The Dark Side of Venus
Marilyn Monroe: Jeffrey Epstein’s story told from the other side of the mirror
The month of August is hardly a reasonable time to commit suicide, as it is the time of holidays and sun, peaches and fun. Yet, it was on a balmy August night that one of modern history’s most sensational suicide cases took place, filling all the newspapers, sending shockwaves and provoking strong emotions throughout the world.
It was the stunning news of the untimely demise of a famous figure whose name was synonymous of meteoric success, whose glamorous life was shadowed by abuse and pedophilia, and whose death was shrouded in a thick haze of wild conspiracy theories. Someone who started at the bottom, worked uphill with steadfast determination and made it to the highest and brightest peak, only to find oneself on a precipice swarming with demons that had accumulated along the way.
Jeffrey Epstein, the multi-millionaire who faced charges of sex trafficking of minors and took his life last year ahead of trial. This might be the first (if not the only) name that comes to mind. However, although the above could be a synopsis of Mr. Epstein, it doesn’t refer exclusively to his sordid affair. That description also encapsulates the features of a completely different story — older, grander, more familiar. Or perhaps, in fact, the perfect negative version of the very same tale.
“The world around me then was kind of grim.”
Norma Jeane Mortenson was born on June 1, 1926, in a Los Angeles hospital’s charity ward, to an alcoholic mother and an unknown father. At the age of two weeks she was placed by her mother, Gladys, with a foster family, where she was raised alongside other foster children. Seven years later, when Gladys managed to buy a house through a loan, she moved Norma Jeane in with her and with a couple of lodgers named Atkinson.
However, the stress caused by a mortgage she could barely afford and the challenge of raising a child by herself took its toll on Gladys. A few months later she had a nervous breakdown which led to her hospitalization in a psychiatric institution. Norma Jeane was left alone with the Atkinsons. And there, within the walls of her mother’s house, she was sexually abused for the first time.
At the age of eight Norma Jeane was taken in by another couple, Grace and Erwin Goddard, who shortly thereafter sent her off to an orphanage. Years later she would recall that trauma — “I was a child nobody wanted.” At eleven she was taken back into the Goddards’ household, but soon had to leave again due to sexual harassment by Erwin. Her next years were a Dickensian experience, being moved from one foster home to another, until at 16 she had nowhere to go. Nowhere but back to the dreary orphanage. The only other option left to her in order to escape that fate was marriage. She Accepted.
A couple of weeks after her sixteenth birthday, Norma Jeane married a handsome, 21-year-old factory worker named James Dougherty. Although the US had already joined WWII, the couple initially led a pleasant life together, but in 1944 James was deployed overseas. Norma Jeane moved in with his mother and took a job in a local munitions factory, never imagining that a lucky encounter there would soon completely alter the course of her life.
A photographer sent by the army to shoot morale-boosting pictures in the factory fell for the charms of the vivacious brunette. He invited her to model for him, she showed him her natural flair for the camera. Before long, Norma Jeane became popular among other photographers and signed a contract with a modeling agency. Over the next two years her image appeared on numerous pin-up posters, her photos graced dozens of magazines and her success was steadily growing. However, Norma Jeane’s sights were already firmly set on her next goal — the biggest factory for glittery dreams. Hollywood.
“A wise girl knows her limits, a smart girl knows that she has none.”
Norma Jean’s first toehold into the film industry came after a casting director saw her photos. She signed a contract with Fox around the same time she divorced Dougherty, who had returned from the war and wanted her to be a housewife. Hollywood’s first demand was for her to change her name, and Marilyn was chosen (Monroe was her mother’s maiden name). While with Fox, Marilyn invested her time in acting classes and networking, but after a year she was released from the contract as she was deemed too shy.
Back to modeling and determined as ever, Marilyn continued to study acting. She also became friends with gossip columnists and attended Fox events, where she did everything that was expected of her to please those in power. “I spent a lot of time on my knees,” she would later refer to that period of her life. Finally, one of the senior executives who occasionally “invited” her to his bed — despite him being 50 years older — arranged for her a contract with Columbia Pictures.
