Horrorwood: True Crime in Tinseltown
Hello there, misfits. I’m Kate
--And I’m Kail
Welcome to Horrorwood
(creepy music plays)
(creepy music fades)
--Hor-ror-wood
The amount of times I’ve practiced that word
H-o-r-r-o-r
--I actually feel like
is kind of slutty.
I actually feel like I did not-
I didn’t say it
very well that time (laughs)
But that’s the name of the podcast so that’s what it is
We're stickin’ to it
--Hor-ror-wood
That’s, that’s closer
--Thank you
(Kate laughs)
It’s our debut episode!
and
I’m excited.
--Yay!
Are you excited?
--I’m stoked
I’m also kind of nervous but that’s okay
--Oh, I’m hella nervous
(Kate laughs)
So we decided for our first episode
to have the
subject be someone iconic
legendary
and deeply missed
and it’s none other than
Marilyn Monroe
--NJB, baby!
I really wanted this to be one episode
but there’s too much
as soon as I started doing research I was like,
you know what? And I texted Kaili and I said,
Yeah sorry, I think it’s gonna be a two-parter
And you were like,
"Yeah I figured."
And then when you got here I was like,
Yeah so I think it’s gonna be three parts
because, there’s just, I mean
in order to do it justice you can’t just gloss over
the details, like,
there are some die-hard Marilyn fans out there and I wanna
I wanna do it right. I can’t, you know, gloss over anything
So we are going to get into it. I’m gonna
talk a lot about her background
her early years, and then getting into her career because
I feel like so much of where she came from and
what she, you know, the relationships that she had in life
and just, you know, how she was treated throughout her career
had a huge impact on her death.
And that’s what we’re here to talk about is death, so
I think it’s important to get some background first.
So, are you ready?
--Ready
Okay, here we go.
So Norma Jeane Mortenson was born on June 1
1926 in Los Angeles, California to her mother Gladys.
Norma was Gladys’s third child
her first two children were with former husband Jasper Newton Baker.
I do like the name Jasper.
--Jasper
They had married when Gladys was just 15 years old
and he was 21, but, I mean, it was 1917, so,
you know, things were different.
Um, my grandma was 17 when she married my granddad, and he was 25
and they were inseparable the rest of their lives, because love.
Because love.
Unlike my grandparents, Gladys and Jasper’s love unfortunately did not last.
Gladys worked as a film cutter at a movie studio so, basically in editing
and one day she came home from work early to find
Jasper in bed with another woman.
The gall
--I know.
They got in a huge fight, obviously,
Okay, first off, when I typed "huge" it autocorrected to "hug"
so it said they got in a hug fight (laughs)
I wish all fights were hug fights!
I’m down for a hug fight.
(still laughing) So,
they get in this huge fight and Gladys was like,
”You need to get the fuck out of here.” Direct quote.
So he left
but then snuck back in later and kidnapped their two babies.
So Gladys did everything she could to get them back.
She searched and searched for them
and finally traced them to Kentucky where Jasper was from.
She used all her savings to hitchhike across the country to Kentucky to get them back.
By the time she got there, though,
she was broke and exhausted because, you know, of all the hitchhiking
and when she found her kids she saw that they were really well off.
Jasper had remarried,
they lived in a really nice house, the kids were happy and doing great
and when Gladys saw this she decided not to ask Jasper for anything,
not money, not the kids, nothing.
because she knew that he could give them a better life than she could.
Which, when you think about that, shows just how much she loved her kids
'cause she spent her entire savings
hitchhiking across the freaking country
and then saw that they would have a better life with Jasper than with her
--that's called a mother’s love
exactly, exactly, 'cause
that is a gut-wrenching decision, like, I can't
I can’t even imagine.
So another factor that convinced Gladys the kids should stay with Jasper was
she was already aware that mental illness ran in her family.
Her father had been taken away to a mental hospital where he eventually died,
her grandmother had also been taken away to a mental hospital where she died,
and her brother, who also suffered from miltul -
from mental illness
ended up dying by suicide unfortunately
So, I’m sure she was concerned she might suffer the same fate and she
--did
she, well, yeah and we'll
we'll get into that but I
I don’t think she wanted, you know, her kids to
be in that situation, so
obviously, again, this was the early 1900's and
mental health resources just weren’t what they are today.
So Gladys went back to California without the kids
and continued working as a film cutter
and it wasn’t long before she would meet and eventually marry Martin Edward Mortenson
he went by his middle name Edward
They married in October of 1924 but separated just seven months later
in May of 1925
because Gladys had taken a liking to her boss - one Mr. Charles Stanley Gifford
um, which, I gotta say, so I saw a picture of
Charles Stanley Gifford, and I’ll post it
Um…I get it.
I get it Gladys, Charles had it going on.
--Handsome?
Oh, the most handsome.
So in June of 1926 Norma Jeane was born
and Gladys wrote her last name as Mortenson on her birth certificate
but remember, Gladys and Edward had been separated for more than a year
at the time of Norma’s birth
’cause they split in May of 1925
—Did he know that he was the father?
Who Charles? Or Edward?
--Edward
No ‘cause Edward…they had already split
--Oh
But she used his last name on the birth certificate
because, you know, the illegitimacy of it all, so -
Yeah.
So -
--Fascinating from day 1
Exactly.
The question of who was Norma’s biological father remained a mystery for decades
and it was just recently confirmed, like literally a few weeks ago
based on DNA evidence that
are you ready for it?
Ready.
—Charles Stanley Gifford: you ARE the father!
Ooh
--So
the boss she had her little fling with, you know, produced Norma Jeane.
They used familial DNA to determine that -
confirm that he was the father
they used a saliva sample
from Charles’s great-grandchild
and then a strand of Marilyn Monroe’s hair to figure it out
—this is very Maury Povich
Oh, well I was trying to do my Maury Povich voice. Did that come through?
(Kail pauses)
It did.
—Okay I’m gonna take your silence as a know, um (laughs)
So,
unfortunately when Gladys told Charles she was pregnant
he abandoned her
and Norma Jeane never got to know her biological father.
Despite that Gladys had been married to Edward
she often used her first husband's name - Jasper's last name - of Baker
Yep
so that’s why you hear Norma Jeane Baker a lot.
So Gladys's mother Della
insisted Norma be baptized with the last name Baker
and she thought that would help hide the fact that Norma was an illegitimate child,
which I'm not really sure
how that would hide that fact because she wasn't with Jasper but she also wasn't with Edward anymore
So I don’t know why changing the name from Mortenson to Baker - maybe just because
Gladys used it.
--it's easier to say?
Well maybe
--I don't know, it's two syllables
but I guess because Gladys used it and
so Della wanted to, you know, keep that
--match.
Yeah.
So shortly after Norma’s birth Gladys struggled with taking care of Norma and keeping a job
so she made the difficult decision to put Norma in the care of another couple
I have a question
Yeah
Did she have any other, um,
close encounters with her other children?
What…do we get to that? What’s happening with them now?
Do they know they have a sibling?
So unfortunately the son
it was a daughter and son, the son died I think when he was like 13
but the daughter Berniece
she did learn about Norma Jeane and
they did have a bit of a relationship later in life
but yeah unfortunately the boy died
--wow
so Norma did not get to know him
and also
because I'm talking about her early life and she hasn’t changed her name yet
I'm gonna refer to her as Norma just because, like,
just to keep it more clear
and then once she changes her name then I'll call her Marilyn
but right now she's still Norma
Norma it is
Norma it is. So
(coughs) I was gonna try not to do that
but I had to I was like, "Oh my god I have to clear this voice
Alright, so
She wanted, you know, she had to put Norma in the care of someone else
so she paid the letter carrier
so basically the mailman
five dollars a week
to take care of Norma
—Is that where that always comes from, like
you know, a kid doesn’t look like
the dad, they say it's the mailman's?
