What Marilyn Monroe’s Exes Had to Say About Their Time Together

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Marilyn Monroe’s turbulent, heartbreaking romantic history remains as enduring a subject of fascination as her star-making turns in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “The Seven Year Itch,” and “Some Like It Hot.” After drawing attention in the 1948 film “Ladies of the Chorus,” Monroe became one of Hollywood’s most closely watched figures — on screen and off. Until her death at her Los Angeles home in 1962, when she was only 36, the actress’ relationships regularly dominated public conversation.

Not every man connected to the Hollywood legend was willing to discuss her publicly. John F. Kennedy, the president for whom Monroe famously performed “Happy Birthday,” was among those who never addressed the speculation. Others, however, shared their recollections of knowing the screen icon. Their accounts span a diverse group, from servicemen and athletes to writers and Hollywood heirs. Here are 11 men who spoke on the record about Marilyn Monroe.

James Dougherty met Monroe while she was still known as Norma Jeane Mortenson and attended Van Nuys High School in Los Angeles. Five years older than the future star, Dougherty married her when she was 16. Though their union preceded the fame she found in films such as “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, it was reportedly driven more by circumstance than romance.

The marriage was encouraged by her foster mother, Grace Goddard, who feared Norma Jeane would be sent to an orphanage. Goddard’s husband, known as Doc, had accepted a job in Virginia and did not plan to take her along. Dougherty and Monroe remained married for four years before divorcing. Still, he later maintained that their lives might have unfolded very differently if professional ambitions had not pulled them in separate directions.

“If I hadn’t gone into the Merchant Marines during World War II, she would still be Mrs. Dougherty today,” he told People in 1976. Decades later, during a 2005 interview on “Larry King Live,” he suggested Monroe’s growing Hollywood aspirations had also changed the course of their relationship. “She became a movie actress … she wanted to live together and maintain a relationship, and I told her, ‘No,’ that I wanted a family.” Dougherty, who married Patricia Scoman in 1947 and later became a police officer, said he bore Monroe no resentment. “I thought it was wonderful that she was getting something that she wanted.”

Charlie Chaplin Jr., who was also called Cass Chaplin, grew up in the shadow of his celebrated father, comedy legend Charlie Chaplin. After appearing in several of his father’s productions, he pursued his own acting career. His famous parent also reportedly offered advice about Chaplin Jr.’s private relationship with a young Marilyn Monroe.

In his 1960 memoir, “My Father, Charlie Chaplin,” the “The Beat Generation” actor wrote that his father cautioned him not to let the budding romance distract him. “‘Oh, she’s a beauty,’ Dad used to tell me,” Chaplin Jr. recalled, via Women’s Health. “‘What a figure! I admire your taste, son, very much. Just watch out, son,’ he said. ‘Don’t fall in love yet. You have that education to take care of first.'”

Chaplin Jr. seemingly did not follow that advice. Anthony Summers’ “Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe,” states that he was deeply infatuated with Monroe for much of 1947. A friend of Chaplin Jr. claimed, “Marilyn would stay the night with Charlie. She would cram into a single bed with him, while brother Sydney slept in his bed in the same room.” According to longstanding rumors, Sydney Chaplin ultimately ended the relationship after he, too, became involved with Monroe. It was one of several alleged episodes from the actress’ private life that drew continued speculation.

While many of the men rumored to have dated or slept with Marilyn Monroe chose not to discuss those claims, acclaimed filmmaker Elia Kazan was notably open. In a frank 1955 letter to his playwright wife, Molly Thatcher, later published by The Hollywood Reporter, Kazan detailed his involvement with Monroe and expressed no remorse over being unfaithful.

“I’m not ashamed at all, not a damn bit, of having been attracted to her,” Kazan admitted brazenly about the affair, which had taken place several years previously. “She is nothing like what she appears to be now, or even appears to have turned into now. She was a little stray cat when I knew her. I got a lot out of her just as you do from any human experience where anyone is revealed to you and you affect anyone in any way. I guess I gave her a lot of hope.”

Kazan, who helmed classics such as “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “On the Waterfront,” and “East of Eden,” went on to claim that Monroe wasn’t the overly sexual being the press purported, and also alleged her then-husband Joe DiMaggio physically abused her on many occasions. “I was touched and fascinated,” he recalled about how the silver screen star had opened up. “It was the type of experience that I do not understand and I enjoyed (not the right word) hearing about it.” Despite this complete lack of remorse, he and Thatcher stayed together until she died in 1963.

