Marilyn Monroe was married three times. We tell you who her first husband was and what she looked like at her wedding.
Marilyn Monroe, née Norma Jeane, was born on June 1, 1926. A few years later, her work commitments forced her mother to place her daughter in foster care. In 1933, the foster parents were about to adopt Norma, but her birth mother finally felt secure and took her daughter home.
Unfortunately, within a few months, her mother began showing signs of mental illness, and Norma was temporarily placed in state custody. In 1935, the nine-year-old girl was placed in a Los Angeles orphanage. Authorities eventually convinced her mother to take her daughter home, but there Norma was sexually abused by her stepfather.
The girl then moved in with her great-aunt Olivia, but one of her sons there also sexually abused her, and Norma was forced to move again, this time to her great-aunt. After several peaceful years, in 1942, the teenage girl returned to her mother and went to school in Van Nuys.
It was there that Norma Jeane met a sailor named James Dougherty, and they began a romance. When Dougherty received a transfer, 16-year-old Norma wanted to leave with him, rather than stay with her mother. Unfortunately, leaving the state as a minor was prohibited, so she and James decided to get married.
After the wedding, Norma dropped out of school and moved in with her new husband. According to Monroe herself, her first marriage was rather dull—she and her husband barely spoke.
A year after their wedding, Norma got a job at an aircraft factory, where she soon participated in a professional photo shoot. Her photos caught the eye, and she was subsequently offered a modeling job.
Norma left her factory job and rose to fame in 1945, eventually adopting the stage name Marilyn Monroe. The striking blonde separated from her first husband, who disapproved of her new profession, even before her moment of glory. Imagine the grief he felt afterwards!