I mean,I think it's just, uh
that’s just like
if the woman had an affair with the mailman
--Oh, okay
(laughing) but I don't think it comes from this particular story
but I like where your head's at (laughs) so
So, five dollars
back then would be about $84 dollars today, so like
around eighty-four bucks a week
to take care of her kid
Can you imagine handing over your child to the mailman?
like
don't get me wrong I love our mailman, his name is Keith and he's the best
shoutout to Keith
but I don't know that I would be willing to turn a child over to him
like, hey, can you just, like, watch her for a bit?
I mean that’s a lot of stamps, I don't know
(laughter) that's a lot of stamps
So Gladys, she was just doing what she felt she had to do, you know?
so she was trying to do the right thing.
The couple that was taking care of Norma, their names were Ida Bolender and Albert Wayne Bolender
and they already had children of their own
and they didn’t have a ton of money, which is why they took Norma in because they basically just needed that money.
By the age of seven
--And what’s one more kid? Let's be honest.
I mean
--when you have one, eh, you know
I think that, yeah, I think they had a couple before Norma came along
By the age of seven, Norma was already working
hard in the home. She had a lot of chores, she kind of was
—modern day Cinderella?
I mean, a little bit
--well, I guess it wouldn't be modern, but
back in the day Cinderella?
Back in the day Cinderella. Yeah, she would scrub the floors
and do the dishes and run errands for the family
so she became like
I don't know, it was a lot of child labor that
I just felt like they were getting paid to take care of her but then they were like, "hey go do this."
So since Norma had been in this couple's care since shortly after her birth
she assumed they were her family
and she considered them her parents
and the children her siblings
and she said she loved hanging out with her
dad, a.k.a. the mailman
and in the mornings she would sit on the edge of the tub while he was shaving and getting ready for work
and she would just ask him questions, like,
"How many people are in the world?" or
”Which way is South?"
like those kinds of questions that all little kids have
--and that the mailman clearly has answers for
I mean he gets around. (laughter)
He does, he knows which way is South, he has to
--I hope
and she said - and this kind of broke my heart when I read it - she said he was the only one
who ever answered her questions.
which is just like, agh
Then one day she walks into the room where the woman she had known as her mom
was and she said, "Mama?"
and the woman just turned to her - Ida -
turned to her and said,
"Don't call me mama. You're old enough to know better.
I'm not related to you in any way, you just board here."
Wow.
Yeah. She was seven
--That's pretty cutthroat
She was seven years old, can you imagine?
Everything she'd known at that point was a lie.
So she eventually did
get to meet her mom
and Gladys would come and visit and she would be able to go where Gladys lived
and on the wall in Gladys's place there was only one photograph
and there were no other pictures anywhere
and it was a photo of a man - Norma didn't know who -
but she said every time she went there she was just drawn to this picture
and she would just stand and stare at it. She said, "I felt very warm toward the picture."
--Was it her father?
Was it Jesus?
(laughing) Well it wasn't Jesus
and then one day when she was visiting, Norma was staring at the picture, as per usual
and Gladys lifted her up onto a chair so she could get a better look at it and told her,"
"That's your father."
It was a photo of Charles Stanley Gifford
Maybe it felt like she was staring back at herself
Ooh, I didn't think about that
--like she just felt that presence.
I mean she definitely was drawn to it
and Norma said she was so excited to see who her actual father was she almost fell off the chair
And she said-
--Well I fall off the chair regularly so you know
(laughter) but you do know who your dad is
Here's hoping. Maybe it's the mailman.
I mean it could be. It could be all a lie that your parents have been telling you
I mean, your "parents"...we don't know
(laughter)
But I look like them
Well you do. She said
finding out that, um,
that that was her father
for the first time, she said that was the first time she ever felt happy.
And she was seven
--aw
like, ugh
--That's crushing
It is
She described her dad as looking like Clark Gable, she
you know, she knew
--Ah, interesting
movies and stuff, and she knew
what movie stars looked like and she
immediately thought he looked like Clark Gable because he had
"a lively smile in his eyes"
--Listen, that Gable was a looker, he was a little hottie with that little 'stache. Mmm.
He was. Kind of also an ass though and we'll talk about that in Part 2, but anyway
so, he had, she said he had, "a lively smile in his eyes and a thin mustache, and he wore a hat that was cocked to the side a little bit
--I love a good cock
Oh! Cock to the side
(laughter)
(still laughing)
Sometimes things come out of my mouth and then I realize what I've said
I mean, you know what? It's okay girl because
Marilyn liked one too, so
It's all good, you have that in common
Speaking of my parents, are they gonna be listening to this? I don't know, I might have to monitor that.
Oh I can't have my family listen to this
I'm not gonna censor myself, so sorry, mom, if you decide to
if you do learn how to pull up a podcast
but I don't know that that'll happen
We have that advantage
(laughing) True.
--Baby boomers.
So yeah I'll post the photo on our instagram, because he does look
like Clark Gable, like it is
yeah, it's
I see the resemblance
--Is he still single?
Ah, well, he's dead, so...
I guess he's single in the afterlife? Who knows?
--Great, I'm working with Bumble and
dead men now. That's wonderful.
You know, I say that he's dead. I need to actually double-check that but I think, I mean
Well yes, he is dead, 'cause Norma would be ninety-six if she was alive right now, so
he's dead. (laughing) I don't even know why I thought maybe he was alive
(laughs) I don't even know why I was thinking I should date him
That's another...that's for another day.
So when Norma asked about him - because obviously she was like, "okay that's my dad I want to meet him"
Gladys told her he'd been killed in an automobile accident in New York
But Norma never believed this
and she was right, because
he was not dead. Gladys just didn't want to tell her that he'd walked out on them.
Boy, Gladys had some pride
Yeah
And I mean, too, she's just trying to protect
Norma. I think she just felt like
"Well, if she knows that he's dead maybe that's better than - or if she thinks he's dead maybe that's better than
feeling like he abandoned her."
--Mm hmm.
So about a year after first seeing his picture
Norma started a scrapbook
and the very first photo she put in it
was a picture of Clark Gable, because he looked like her father.
Ah huh.
I'm sure Gladys could tell that Norma was not super happy staying with the mailman and his family
they had kids of their own, so like
obviously they put their own kids first
and Norma was constantly working and doing chores and it just wasn't a great situation.
and when Norma would visit Gladys
I'm sure they talked about it. Also mothers just have a sense about these things, you know?
So, when the, well,
I'm gonna back up.
So I think
Gladys was already starting to sense that Norma
might...it might be time to get her out of that house
What is the age range at this point, beyond seven we know
She would have been
so what I'm getting ready to go into, the story I'm getting ready to go into I think she's around eleven
when it happens
--Okay
So yeah, she'd been with this family for a good while
but you know things aren't going great so
the time comes that Norma has to have her tonsils out
and there were some complications from the surgery so she had to stay in the hospital for several days afterwards
and when she got back to her home/the mailman's house
the family dog starts barking like crazy because he missed her, obviously
and Norma loved this dog
and he loved her
--Who doesn't love a dog? come on
Right? I mean unless you're allergic I guess, which I get
--Well, okay
and he loved her so they were both very excited to see each other
Oh, do we have a name? A dog name?
