From baseball stars to presidents,
Marilyn Monroe broke a million hearts — but who was the first of them all?
Even today, the legendary actress, model, and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe continues to inspire
discussion, debate, and interest. All the right ingredients are there: a young, attractive woman
drawn into a destructive world of glitz and glamor; a tragic death; a cavalcade of rumors
regarding personal relationships and affairs; and so on. Unsurprisingly, part and parcel of
the public curiosity surrounding Monroe involves an ongoing interest in the men in her life.
"You might not marry a girl just because she's pretty, but my goodness, doesn't it help?"
Monroe had three marriages and three divorces over the course of her 36-year life. It's likely
that people have heard about her second and third partners — individuals who were
famous in their own rights. Monroe married famed Yankees center-fielder Joe DiMaggio in
1954. She was 25 and DiMaggio was 37; the marriage lasted a mere nine months. Then,
in 1956, Monroe married acclaimed playwright Arthur Miller, who is best known for writing
Death of a Salesman. They got divorced in 1961, the year before Monroe died.
But before DiMaggio and Miller, there was her first husband — one who knew Monroe by her
birth name. He was James Dougherty, and when they married, she was Norma Jeane Mortenson.
Dougherty and Mortenson married in 1942 at ages 21 and 16, respectively. In fact,
their wedding took place only 18 days after Mortenson turned 16. Dougherty, a football
captain and class president in high school, worked night shifts at Lockheed Aircraft. His
family and one of Mortenson's foster families, the Goddards, lived next to each other. Grace Goddard
had long been a friend of Mortenson's mother, with whom the future actress shared an acrimonious,
difficult relationship. At one point, the Goddards wanted to leave California and head back to West
Virginia. Mortenson wanted to stay, however, so they suggested she marry Dougherty. Luckily,
it seemed to turn out alright for both of them. As Dougherty later remembered:
"We loved each other madly. I felt like the luckiest guy in the world."
In 1944, Dougherty joined the U.S. Merchant Marine and was shipped to
Catalina Island. He later said of that time:
"We would go down to the beach on weekends, and have luaus on Saturday
night. She loved it over there. It was like being on a honeymoon for a year."
James Dougherty received his divorce papers from Mortenson while he was on a merchant marine ship
on China's Yangtze River. Her decision essentially boiled down to her career;
20th Century Fox didn't want Mortenson — by then known as Marilyn Monroe — to get
pregnant. To the studios, this meant that she had to give up her marriage.
Dougherty says that he visited Monroe after he got back to the U.S. She suggested that they
continue their relationship without their legal status as a married couple, but he
simply could not do that. The two got divorced in 1946; sixteen years later, Monroe was dead.
After the divorce, Doughtery went on to enjoy a full and happy life. He married two more times:
first in 1947, to Patricia Dougherty. They divorced in 1972, and two years later James
married Rita Dougherty, who died in 2003 while they were still married. Reportedly, Doughtery
never mentioned Monroe to his second wife, Patricia, and he never saw any of her movies.
James Doughtery is known for more than his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, too. For 25 years,
he worked for the Los Angeles police department, and, during that time,
he implemented the city's first Special Weapons and Tactics team. He also taught criminal science
and once uncovered a plot to kidnap actor James Garner. In 1974, Dougherty retired to Maine,
where he served on the Maine Boxing Commission and even ran for Congress.
In 2002, he recounted hearing the call about Monroe's death. He told the Associated Press:
"I had almost been expecting it. Fame was injurious to her. She
was too gentle to be an actress. She wasn't tough enough for Hollywood.
And once someone starts getting into pills — uppers and downers,
the way she was — people can go downhill. They can't sleep, so they take more and more pills."
Dougherty wrote two books about his time with Monroe:
1976's The Secret Happiness of Marilyn Monroe and 2001's To Norma Jeane with Love,
Jimmie. Speaking to the Portland Press Herald in 2001, Dougherty said:
"I've done a lot of things in my life, but that's the thing everyone asked me about,
Norma Jean. It's all right with me. It was part of my life."
James Dougherty died from leukemia in 2005.