Marilyn's Affair With Bobby example essay topic
She was found dead in the guesthouse of her Los Angeles home, and the official ruling was a suicide by overdose of sleeping pills. However, to many people the explanation of her death just doesn't ring true. Since her death on the night of August 4th, 1962, nearly forty years ago, many theories on the events surrounding her death have been brought up for consideration. Each new theory has its strong points and its weaknesses, but not everyone is able to agree on what the one true explanation is. To understand some of the theories on what exactly happened to the vibrant actress, it is important that one first understand some of her turbulent past, and some of the events leading up to her mysterious death. The woman that history will know forever as Marilyn Monroe began her life as a shy little girl name Norma Jeane Mortenson she was born to a single mother on June 1st 1926 in Los Angeles.
Her father let her mother before she was born and she never knowing whom her father was. Now this early abandonment would haunt her for the rest of her life, instilling in the impressionable young girl a permanent fear of being left alone in the world and a constant need for support from others. Her mother was mentally unstable and an alcoholic in era before alcoholism was recognized as a disease. She was unable to give Norma Jeane the upbringing she needed, and her mother was institutionalized, so then Norma Jeane was sent to foster homes after foster homes there was no more families available to take her in. (Summers 405) Then she was place in a Los Angeles Orphans' Home. This was another heavy blow to Norma Jeane for her self-esteem it made her feel that no one in world want her and it made feeling completely worthless, and it hurt more than anything else that she'd had ever experienced.
Now I will tell about Norma Jeane when to live with her mother best friend at the age of eleven years old, until Grace McKee, husband made sexual advances toward her and then she had to go to a other foster homes again. She was assaulted in at least two of the foster homes, and possibly more, all before she was twelve years old. Every time Norma Jeane was taken out of one the foster homes; it sent a strong message to her. At the age of fifteen years old she married James Dougherty, the son of McKee's neighbor, Grace and Doc where moving away and were able to take her with them. She was married a year with James Dougherty when he left to the Merchant Marines to go fight in World War II broke out.
On one day a photographer showed up to take pictures for a magazines story about women working to defend the country. The photographer told her that she was pretty enough to be a model. (Summers, 410) Then he put in contact with a modeling agency, which in turn found her a film agent. In a little more than a year later, she had divorced James Dougherty, negotiated a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox, and changed her name to Marilyn Monroe. After some initial difficulties in locating work, she found one particular agent named Johnny Hyde who had friends in high places, and was able to get Marilyn noticed. Her career took off rapidly, one successful movie after another.
She became very attracting a good amount of attention from people in all walks of life. She caught the eyes of powerful men, men with influence both famous and infamous, men with greatly varied roles to play in the public spotlight. Now some of these men had played a darker role, one hidden from the public spotlight, when they planned and executed a horrendous plot to end the life of America's most famous sex symbol. One such man was none other John F. Kennedy, the President of the United States. When Marilyn Monroe meet President Kennedy at a party in the White House, where Monroe was performing. President Kennedy was so impressed by her performance, and told her so.
Marilyn was very attracted to the young president, and Kennedy reciprocated the attraction. Thus their relationship started, and initially just a friendship, things progressed at a rapid pace, and their relationship soon developed into an affair. Monroe and Kennedy thought that they were concealing their activities; it was actually common knowledge among White House officials and the Hollywood elite. Now one of the Kennedy's advisors actually pulled him aside and told him that he ought told more discreet with his affair. There was one more final event that proves to be proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Now she went to the President Kennedy's forty-fifth birthday celebration, was held at Madison Square Garden and was broadcast live to home televisions across the nation, Marilyn performed a searing rendition of "Happy Birthday" while wearing a dress that was so tight that she literally had to be sewn into it.
At this point President Kennedy, who was deeply embarrassed and angry over Marilyn's performance and his wife refusal to attend the celebration because she "didn't want to be made a fool of", decided that enough was enough, and cut off all communication between him and the controversial starlet. After she persisted in her attempts to contact him, Kennedy sent his brother Bobby to end the affair and explain to Monroe that her repeated calls were to stop at once. Bobby, however, didn't merely deliver the message and leave. He took advantage of the vulnerability of fragile woman, and started his own affair with her. Well during the course of Bobby's affair with Marilyn, Bobby told Marilyn much information about what he was accomplishing in his role of Attorney General, particularly new concerning his campaign against organized crime, top-secret information about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and details about a government plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. After meeting with Bobby, Marilyn would often go home and write in her diary, a little red book that was one of her most prized possessions, concerning all that she and Bobby had talked about.
Marilyn's affair with Bobby was short lived, however, because Bobby felt that his public image as a devoted family man was being threatened every time he had a rendezvous with Marilyn. In order to cut off communication with her, Bobby had the telephone number to his White House Office changed, as well as his home phone number. He then sent a messenger, was over, and to stop trying to contact Bobby. She received no explanation, no goodbye.
This second complete cutoff fell heavily on the fragile actress, bringing back the childhood feelings of abandonment and worthlessness that had followed after her father left, as well as memories of what that abandonment had done to her mother.