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James Dougherty
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James Edward Dougherty (April 12, 1921 in Los Angeles, California - August 15, 2005 in San Rafael, California) was the first husband of Marilyn Monroe.
Dougherty was the youngest of five children of Edward and Ethel Dougherty, who had moved there from Colorado. He attended Van Nuys High School where he acted in plays, and played football.
In
1941, Dougherty was employed with
Lockheed Aircraft when he met 15 year-old Norma Jeane Baker. At this time, Norma was living with her foster mother, Grace (McKee) Goddard who had been a friend of Norma's mother Gladys. They married on
June 19,
1942, eighteen days after Norma Jeane turned sixteen.
In 1943, Dougherty joined the Merchant Marines (where he served alongside Robert Mitchum). He was ordered to boot camp on Santa Catalina Island, California, then sent overseas in 1944. Norma Jeane started to work for Radioplane Company, where she was discovered. She moved out of her mother-in-law's home and stopped writing to Dougherty. She filed for divorce in Las Vegas, Nevada; it was finalized on September 13, 1946.
Dougherty married Patricia Scoman in 1947, and joined the LAPD. He was one of the police officers that held back the crowd at the premiere of his former wife's movie, The Asphalt Jungle.
In The Secret Happiness of Marilyn Monroe and To Norma Jeane with Love, Jimmie, he claimed they were in love but dreams of stardom lured her away. She always maintained theirs was a marriage of convenience. She was furious when he claimed to Photoplay in 1953 she threatened to jump off the Santa Monica Pier if he left her. He later appeared on To Tell the Truth as "Marilyn Monroe's real first husband". He sold signed copies of his books on his website [1].
In the 2004
documentary Marilyn's Man, Dougherty made three new claims: he was her
Svengali and invented "Marilyn Monroe", Fox forced her to divorce him, and he was her true love. The evidence does not support this. When informed of her death, the
New York Times reported he replied "I'm sorry" and continued his
LAPD patrol; he did not attend her
funeral. He admitted to
A&E Network his mother asked him if he'd marry Norma Jeane. Although he maintained in his books that he didn't mind if she modeled, his sister wrote in the 12/1952
Modern Screen Magazine he left Norma Jeane because she wanted to pursue modeling. He admitted to
Lifetime's "Intimate Portrait" that he cut off her monthly allotment when he was served with divorce papers. More telling, the
1999 Christie's auction of Monroe's estate revealed that, while she had kept items from
Joe DiMaggio and
Arthur Miller, she kept nothing from Dougherty. He was Monroe's last surviving husband.
References
- The Marilyn Encyclopedia by Adam Victor (The Overlook Press, Woodstock, New York, 1999 Adam Victor, s.v. James Dougherty)ca:James E. Dougherty
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