Marilyn Monroe's First Husband Didn't Know She Was Modeling Until He Saw Her Pin-Up Photo on a Navy Ship (Exclusive)

Marilyn Monroe's First Husband Didn't Know She Was Modeling Until He Saw Her Pin-Up Photo on a Navy Ship (Exclusive) https://ift.tt/HMW6vGw

The young couple had a lot to learn about each other and little time to do so once he was deployed

Jim Dougherty and Norma Jean Baker
Credit: Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty

NEED TO KNOW

• Marilyn Monroe was married to Jim Dougherty from 1942 to 1946
• The young marriage came when Monroe was facing a return to the orphanage and shortly before Dougherty shipped out with the Merchant Marines
• ICON Collection president and CEO Bryan Johns tells PEOPLE about the marriage

Marilyn Monroe's first husband didn't know exactly what he was getting into.

Then Norma Jean Baker, Monroe was 16 years old when she married Jim Dougherty, a classmate at Van Nuys High School. Bryan Johns, President and CEO of the ICON Collection, explains, "When he was married to her, she was 16, and the reason he married her was that she was going to have to go to another foster home."

He continued, "The foster home she was living in at that time was the family she was closest to. Her aunt, as she called her, had to move across the country. She was like, 'Please don't take me back to the orphanage.' "

Grace McKee Goddard helped share their plea with her neighbor, whose son, Jim Dougherty, agreed to marry her in 1942. However, their relationship began to disintegrate when Dougherty joined the Merchant Marines and she began modeling.

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Marilyn Monroe's early modeling photo, where she's listed as Norma Jean Dougherty
Credit: Angela Andaloro

Part of Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon, the inaugural exhibition presented in conjunction with the centennial of Marilyn Monroe, is a 1946 modeling book featuring Monroe as Norma Jean Dougherty. It was through that very shoot that Dougherty learned his wife had taken to modeling, Johns revealed.

"He was deployed. He was in the Navy, and he happened to see the guys on his ship. They had a pin-up of his wife, and he didn't know she was doing that. She was working at an aircraft factory making parachutes and stuff. There was a famous photographer, a guy named David Conover, who saw her at the time and picked her out of the working line making the parachutes, and said, 'Oh, will you pose for me?' And that's what started her career."

Marilyn Monroe as Norma Jean Dougherty Credit: ICON collection	The Models' Bluebook Credit: ICON collection

While Monroe went on to become a beacon of glamour, she didn't always act the part. In her downtime, "she loved to just kind of slum around," Johns said.

"She was messy. Sometimes she wouldn't wash her hair for a week. I mean, that's kind of where she lived. She was really kind of... I think a lot of people don't know how generous she was or how human she was. She loved to do the dishes. She was very proud of how clean she could get dishes. And our friend said she'd come over to her house, and she would love spraying champagne down the staircase, and then she'd spend two hours cleaning it up."

Marilyn Monroe in 1954
Credit: Baron/Hulton Archive/Getty

He continued, "She had this amazing human side where she would just do anything for anyone. And so I think people don't really understand that about her. Everything's come to this, like her death. It comes to the mystery, which is probably why it catapulted her into an icon.

Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon presents a curatedMarilyn Monroe's First Husband Didn't Know She Was Modeling Until He Saw Her Pin-Up Photo on a Navy Ship (Exclusive) selection of rare and historically significant artifacts that illuminate the life, career, and cultural legacy of one of the most recognizable figures in modern history. The ICON Collection constitutes the majority of works on view, alongside other Marilyn Monroe loans from additional private collectors. 

Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon will be on view at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures from May 31, 2026, to February 28, 2027.