Interview with Blonde Bombshells

I’ll be honest with you. Interviewing blonde bombshells was not my first thought. I was simply going to interview Goldilocks – you know, of the Three Bears fame. In fact, I channeled her using my supernatural powers, and asked her to divulge the true story about the Three Bears.

Goldie (she asked me to call her that) replied: ‘In a nutshell, I came, I trespassed, I ate a little porridge, I broke a little chair, I slept in a little bed. When the bears arrived, I was frightened and ran home. Big deal! The whole episode was blown out of proportion.’

Her story was so simple – and so short – I needed another idea. Thinking about Goldilocks led me to thoughts about blondes which made me recall two very famous platinum blonde movie bombshells who had so much in common: Harlean Harlow Carpenter and Norma Jean Baker. So I channeled them instead. Here is what they had to say.

Early Childhood

me – It is amazing to me that so many aspects of your lives were so similar. Ms. Harlow, why don’t you begin first?

Jean Harlow – Please, call me Jean. I was born in Kansas City, Missouri on March 3, 1911. My father, Mont Clair Carpenter, was a dentist and my mother, also named Jean, was the daughter of a wealthy real estate broker. I guess you could call us upper middle class.

On my birth certificate my name is Harlean Harlow Carpenter but my nickname was ‘Baby’ – everyone called me that. In fact, ‘it wasn’t until I was five and entered in a finishing school for girls that I learned my real name was not Baby.’ True story.

My take-charge mother divorced my mild-mannered father when I was eleven years old. I loved my dad but saw very little of him after my parents’ divorce. Perhaps that’s why I was often attracted to older men.

Marilyn Monroe – And you can call me, Marilyn. I was born in Los Angeles, California on June 1, 1926. My mother, Gladys Baker Mortenson, was a film technician and named me Norma Jeane. With an ‘e.’ I never knew my father. When I was seven, my mother was committed to a mental institution and I grew up in a series of foster homes. Upper middle class? Not!

My mother once told me that my biological father was a man named Charles Stanley Gifford, a salesman working for RKO Pictures. But he always denied that and I grew up without knowing a father. Perhaps that’s why I, too, was often attracted to older men. (Marilyn and Jean give each other an enthusiastic high five)

me – Hollywood and the movies seemed to have played a large part in the lives of both your mothers while you were growing up.

Jean – My mother was a very attractive, controlling woman who dreamed of being a film star. After divorcing my father she took me to Hollywood to try to fulfill her unrealistic dream. But at the age of 34, she was seen as ‘too old’ for the movies. So we returned to Kansas City.

Marilyn – My mother was absent most of my growing-up life. She, too, was a very pretty woman but ‘I remember that she seldom smiled.’ She loved going to movies and was a big fan of yours, Jean.

After my mother’s nervous breakdown, Grace Goddard, a friend of the family, became my legal guardian. Grace loved the movies, and was your faithful fan, too. She bleached her hair platinum and often wore white dresses like you did in films. She would tell friends she knew I was going to be a movie star like you one day. (Another high five)

me – Tell me about your first marriage, Jean.

Jean –When I was only 16, I met and fell in love with Charles (Chuck) Fremont McGrew, a young businessman who was slated to inherit millions. We eloped and moved to Los Angeles. My mother was not a happy camper. She also remarried that year and followed me to Hollywood with her new husband.

After two years, Chuck and I drifted apart and we were divorced.

Marilyn – When I was only 16, my guardian, Grace, had to move east with her husband and could not take me with them. So she arranged for me to marry the son of a neighbor, James (Jim) Dougherty, 21, who worked with me at an aircraft plant. My nickname for him was ‘Daddy.’ That ought to tell you something.

This was a marriage of convenience but I felt abandoned when Jim joined the Merchant Marine. We were divorced four years later.

me – This may read like an episode of ‘Anything you Can Do, I Can Do Better,’ but go ahead. Tell me about some more similarities in your lives.

Jean – In 1929, I posed nearly nude for the photographer, Edwin Bower Hesser. Nudity was rarely shown in those days and Anita Loos, the writer, said ‘… my skin had the quality of an alabaster statue.’

In ‘Red Dust’ (1932) with Clark Gable, I caused a sensation by taking a bath in a rain barrel. I seldom wore a bra and disliked wearing underwear so I went without it whenever possible.

‘Men like me because I don't wear a brassiere. Women like me because I don't look like a girl who would steal a husband. At least not for long.’

Marilyn – I posed nude for a calendar 20 years after you. ‘I was broke and needed the money. I’m not ashamed of it.’

I disliked wearing underwear, too, and rarely wore it although I did wear bras. But I slept in the nude. ‘I’m only comfortable when I’m naked.’

Jean – My hair was a natural ash blonde but I had it bleached platinum for the film, ‘Platinum Blonde’ (1931). I became America’s newest sex symbol – the Blonde Bombshell – and kept the platinum color. Pearl Porterfield was the name of my studio hairdresser.

Marilyn – ‘As a child, I had platinum blond hair and was called tow-head. I hated that and dreamed of having golden hair … until I saw Harlow with beautiful platinum hair like mine.’