We do not have a dog name unfortunately
but the next door neighbor
--We're gonna call him Leif
Okay well don't get too attached
--Okay
The next door neighbor was pissed
about all the noise, and like, okay, this
little girl has just gotten home from the hospital after this probably traumatizing surgery
she's so excited to be back, the dog is there, he's so happy to see her, she's happy to see him
But of course the neighbor's getting pissed, so
this is a big trigger warning 'cause this is
I...even reading it I was like "oh my god"
Get ready, Kaili, 'cause you're gonna
--if they harm the dog, I'm gonna have, I'm gonna
you know what, I'm gonna pull their tonsils out.
Well then you might need to start tracking them down then 'cause you're gonna have some work to do
--Ugh
So the neighbor starts chasing the dog
and swung a garden hoe at him,
it hit the dog in the back
and sliced him in half
--Aghgh!
I wasn't ready for that
I'm sorry
--and I had the trigger warning
and Norma watched it all happen
Age eleven?
Yeah, I think around eleven, she was a little kid
yeah, and this is like her pet, you know?
So between Norma just being unhappy overall with where she was living, and the incident with the dog
Gladys felt she had to get Norma out of that house
So she found another couple that she paid to take care of her
and they were two actors, their names were George and Maude Atkinson
and I did see one article that stated this couple had a daughter of their own named Nellie
so I'm assuming Nellie is in the picture
I feel like this might be a -
it's going - it's going to a good route
They're actors, which we know that she gets into
they have a daughter named Nellie
--Mm hmm
Nellie and Norma? I like it.
I mean that is cute as fuck
So one day when Gladys went to visit Norma at the home of this new family
she told her
she was gonna build a house that they could all live in
Gladys, Norma and the Atkinsons
and George and Maude needed money, and Gladys needed childcare and hated being separated from her daughter so
she came up with this solution, she was like "this'll be great
we'll all live together
I can work while you all, you know, watch Norma
and we'll just all be one big happy family.
And to her credit Gladys made it happen. She took out a loan
and combined it with her savings from her job at the movie studio
and they got a house and all moved in together
She was, you know, she was gettin' it
she worked double shifts to pay for furniture
and was just doin' the damn thing, you know?
She was determined to not have things go the way they did with her first two kids.
She wanted to, you know,
this time around she's like
I gotta get it right
--Make amends, yeah
so with the money she earned from her job
Gladys bought what she considered to be
the prized possession:
in a secondhand shop -
--a couch?
well, no
in a secondhand shop she found a beat-up
grand piano that had once belonged to the movie star Fredric March
Fredric March was a huge deal at the time,
he was at the height of his career.
He was already an Academy Award winner for Best Actor for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
and he would later go on to win that award again as well as two Tony Awards for Best Actor, so like, he was a big deal.
Side note:
March, Fredric March attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and while he was there he was briefly a member of a fraternity named the Ku Klux Klan
--Whoa
it had no - yeah
it had no association with
the white supremacist group now associated with that name
--Those aren't Greek letters. I'm confused.
The white supremacist group - aren't they not?
You know what, I don't know. I don't know Greek letters
--I don't know actually, I was not in the Greek system
I wasn't either
Um, the white supremacist group at the time was a very small regional organization, and
so the school -
--Did they have a name yet? I mean did they have, was it...
They did, but I think that they were so small and no one really knew about them yet
so the school never felt
a need to change the name
and the thing is March was actually very outspoken -
a very outspoken proponent of the Civil Rights Movement for decades, like he was-
he was not
a racist, a white supremacist. That just wasn't him.
and since, um,
the, well, once the KKK that we know of
became more well known
the fraternity did change the name.
--Okay.
but both the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and the University of Wisconsin-Madison
had named their theatres after Fredric March
but in 2018 students became aware of reports that March had been in a fraternity called the KKK
and they began protesting
and urged the school to remove his name, and they did.
In 2020 the school changed the name to just Theatre Arts Center.
He was never involved with the KKK
he did so much work in civil rights, and just to have
his, you know, legacy stripped away like that because
ugh, it's just...yeah, it's a lot.
So Gladys finding this piano that once belonged to this big star was huge
and it would be like -
it would be like if you walked into Goodwill, and there was Lin-Manuel Miranda's piano
--Yeah, I mean, one of my dreams is to have a baby grand piano
and they were just like, "Yeah, it's kinda beat up and looks like shit
and if it had belonged to Lin-Manuel Miranda, I think you'd be like,
"Fuck yes, I need this in my home."
And you would work double shifts for that
--Yeah, it would be my couch, mm hmm
I'd be like "take all my money, here you go."
So Gladys gave the piano to Norma as a gift
and intended for her to have piano lessons,
she dreamed of entertaining guests in their new home while Norma played the piano
and everyone would sit around and listen, like this was -
this was Gladys's dream.
Unfortunately though,
her dream was never realized
because signs of mental illness had already begun to show in Gladys
--Oh, this is where it happens
Yes.
and one night as Norma, George, Maude and presumably Nellie sat at home
they heard a huge commotion coming from the stairwell
and in her autobiography My Story, I used -
I used her book My Story that she wrote - Marilyn Monroe wrote -
with the help of a friend
a lot, and I'll link it in the show notes 'cause it was a great source.
So in this book she describes this night
as hearing all kinds of noise like someone had fallen down the stairs
George gets up to check to see what's going on 'cause he thinks someone's hurt
and he finds Gladys, she's standing upright
she hadn't fallen, she was just
causing a ruckus, probably like banging against the walls and shit
and -
--Was she manic?
She was.
She was both screaming and laughing
So he and Maude tried to shield Norma from seeing her mother like this
but I mean they were all right there in the house together
it's kind of hard not to see what's going on.
So they sent for police and an ambulance
Oh, she was, okay so she was eight years old at this time
So actually the dog thing happened when she was just eight
so just to, just to, you know,
send you further into a dark hole
--Yeah, I'm very angry about that
So she, at eight years old, Norma watched as authorities took her mother out of the house screaming and laughing
and they took her to a mental hospital.
--And is that where she stayed or does she come back?
She stayed there for a time
--Okay.
It's interesting to note that both Norma's grandfather and great-grandmother
also had spells of screaming and laughing before they were taken to mental hospitals.
So just like an interesting -
--an interesting factor, right.
Once her mother was taken away Norma and the Atkinsons lost everything
because without Gladys's income
--they couldn't keep the house
Georage and Maude couldn't afford to take care of Norma or keep the house
so the house, the furniture the piano
--the baby grand piano? agh
Yep, all of it was gone and Norma was put into an orphanage
Ohh
She said she was always haunted by that night with her mother and when she would go to bed all she could hear was a
"terrible noise on the stairs and my mother screaming and laughing as they led her out of the home she had tried to build for me."
Oh my gosh, that's heart-wrenching
Yeah
for a child to see that, and I mean
so my day job, obviously you know, is
a teacher
--mm hmm
of students with special needs, namely emotional disturbance, so
I can resonate in the understanding of how this could be traumatic for a child.
Oh yeah, and like, that's the thing is
all the trauma that she went through as a kid, it all comes back
--Oh, of course.
It's like you just see these patterns being set up and she's just -
she's being set up to -
to have a really hard life.
--I mean, she's what, eight? And she's already had a really hard life
Yeah.
So this is just a side note that I love: she said she never forgot about that house
and once she was older and started making a little money
--Did she buy it?
