that there was no way Ripley's would have actually let her wear the real dress. And so that was all like a publicity thing.

And also, fabric that is that old. Yeah, fabric doesn't last. If you see a dress from 100 years ago, that's astonishing. So the idea that that dress was strong enough in its in itself to be handled that much is dubious, but the whole part where they're like struggling to pull it up her body, which Okay, first of all, I had a lot of terrible feelings about that. That just made me feel awful for everybody involved. And so there's no way into the dress would have survived that it's just yeah. Moreover, that dress was scandalous. And it's and this is so cool to me, because you can't really tell him the footage of the time because it was the 60s it was black and white. But that dress was dyed specifically to match her skin so that she would look naked when she wore it. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so it's like, you know, the the mesh or the net that's in wedding gowns to make it look like something strapless but there's actually a fabric there. That dress was dyed to match her skin tone so that she would look naked when she was wearing it. So it was not only dyed but specifically tailored and she was sewn into it so that it would be exactly skin tight. Plus, if you think about the bras of that time, they were very like up and conical and pointy. And that is not the style of bra that we wear now. So even that doesn't match my theory. My semi ignorant I have I am a sceptic theory is that it was not actually her dress and this is all an elaborate publicity stunt for Ripley's and for Kardashians. Yeah, that is my theory.

I buy that. I think that's a valid theory.

I also think that it's kind of sad how much Marilyn is not allowed to just be just let her Let her rest. Stop. I don't want to project my nonsense onto Marilyn Monroe. And she's the you know, she's one of those tragic figures of beauty and fame that is perpetually famous

like, like Diana like these, you know, beautiful women who just passed away tragically very young. I think it's a similar vibe.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I am curious. Were you obsessed with Maryland when you were younger? Like I was because I totally was. I will not deny it. No, I was not I won't be on it. I was I will own it. I totally was had the posters had the book all of that. I did love. I

did love Diana. I will say that. I think my family was like, I don't know what it is about Indian moms, but they really love Diana, Princess of Wales. I don't know.

Wow, I didn't know. Yeah. And

this is like something I talk like, South Asian friends have confirmed that. I don't know. Maybe their parents are also really in love with somebody else. I don't know what it is about our generations of South Asian moms.

I want to know why.

I do too. I don't know if your mom was similar. Please write us and let us know. Yeah. Sarah, what is your love to go for the Aside from

the deep desire to know why so many South Asian moms are obsessed with Diana, that is my love to go. I'm going to be wondering about that for hours very well. I would say that you can have many different loves throughout your life. And that's all good.

I like that. That's nice. Yeah, there's not there's not just one happily ever after. There can be many.

Yeah, and like I've said in other episodes, just because something ends doesn't mean that it failed. Times. Things just end and that's okay. We're your parents obsessed with Diana. Were you obsessed with Marilyn we want to know you should email us at lovestruck daily at frolic dot media if you have a love story to share if you have any questions or thoughts or suggestions, please if you have a moment, please leave us a review. We would be so excited and grateful. We'll definitely read it on the air. You can follow us on Instagram at lovestruck daily repost very cool pictures. And sometimes we have these really nifty little audio samples. They're called Audio grammes, and they're really great and I love them a lot. So you should listen to them because they're so fun. And it's like a little sample of the shop. You can find those on Instagram at lovestruck daily and on Twitter at lovestruck daily. Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. We are produced by Abigail steckler and little Scorpion studios with executive producer frolic media. This is an I Heart Radio Podcast. We wish you a very iconic happily ever after. I'm in love with you say to you I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you