In Columbia, Marilyn stood out more than in Fox. She received a second billing in a low-budget film and was considered for the leading role of a larger production. Nevertheless, Marilyn’s contract was ended after six months, due to her refusal to spend a weekend alone with Columbia’s head, Harry Kohn. Kohn was infamous for his habit of extorting sex from the studio’s actresses. A sort of spiritual ancestor to Harvey Weinstein, if you will.
Outcast from Tinseltown yet again, Marilyn accepted an offer to pose for a fully nude photo shoot for $50, a little cash that helped her get by. Shortly thereafter she met Johnny Hyde, a prominent talent agent who decided to represent her personally, so much so that part of the representation took place between the sheets. Johnny arranged for Marilyn to have cosmetic surgery on her nose and chin, and hired for her the best hair and makeup professionals. In 1950 he died of a heart attack. His final accomplishment was getting Marilyn a seven-year contract with Fox.
“Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.”
While the contract secured Marilyn’s place in the industry, Fox kept her in one corner of it, giving her only minor roles as the sexy blonde in low-budget movies. Even so, Marilyn received some favorable reviews and gained popularity among the audiences. In 1952, when she became romantically involved with baseball legend, Joe DiMaggio, it seemed that finally things were going her way, but then a shadow from the past appeared.
The nude photos taken a few years earlier suddenly surfaced, creating rumors that fast turned into a scandal. The kind that in the conservative 50’s could kill an actress’s career. Fox executives anxiously instructed Marilyn to deny that she was the model in the pictures, but she chose to deal with the crisis differently. She gave interviews in which she admitted the facts, explaining that she had desperately needed the money at the time. The public responded to her brave candor with great sympathy. In fact, her celebrity status only grew, prompting Fox to release three of her films one after another within one month.
Fox executives were not the only ones who capitalized on the photos. Another person who realized their profit potential was an anonymous young copywriter named Hugh Hefner. He acquired their copyright for $500 and published them in the first edition of the erotic magazine for men he founded, Playboy. That first issue launched Playboy to immense success which would later make Hefner a multi-millionaire. Marilyn did not receive a dime from the money made thanks to the use of her photos. She never gave her consent to their publication either. Many years later Hefner bought the crypt adjacent to hers, where he was buried in 2017. “Spending eternity next to Marilyn is too sweet to pass up,” he stated. It is doubtful that Marilyn would have felt the same way about the eternal presence by her side of one of 20th century’s biggest woman-objectifiers.
Around that time, the long process of Norma Jeane’s transformation into Marilyn Monroe was completed. The iconic persona was polished down to the finest detail — the platinum blond, the thick-lashed eyes, the ruby red lips, the emphasized curves, the wiggly walk, the sensually breathy voice. A representation perfectly designed and crafted for the male gaze and pleasure. This character was first showcased in all of her glory in “Niagara,” but it was “Gentlemen prefer Blondes” that propelled Marilyn to stardom. The child that nobody wanted had turned into an idol everybody desired.
“A sex symbol becomes a thing. I hate being a thing.”
By 1953 Marilyn achieved megastar status, but what she really wanted was to be recognized for her acting talent. Fox bosses continued to lock her in the dumb blonde stereotype and refused to negotiate her salary, which was staggeringly lower than her peers. By that time, she was regularly using barbiturates to ease her anxiety and insomnia.
In 1954, after Marilyn refused to participate in “The Girl in Pink Tights”, she was suspended by Fox heads. Just two weeks later, she married DiMaggio, travelled with him to Japan on honeymoon and continued solo to Korea to perform for thousands of American soldiers. Upon returning to L.A, her popularity higher than ever, Marilyn was offered by the studio a new contract, and the lead in “The Seven Year Itch” with a $100,000 bonus.
During production, the famous scene with Marilyn standing over an air vent with her white dress blowing was heavily publicized, a fact that infuriated DiMaggio, who reacted by assaulting her. She promptly filed for divorce, merely nine months after their wedding.
The film ended up being a huge box office hit, but the promised bonus was not paid by Fox to their most profitable star. In response, Marilyn took a measure that had never been taken by anyone in Hollywood before — she disavowed her contract with the studio. Soon thereafter, she left for New York and founded with a friend Marilyn Monroe Productions, thus becoming the second woman in history with her own production company (Mary Pickford was the first).
