Who Were Marilyn Monroe’s Most Famous Lovers? Truth vs. Rumor

Jim Dougherty

Monroe was once 16 years aged and nonetheless referred to as Norma Jeane Baker when she married Jim Dougherty, a classmate at Van Nuys Top Faculty, in 1942.

Their dating started to crumble when Dougherty joined the Service provider Marines and she or he started modeling. They have been divorced through 1946.

“If I hadn’t gone into the Merchant Marines during World War II, she would still be Mrs. Dougherty today,” he informed PEOPLE in 1976.

Charlie Chaplin Jr.

Rumor has it that Monroe had an affair with the mythical Charlie Chaplin’s son, Charlie Jr., in 1947. The connection allegedly ended when Charlie stuck Marilyn in his brother Sydney’s mattress.

Charlie referenced the affair in his autobiography, and Anthony Summers mentions the connection in his stock Goddess: The Confidential Lives of Marilyn Monroe.

The alleged romance was once additionally explored in bleached (2022), starring Ana de Armas in an Oscar-nominated function as Monroe, in line with Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 magazine of the similar identify. Even though unconfirmed, the movie depicted Monroe in a three-way dating with Charlie and Edward “Eddy” G. Robinson Jr.

Milton Berle

Milton Berle and Monroe first met at the i’m ready of Girls of the Refrain in 1948. Even though the comic was once formally courting movie famous person Adele Jergens on the day, Berle claimed to have had a temporary affair with the younger actress.

Berle, the primary celebrity of the TV pace (and, in step with Truman Capote and showbiz lore, famously well-endowed), additionally starred with Monroe as himself within the aptly titled movie Let’s Assemble Love in 1960.

“Marilyn was on the climb in Hollywood, but there was nothing cheap about her,” he wrote in his 1975 autobiography. “She wasn’t one of the starlets around town that you put one meal into and threw into the sack. Maybe she didn’t know exactly who she was, but she knew she was worth something. She had respect for herself. Marilyn was a lady.”

Natasha Lytess

Monroe met Natasha Lytess, her cherished drama mentor, when she signed a trim oath with Columbia Photos in 1948. The duo would develop into just about inseparable off and on i’m ready over the later seven years, sparking rumors of a dating.

The actress’ dependence on Lytess grew so intense that she started refusing to movie scenes with out her mentor within reach. The idea persevered when Monroe moved into Lytess’ house to organize for her function in Don’t Trouble to Knock (1952).

Generation the character in their dating remained a thriller, Lytess was once overtly adverse to Monroe’s male suitors, particularly Joe DiMaggio.

“She was a great teacher, but she got really jealous about the men I saw. She thought she was my husband!” Monroe as soon as stated of her tutor, with whom she sooner or later parted tactics in 1956.

As for rumors of alternative lesbian affairs with Barbara Stanwyck and Marlene Dietrich, Monroe reputedly put the problem to remains in her autobiography, My Tale, which was once immune in 1974. “A man who had kissed me once had said it was very possible I was a lesbian because I apparently had no response to males — meaning him,” she wrote. “I didn’t contradict him because I didn’t know what I was. … Now, having fallen in love, I knew what I was. It wasn’t a lesbian.”

Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan, considered one of Hollywood’s all-time superior administrators, admitted to having a temporary affair with a tender Monroe life he was once married to playwright Molly Thacher.

In step with The Hollywood Reporter, Kazan confessed in unearthed non-public letters to Thacher that he slept with the actress, writing, “I’m not sorry about it.”

He added: “I’m not ashamed at all, not a damn bit, of having been attracted to her. She is nothing like what she appears to be now, or even appears to have turned into now. She was a little stray cat when I knew her.”

Kazan was once a alike buddy of Monroe’s year husband, Arthur Miller, and likewise referred to DiMaggio in his letters to Thacher, pronouncing the ballplayer beat up Monroe “several times.”

The Kennedy brothers

Monroe’s maximum notorious rumored affairs have been with former President John F. Kennedy and upcoming his brother, Legal professional Normal Robert F. Kennedy. Some have even urged that her dating with the 2 males performed a task in her premature demise.

Rumors of an affair have been spurred partly through her sultry “Happy Birthday” efficiency for the commander-in-chief at his forty fifth party at Madison Sq. Grassland on Would possibly 19, 1962, simply months ahead of her demise.

