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Authors: Norman Mailer
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of the infantryman.
Only her periods are a clue to this early
distortion of herself. They were unendurable then, and excruciating
later. Zolotow gives a description of fourteen Schwab pharmacy
prescription boxes on a shelf in her dressing room in 1954 — they
have all been ordered to relieve the pain of menstruation; she will
yet make the poorest Christian Scientist in the history of the
religion, for there was no pain she cared to bear if a drug could
be found.
It is only if we conceive of the importance
Ana Lower would be obliged to place upon menstrual pains that we
can comprehend her acquiescence to a plan conceived by Grace
Goddard to marry off Norma Jean, and marry her early. As a
Christian Scientist, Ana might not only believe in the fundamental
non-existence of pain but also have to recognize its significance
when present — Norma Jean was in the grip of some most unchristian
desires. Ana must have had a sense of an imbalance that could crack
Norma Jean overnight, even as Gladys had cracked. Perhaps Ana Lower
felt she could never offer what Norma Jean might need in a crisis.
This seems the only explanation why Ana Lower does not offer to
become her guardian once Doc has been offered a better job in West
Virginia, which means — since Grace will move out of California —
that Norma Jean will have to go back to the orphanage. Ana looks to
marriage as the best solution to the problem. Or, at least, she
does not resist Grace in her plan.
A most curious courtship is arranged. Some
former neighbors of the Goddards named Dougherty have a son named
Jim, pleasant, well-built, interested in sports, and already making
good wages at Lockheed. He owns his own car, a blue Ford coupe. He
is four years older than Norma Jean and is perfectly set up with
girls to date — he is even going with the Queen of the Santa
Barbara Festival. Yet Grace asks him, as a favor to her , to
take Norma Jean to the dance that Doc’s company is giving for its
employees. Already, at her request, he has been driving Norma Jean
from Dougherty’s house to the Goddards often enough to inspire his
girl friend, the Santa Barbara queen, to ask him why he is “hauling
a little sexpot like that around in his car.” Now, maneuvered into
a date with a fifteen-year-old, he feels “until the evening got
started, I thought I was robbing the cradle.”
The evening, however, turned out otherwise.
Zolotow provides Dougherty’s sensations:
Staring up at him with liquescent blue-gray
eyes, her lips tremulously parted, this girl made him feel, he has
said, “like a big shot.” When they danced he discovered a soft
helplessness in her body. . . . By March they were going steady . .
. by May they were engaged.
The process had been accelerated by Grace
Goddard. With Ana Lower she paid a call on Mrs. Dougherty to
suggest that her son and Norma Jean would do well to be married,
for in the words of Christian Science, they could “happify
existence.” Now something contradictory begins to appear in all
accounts. Marilyn will say in later years that she had no interest
in her first husband and only got married at Grace’s prodding in
order to escape the orphanage. Doc Goddard will defend his wife by
saying Norma Jean was in love and “sought Grace’s aid in getting
Jim to propose.” Dougherty will claim it was a “loveless courtship”
and an arranged marriage of convenience. If true, it can hardly be
to his convenience — why would he want to accept?
Since all the motives for the marriage are so
far on Marilyn’s or Grace’s side, we must look to the Dougherty
family for a clue. At Malibu, in 1961, Marilyn will run into a
brother, Tom Dougherty, with whom she had been friendly during her
marriage. Invited by him to come over for a visit, she bites him
off with the remark, “How much is it going to cost?” The echo of
having lived with an Irish family, hard, practical, and grudged to
the bite on money is in the remark. So we may as well have
Only her periods are a clue to this early
distortion of herself. They were unendurable then, and excruciating
later. Zolotow gives a description of fourteen Schwab pharmacy
prescription boxes on a shelf in her dressing room in 1954 — they
have all been ordered to relieve the pain of menstruation; she will
yet make the poorest Christian Scientist in the history of the
religion, for there was no pain she cared to bear if a drug could
be found.
It is only if we conceive of the importance
Ana Lower would be obliged to place upon menstrual pains that we
can comprehend her acquiescence to a plan conceived by Grace
Goddard to marry off Norma Jean, and marry her early. As a
Christian Scientist, Ana might not only believe in the fundamental
non-existence of pain but also have to recognize its significance
when present — Norma Jean was in the grip of some most unchristian
desires. Ana must have had a sense of an imbalance that could crack
Norma Jean overnight, even as Gladys had cracked. Perhaps Ana Lower
felt she could never offer what Norma Jean might need in a crisis.
This seems the only explanation why Ana Lower does not offer to
become her guardian once Doc has been offered a better job in West
Virginia, which means — since Grace will move out of California —
that Norma Jean will have to go back to the orphanage. Ana looks to
marriage as the best solution to the problem. Or, at least, she
does not resist Grace in her plan.
A most curious courtship is arranged. Some
former neighbors of the Goddards named Dougherty have a son named
Jim, pleasant, well-built, interested in sports, and already making
good wages at Lockheed. He owns his own car, a blue Ford coupe. He
is four years older than Norma Jean and is perfectly set up with
girls to date — he is even going with the Queen of the Santa
Barbara Festival. Yet Grace asks him, as a favor to her , to
take Norma Jean to the dance that Doc’s company is giving for its
employees. Already, at her request, he has been driving Norma Jean
from Dougherty’s house to the Goddards often enough to inspire his
girl friend, the Santa Barbara queen, to ask him why he is “hauling
a little sexpot like that around in his car.” Now, maneuvered into
a date with a fifteen-year-old, he feels “until the evening got
started, I thought I was robbing the cradle.”
The evening, however, turned out otherwise.
Zolotow provides Dougherty’s sensations:
Staring up at him with liquescent blue-gray
eyes, her lips tremulously parted, this girl made him feel, he has
said, “like a big shot.” When they danced he discovered a soft
helplessness in her body. . . . By March they were going steady . .
. by May they were engaged.
The process had been accelerated by Grace
Goddard. With Ana Lower she paid a call on Mrs. Dougherty to
suggest that her son and Norma Jean would do well to be married,
for in the words of Christian Science, they could “happify
existence.” Now something contradictory begins to appear in all
accounts. Marilyn will say in later years that she had no interest
in her first husband and only got married at Grace’s prodding in
order to escape the orphanage. Doc Goddard will defend his wife by
saying Norma Jean was in love and “sought Grace’s aid in getting
Jim to propose.” Dougherty will claim it was a “loveless courtship”
and an arranged marriage of convenience. If true, it can hardly be
to his convenience — why would he want to accept?
Since all the motives for the marriage are so
far on Marilyn’s or Grace’s side, we must look to the Dougherty
family for a clue. At Malibu, in 1961, Marilyn will run into a
brother, Tom Dougherty, with whom she had been friendly during her
marriage. Invited by him to come over for a visit, she bites him
off with the remark, “How much is it going to cost?” The echo of
having lived with an Irish family, hard, practical, and grudged to
the bite on money is in the remark. So we may as well have
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