Fox heads, on their part, seemed to stop at nothing. They initiated legal proceedings against Marilyn, threatened her (“you will never have a job in this city!”) and even resorted to public defamation (“It’s disgusting. She’s had four or five years’ training… and she still can’t act.”) The media took the studio’s side, largely ridiculing Marilyn and her actions. Broadway took it a step further, with a parody that featured her lookalike as a dumb actress who starts a production company.
Meanwhile, in New York, Marilyn attended classes by guru acting Lee Strasberg and dedicated much of her free time to her other passion, reading. She started a romantic relationship with playwright Arthur Miller, that eventually led to her third marriage. Then, before the year was out, Fox raised the white flag. Anxious to get Marilyn back, they reached a new agreement which boosted her pay to $100,000 per project. It also granted her the unprecedented right to choose her films and directors, and allowed her to work on her own projects outside Fox.
Marilyn’s victory was followed by a reversal of attitude on the part of the press. Now they praised her as a “shrewd businesswoman” and admired her achievement as “an example of the individual against the herd.” Later on, her pioneering actions would also be regarded as a historical turning point in the process of dismantling the power-concentrated studio system that dominated Hollywood for decades.
The first film Marilyn chose to make was “Bus Stop”, a drama in which she purposely downplayed her sexuality and glamour. Her performance earned her rave reviews and a Golden Globe Awards nomination for Best Actress. Her next independent production was “The Prince and the Showgirl”.
“I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But I’m working on the foundation.”
In 1957, Marilyn took a hiatus to focus on her marriage. Never having had a family of her own, she grew very close to Miller’s parents — whom she called “mom” and “dad” — and two children from his previous marriage. As Miller once noted, “To understand Marilyn best, you have to see her around children. They love her.” Unfortunately, Marilyn, who had always supported children’s charities and longed for kiddies of her own, could not fulfill her wish of motherhood due to her endometriosis. During that period she suffered a couple of miscarriages. As a result, she fell into depression and her dependence on barbiturates worsened.
In 1958, Marilyn starred in “Some Like It Hot”, winning the Golden Globe for Best Actress. The last movie that she completed was “The Misfits” (1961), whose script was written by Miller. Ironically, their joint project also marked the end of their marriage. During production, Miller embarked on an affair with a set photographer, while Marilyn was sinking deeper into her drug addiction, which eventually led to a ten-day hospitalization. Immediately after the filming finished, Marilyn and Miller parted ways.
After a couple of trying years, 1962 seemed to start off well. Marilyn returned to L.A, purchased a house and looked forward to a new project with Fox. Then, things got complicated again… She contracted sinusitis, but despite medical advice of bed rest, Fox refused to postpone production. The following weeks Marilyn often absented from set due to her illness (and presumably her drug addiction), much to the dismay of the studio heads, who publicly accused her of faking it.
In May (1962), Marilyn participated in President John Kennedy’s birthday celebration, where her sultry rendition of “Happy birthday, Mr. President” led many to suspect that the two were having an affair. Indeed, it is generally believed they had sexual relations on at least one occasion. However, various indications suggest that the president’s younger brother, Robert (who served as the U.S Attorney General), was romantically involved with her.
In June, Fox fired Marilyn, sued her for $750,000 in damages and spread rumors that she was mentally disturbed. Then, just a couple of weeks later they made a U-turn, re-opening negotiations with her to resume production.
Marilyn’s life was also tumultuous on the personal front. Robert Kennedy was distancing himself from her, as he grew concerned that their secret affair would jeopardize his political career. After all, just like his brother John, he was a family man with children.
“On the screen of pitch blackness / comes the shapes of monsters / my most steadfast companions”
In the wee hours of August 5, Marilyn’s housekeeper woke up with a strange feeling. Getting out of bed, she saw light from under Marilyn’s bedroom door, but no response came when she knocked on the locked door. Worried, the housekeeper called Marilyn’ s psychiatrist, who arrived shortly after. Breaking into the bedroom through the window, he found Marilyn dead in bed, empty pill bottles on her nightstand, the phone still clutched in her lifeless hand.
