The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

The lavish production number “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” from the 1953 movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. (Photofest)

Marilyn married Joe DiMaggio in January of 1954, even though there were many indications that the marriage would not work out—not the least of which was his unhappiness over her career. Although Marilyn was forced to leave him when DiMaggio became physically abusive, their love for one another never died. (Retro Photo)

A love letter Marilyn wrote to Joe—addressed to “Dad.” “I want to just be where you are,” she wrote, “and be just what you want me to be.” Unfortunately, what he wanted was for her to just be his wife, not one of the world’s great movie stars. (Getty Images)

The filming of this famous scene from The Seven Year Itch was the catalyst to the end of Marilyn’s relationship with Joe. It so enraged him that he became violent with her that very same evening. Then, as far as she was concerned, the marriage was over. (Retro Photo)

Three iconic poses of a legend. (Photofest)

Marilyn received this very impersonal Christmas card from her mother, Gladys, in December of 1956. She never knew just what kind of communication to expect from her mother, who was at the Rock Haven Sanitarium at the time. (Shaan Kokin/Julien’s Auctions)

By the summer of 1960, Marilyn’s third marriage, to Arthur Miller— seen here on the set of The Misfits—was all but over. (Photofest)

In February 1961, Marilyn was committed to the mental ward at the Payne Whitney Clinic in New York. Thanks to Joe DiMaggio’s intervention, she was later moved to the Neurological Institute of Columbia University- Presbyterian Hospital, where she would remain for almost three weeks. Of course, there was the expected pandemonium when she was finally released from that facility— looking quite beautiful, as always. (Retro Photo)

Meanwhile, Marilyn’s mother, Gladys Baker Eley, tried to commit suicide while locked behind these gates at the Rock Haven Sanitarium in California. (Retro Photo)

According to photographer Bernie Abramson, these three photographs have never been published in any Marilyn Monroe biography. Marilyn’s close friend Pat Kennedy Lawford (left in the top photo); Pat’s husband, Peter Lawford; Marilyn’s occasional lover Frank Sinatra; and Marilyn are seen experimenting with Sinatra’s new Polaroid camera at the Lawford home in Santa Monica, California, circa 1961. (MPTV)

By 1962, Marilyn had done everything she could to see to it that her mother—seen here at Rock Haven Sanitarium—received the proper medical attention for paranoid schizophrenia. However, because her religious beliefs restricted the use of most medications, Gladys’s mental illness was never under control. (Courtesy of Maryanne Reed Collection)

Not at all well. In these two rare photographs, taken on January 20, 1962, Marilyn is seen at a party hosted by Harvey Weinstein, producer of her movie Something’s Got to Give. In the first, she sips on a cocktail while talking to poet Carl Sandburg. In the second—published here for the first time—she is seen dancing while still holding a drink. (Note how thin she is in this picture.) (Getty Images)

Marilyn first met Bobby Kennedy on February 1, 1962, at a dinner party at Pat and Peter Lawford’s home. This receipt disproves the long-reported story that Marilyn became so drunk that night she couldn’t drive herself back home and had to be driven by RFK and a friend. That maybe happened some other time, but on this evening she was definitely driven to and from the Lawford home by Carey Cadillac. (J. Randy Taraborrelli Collection.)

Certainly Kenneth O’Donnell, special assistant to JFK, couldn’t have known the sensation that would be caused by extending this invitation to Marilyn! (J. Randy Taraborrelli Collection)

Another photo that has never before appeared in a Marilyn Monroe biography, of Marilyn and her publicist, Pat Newcomb, arriving at Madison Square Garden for JFK’s birthday party in May 1962. (J. Randy Taraborrelli Collection)

Taken at a party following her performance, this is the only known photograph of Marilyn with both Bobby (left) and President John F. Kennedy. (Cecil Stoughton/Life Magazine, Time-Warner Inc.)

Marilyn performed for JFK wearing what she described as “a dress only Marilyn Monroe could wear.” (Photofest)