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Speaker 1: Well, we all have our mother issues, and in fairness,

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Speaker 1: mothers have their kid issues. But imagine your single mother

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Speaker 1: abandons you at a foster home when you're just two

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Speaker 1: weeks old. Your childhood becomes a tangled maze through twelve

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Speaker 1: different foster homes, a couple of orphanages, and occasional returns

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Speaker 1: to your manic, depressive mom's home. Then you have a

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Speaker 1: series of affairs and marriages beginning at sixteen, some to

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Speaker 1: men who beat you. Added to all that you become

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Speaker 1: this thing, this object. I'm Patty Steele. Marilyn Monroe, arguably

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Speaker 1: the most famous sex symbol in Hollywood history and lifelong victim.

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Speaker 1: That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back. She

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Speaker 1: was maybe the most beautiful and fascinating Hollywood star ever,

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Speaker 1: but Marilyn Monroe was a psychological mess. Now imagine a

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Speaker 1: childhood where you're a single mom is in and out

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Speaker 1: of madness, dumping you at the homes of friends or

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Speaker 1: in foster homes or orphanages when she simply can't deal well.

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Speaker 1: It all starts in June of nineteen twenty six, when

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Speaker 1: Gladys Baker brings her two week old daughter Norma Jean

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Speaker 1: as Marilyn was named at birth, to her first foster

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Speaker 1: home in California. She drops in to visit the little

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Speaker 1: One from time to time, and when Marilyn is old enough,

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Speaker 1: Gladys brings her to her apartment in Hollywood for an

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Speaker 1: occasional sleepover. Gladys, who had grown up with an alcoholic

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Speaker 1: father who had fits of rage and finally died in

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Speaker 1: a mental institution, can't escape her own mental illness. When

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Speaker 1: Marilyn is three, Gladys shows up unexpectedly at the current

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Speaker 1: foster home and unsuccessfully tries to run off with Marilyn

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Speaker 1: by stuffing her in a duffel bag. Finally, when Marilyn

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Speaker 1: is seven, her mother brings her home, but a year later,

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Speaker 1: she watches her mother totally lose her mind. She's and

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Speaker 1: screaming like crazy before the cops are called in. Diagnosed

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Speaker 1: as a paranoid schizophrenic, Gladys is institutionalized for the first time.

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Speaker 1: For the next four years, Marilyn has no permanent home.

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Speaker 1: She mostly lives with family or friends, sometimes in the

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Speaker 1: La Orphans Home. She also lives in twelve different foster homes,

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Speaker 1: and horrifyingly, in two of them, she's sexually abused. She'd

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Speaker 1: always been shy, and now she becomes even more withdrawn,

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Speaker 1: and she develops a stutter. Marylyn feels abandoned for a

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Speaker 1: little girl, or for anybody. It is an unbearably painful

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Speaker 1: and unstable life. So this was when she began to

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Speaker 1: dream of an acting career. She later said, I didn't

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Speaker 1: like the world around me. It was grim. Some of

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Speaker 1: my foster families used to send me to the movies

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Speaker 1: to get me out of the house, and there I'd

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Speaker 1: sit all day and into the night there with the

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Speaker 1: screen so big, a little kid, all alone. I loved it.

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Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to be. Then, when the family

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Speaker 1: she was living with got transferred to West Virginia, Marilyn,

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Speaker 1: just sixteen years old, and trying to avoid a return

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Speaker 1: to yet another orphanage, got married to a neighbor. She

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Speaker 1: was totally bored, and while her husband was in the

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Speaker 1: Pacific for World War Two, she decided to sign with

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Speaker 1: a modeling agency. Finally, in nineteen forty six, her mother

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Speaker 1: gets released from the state hospital and comes to live

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Speaker 1: at a friend's house with her daughter. Just as Marilyn's

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Speaker 1: modeling career begins to take off and her marriage break up,

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Speaker 1: But during those years, Gladys is clearly not well. She

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Speaker 1: begins pretending she's a nurse and dressing up like one,

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Speaker 1: and she's emotionally abusive to Marilyn, attacking her about her

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Speaker 1: acting career. Right as Marilyn signs her first deal with

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Speaker 1: a movie studio, Gladys moves away with no forwarding address.

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Speaker 1: The Fox Studios publicity people are fine with Gladys's disappearance,

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Speaker 1: and they talk Marilyn into going along with their pr

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Speaker 1: story that both of her parents are dead, creating a

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Speaker 1: sort of sanitized version of her sad childhood spent bouncing

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Speaker 1: between relatives and foster homes. But the truth did come

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Speaker 1: out later and Marilyn had to deal with the blowback.