Well, not the house, she tracked down the Fredric March piano in an old auction room and she bought that.
And it was repainted and restored and she kept it in her Hollywood home and she said it played beautifully.
So it's just like aww
--love a good keynote (laughter)
For the next eight years Norma would float between the orphanage,
foster homes and her Aunt Grace's home.
So her Aunt Grace
wasn't actually her aunt but her mom's best friend
and that was a thing - every woman that took care of her she called Aunt
So, foster families that she went into
--Okay, yeah
they were aunt and uncle, but the kids of the foster parents she considered her siblings
so they were her sisters and brothers, but then the parents were aunt -
--Okay
So Grace was Gladys's best friend, they had worked together
and to Norma she was Aunt Grace.
and when Gladys was taken away
Grace became Norma's guardian
but financially she didn't have the means to care for her full-time
which is why Norma kind of floated in between homes.
--Got it
Grace would look after her - yeah
Grace would look after her as often as she could, but since
they didn't have much money they basically survived on stale bread and milk.
--Very college like
The two of them would stand in line for
Right? But unfortunately
--it was forced.
That was just their life.
The two of them would stand in line for hours
outside of the bakery waiting to get a sackful of old bread for twenty-five cents.
--It's like the Jimmy John's day-old bread. Right.
Which is about five dollars today.
And I'm not sure it was just a day, like, it was stale
but that is what they survived on.
So during this time that Grace was her guardian
Norma floated between
like I said her house, the orphanage,
and various foster families.
In the span of eight years
between the time she was eight and sixteen,
--she had a lot of Aunties.
She was placed with nine different families.
--Wow.
Yeah.
Most of these families had children of their own, so again
Norma came last.
And while the other kids were getting new toys and clothes
little Norma was stuck with her orphanage outfit which was
a faded blue skirt with a white blouse.
And she was given two of these by the orphanage so that she could alternate
while one was dirty she had a clean one.
Norma said she never felt loved as a child
and often felt lonely and wanted to die.
To cheer herself up she would daydream of attracting the attention of others
and having people look at her and say her name
which makes sense 'cause if you are not
given much attention as a kid, yeah, you are gonna dream about that.
you're gonna dream about the day when, you know,
everyone is looking at you and
and loving you and everyone thinks you're
--and you're the bombshell that you are
Exactly.
which is what motivates people to better their life.
And you wanna know something else she dreamed about?
--Of course.
Taking her clothes off in church.
(laughter)
--Well that's one godly way of getting attention.
I mean, I went to church as a kid too, and
I would also daydream 'cause my mind would just wander, but I daydreamed about things like
running up and down the aisle screaming
to see what people would do, or suddenly bursting into song when it was really quiet.
But no, little Norma Jeane fantasized about taking all her clothes off,
she said she would sit in the pew and pray to God
that he would stop her from getting naked.
--Well in her defense, I mean
Jesus was practically naked on the cross so maybe it's just like
she felt comfortable that way.
Well she said it wasn't about being naked in church,
there was no sexual connotation to it.
--Oh okay, okay.
She was just - and this is what will break your heart -
she was just ashamed of the clothes she wore because she was poor.
--She had no Sunday dress, that was huge back then. Like, huge.
Yeah. She
only had her blue faded skirt and white blouse that she literally wore every single day.
And people assumed she was wearing the same
like, the same clothes,
like not knowing there were two of each
and Norma would wash them herself so they were always clean.
But since they were identical people were just like "oh, she wears the same clothes over and over."
--It's a definite, like that's, that's
one of those moments where you realize, like,
what you have
and what to be grateful for and
--Yeah, absolutely.
you know, the realistic manner of
"this still is a thing. This still is happening."
Well yeah, absolutely. And
just the fact that she would wash them herself
every day
and, because she wanted to, you know,
feel clean basically,
--and taken care of
and people, you know, that was lost on people.
It's like she just couldn't win.
--So from an early age she really was a survivalist.
Oh, one hundred percent.
I mean, the fact that she was just constantly set up to
fail in a way
--fail in the system, mm hmm
but she, she was always
--persevered.
you know, trying to - yeah, she persevered.
She was - I would say she was a survivor but she was -
she was just good about
taking care of herself and seeing things through and just trying to get to the next thing.
You know?
--Yeah.
So every other week an inspector from the orphanage would visit
these foster families she was with to do a "wellness check"
I put wellness in quotes because literally
these checks consisted of the inspector looking at the bottoms of Norma's shoes
and if they weren't worn through
Norma was considered to be thriving.
--Wow.
So the bar was low, yeah.
--Wow.
Saturday nights were typically bath nights 'cause it was the late thirties/early forties around this time and these
foster families didn't have much money
which is why they're fostering in the first place
and water cost money. So they'd have one night a week
where everyone in the family would take turns taking a bath
and because there wasn't much money it was unheard of
to change the bathwater in the tub
--Ohhhh.
before the next person would bathe.
--So by the time she got in there it was
dark, mucky water.
--Exactly. The whole family
used the same bathwater, and because she always came last
she was the last one to bathe. So she had to bathe in water
--I am counting my blessings.
that five or six people had already bathed in.
Can you imagine?
--I mean it's like you are not even bathing at that point.
You're playing in a mud pit at that point.
Ugh, gross.
I mean sometimes even sitting in my own bathwater I'm like "alright, this is nasty."
Five or six other people before you?
--But to her she probably felt like she was getting clean, because she only bathed once a week.
I don't think she felt like she was getting clean, I think she was just -
I'm sure she was probably glad to get something
--Rinsed off.
Yeah, but I don't think she ever felt clean.
She got in trouble at one of the houses she stayed at because
she used the bathroom at night and flushed the toilet
and the family told her she was using up too much money and to only flush the toilet once in the morning.
--Wow.
And again, it's not like everyone -
--Things we take for granted.
It's not like everyone had their own private toilet to use.
Everyone is sharing
so if you're not flushing
just imagine what is in that toilet.
--There's a lot of poopsies in there.
A lot of poopsies.
So she actually got in trouble a lot
but only because she was constantly being accused of things she did not do
--Sounds like a real misfit.
I mean she always felt that she was.
So she was constantly being accused of stealing (she wasn't),
hitting other kids (she was not),
destroying property (she didn't),
and when this happened, whatever family she was staying with would send her back to the orphanage.
It was generally other kids that were blaming her for shit
--She was a target.
Yeah. The thing was she wasn't doing any of that.
And then she'd get kicked out of the house.
But when she was staying with a family
she was always working. She did not have time to do the things that she was so often accused of doing because she was busy scrubbing floors and washing clothes.
She didn't have time to go out and steal something, you know?
--She really was like a cinder girl, like Cinderella.
She was.
She would often daydream to make the work go by a little easier and faster.
--I do that too.
She said, "I dreamed of myself becoming so beautiful
that people would turn to look at me when I passed.
I dreamed of myself walking proudly in beautiful clothes and being admired by everyone."
--She foreshadowed.
Right?
--That's awesome.
But child labor and being treated as an afterthought
and being accused of things she didn't do - these were not
the worst things she would suffer through unfortunately.
When she was just eight years old -
Okay, this is...this is rough.
She lived with a family who rented a room out to man that they called Mr. Kimmel.
--If he has a dog and something happens to it, I might have to go take a reset break.
Uh, there's no dog involved in this one
--We can proceed then.
It's not good.
--Oh no.
One day little Norma was walking down the hallway
and when she passed by his room he told her to come in.
