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PAUL: Would you say that the incident in the back bedroom of the Arbol house, involving Norma Jeane and the man with the candy sucker was the defining moment of betrayal and emotional abandonment of Norma Jeane by Gladys? JOHN: Yes. Not what occurred in the back room, but Gladys’ denial of it and punishment of Norma Jeane for presenting it to Gladys. PAUL: Do you believe Grace McKee exhibited variations of a life lived vicariously as to coaching Norma Jeane on the idea that the child was born to be a star, that it was destiny or preordained that little Norma Jeane would someday be in movies? JOHN: Grace understood how pretty the child was and Grace projected her own desires upon the innocence of Norma Jeane. Coincidentally, those desires fit splendidly — a credit to Grace’s intuitive sense; but also reaching out from her own misery and failure to be anything in Hollywood (the worst of fates!) and believing she could live it through Norma Jeane. PAUL: In talking about the movie star dreams that Grace had for Norma Jeane, and the fancy brunches they had together on Broadway, did you interpret Norma Jeane's comment, "...all the things I learned from Grace were the same as being delivered to myself...", as meaning a sort of long overdue psychological awakening, as if young Norma Jeane finally came into her own, like she'd been separated from her true self previously by emotional trauma and abuse? JOHN: No. It was as if the girl heard an angel talking to her and saying the same things Grace would say, and the girl interpreted this as voice from herself — speaking to herself; what Grace was saying was the same as was being delivered to herself. PAUL: Would it be fair to say that Norma Jeane's drug addictions began with abuse of over the counter pain killers like simple aspirin? Not long after her marriage to Jim Dougherty began to sour, she was gulping aspirin while on a photo shoot with Bob Shannon. JOHN:
She went on pain killers at age seventeen — maybe over the counter, but
more likely prescribed by the doctor she saw as a teenager. This is a
fact Marilyn always concealed — the female trouble; it would have been a
terrible mar on the Marilyn Image — the beauty “wanted by every man”
who in reality could never be a whole woman; just a gorgeous, lovely,
pretend shell. A fact not tossed about is that Marilyn never let on to
DiMaggio that she suffered endometriosis and would “probably” never
have children. She hated having sex at times because it was too painful
and DiMaggio took this as a rejection, PAUL: Do you feel that Marilyn was temporarily afraid of marriage, in general, after the failure of the union with Dougherty? She seemed to imply a sort of blanket statement based on her feeling that marriage to Dougherty was a disaster. Her comment to friend Nikki Morgan..."There isn't any way in the world somebody's going to make me go through all that again," regarding the marriage proposal of photographer Andre De Dienes, gives the impression that Marilyn looked upon marriage as a kind of punishment or prison. JOHN: That was a smart-ass remark made by her — not intended to be other than telling Nikki “where it’s at — all this romance and marriage horseshit!” Marilyn did not enjoy sex, and Dougherty (as did DiMaggio) took it as a rejection of the self-centered macho male attitude: a stiff dick rules and wives must bow to the breadwinner’s organ and salute — on-call — with a wide-open, thankful pair of legs. Introduction
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thus flew into a fury when she
would be the center of sexual attention — on every cover half nude,
showing her panties to a thousand men on Times Square. He punished her for
this, and only later did he find out the reasons and then he was
apologetic and sympathetic; the only person who then understood their past
actions against her and he did all he could to make it up to her.
