Marilyn Monroe’s intoxicating and bizarre marriage to Arthur Miller – from betrayal to bitter regret
Actress, model and singer Marilyn Monroe obsessed the world as a celebrity ahead of her time.
Her legend was enough to captivate audiences in cinemas and beyond, becoming such an icon that she was even able to perform to a US President.
When she ԁıеԁ from a suspected overdose in 1962, she’d been married three times – last of all to legendary playwright Arthur Miller, who famously snubbed her funeral.
Her marriage to Arthur – who himself ԁıеԁ in 2005 at the age of 89 – had been the longest of her three.
She’d wed James Dougherty, a police officer, in 1942 before they split four years down the line.
Her second spouse was US baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, tying the knot in 1954 but going their separate ways only a year later.
The year after her split from Joe saw her wedding to Arthur – the beginning of what would go on to be a turbulent and intense union.
The press were baffled by Marilyn’s choice of husband, going from an ace athlete to a playwright.
They were even dubbed the newlyweds “The Egghead and the Hourglass”, while one magazine branded them “the most unlikely marriage since the Owl and the Pussycat.”
While the press at the time struggled to wrap their heads about the marriage, it was clear at the time that Marilyn and Arthur lived lifestyles that were worlds apart.
Arthur was said to have been taken aback by the sheer amount of attention and adoration that was heaped upon his wife.
After they were married, Arthur got a full taste of her life as the world’s biggest movie star when they visited London not long after they were married, and were greeted by 400 journalists.
A school choir even serenaded them later that evening.
The marriage was also beset by rumour after whisperings of Arthur’s political allegiances circulated.
He was suspected by some of having been a Communist sympathiser, a major taboo amid 1950s America’s Cold War paranoia.
The rumours generated further rumours, one being that he had married Marilyn to counteract his refusal to give names of Communists to the authorities.
And while his refusal to attend her funeral landed him with accusations that he’d never truly loved her – or married her for reasons other than affection – Arthur’s biographer insists that his love was genuine.
Professor Bigsby said: “He was completely bowled over by her. It was certainly a love affair.
“One of his love letters to her was an almost adolescent outpouring of love.”
But despite this conviction, it’s said that Marilyn stumbled across the regret Arthur felt at having married her.
In his diary, Arthur was said to have expressed his “disappointment” in their marriage.
Marilyn, taking up a pen herself, recorded her own heartbreak at reading her husband’s words.
Author and journalist Sam Kashner told that Marilyn was “devastated.”
“One of her greatest fears,” Kashner writes in Vanity Fair, “That of disappointing those she loved, had come true.”
She appeared to brand Arthur a “peaceful monster” in a heartfelt poem she wrote during a summer stay in the UK.
The pair separated in 1960 after their marriage struggled to recover from Marilyn’s discovery, and divorced the following year.
A recently uncovered essay – dated on the day of Marilyn’s funeral – gives a better insight into Arthur’s disdain for the cult of celebrity that had surrounded his wife.
On his refusal to attend the solemn occasion, he wrote: “Instead of jetting to the funeral to get my picture taken I decided to stay home and let the public mourners finish the mockery.
“Not that everyone there will be false, but enough. Most of them destroyed her, ladies and gentlemen.
“She was destroyed by many things and some of those things are you. And some of those things are destroying you. Destroying you now.
“Now as you stand there weeping and gawking, glad that it is not you going into the earth, glad that it is this lovely girl who you at last κıււеԁ.”