The postmortem examination found a lethal level of Pentobarbital in Marilyn’s liver and blood. Her death was officially ruled as “probable suicide”. She was 36 at her death, still young and beautiful enough for a real Hollywood star.
Speculations surrounding Marilyn’s death started swirling immediately thereafter and continue to make best-selling books to this day. Over the years it has been suggested that she was killed by the Kennedys who feared a scandal, or by the mafia as a menacing message to Robert Kennedy (due to his hard-line stance against organized crime).
It was alleged that Marilyn’s doctor was involved, that she was murdered by a barbiturate injection, that it was all part of a cover-up, but so far no concrete evidence of foul play has been found. Thus, it is widely accepted that it was Marilyn’s slippery, maybe inevitable slide through the downward spiral that eventually led her to the doom of no return. August, after all, is also the month that stars fall.
“I’m not interested in money, I just want to be wonderful.”
In more ways than one, Marilyn was a woman ahead of her time. About a decade before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, she used her influence to allow singer Ella Fitzgerald to play in a club where she was banned due to racial discrimination, thus helping catapult Fitzgerald’s career; She expressed progressive views about homosexuality at a time it was still considered a perversion; She shattered a taboo when she publicly spoke of the sexual abuse she had suffered as a child and as a young actress, long before the #MeToo era.
Marilyn was the victim of pedophilia when she was nobody’s child. She grew to be a woman who was described by acquaintances as brilliant, warm-hearted, insecure, tenacious, extremely complex, and tinged with sadness. Tragically, her almost existential need for recognition, stemming from a lack of a sense of belonging, combined with Hollywood’s infamous casting couch, rendered her a victim of extensive sexual abuse in her years as a starlet.
In an interview to the British talk show This Morning from 2017 — the year in which the Harvey Weinstein’s affair exploded — Joan Collins recalled her first days in Hollywood: “I was a little shocked hearing about Marilyn, because apparently Marilyn was so abused by men… and most of these men were fat and old and ugly and hideous.” Not a few people knew how Marilyn was passed from hand to hand like a toy by Hollywood barons. Some, like Miller, believed that it was a contributing factor to her emotional anguish and ultimately, her death.
The first time that Marilyn herself gave the public a glimpse into the darkness behind the silver screen was in an article from 1953 titled “Wolves I Knew”. In it, she exposed the toxic culture of sexual humiliation towards women in Hollywood, described the harassment patterns and gave examples without naming the perpetrators. It was a remarkably courageous action, especially since at the time Marilyn was not an established veteran of the industry, but a 27-year-old actress who had just made her big break. Marilyn continued to surface the issue of sexual exploitation throughout her career. In fact, she was the first big star who turned the spotlight on Lucifer, the dark side of Venus.
“How are thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer…” Isaiah,14
Trying to fancy what could have happened had the hands of time moved sixty or seventy years forward is an interesting exercise of imagination. Can you picture Marilyn Monroe starring in some box office hit produced by Harvey Weinstein? Can you imagine young Norma Jeane standing outside school, catching the eye of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s huntress of children who preyed on the most vulnerable, underprivileged girls? Well, while Marilyn surely never met Jeffrey or Harvey, she knew all too well the precursors of the predatory paedophile and the wolfish producer, whereas both 21st century’s most famous sex offenders have abused dozens and dozens of others of her like.
Now, that Weinstein has been sentenced to 23 years in prison, Epstein killed himself in jail, and Maxwell is facing charges that could put her behind bars for decades, it seems that the old order of things pertaining to certain constellations of power, money and sexual abuse may actually begin to undergo tectonic changes.
“They’re nothing, these girls, they are trash,” Maxwell once said to an acquaintance about Epstein’s victims, as it never crossed her mind that the trash could come back years later. But it did. It took a long while, and has been full of countless obstacles and hurdles — suppressed complaints, harassment of accusers, threats on their physical safety — but in the end, even if not yet in full, the victims achieved historical justice. Their outstanding triumph has required strength of character, steely determination, exceptional courage and a lot of pain coupled with faith in basic goodness. You may ask Norma Jean, she knows.
