Marilyn Monroe Read Online Free Page A

her she was pretty enough to model. That was all Norma Jeane needed to hear; in an instant, her old dream of escape had been reactivated.
    Conover asked Norma Jeane to pose again. Her husband was due on shore leave just then, so Norma Jeane put the photographer off until Jimmy had gone back to sea. Dougherty left again in June 1945, just as Norma Jeane celebrated her nineteenth birthday. The moment he was gone, she moved out of her in-laws’ house, quit her job, and never looked back.
    By the end of the month, Conover had taken a set of pictures of Norma Jeane for
Yank
magazine. He showed the photographs to a friend, who in turn put her in touch with the Blue Book Modeling Agency in Los Angeles. The agency passed her on to a film agent, who landed her a screen test at Twentieth Century–Fox. A little over a year after Conover first photographed Norma Jeane, she had divorced her husband, signed a contract at Twentieth, and changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.
    On August 26, 1946, Grace accompanied Marilyn to Twentieth. Marilyn was still a minor, so her guardian had to sign the contract as well. Miraculously, everything seemed to be working precisely as Grace had once predicted. In a way, it had all been so easy; from Conover on, everybody had been kind and helpful. Marilyn was confident that she was about to become a movie star at last. In the months that followed, she did whatever Twentieth asked. She worked. She studied. She had her chance, and she applied herself with an earnestness that was disarming. But by the end of the year, Marilyn had had only two bit parts. Worse,when her contract came up for renewal, the studio decided to let her go because production chief Darryl Zanuck thought she was unattractive. On July 26, 1947, when Twentieth notified Marilyn that her option would not be picked up, her film career screeched to a halt. Marilyn could always eke out a living as a magazine model, but that was not the dream Grace had instilled in her. Horribly disappointed, Marilyn was prepared to do anything to get her career moving again.
    By the fall of 1947, she had joined countless other starlets, models, and assorted young women on the Hollywood party circuit. Like them, Marilyn hoped to meet someone who could help her get a part in a film. At one of these parties, early in 1948, Marilyn encountered Pat De Cicco. He invited her to one of the town’s Saturday-night institutions, Joe Schenck’s all-night, high-stakes gin rummy game in Holmby Hills. Marilyn knew exactly who Schenck was. Until only a few months ago, he had been one of her bosses at Twentieth, where he served as an executive producer. Schenck had been board chairman at United Artists in the 1920s and had founded Twentieth Century with Darryl Zanuck in the thirties. When Twentieth merged with Fox in 1935, he had been appointed board chairman.
    At sixty-nine, Schenck was said to be one of the richest men in Hollywood. His card games were attended by top studio executives, producers, and directors. De Cicco, Schenck’s court jester, provided girls. In exchange for dinner and the chance to meet some of Hollywood’s most important players, the women were expected to make themselves available to “Uncle” Joe’s friends. When a guest absented himself from the card table, more often than not it was to take a girl of his choice to one of the mansion’s many bedrooms.
    Marilyn became a regular at Uncle Joe’s. Schenck took a special liking to her, and soon she came to be known as “Joe Schenck’s girl.” She stood behind his chair as he played cards. She served drinks and emptied ashtrays. Before long, Marilyn was at the house several nights a week for dinner. To keep the old man happy, she even briefly moved into the guest cottage in order to be nearby when he wanted her at night. Uncle Joe repaid Marilyn by persuading Harry Cohn to sign her to a six-month contract. She started at Columbia Pictures in March 1948.
    At the studio, Marilyn fell in love with