I had seen most of Jean’s films as I grew up in Hollywood in the 30s – she was my role model – blonde, pretty, sexy-looking and intelligent. And guess what? Pearl Porterfield became my hairdresser, too.

Everyone on the MGM lot called me, 'Baby' except Clark Gable. He was a very close friend who always called me, 'Sis'.

me – How did you create your stage name?

Jean – Very few people called me Harlean. Most called me Baby. My mother had created my name from her maiden name, Harlow, and first name, Jean. So I took her maiden name for my stage name and became Jean Harlow.

Marilyn – This is getting eerie. I also adopted my mother’s maiden name, Monroe, as my stage name. Ben Lyon, a talent executive at 20^th Century Fox suggested my first name, Marilyn – he was fond of alliteration. And I have to admit it was way more sophisticated than Norma Jeane.

Jean – You want to know what is really eerie? Before Ben Lyon became an executive, he was an actor. He was my co-star in ‘Hell’s Angels.’ (They both gasp)

me – How did you get into the movies, Jean?

Jean – I was not looking for an acting career but I needed a job. A girlfriend asked me to go with her to register as an extra with Central Casting. I had bit parts in fourteen different short films in 1929.

Little by little, I was getting bigger although not much better parts. In ‘Double Whoopee’ (1929) for example, I walk into a hotel lobby unaware that the doorman, Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy, has caught my gown in the taxi door, and I arrive at the reception desk wearing only a flimsy slip. That was the beginning of my sex symbol image.

In 1930, Howard Hughes turned his silent film, ‘Hell’s Angels’, into a sound film and gave me a starring role replacing the Norwegian actress, Greta Nissen, who had a strong accent unsuitable for talkies. This World War I epic became a smash hit and my career took off.

Footnote: The premiere of ‘Hell’s Angels’ on May 27, 1930, drew a crowd of more than 50,000 at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. The film contains an expensive 8-minute, 2-color Technicolor sequence – the only color footage that exists of Jean Harlow.

me – When did you get your first acting opportunity, Marilyn?

Marilyn – In 1947, I had bleached my hair and was modeling swimsuits. Howard Hughes, the head of RKO Studios offered me a screen test but I signed a six-month contract with 20^th Century Fox instead for $125 per week. It lapsed a year later.

Then Columbia gave me a six-month contract and a role in ‘Ladies of the Chorus”’(1948) in which I got to sing two songs. I re-signed a seven-year contract with 20^th Century and had small parts in two 1950 films – ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ and ‘All about Eve'.’I played ditzy but very sexy blondes.

But it was my starring roles in‘ Niagara’ and ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ (1953) which launched my career as a sex symbol. The press labeled me ‘the new Harlow.’ (Marilyn and Jean hug each other)

me – Tell me about your second marriage.

Jean – I married Paul Bern in July 1932 while filming ‘Red Dust.’ Paul was a MGM producer and right-hand man to Irving Thalberg who was the right-hand man to Louis B. Mayer, MGM chief. As you might have guessed, Paul, 42, was twice as old as me and I was attracted by his quiet, intellectual demeanor.

Four months after our marriage, Paul committed suicide. He left a suicide note which read: ‘Dearest dear, Unfortunately this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and wipe out my abject humiliation. I love you. Paul. You understand last night was only a comedy.’ (Jean starts to cry and Marilyn hugs her)

Marilyn – My second husband was the famous New York Yankees baseball player, Joe DiMaggio. I was 28 and he was 40. In 1954, we met on a dinner date arranged by one of his friends, eloped and married. 274 days later we divorced. The grounds? Mental cruelty.

Joe became uncomfortable with my sexy image in the movies which came to a head when I was filming ‘The Seven Year Itch’ in New York City. There is a famous scene in which I stand over a subway grate and gusts from a passing subway car blow up my skirt. The scene required numerous takes and the crowd which had gathered to watch cheered loudly each time. Joe became irate – it was a tipping point. End of marriage.

Jean – After Paul died, I became the center of a messy scandal. There was speculation that he had been impotent or a bigamist (he had a common-law wife). To save my reputation, MGM arranged my marriage to cinematographer Hal Rosson. We were married for six months before we divorced.

Footnote: Rosson lived another 53 years after his divorce from Harlow but he never remarried.

Then I fell in love in 1936 with William Powell, the actor who was my co-star in ‘Libeled Lady’. And an older man, of course. He had just ended a marriage with Carole Lombard, and we became engaged.

We attended the 1936 Academy Awards with my close friend and co-star in six movies, Clark Gable, and his new love, Carole Lombard . . . who was Powell’s ex-wife.

Marilyn – Another coincidence, Jean, I later worked with William Powell in ‘How to Marry a Millionaire'.

My third marriage was to Arthur Miller, the playwright, in 1956 – he was only eleven years older than me. But this marriage also ended in divorce in 1961. I became, how shall I say it? ‘emotionally fragile’ and was admitted to a psychiatric clinic. Joe DiMaggio secured my release and brought me to the Yankees’ Florida spring training camp to recuperate. We remained good friends until the day I died.