Monroe biographer James Spada informed PEOPLE in 2012 that life he doesn’t imagine there’s any evidence that the Kennedys have been liable for Monroe’s demise, “it was pretty clear that Marilyn had had sexual relations with both Bobby and Jack.”

In his 2023 biography, Jackie: People, Personal, Confidential, J. Randy Taraborrelli detectable a stunning connection between Monroe and the previous president’s spouse, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Because it became out, each ladies shared the similar therapist, Dr. Marianne Kris, whom Jackie started eye for her PTSD following her husband’s assassination.

“When Jackie confronted her,” Taraborrelli wrote, “[Dr.] Kris said she felt no responsibility to inform her about any former patients in the same way she’d never reveal that she’d ever treated Jackie. Marianne asked, ‘How is this relevant?’ to which Jackie responded, ‘How is that not relevant?’ ”

Joe DiMaggio

She was once “like a good double-play combination,” the baseball superior DiMaggio informed a pal later he and Monroe have been offered on a fickle year in 1952.

Six months into leaving, he noticed the then-26-year-old actress, within the phrases of the overdue prolific biographer Donald Spoto, as “a beautiful blonde showgirl who might double as a devoted mother and homemaker.”

Monroe, who additionally longed for a house and youngsters, was once shocked through the well-known ballplayer. “I expected a flashy New York sports type, and instead I met this reserved guy who didn’t make a pass at me right away,” she stated of DiMaggio in Spoto’s 1993 biography of her. “He treated me like something special.”

They married on Jan. 14, 1954, in a quitness rite at Town Corridor in his local San Francisco. However issues arose as DiMaggio, acquainted with being the most important famous person within the room, changed into through his spouse’s skyrocketing repute.

The couple divorced that October, 9 months later their wedding ceremony. Monroe upcoming stated her now-infamous billowing skirt scene in The Seven-Past Itch (1955) was once the overall level of competition: “He said … exposing my legs and thighs, even my crotch — that was the last straw.”

But they remained alike buddies, and for two decades later Monroe’s demise, DiMaggio despatched roses to her grave 3 times each and every date.

Marlon Brando

Possibly the 2 most famed actors in their year, Monroe and Marlon Brando have been rumored to have in short dated in 1955, later her parting from DiMaggio and ahead of her dating with Miller.

Brando escorted Monroe to the premiere of The Rose Tattoo (pictured), and the 2 remained pleasant till the top of her presen.

Arthur Miller

Monroe would upcoming say it was once love in the beginning seeing when she met the writer and playwright in 1950 at the i’m ready of As Younger As You Really feel (1951).

The duo didn’t reconnect till 1955 later she had divorced DiMaggio and moved from Hollywood, Calif., to Untouched York Town. They started secretly courting and have been married in 1956.

“We’re so congenial, this is the first time I’ve been really in love. Arthur is a serious man, but he has a wonderful sense of humor. We laugh and joke a lot. I’m mad about him,” she’s quoted as pronouncing of Miller in 1956 in Jane Russell’s 1989 stock, Marilyn Monroe and the Digital camera.

In the beginning, Monroe flourished clear of Hollywood in her extra customary presen. She started cooking, cleansing and taking good care of Miller’s kids, who all beloved spending day along with her. But if Monroe returned to paintings on The Misfits (1961), written through Miller, their dating started to disintegrate.

Monroe’s drug habit led to issues on i’m ready and at house, and in a while ahead of the movie’s premiere, she and Miller divorced later 5 years of marriage. Simply 19 months upcoming, Monroe fatally overdosed.

Frank Sinatra

The bleached Bombshell and Ol’ Blue Visions in short dated later her parting from Miller.

Next her fracture from the playwright, Monroe stayed at Frank Sinatra’s space for a day later transferring again to Los Angeles. The romance cooled off through 1961 when the crooner proposed to Juliet Prowse, however the two remained buddies till her demise.

Jerry Lewis

Overdue comic Jerry Lewis claimed to have had a mysterious love affair with Monroe all over a candid 2011 GQ interview.

First, Lewis insisted that Monroe’s affair with former President Kennedy by no means took place, pronouncing, “I’m telling you what I know. Never! And the only reason I know is because I did. Okay?”

When the interviewer reacted with disbelief, Lewis confident the tale was once true, pronouncing that Monroe impaired intercourse like he impaired humor: “She needed that contact to be sure it was real.”

So what was once the affair like?

“It was … long,” he stated. “I was crippled for a month.” Next any other refreshment, he quipped, “And I thought Marlene Dietrich was great!”