Marylin Monroe was another fan favorite of
our boys. In February 1954 she traveled to Korea to entertain the troops. She
performed a quickly thrown-together show titled Anything Goes to
audiences which totaled over 100,000 troops over 4 days. Then tour was also a
chance for the film star to overcome a degree of stage fright. She remarked
that the Korea trip “was the best thing that ever happened to me. I never felt
like a star before in my heart. It was so wonderful to look down and see a
fellow smiling at me”.
She was also married to a sailor before she
hit the big time. James Dougherty, a retired Los Angeles police detective who
earned a niche in Hollywood history when he married a pretty teenager named
Norma Jean Baker in the early 1940s, years before she became the iconic sex
symbol Marilyn Monroe. They were married for four years before she hit the big
time. He only referred to her as Norma Jean.
After Dougherty received an overseas
assignment, his wife moved back to Van Nuys. She landed a job at Radioplane
Co., where she initially packed and inspected the parachutes that attached to
miniature, remote-controlled target planes.
After a photographer assigned to take
pictures of women working as part of the war effort used her as a subject, the
young Mrs. Dougherty became a sought-after model in the Los Angeles area.
Hollywood soon beckoned. And, when her
marriage to her absent husband crumbled as her career ambitions rose, she
sought a quickie divorce in Las Vegas; the marriage was officially over in
September 1946.
I guess that’s just how it goes in love and
war! I hope you enjoy the photos…
(Norma Jean and her First Husband)
(Good Bye Norma Jean)
