Read Marilyn: A Biography for Free Online

when she was relatively free of sleeping
pills, friends will speak of her extraordinary vitality and Miller
will attribute part of her readiness for pill-taking to her powers
of recuperation, which left her willing to take greater chances
with her health — a confidence found in many a junkie.
    In fact, as we look at those early
photographs, it is a rugged little boy-girl who grins back, an
early record of a child who seems more likely to turn out an
athlete than an actress. And although she will not become the
world’s greatest dancer, it is impossible to study her films
without being obliged to recognize how well she has trained herself
to move — she has easily enough coordination to be on a girl’s
softball team or in a roller derby. Even a snapshot taken at the
age of four with foster-brother Lester, two months younger than
herself, shows Norma Jean preempting the leadership of their two
bodies, while her face has the rugged bulldog solidity, the wide
jaws and wide nose of her father’s features. She grew up with
Lester in these first years, played with him, ate with him, and was
even set next to him for sunning in the same baby carriage. Since
girl and boy were referred to as “the twins” by the Bolenders,
Lester is Norma Jean’s first mate, or at any rate the first of
future habits she formed for living with a mate are with Lester.
Since she was stronger and “got into more trouble than the other
kids” it suggests her first relation with men was to dominate.
Early relations do not engrave one’s sexual possibilities for life
so much as set up a school of habits to call upon. So her years
with Lester can explain some of the difficulty she found with men
who had independence of her (such as her three husbands).
    It should be added that the Bolenders adopted
Lester legally, which they did not care to do for Norma Jean or
could not afford to do. Besides, Gladys still wanted her child. The
adoption of Lester, however, had to establish a difference in
treatment. Ida Bolender claims she loved Norma Jean “just like my
own,” and there is evidence in the photographs. Norma Jean even
looks pampered in one snapshot where she is wearing a ruffled dress
and scalloped bonnet. When we learn the outfit was put together by
Ida Bolender on her sewing machine, the idea of a child who was
utterly ignored in her first years has nothing to sustain it. Too
much craft has gone into the making of the dress.
    Still, there is a difference. Lester could
address Ida as his mama, Norma Jean could not; both could undress
(at least once) in the front yard to examine each other, but Norma
Jean was the one who would catch the blame — it is part of the
scenario of dread in the mind of the Silent Majority that a boy’s
penis is, on occasion, exhibitable, but murder draws a rifle sight
on open vagina. Ida Bolender may well have been scolding Norma Jean
to protect her from the future wrath of neighbors — a fear not
altogether out of contact with real ground, as we will yet
discover. Quiet Hawthorne streets. Norma Jean’s first song learned
at Sunday school was “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know,” and she sings
it to the world at large, once even in a crowded cafeteria.
    If, however, she was giving signs of vivacity
and eagerness to perform, a subtle envy had to be created again in
Ida — it is no joy to have adopted the less interesting child.
While equality was the order of treatment, and a tricycle was
bought for the use of both children as a Christmas present, it is
not beside the point that Lester was riding it when Norma Jean
pushed him over, and thereby excited Ida to give her a whipping
with a razor strop. Gladys comes to visit, and agrees with Ida’s
explanation of the punishment when Norma Jean complains to her.
    But then, Gladys was trapped in
embarrassments. Just previously, she had come to visit with dark
glasses — she was hiding a black eye! Under Ida’s shocked scrutiny,
she lit a cigarette — it is 1929! — then