Milton Berle was first introduced to the oft-tragic Marilyn Monroe during the shoot of 1948’s “Ladies of the Chorus.” She obviously made quite the impression. Not only did he agree to work with the silver screen goddess again 12 years later, on what proved to be her penultimate film, “Let’s Make Love,” he also embarked on an affair with her while shooting “Ladies of the Chorus.”

Berle was in a relationship with fellow co-star Adele Jergens at the time. To add insult to injury, the latter had just played Monroe’s mother in the romantic musical, despite only being four years her senior. It’s not known whether Berle’s then-girlfriend was made aware of this tryst, or whether it contributed to their split — a year later, Jergens married “The Treasure of Monte Cristo” castmate Glenn Langan. However, Berle did come clean to the wider world in his memoir nearly three decades later.

“Marilyn was on the climb in Hollywood, but there was nothing cheap about her,” Berle wrote (via Y! Entertainment) in his eponymous 1974 autobiography. Indeed, the man dubbed “Mr. Television” following his hosting stint on NBC’s “The Texaco Star Theatre” had nothing but kind things to say about his former lover. “She wasn’t one of the starlets around town that you put one meal into and threw into the sack. Maybe she didn’t know exactly who she was, but she knew she was worth something. She had respect for herself. Marilyn was a lady.”

Joe DiMaggio became Marilyn Monroe’s second husband in 1954 following an intimate ceremony at San Francisco’s City Hall. The baseball legend had been left smitten following a blind date two years earlier, describing her (via People) as “like a good double-play combination.” However, married life didn’t appear to suit him well, and he increasingly grew envious of the fact that his wife was now becoming a bona fide Hollywood star while his sporting glory days were well behind him.

Just nine months after saying “I do,” DiMaggio and Monroe headed for the divorce courts amid allegations that he’d been physically and emotionally abusive. The former was apparently particularly enraged at how the latter had shown off much more of her figure than usual during the iconic skirt-blowing sequence in “The Seven Year Itch.”

In conversations recounted by Rock Positano, the podiatrist who wrote “Dinner with DiMaggio: Memories of an American Hero,” the former center fielder was more than happy to share about his marital sex life. “When we got together in the bedroom, it was like the gods were fighting; there were thunderclouds and lightning above us,” he allegedly said. The man nicknamed the Yankee Clipper, who maintained a friendship with Monroe until her tragic death in 1962, also described her as “a good kid, but she was a confused kid.” Here’s a closer look at the truth about their marriage.

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Jerry Lewis sure dropped a bombshell about the world’s ultimate blond bombshell during a 2011 interview with GQ. While discussing John F. Kennedy, who he’d once been friends with, the funnyman insisted that, contrary to popular belief, the late president never enjoyed an affair with Marilyn Monroe. However, he had!

“I’m telling you what I know,” Lewis emphatically said about such speculation. “Never! And the only reason I know is because I did. Okay?” Sensing that the journalist wasn’t quite buying his story, the “King of Comedy” expanded upon it, claiming that Monroe drew upon her sexuality just as he did with his sense of humor: “She needed that contact to be sure it was real.”

Lewis didn’t specify exactly when his unlikely dalliance took place, but having been married to Patti Palmer from 1944 to 1983, it’s clear it would have been an adulterous one. When asked about what it was like to get into bed with the Hollywood legend, he replied, “It was … long. I was crippled for a month.”

Jerry Lewis isn’t the only one of Marilyn Monroe’s former lovers to have talked publicly about her apparent sexual appetite. The jazz pianist and vocal coach, Hal Schaefer, who she first worked with on “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” also discussed the matter in a book about the cinematic icon’s private life.

“I think she regarded it as her function, being this great attractive female, that she was supposed to have sex with a man, because that was something she could do, that she could give,” Schaefer said (via Grunge) in “Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe.” However, the “How to Marry a Millionaire” star didn’t initially act on these apparent impulses when she first met the New Yorker.

“She struck me as kind of fey, as not being altogether in this world, not all there,” Schaefer recalled about the relationship, which gradually evolved from platonic to romantic. “She was quiet, didn’t open up much. At first she had no confidence, but she reacted to my teaching and she got better. … she really became quite good.” The composer, who also helped Monroe with her singing abilities on “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” reportedly ended the affair following numerous threats from Monroe’s ex-husband Joe DiMaggio and his various associates, including none other than Frank Sinatra.