At a dinner party Jean continuously addressed Margot Asquith (wife of British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith) as ‘Margot’, pronouncing the ‘t’. Margot finally said to her, ‘No, Jean, the 't' is silent, like in 'Harlow’.

In the video below, Peter Lawford introduces Marilyn who arrived on stage a few moments late, as the 'late Marilyn Monroe.' (She died three months later.)

me – What would you say are other similarities you both shared?

Jean – The characters I portrayed were ‘sex vultures. I was not a born actress. I had to work hard, listen carefully, and do things over and over again in order to improve.’

My star rose as I played women of loose moral character and my movies made huge money during the Great Depression – but there was just one problem: I hated my sex symbol image.

Marilyn – Me, too. I hated playing ‘dumb, ditzy blondes'. I enrolled at the Actors Studio in New York and studied privately with Lee Strasberg, the director. ‘All I wanted was to be loved, for myself and my talent.’

Jean – We both lived on Palm Drive in Beverly Hills – it was my last residence.

Marilyn – That is a coincidence. I lived on Palm Drive twice – once with my manager and lover, Johnny Hyde, and again, further down the street with Joe DiMaggio during our short marriage.

‘Johnny was more than twice my age … a gentle, kind, brilliant man … who inspired me to read good books and enjoy good music.’

Jean – We both helped a U.S. president celebrate his birthday the same year we died. In one of my last public appearances, I visited the White House in January 1937 for FDR’s annual birthday ball.

Marilyn – And I traveled to New York in May 1962 to sing "Happy Birthday" to John F. Kennedy.

Jean – Clark Gable was my co-star in my last movie, ‘Saratoga’ (1937).

Marilyn – Clark Gable was my co-star, too, in my last movie, ‘The Misfits’ (1961) written by my then-husband, Arthur Miller. Clark died later that year of a heart attack.

Jean – I was a voracious reader and in 1934 with my then-husband Paul Bern, as my mentor, I wrote a romantic novel, ‘Today is Tonight’. ‘It’s about a girl with lots of love who weakens now and then but clings to an ideal. The heroine is based on me.’ (The book was not published until 1965.)

Marilyn – I read everything I could get my hands on, too, and collaborating with screenwriter, Ben Hecht, I wrote a memoir, ‘My Story’. Joe (DiMaggio) was not happy with some of the book’s revelations.

me – Which actress was intensely jealous of you?

Jean – Joan Crawford had been the MGM sexpot for years and when they brought in the Baby (me), she revealed her jealousy over and over to Hollywood writers like Dorothy Manners.

Marilyn – And a generation later, she attacked the ‘scanty attire’ that I wore on the night I won a Photoplay Magazine award for ‘Fastest Rising Star’. She told a reporter that … ‘the public likes provocative feminine personalities. But it also likes to know … the actresses are ladies.’ She was a b…..

Jean – My final film, ‘Saratoga’, was halted when I collapsed on the set. I was suffering from kidney failure that caused me to retain fluids. Clark (Gable) noticed this when he had to lift me into the upper berth of a Pullman car during a scene. He complained that I weighed more and was harder to lift.

There was still one week of shooting left on the film when I died so my stand-in replaced me in the remaining footage. Clark said the experience was ‘like being in the arms of a ghost’.

Marilyn – My health had been so fragile that I was temporarily fired from my last film, ‘Something’s Got to Give’. Later I was re-hired at a higher salary. Existing footage shows me looking slimmer than ever before, with an almost ethereal beauty. The film remains unfinished.

Jean – There were many rumors concerning my early demise June 7, 1937 at the age of 26. One story claimed that repeatedly bleaching my signature platinum blonde hair was the cause of my death. Another laid the blame on my mother’s belief in Christian Science which was false.

I received around-the-clock medical attention but the cause of death was uremic poisoning. There was no cure for renal or kidney failure at that time – no kidney transplants. A contributing factor may have been the scarlet fever I suffered as a child.

My fiancé, William Powell, regularly sent flowers to my resting place in a $25,000 marble crypt he purchased for me.

Marilyn – Theories about the cause of my death at the age of 36 on August 5, 1962 range from accidental drug overdose to various murder scenarios. The coroner stated the cause of death as acute barbiturate poisoning as a result of a ‘probable suicide’.

My ex-husband, Joe DiMaggio, sent roses to my grave three times a week for twenty years.

Thank you, Jean and Marilyn, for sharing so much of yourselves. You both had the awesome ability to combine sensuality with both wit and vulnerability … to be desirable to men and beautiful, without being threatening, to other women.

And you may not have given yourselves enough credit as natural comediennes. The ability to be funny is not easily learned. Audiences responded to you both because you were such fun to watch. Trust me.

© Copyright BJ Rakow, Ph.D. 2013. All rights reserved. Author, "Much of What You Know about Job Search Just Ain't So." Learn to write a dynamic resume and cover letter, network effectively, interview confidently, and negotiate salary.