--Oh no, we are - uh uh.
Yep.
So she assumed he wanted her to run an errand or something because that's what was always expected of her - she cleaned, she ran errands, you know?
So she asked, "Where do you want me to go, Mr. Kimmel?"
And he replied, "No place."
And then he closed the door behind her and locked it.
So, yes, another warning here, this has to do with sexual assault.
So this shit stain of a man - Mr. Kimmel -
molested Norma.
She said she kicked and fought as hard as she could, but he was so much bigger and stronger than she was and he wouldn't let her go.
Again, she was eight years old.
--There's a fiery place in hell
for - yeah
--I sure hope so.
I sure hope so.
Immediately Norma went to her caretakers to tell them what happened
but the woman "caring" for her told her
"Don't you dare say anything against Mr. Kimmel. He's my star boarder."
Basically the family was making a lot of money off this asshole and didn't want anything to jeopardize that.
So a week after this horrific,
horrific crime against this innocent child
everyone in the house including Mr. Kimmel
went to a religious revival meeting.
--That's one way to shake it off.
--That's one thing about all these families
a lot of them were super religious, which
I mean, believe what you want but when -
--I mean, define religion at that point.
Yeah, exactly
when you use religion to do harm to others
that's when it's a problem.
So the woman of the house insisted Norma come with them.
They all gathered together with all these other people attending this evangelical meeting
and the preacher asked all sinners
come up to the altar and repent.
--Bye, Kimmel.
Well, little Norma bolts to the front
--Oh.
and immediately starts telling everything that happened with Mr. Kimmel
'cause she thought she had done something wrong.
--thought she was the sinner. Ohhh.
She thought it was her fault that this had happened to her which
obviously it was not -
victims of assault do not cause the assault just to be clear.
Unfortunately though
no one heard her describe what had happened to her because several other people had run up at the same time
--Confessing
--confessing their sins
so everyone was talking at once and it completely drowned her out.
So no one even heard what this shitbag did.
As Norma got a little older
she began to develop
and she developed early and before any of her peers.
At twelve years old she looked like she was seventeen, truly.
However no one really noticed the change in her body because
she was still wearing the same faded blue skirt and white blouse that the orphanage had provided.
--wearing the same clothes, wow.
She had to walk to school
which was two miles, because the bus
cost five cents and she couldn't afford it.
She said she hated the walk, she hated school,
she didn't have any friends, no one at school talked to her or offered to walk home with her.
--This as a teacher breaks my heart.
This is, I mean, and it's still happening
--I mean just as a human
--Yeah.
I can't handle when
any kid is rude to another kid, I just can't...I just can't
--When I worked in inner city New York,
there were several kids who
were wearing the same clothes over and over again
because they only had two outfits provided by the school.
Yeah.
--And so it's just sad that, like, decades later
some of this stuff is still going on.
Oh, one hundred percent.
And she, like, no kids talked to her, no one ever invited her over
you know for like a slumber party or anything like that, they saw her as
"a poor girl who never smiled."
Well, yeah, what do you have to smile about at that point?
It was bad.
Kids constantly made fun of her and called her names.
I just wanna - I just wanna go back in time and reach out to her and give her a big hug and just say "just wait girl.
--Yeah
--like, you're gonna
it's gonna get better.
Then it's gonna get worse again but it is gonna get better."
So one morning before school
Norma saw that both of her blouses were torn
and she only had the two blouses.
--And this is after being, after developing?
Yes.
--Mm.
And she knew if she stopped to get them fixed on her way to school she'd be late for school
so she asked one of the other girls in the house -
so her "sister," you know,
asked one of the other girls if she could borrow something to wear
'cause remember, the other kids were the caretakers' biological children so they had a lot more clothes.
And the girl was like "yeah sure, here's a sweater, you can wear this."
And although she and Norma were the same age, Norma was much more developed than she was
so when Norma put the sweater on it was
--Tight?
Uh, a bit tight.
She said when she walked into her first class that day
which was Math in case anyone's wondering
everyone stopped and stared at her.
--They must have been calculating. I'm still calculating the fact when am I going to develop?
But other than that, okay we can proceed.
--I mean,
I just need my right boob to develop, the left one's good.
(laughter)
I'm still waiting on the right to come in.
Um, but anyway, (laughs) so
they went to recess and a bunch of boys crowded around her and just kept looking at her chest because...
you know, ugh, boys.
--Mm hmm.
And then four boys walked her home that day.
--And so it begins.
Exactly.
--The bombshell.
--She said after that -
She said school became much different after that.
--Hmm.
Classmates started inviting her over,
--She was noticed.
there were always several boys hanging around her house,
and the thing was it was all pretty innocent,
they would just play games outside in the street and just hang out until it was time to go in for dinner.
So it was pretty, you know, they're all still kids.
A few weeks go by at this point, Norma has turned thirteen at this time,
--She's still so young, oh my god.
I know, she's so young.
And like a lot of other kids her age she starts getting interested in makeup
so she starts wearing lipstick and darkening her eyebrows, putting on a little mascara, like you know
--Adultifying herself. Got it.
--Fixing herself up, yes.
I mean, you know how you are at that age
--It's exploratory. Mm hmm.
--Yeah.
So she walks into school one day wearing makeup for the first time -
mind you, she's still wearing that same sweater
'cause the girl she borrowed it from never asked for it back
and her only other clothes were her ones from the orphanage and she was like "screw that -
so she's got the tight sweater on,
she's got the makeup,
she's got it goin' on.
And then came the haters.
Girls started getting super jealous because she was getting
all kinds of attention.
--Jealousy...ooooh.
And it wasn't just girls in her class, it was the seniors, like seventeen and eighteen-year-olds
They could not stand it.
--Yeah, she looked better than them.
Yeah.
And they start spreading all these rumors about her because
when you're a teenager you're an asshole.
--Well, I mean , not just teenage years.
Well true, I mean, well there are a lot of assholes in this world.
So they start saying that, (laughs), okay
just keep in mind when I tell you this story
she's thirteen yearls old, okay?
They start saying that she was a drunk,
and spent her evenings having sex with guys on the beach.
She's thirteen!
She was like
"Umm, 'scuse me, I don't drink, and I don't just let boys have their way with me
and btw I've never even been on a beach in my entire life
She really hadn't
--I was gonna ask, has she ever been to a beach?
No, she hadn't. Despite being from L.A.
she was poor, she moved from home to home
--Right.
The beach - it wasn't exactly on the itenerary, you know?
But rather than being angry
at these girls for spreading rumors
she was loving it.
--Oh the attention, we're back to the attention
Yeah, she's like "oh, girls are jealous of me?
They think they're gonna lose their boyfriends to me because I'm more attractive? Hell yeah!"
So she felt like her daydreams of attracting attention were finally coming true, you know? So get it, girl.
By that summer
she had a boyfriend.
He was twenty-one years old
--She's doing better than me at this point.
She was thirteen.
But he thought she was eighteen because she looked so much older and I think she just
--Right.
didn't bother to correct him. She was like "uh huh, cool"
but again you have to think, like, this is back in the day
--Right, right.
My grandma met my granddad - she was thirteen and he was twenty-one
and the first time that he saw her
he was with a group of his friends,
he said, "That's the woman I'm gonna marry."
--Very predatory now, but
back in the day it was very much more accepted.
--Exactly.
And a lot of the reasons is you know, war and
it just, it was a different world then.
it was different, yeah, it was different.
So one day he invites her to go swimming at the beach
so she's finally going to the beach for the first time
but of course she didn't have a bathing suit.