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Speaker 1: After moving to a new film studio and dyeing her

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Speaker 1: hair platinum blonde, Marilyn's career began to take off. But

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Speaker 1: here's the thing. She never was able to deal with

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Speaker 1: her horrifying childhood. Her insecurities just grew exponentially as her

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Speaker 1: star rose and Hollywood and a long list of men

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Speaker 1: simply used her. After her first divorce, Marilyn married superstar

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Speaker 1: baseball player Joe DiMaggio. The two met on a blind

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Speaker 1: date six months after he had retired from baseball. But

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Speaker 1: problem is, Joe was used to being the biggest star

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Speaker 1: in the room, and he was bothered by his twenty

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Speaker 1: six year old wife's enormous rise to fame. Numerous friends

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Speaker 1: said he beat her up on several occasions, and nine

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Speaker 1: months later they were divorced. Marilyn later said that that

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Speaker 1: iconic scene in The Seven Year Itch where she stands

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Speaker 1: over a subway grate and her skirt billows up, was

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Speaker 1: the end for her husband. He said to me, exposing

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Speaker 1: my legs and thighs and even my crotch, that was

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Speaker 1: the last straw. Her third and last husband was Pulitzer

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Speaker 1: Prize winning playwright Arthur Miller. They had a fairly happy

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Speaker 1: few years together until her drug addiction resurfaced. At the time,

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Speaker 1: she wrote in her diary, I've always been deeply terrified

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Speaker 1: to really be someone's wife, since I know from life

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Speaker 1: one cannot love another ever really. They finally divorced after

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Speaker 1: five years, just a year and a half before her death.

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Speaker 1: As for her lovers, it was a long list, but

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Speaker 1: it included some of the biggest names of the nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifties and early sixties. Including Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, and

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Speaker 1: of course President John Kennedy and his brother Bobby Kennedy.

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Speaker 1: The Kennedys met her through Frank Sinatra and their brother

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Speaker 1: in law, actor Peter Lawford. He managed the Kennedy's relationship

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Speaker 1: with her. It's clear something went on between them. One

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Speaker 1: well known Hollywood private eye said he had audiotape of

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Speaker 1: JFK having sex with Marylyn after bugging Lawford's house for

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Speaker 1: a political opponent. And some folks think the Kennedys played

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Speaker 1: a role in Maryland's death, including Demaggio himself, who said

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Speaker 1: the Kennedys are lady killers, and Marilyn told me someone

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Speaker 1: was going to do her in. I always knew who

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Speaker 1: killed her, but I didn't want to start a revolution.

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Speaker 1: One biographer says the Kennedy's relationship with Marylyn started to

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Speaker 1: get sticky after her sexy rendition of Happy Birthday for

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Speaker 1: JFK at his forty fifth birthday celebration at Madison Square

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Speaker 1: Garden in May of nineteen sixty two, just months before

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Speaker 1: her death, her appearance in the infamous see through dress,

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Speaker 1: which of course we all saw, trotted back out on

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Speaker 1: Kim Kardashian at the met gala a couple years ago,

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Speaker 1: was apparently humiliating for JFK. He never wanted to see

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Speaker 1: her again. The biographer says, while he hasn't seen proof

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Speaker 1: that the Kennedys were involved in her death, it was

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Speaker 1: pretty clear she had sex with both Bobby and Jack.

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Speaker 1: One fairly damning story has it that Bobby Kennedy was

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Speaker 1: with Marylyn the night she died, trying to calm her

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Speaker 1: down over her upset that JFK wasn't speaking to her.

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Speaker 1: He left the house, but later that night Peter Lawford

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Speaker 1: found her there after calling and getting no answer, and

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Speaker 1: she was dead. He had Kennedy's people come to the

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Speaker 1: house and remove any evidence tying the brothers to her

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Speaker 1: before the cops were called in. As for her relationship

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Speaker 1: with her mother, the two shared bouts of mental illness,

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Speaker 1: and when Marilyn was committed to a mental institution in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, her mom slid her own wrist. She survived,

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Speaker 1: but the last time mother and daughter saw one another

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Speaker 1: was when Gladys visited Marylyn at the hospital. As she left,

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Speaker 1: Marilyn slipped a flask of booze into her mom's purse

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Speaker 1: and Gladys smiled. Without saying goodbye, she simply said, you're

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Speaker 1: such a good girl. Norma Jean Gladys managed to outlive

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Speaker 1: her daughter, Marilyn Monroe by another twenty two years. Hope

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Speaker 1: you're enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele. Follow or subscribe

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Speaker 1: free to dm me if you have a story you'd

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Speaker 1: like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and

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Speaker 1: on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory

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Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia, Premieer Networks, the Elvis Durand Group,

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Speaker 1: and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our

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Speaker 1: writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every two day,

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Speaker 1: Day and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me

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Speaker 1: with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of

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Speaker 1: history you didn't know you needed to know