Jim Dougherty was the husband of Marilyn Monroe for five whole years - this is what became famous. At that time, the future star's name was Norma Jean Mortenson, she was only sixteen years old, and she got out of hopelessness to marry Jim: it was very difficult for her, because she lived in a foster family.
Biography
Jim Dougherty was born in 1921 in Los Angeles. His childhood was happy and cloudless - he grew up in a complete family. At school he was the captain of the football team, participated in school performances. He was versatile and ubiquitous: during the holidays he helped his parents, moonlighted as a shoe shiner, and even once got a job in a funeral home.
True, after school he did not go further to study, but got a job at an aircraft factory. It was 1941, the year of the beginning of a terrible war, and a happy event happened in the fate of Jim: he met Norma Mortenson. She lived next door, in the family of a friend of the young man's mother. There they met.
By that time, Norma had gone through a lot: as a baby, she was sent to an orphanage, taken from her alcoholic mother. She was transferred from shelter to shelter, and then she ended up in a foster family. From there she was returned back to the orphanage, and this was repeated several times. When the girl met Jim, she realized that this handsome and reliable guy would become her support and support in life.
Moreover, Jim was a man of a very light disposition, a merry fellow and a joker. He knew how to look after girls, he knew how to boast of knowledge of cars and airplanes. Norma not only calculatedly married him - he aroused sympathy. Dougherty and Mortenson married when she was sixteen, he was twenty-two. And the girl was very grateful to Jim for the marriage proposal - now she had her own family.
The wedding took place in early June 1941, and very soon Jim was called to the service. To earn a living, his wife got a job at the same plant where he worked: Norma painted airplanes that were made for the front. One day a war correspondent saw her, took a photo of her and sent her to his magazine. Soon this photo appeared in other publications, and Norma began to be invited by modeling agencies.
Very soon, Mortenson began her modeling career. Jim was against this, but the future star persuaded him, because she understood that this work was her future. So gradually their marriage began to disintegrate - they were too different people. And when Norma became a real model and took the name "Marilyn Monroe" - their paths gradually began to diverge, Marilyn began her own life.
In 1945, Jim returned from the war safe and sound, but the family he planned was no longer there. In his house there was a beautiful, well-groomed, fashionable girl, whose photos adorned the covers of the most expensive magazines. But it was not his wife - the sweet and cheerful Norma. It was Marilyn.
They stayed together until their divorce, until September 1946, and then their paths finally parted, and they never saw each other again. Later in an interview, Marilyn said that she did not love her husband and that sometimes they simply had nothing to talk about. She was not unhappy, but there was not much happiness either.
Life after Marilyn
After his divorce from Marilyn, Dougherty got married, had kids and started living the life he dreamed of. He went to work at the police department and worked there until retirement. He did not become famous, but he apparently did not need it.
He often remembered his first wife - this eccentric girl. And he contributed to the perpetuation of her memory. In 1966, Jim Dougherty starred in The Legend of Marilyn Monroe, in 1953 he wrote an article for Photoplay magazine entitled “Marilyn Monroe Was My Wife”, in 2004 he participated in the film Marilyn's Men.