So she borrowed one from the same girl she borrowed the sweater from.
--Ohhh boy.
Did it cover anything?
Well it was obviously too small
which left little to the imagination.
She wore it underneath her clothes like you do, you know,
and they get to the beach
and she takes off her sweater - yes, the same sweater -
she's been wearing it for months at this point, every single day.
The same sweater.
--Wow.
So she takes off her sweater and slacks -
--it's probably unraveling at this point.
Probably.
I mean she would wash it every day.
So she takes her clothes she's wearing over the bathing suit off
and everyone turns to stare.
--The gawk.
Her boyfriend keeps yelling for her to get in the water, he's like "hey, let's go swimming" 'cause
that's why they were there. And Norma was like
--Forget you.
I got a show.
--Norma was like
Exactly! She's like "why should I hide this body in the water?"
I love this -
she starts walking very slowly across the sand toward the water,
and then walked slowly down the beach along the water's edge.
--Using it as a sandwalk, a little catwalk.
Yes!
Guys start whistling at her, some of them got up and walked closer just to get a better look at her.
Women stopped what they were doing and just stared.
So it kind of makes me think of Pamela Anderson when she was on the jumbotron
--Oh, like Baywatch? Okay.
Because that's like how she got her big break.
You know, it's just the same kind of thing,
it's like she just had that "thing."
You couldn't look away from it.
So all this to say
Norma learned at a very young age what it was that got her the attention she craved
and that she had been deprived of for her entire childhood basically.
Despite loving all of the newfound attention she was getting,
Norma said she had no interest in or thoughts of sex.
She said, "I had no passion in me. I didn't even know what it meant."
--Mm.
Which is just interesting to think about.
She said she didn't want boys in a sexual way, she legit just wanted to hang out and play games with them in the street.
--All things she was deprived of.
'Cause, you know, she's thirteen!
--Right.
Then she said, she said at one point,
"Occasionally I let one of them kiss me to see if there was anything interesting in the performance.
There wasn't."
(laughter)
(laughing) I'm like "yesss girl."
--Haha, there is not.
(more laughing)
Eventually the attention she was getting started to be a bit much though.
Guys were starting to get aggressive and rough,
and girls were still constantly accusing her of
stealing their boyfriends, and they would just say nasty things about her.
So to help keep the haters at bay, if you will,
her Aunt Grace suggested she get married.
Norma brushed it off at first, she was like "I'm too young, marriage is not even a thought in my head."
But then the host family that she was staying with
dropped a bomb on her that they were moving away and they would not be able to take her with them.
--She was gonna be left behind.
--Which Norma knew -
yeah, and she knew that that would mean she would end up back in the orphanage,
which was the last place she wanted to be.
So at the age of sixteen years old she agreed to marry a neighbor boy named Jim Dougherty.
They knew each other because he lived near her
host family, but Norma wasn't really into him, she thought he was boring.
But again, she did not want to go back to the orphanage
and this was kind of her way out of it.
--Do what it takes.
Yeah. So after they married she became even less interested in sex.
She said they didn't really communicate at all, and her marriage didn't bring her happiness or pain;
the most important thing it did was end her status as an orphan.
--Wow.
That's pretty profound.
--So when you think about that -
it doesn't bring you happiness or pain
you're going through the motions, like you don't even care.
It's just like...
ugh, that just...
that's shitty.
--And a convenience factor.
Yeah.
She said she much preferred hanging out with kids in the street playing games.
That's truly, literally all she wanted to do.
--Because she's still really a kid, and she didn't really have a childhood.
Exactly.
In 1944 during WWII
Jim joined the marines and Norma, who was eighteen at the time,
got a job in a parachute factory as an inspector, which is badass.
--Yeah.
I just think that's the coolest thing.
When Jim returned home from overseas he was like "you know what? It's time to have a baby."
But Norma was not into it.
At this point in her life she absolutely did not want to have kids
because she was afraid they would end up in an orphanage like she did.
Later in life though when she became successful
her thoughts on having kids changed and she dreamed of having a baby, but
at this point in her life she was a firm no. Hard pass.
Ultimately she and Jim just weren't compatible and they divorced.
She was nineteen years old.
--Divorce One, Okay.
Yes, so that was her first marriage.
--Under twenty.
Yeah.
She's out of the system and now she's an adult
so she can't go back into the system, so now she realizes
"Shit, I need to earn some money."
--She has a little work experience.
Is it post-war now?
Yes.
So since she learned that her appearance was something that attracted a lot of attention,
she figured she could probably get jobs as a model.
And she was right.
She started going to photography studios and posing for
ad layouts, but the problem was these photographers
were also looking for work
so they couldn't pay her much.
But she made enough to pay her rent
and she could afford just one meal a day
but she said,
"When you're young and healthy a little hunger isn't too important."
--Oh.
Plus she was used to it from the stale bread and -
See, that's exactly it, she just -
--That was the way.
She started off with a horrible diet
and so when she couldn't afford to eat food
you know, when she was on her own as an adult,
she was like "meh, no big deal."
She said what is important is lonliness, meaning that
being lonely can - it can have a huge factor on your well-being, and she felt that was -
that weighed more on her than not having enough food to eat.
--I would concur.
Yeah. She felt extremely lonely with no family and no real friends really.
She said Sundays were the worst because shops were closed
on Sundays, so she couldn't browse around shopping
--No one was out.
and she couldn't apply for a job there.
instead she'd go on walks,
and eventually one of her walks led her to Union Station in Los Angeles
and she started going there every Sunday.
She would stay the entire day and just people-watch.
--I mean, that's a favorite pasttime of mine, too, in New York.
Yeah.
And so many people - so many different people passed through there.
--You never know
what one person can do for you.
Well at that time I don't even think she was thinking
"maybe someone can do something for me." I think
she just needed to get out
and she just found other people fascinating.
--And feel life, yeah.
So while she was living on her own she was getting the occasional modeling gig;
she secretly dreamed of becoming an actor.
She knew nothing about acting, had never tried it,
had never even shared this dream of hers with anyone.
And sometimes rather than use what little money she had for that day's one meal
she would spend it on speech leshon - speech - see now I need speech lessons
(laughter)
(laughing) She would spend it on speech lessons
which were a dollar a piece
which today is around fifteen bucks.
And she said,
A hamburger will never make you an actress, speech lessons may."
--Ahh.
Which, I mean, you do still need to eat though, Norma.
So at night in her tiny Hollywood apartment
she would go over her speech lessons out loud
and here are a couple of phrases that she practiced:
The first one is - I'm not gonna get this right. (laughs)
Okay. The first one is
"Ariadne arose from her couch in the snows in the Akrakaronian mountains."
Okay I think I kinda said that right.
And the second one was
"Hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert."
And she would just say these over and over and over again.
--Over and over?
I think maybe that's my ticket
to, um, words
and being able to say Hor-ror. Hor. Hor-ror. Hor-ror?
--Horrorwood.
Horrorwood. Okay.
--Horrorwood.
Okay.
You're getting better.
--I'll just practive Marilyn's speech lessons and
it'll be a go.
Yeah, I like it.
When she started out acting Norma said there were so many
pretty girls who all wanted the same thing, which was to get discovered.
--Even back then. That's crazy to me.
--And I would say that not much has changed there. Yeah.
That's the thing. That's what I thought, too
--It's so saturated now, I can't even imagine - I would think then it was, like,
hardly anybody's in that world and -
You literally took the words out of my mouth.
