Marilyn Monroe’s Past Lovers-Fact Check

1. Marilyn Monroe—a Lesbian? FALSE

While many have tried to spread rumors that Marilyn was a lesbian or bisexual, there is no evidence to support this other than trashy tabloids making things up. The article claims that Marilyn ”admitted” to to sexual encounters with actresses Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Marlene Dietrich and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as with both her acting coaches, Natasha Lytess and Paula Strasberg. Marilyn never admitted any such thing, and there is no credible documentation of her ever stating anything of the sort. On the contrary, Marilyn herself said in her 1954 autobiography: ” “A man who had kissed me once had said it was very possible that I was a lesbian because apparently I had no response to males-meaning him. I didn’t contradict him because I didn’t know what I was……Now, having fallen in love, I knew what I was. It wasn’t a lesbian.”

2. Marilyn and Dean Martin—- FALSE.

The article claims that Marilyn dated ‘most of the Rat Pack’ and focuses on Dean Martin. The first part, that she dated ‘most of the Rat pack’, is untrue. She briefly dated Frank Sinatra, and in the late 1940s allegedly went on a single date with Peter Lawford. As for Dean Martin, he and Marilyn were good friends….and Marilyn was good friends with his wife Jeanne, who he married in 1949.

3. Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio—TRUE

The article states that Joe DiMaggio saw a photo of Marilyn posing with Chicago White Sox player Gus Zernial and asked a friend to arrange a date. Marilyn was reluctant, thinking that a famous athlete would be loud and flashy. This is true.

She was pleasantly surprised to find him quiet and dignified. They went on to date for two years before marrying January 14, 1954. The marriage lasted only nine months, but Joe and Marilyn remained close friends until her death.

4. Marilyn and Anton Lavey—FALSE

The article did not do itself any favors by using the above photo, which is not Marilyn at all but is Jayne Mansfield. It then claims that Marilyn was a burlesque dancer at the Mayan Theater in the 1940s and had an affair with him. Except…….
Marilyn never was a burlesque dancer.
The Mayan Theater never had burlesque dancers.
Anton Lavey was not even in Los Angeles during that time period.
Paul Valentine, director of the Mayan Theater during that time, states that neither Lavey nor Monroe was ever there.

The source of the claim that Lavey had an affair with Monroe…is Lavey himself. Not exactly known for his truthfulness, his own website states that the Monroe rumors are absolute lies.

5. Marilyn and James Dougherty—TRUE

16 year old Norma Jeane married her 21 year old neighbor Jim on June 19, 1942. Her foster family was moving out of state, and having nowhere else to go (she never knew her father and her mother was institutionalized) her only options were to get married or be sent back to the orphanage.
The marriage ended after four years, when Marilyn was finding success as a model and pursuing her acting dreams and Jim gave her the ultimatum of choosing between being a housewife or being a star.

6. Marilyn and Sam Shaw—-FALSE

The article uses the following photo of Marilyn Monroe and her good friend, photographer Sam Shaw, but does not identify him. They do, however, claim that she had an affair with him for a year and was with him after she began dating Joe DiMaggio.

This is categorically untrue, despite photographer Lawrence Schiller also recently making claims of an affair between Monroe and Shaw. Marilyn was close with the entire Shaw family- Sam, his wife Anne, and their three children. Sam’s daughter recently rebutted Schiller’s claims, stating categorically their relationship was affectionate but platonic. She also said that her mother Anne was especially fond of Marilyn, and that Sam himself said “If Marilyn slept with every guy that claims he was with her, she would have never had time to make any movies.”

7. Marilyn and Marlon Brando—-PARTIALLY TRUE

While it is true that Marilyn and Marlon briefly dated in 1955, after her divorce to DiMaggio and prior to the start of her relationship with Arthur Miller, they did not have a ”decade long affair” as the article claims. They cite Marlon’s recounting of first meeting Marilyn at The Actor’s Studio in his autobiography. Marilyn started attending The Actor’s Studio in 1955 and died in 1962, making a ‘decade long affair’ impossible.

Marlon escorted Marilyn to the premiere of The Rose Tattoo (shown above) and although they remained friendly until the end of her life (even having discussions about working together) there was no further romantic involvement.

8. Marilyn and ‘Married Kennedy Men’—-FALSE

Using a fake photoshopped picture to illustrate a wildly exaggerated claim does not lend one credibility.

9. Marilyn and ‘Married Kennedy Men’—MOSTLY FALSE

Speculation about Marilyn and the Kennedys is so rampant that the article listed it twice, in the second mention using a genuine photo. It states “Marilyn was famous for acting, but equally famous for dating married Kennedy men.” This is false. There were no published rumors of affairs with the Kennedys during Marilyn’s lifetime. They did not begin until more than a decade after her death, so she was famous on her own merit and not in relation to who she supposedly slept with.

Evidence shows us that Marilyn and John Kennedy were in the same place at the same time on no more than five occasions. At only one of these meetings would it have been possible to have a romantic liaison, so although there *may* have been a one night stand, there was certainly no long term affair.

In regards to Bobby Kennedy, Marilyn herself stated that he was not her type and that her only interest in him was having political discussions. There is no credible source and no evidence whatsoever to indicate otherwise.

Rumors about the Kennedys were started by discredited liar Robert Slatzer in 1974, in order to sell copies of his tabloid book. Unfortunately, media seized on the story and didn’t bother fact checking, and Marilyn and both Kennedys have been slandered ever since.

For more on Robert Slatzer and the myths he fabricated about Marilyn, please read this excellent article by Rebecca Swift. http://www.immortalmarilyn.com/TwilightSlatzerCarmen.html

10. Marilyn and Arthur Miller—TRUE

The article states: “On June 29, 1956, Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller, whom she first met in 1950, in a civil ceremony in White Plains, New York. City Court Judge Seymour D. Robinowitz presided over the hushed ceremony in the law office of Sam Slavitt (the wedding had been kept secret.”

This is all factual.

11. Marilyn and Frank Sinatra—-TRUE

Marilyn and Frank Sinatra first met in the mid-1950s, but dated briefly following her divorce from Arthur Miller. In fact, Marilyn stayed at Frank’s house when she moved back to Los Angeles after the divorce. The stopped dating by fall of 1961, when Sinatra proposed to Juliet Prowse, but remained friends. Marilyn spent her last weekend with Sinatra and other friends in July 1962.

12. Marilyn and Joan Crawford—FALSE

The article stated the following: “Monroe describes a sexual liaison with Joan Crawford in audio recordings of her psychiatry sessions, released in 2006: “Next time I saw Crawford, she said she wanted another round. I told her straight-out I didn`t much enjoy doing it with a woman. After I turned her down, she became spiteful.”

No audio recordings of her psychiatry sessions have ever been heard by the public.
No audio recordings of her psychiatry sessions were released in 2006.
The only time Marilyn speaks of Joan Crawford is in her 1954 autobiography, My Story, where she states that Joan was upset with her for rejecting fashion advice.
There is zero evidence to support this claim.

They are possibly referring to a 2006 article that appeared in Playboy magazine, authored by John Miner. Miner claimed to have heard recordings of Marilyn from her analyst, Dr. Ralph Greenson, in 1962 and then remembered them verbatim more than forty years later. Miner is well known among Marilyn fans as someone who desperately tried to attach his name with Monroe’s, coming up with more sensationalistic and outrageous claims as the years went by.

13. Marilyn and Brigitte Bardot—FALSE

Using selective editing, the article states: “Brigitte Bardot wrote in her memoirs about a reception which was held for the English Queen in 1952 where she met Marilyn Monroe who seduced her in the ladies room.”

The way it’s presented makes it sound far more titillating than what actually happened. In the context of the quote, Brigitte is using the word ‘seduced’ figuratively, not literally. Brigitte certainly doesn’t belong on a list of Marilyn’s lovers, seeing as they met exactly once for about a minute. Here’s the full quote by Brigitte about meeting Marilyn, does this sound like an affair to you? Not only that, the encounter occurred in 1956, not 1952.

“I found myself in the ‘Ladies’ with her, I pulled my messy hair up and in a hurry and unpicked the tulle that covered my breasts, she, seeing herself in the mirror, smiling left, then right. She smelled of Chanel No. 5. I adored her, watched her, fascinated, forgetting my hair. I wanted to be ‘HER’, having her own personality and character.
It was the first and last time in my life I saw her, she seduced me in 30 seconds. It emanated from her graceful fragility, soft playfulness, I’ll never forget her and when I learned the news of her death a few years later, I had a very painful pinch in the heart as if a very loved person just left me.”

14. Marilyn and Tony Curtis—-FALSE

Although they appeared together in what is arguably the greatest comedy of all time, 1959’s Some Like It Hot, Curtis and Monroe were not fond of one another. Asked by a reporter at the time of filming what it was like to kiss Marilyn, Curtis replied that kissing her was kissing Hitler. On the surface, this is insult enough, but when you realize that it was said by a Jewish man less than 15 years after WWII, the vitriol becomes really evident. Marilyn, ever classy, spoke of this incident in a 1962 interview without naming names: “For instance, you’ve read there was some actor that once said that kissing me was like kissing Hitler. Well, I think that’s his problem. If I have to do intimate love scenes with somebody who really has these kinds of feelings toward me, then my fantasy can come into play. In other words, out with him, in with my fantasy. He was never there.”

In his later years, Curtis made the outlandish and disrespectful claim that he’d had an affair with her while filming and was the father of the child that she miscarried. Marilyn was devastated by losing this pregnancy, so to make such a claim for notoriety is indefensible.

Marilyn herself addressed claims of an affair with Tony Curtis. In a handwritten note in response to interview questions, she penned ” ‘There is only one way he could comment on my sexuality and I’m afraid he has never had the opportunity!”

15. Marilyn and Joe Schenck—FALSE

Marilyn Monroe in her 1954 autobiography My Story:

“The fact that people began to talk about me being Joe Schenck’s girl didn’t annoy me at first. But later it did annoy me. Mr. Schenck never so much as laid a finger on my wrist, or tried to. He was interested in me because I was a good table ornament and because I was what he called and ”offbeat” personality.

Marilyn Monroe to interviewer Maurice Zolotow:

“Get this straight. Mr. Schenck and I were good friends. He gave me encouragement when I needed it. He didn’t do anything for me….I know the word around Hollywood was I was Joe Schencks’ girlfriend, but that’s a lie. The only favor I ever asked him, Mr. Schenck, was later, when I was back at Twentieth I wanted a decent dressing room, and I asked him about it, and he put in a good word for me and I got a good dressing room. I never asked him to help me get good parts at Twentieth, and he didn’t. He knew how I felt about it , that I wanted to succeed on my talent, not any other way, and he respected my feelings. “

16. Marilyn and Yul Brynner—-FALSE

The article oddly chose to accompany this claim with a photo of Marilyn and Eli Wallach, her costar in The Misfits.

As to the claims of an affair with Yul Brynner, that has only been alleged in one Brynner biography, and is not substantiated by any Monroe biographers nor is there any evidence to support it. A look at the reviews of other celebrity biographies by the same author shows numerous accusations of factual errors, fabrications, and tabloid rumors.