I was just gonna say it's so saturated now,
but it was then, too, apparently.
--Wow.
Yeah.
So she would hang out at cafes, and drugstore counters hoping to be discovered,
which was a thing. Drugstore counters were a thing.
--Yeah.
The most famous one I think is probably
--Like Green Rivers.
Schwab's Pharmacy
--Like fountain drinks.
It was a pharmacy but also served as a soda shoppe and a lunch counter.
--Those founatin sodas were huge. I mean, they're pretty good.
Have you ever had a Green River? It's really good.
I don't - I've never heard of Green River.
--Okay, well. We can look it up later.
Is it the name of a -
--It's the name of a fountain drink and it was green, like zesty, you know?
Kinda like a soda pop, but you know, they were, I don't know, fountain drinks.
--Oh.
There was a pharmacy
close to where I lived, and that was what we would do after we'd go
walk beans.
We would get to go to the phar -
Walk beans???
--Yeah, you know, like
farmland, you know, you detassle, you walk beans.
(laughter)
That was our reward. I sound like I'm from the 1950s at this point.
(laughing) You do, you do.
I have never heard the expression "we would walk beans."
--I assure you that I had more than two outfits.
I was lucky, I'm thankful for that.
And I did have a Sunday dress, so, there are two things -
--but did you live on a farm and walk beans???
--Well, I lived in town but on the outskirts of town where there was a pasture in my backyard, they had cows, okay?
They weren't my cows.
I talked to them every day.
--I'm learning so much about you right now.
Ahh, okay
--Me and Norma.
Hoo! Alright, yeah I do feel like you have some similarities happening right now.
--I am blonde.
I just don't have the rack that she had.
Well and the thing was she actually wasn't even really blonde, so
--True, well, you know
--It works out.
I might actually - we might do an episode on Schwab's because there's a lot of stuff there.
I mean it got pretty famous.
--Okay.
It might be like a Patreon bonus once we set up Patreon.
--I like that.
Which, I need to figure out setting up Patreon.
But for every - so back to Norma -
for every young woman aspiring to become an actress there were just as many creepers
preying on that ambition acting as talent agents, managers, assistants,
promising stardom if, of course, they slept with them.
--Of course.
Nothing's really changed that much these days.
--I mean -
I...yeah...yeah.
--Now it's just out in the open.
Well, and I do think, like with the Me Too movement
things are being talked about more and
so you're - so it's maybe not as
prominent as it was, you know, even just a few years ago.
And I also know that now there are
what is it - they have to go through a sexual harassment training on set, yeah.
--Oh, a training, okay.
We call that Keenan Safe Schools at our school, but we do that too, even as teachers.
Yeah, so one man that Norma came in contact with was a guy named John Sylvester.
And John told Norma he was a talent scout for Samuel Goldwyn
Which Goldwyn is the "G" in MGM.
So, like, big deal, he's a big deal.
--Ahh.
He claimed Mr. Goldwyn was interested in Norma for a role in his next film
and wanted her to audition
--Finally.
So Norma was like "Cool beans, let's do this"
and agreed to meet with John at the studio.
So he gives her a script, she goes to the studio,
and the audition was to take place in an office there.
So she sits on the couch, begins her audition,and as she's reading,
John Sylvester interrupts her and says, "Oh, uh,
can you lift your dress above your knee?"
And she was like 'well that's weird, but okay, maybe he needs to see my figure for this role or whatever.'
So she lifts her dress a little and continues reading and John says, "Higher."
--Ohhh.
So she lifts it higher, then John sits next to her on the couch
and just starts groping her.
--Mm.
So what does she do?
She punches him right in the eye!
--Hell yes.
--Then she kicks him
and slams her high heel down on his toes and ran the fuck out of there.
--This chick is savage. I mean she's got some savvy moves.
She is, she is badass.
--She has to.
She's so badass.
In addition to men promising to further her career if she slept with them,
they were also trying to buy her with fancy dinners and clothes,
even a new apartment. One guy offered her a new apartment.
But Norma refused to be bought.
Probably, I think, it stems from because she spent her
entire childhood essentially being bought by these families.
--Bought. Right.
You know?
So despite these men's efforts,
Norma never accepted their money or slept with them.
She did, however,
accompany them to swanky places because she felt there was always a chance she'd get noticed and get offered a job.
--Listen, you know -
--So she wouldn't sleep with them,
and when they offered her money she wouldn't take it, but she would basically be their arm candy to see if she could get noticed.
--Sometimes, you know, getting a dinner out of something isn't that bad when you have to endure the pain of a conversation with an idiot.
(laughing) At one point, at one point her car was repossessed
and she needed fifty dollars to get it back
but she refused to call up any of the men that had offered money.
She was like 'nope, I've gotta figure this out on my own.'
--Like, this just makes me wanna go back in time and slip her a $50.
I just want to help her.
I mean, she was
She, she had standards and she had respect for herself and I -
--Same girl, same.
And I do feel like, I don't know I just feel like that gets lost in all of the stories that we hear about her.
--Mm hmm.
It's like she went through so much shit
and she was not there to take a handout. She was like "no, I've gotta figure this out on my own."
So the thing about L.A.
is it's a huge place and it's very spread out.
And without a car, because it got repossessed, Norma couldn't get around.
--Mm.
And obviously Uber wasn't a thing yet so she couldn't get to casting offices or talent agencies to try and get work.
She was just stuck.
But it wasn't long before a photographer that she had worked with previously
called her up and he asked if she would be interested in posing naked for a calendar.
Here's the thing, she didn't have a problem posing nude.
She said, "Nudity and sex are the most commonplace things in the world" and she didn't know why people got all weird about it.
--I mean that's how we were born.
We were nude when we were born.
--True, yeah.
So it's kinda natural.
Exactly, and that's how she felt about it. She was just like "yeah it's no big deal."
She was concerened, however,
that if she ever did make it as an actress the photos could have a damging effect on her career.
--Mm hmm.
But -
--I mean that's why I haven't been in Playboy yet.
I don't know if I could work at a school, so there's that.
I mean, yeah, i'm sure the school would be like "um, Kaili, we...don't ask us how, don't ask us how but we happened to see your Playboy photos. (laughter)
So you're fired.
--We saw you in the July magazine and, uh, we have some questions. (laughter)
But the...I can just, I'm just picturing, like,
either of us trying to pose for Playboy
and it would be the most comical
--Oh girl.
debacle, oh my god.
But the photographer promised Norma she would be unrecognizable in the photos
and he said, "I'll pay you fifty bucks."
--Smear the face or what? Or not have a face?
Well, probably kind of having her turned in a way -
--Oh turned, okay, okay.
Or like a little something covering her face, you know, so you really couldn't tell "is that her?" "Is it not?"
He was like "don't worry, it's gonna be tasteful, blah blah blah"
and she had worked with this guy before so she was like "cool cool cool."
So -
--She trusted him.
Yeah, so -
--Okay.
He's like "I'll pay you fifty bucks" which was exactly how much she needed to get her car back.
So she's like "you know what? Okay."
--The math skills came in handy.
She made her fifty bucks, she got her car back the very next day.
So Norma's doing her thing, she's got her car,
she can go on auditions now.
And eventually she landed a small role in a movie and was put on a six-month contract with the studio.
And when I say small role, like she literally
just walks past the other character, waves and says hello and then moves on.
--Gotta get a break somehow.
I mean true, you start small and then you work your way up.
And this is back when studios would put you under contract
so they could use you as bit players and be like "Oh yeah, call up Norma, we'll have her be the waitress in this."
So it was a little different than how it's, how it is now.
--Okay.
She got this six-month contract so that was a pretty big deal.
Her part, however, was eventually cut from the movie but she didn't really care
because she knew she wasn't a good actor yet and she wanted to get better.
So she spent her salary on acting, dancing and singing lessons,
she read a bunch of books, she would sneak scripts off of set and practice reading them out loud in front of her mirror at home.
--So she really had a passion. I mean, she wanted to
perfect he craft. I mean, this is something that she was going after.
--She did.
That's the thing, she wasn't just like "oh I'm gonna go be an actress. Okay, great, I've got this contract."
She wanted to be good
and she was doing everything in her power to make that happen.
So, I mean the fact that she would sneak scripts off of set and then
read them over and over, just practicing -
She also said she practiced posing and walking like a queen
--Oooh.
because she was trying to become the best version of herself.
--Noted.
So when I walk downstairs today, if I'm posing and practicing like a queen, just, you know,
write it off.
--You're just becoming the best version of yourself, that's all.
Although I would say I think we already are queens.
So to that I say, I have to say, hopefully this isn't - guys,
if you're listening out there, I am sorry if my voice is echoing, 'cause it's echoing in my headphones right now. I'm trying to move the mic.
The casting director of the studio at the time -
he was man by the name of Ben Lyon -
he was also an actor,
he saw something in her, and he said, "You know,
I think you need a more glamorous name.
Something more glamorous than Norma Dougherty."
--Ah, this is where it comes in.
Because she was still going by her married name, so she was Norma Dougherty at all these auditions.
--Which is not a smooth name to say.
I probably can't even say it. I can't even say hor - hor - whatever.
I'm having trouble saying it and I'm reading it in front of me.
And she was like "you know what? I think you're right."
Especially because Dougherty wasn't really her name anymore since she was divorced.
So he suggested Marilyn as a first name because he'd worked with an actress
named Marilyn Miller and said Norma reminded him of her.
She was like "cool cool cool let me think on that."
She goes to her Aunt Grace and says, "Look.
This studio exec thinks it would be a good idea if I changed my name and he suggested Marilyn. What do you think?"
And Grace said,
"Yeah, Marilyn would actually go really well with your mother's maiden name."
And Norma was like "well shit, I never even knew my mom's maiden name. What is it?"
To which Grace replied, "Monroe."
--Ohhh.
Turns out Gladys, Norma's mom, was related to President Monroe
Norma was a direct descendent.
--What?!
Yes.
But Norma chose not to tell anyone about being related to a president
because she wanted to make a name for herself,
--Ooh interesting.
literally and figuratively,
and make it on her own.
--Wow, and then the JFK thing comes later - wow.
So goodbye Norma Jeane,
hello Marilyn Monroe.
--Hello Marilyn Monroe.
Love it.
And this is where we're gonna end Part 1.
--Fascinating.
I think, I mean, yeah it's just
seeing, or reading about all the things that she went through as a kid,
and you just kind of see how she, how she -
works to improve herself and
she didn't want a handout, which
again, like, is so like, kind of mind-boggling, but I have mad respect for it because
she didn't have shit growing up.
--And it gives me - there's mass amounts of empathy for her because
honestly I didn't know - I don't know much about her and
all I know is some storm later in her life that I was like, "oh,
maybe it was just because she was in Hollywood and an elite, right?"
But now I have such a background on her, I'm like "Wow."
She really did, you know,
create something for herself by
eliminating the factors that were bringing her down all the time.
I don't even know that she could really eliminate those, she just -
she just worked as hard as she could to -
to overcome it, or to get through it.
--That's fair, that's fair, yeah.
Granted, later in life she does resort to other ways of coping and
we'll get into all of that in Part 2 but
yeah, that was Part 1.
Hope you liked learning about the early life of miss Marilyn Monroe.
And Kaili, do you have anything that you would like to add at this moment? A palette cleanser, if you will?
I will say though that wasn't like a super gruesome episode but
--It's leading in to - a lot of times
gruesome things or crimes don't happen without a backstory,
right? I mean -
Well, yeah, and shitty, shitty things did happen to her.
But yeah, we'll get - in Part 2 we'll get more into her career, her relationships,
and then, like I said it's probably gonna be a three-parter because i just don't think I could get it into two parts.
--I want more though, so I'm all for it.
Okay good. I think to do Marilyn Monroe justice you have to divide it up and you have to dive deep.
--Absolutely.
You know, because one of her most iconic films was The Misfits and we're kind of
putting that out there that
if and when we have our listeners
they're also misfits.
My only palette cleanser today is asking you a question.
Do you know where the word misfit comes from? I mean, do you know the backstory of that or -
--Like the etymology of misfit?
--Yeah.
I don't, are you gonna tell me?
--I sure am.
So it's a nineteenth century word
probably by the end of the 1800s or what not and it really meant
"a garment that fits badly."
So already I resonate with this word because often do my garments fit badly.
So I'm already like "well I'm a misfit, clearly."
I'm still thinking about the sweater that she was wearing.
I mean the fact that she wore that every single day for months.
Months!
So it was almost like a precursor, it was like this thing that, you know,
she already had, right? And it's just funny that she
eventually comes into this movie, right?
But then what happens is that later on
it kind of formed into
primarily meaning outcast or oddball.
Because the fit in both cases, the prefix means wrong, right?
And so I think that it just, like,
I feel like I can be a misfit sometimes,
I'm an oddball.
And so I think we're all kind of misfits, right? And
yeah, I just thought it'd be cool to define that word.
Thank you, thank you for that Miss Kaili.
--That's funny, that's what my students call me.
I know, (laughs) that's why I said it.
Also in slang, though, a misfit is a person who is poorly adapted to a situation or environment.
So it just really, it goes into the fact of, kind of like her upbringing.
--Oh yeah.
And I just love that later in life she's in this film
which by the way I've never seen The Misfits.
Oh, I watched it. We'll talk about it.
--Okay great.
But yeah, she always considered herself - she called herself a Hollywood misfit, and
yeah, I think that's, well that played a big role in wanting to name our listeners misfits, and ourselves, because we all are and
we're all just here, and hopefully you all will stay here and tune in for Part 2.
And in the meantime you can
check out our Instagram because we are, we are gonna post something
uh, eventually @horrorwoodpodcast. That's h-o-r-r-o-r-p-o-d -
Nope, that's not it (laughs)
--I can't say it and you can't spell it. Boy are we a team.
It's at h-o-r-r-o-r-w-o-o-d podcast.
I think there's a Facebook page, or a group, or something.
--Yeah.
I think I made that. I don't think there's anything on it yet but we're gettin' there
@horrorwoodpodcast, and then you can check out Twitter @horrorwoodpod,
because horrorwoodpodcast was too many letters.
And maybe I'll make my first twit. Twit? Twitter.
I don't know, never had it. We'll see.
You've never had Twitter?
--No.
Oh, I have it but I never use it. I mean
I just, it's not my go-to
but I read everything else on it. Like I'm on it.
(creepy music fades in underneath)
It's the little bluebird, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I just, like, I'm terrible with social media
but anyway, hopefully it'll get better. We'll see.
--We'll get better.
And we just wanna say thanks for listening, and we'll see you, well we won't see you
but I would love to, I'm sure you're all gorgeous, We will be talking to you again in a week.
--Fair thee well, Mafia Honey.
(laughter). Bye!
(creepy music fades)