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“I wasn’t thinking about bedding her, or perhaps I should say it wasn’t foremost on my mind,” Tony Curtis remarked (via Vanity Fair) about his first spell with Marilyn Monroe in the late 1940s in his memoir, “American Prince.” “I was just taking pleasure in how much fun it was spending time with her.” But, at some point, his mindset changed.

Few of Monroe’s lovers have spoken in such detail about their time in the bedroom together. Indeed, Curtis reveled in their first encounter, recalling how she stripped to her underwear and describing her breasts as “every teenage boy’s fantasy come true.” However, the loose-lipped star also expressed more romantic recollections, adding, “Marilyn was the first woman I felt truly close to. We had real feelings for each other …”

The pair soon went their separate ways before reuniting nearly a decade later for 1958’s “Some Like It Hot.” Despite both parties being married (to Arthur Miller and Janet Leigh, respectively), they soon picked up where they left off. Curtis claimed in “The Making of Some Like It Hot: My Memories of Marilyn Monroe and the Classic American Movie” that they later came clean to the former in a conversation where Monroe revealed that she was now carrying his baby. “I just stood there,” the lothario remembered (via The Guardian). “The room was so silent that I could hear tyres screeching on Santa Monica Boulevard.” The star later suffered a miscarriage.

Rock Hudson, Charlton Heston, and Cary Grant were all reportedly offered the chance to play Marilyn Monroe’s love interest in 1960’s “Let’s Make Love.” But, thanks to his impressive New York one-man show, crooner-turned-actor Yves Montand was eventually cast in the role.

Despite hardly speaking a word of English, the Frenchman forged a bond with Monroe during a somewhat troubled shoot, sparking rumors of an affair. They gave gossip hounds even more ammunition when they posed suggestively for a Life magazine cover to promote the movie. In her unpublished memoir, “Confessions of a New Age Heretic,” parts of which were later printed in Vanity Fair, Susan Strasberg — the daughter of Monroe’s acting coach Lee Strasberg — claimed that the blond bombshell had indeed got romantically involved with Montand in a bid to spark jealousy in her then-husband Arthur Miller.

However, the tactic didn’t work. The playwright was apparently completely unfazed by the adultery, with Strasberg writing, “He wouldn’t tell her off, and that really bugged her.” When asked on “Late Night with David Letterman” decades later whether the press speculation had some substance, Montand provided confirmation, replying, “It’s what they say.” However, he did go on to add, “I think [the newspapers made] a mistake because nobody knows exactly what happened between us.”

Lasting from 1955 to 1961, Marilyn Monroe’s relationship with playwright Arthur Miller proved to be her most enduring. The pair, who first met in 1950, did not connect romantically until after the former’s divorce from Joe DiMaggio. They tied the knot in 1956, and appeared to enjoy a life of domestic bliss until her work commitments and substance abuse issues led to their downfall.

As you’d expect, Miller — whose works include “All My Sons,” “The Crucible,” and “Death of a Salesman” — had plenty of eloquent things to say about Monroe following her death a year after their split. For example, he wrote in “Timebends: A Life,” that “… She was a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.”

Miller, who penned several plays inspired by Monroe, including “After the Fall” and his final work, “Finishing the Picture,” was also quoted in the book “Frank & Marilyn: The Lives, the Loves, and the Fascinating Relationship of Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe” about the darker side of her life. “She was a very serious girl who was struggling … against abandonment and abuse. Against her family’s fundamentalist religion. She was in rebellion, and expected punishment.” Here’s a closer look inside their marriage.

Marlon Brando might not have been a playwright like Arthur Miller, but, while speaking to author James Grissom in a 1990 telephone interview, “The Godfather” star proved he still possessed a poetic way with words — particularly when it came to the Hollywood star he was rumored to have bedded, Marilyn Monroe.

“Some glorious things are simple things,” Brando began (via Grissom’s blog). “People drive for miles to see a mountain. Others make trips to pull over and look at an acre of wildflowers. I can still have my breath taken away by a sunset. … Marilyn was a field of wildflowers, a gamboling puppy in the backyard, a pink sunset in June.”

Brando, who sparked gossip when he showed up to the 1955 premiere of “The Rose Tattoo” with Monroe, went on to add, “She was glorious, and we had to look. Is that talent? I don’t care. It was magical. And then it was gone. Is there a moral? Yes. Everything ends.” Despite finding fame in the same Golden Age of Hollywood, the two never shared the screen together. Here’s a closer look inside Monroe’s relationship history.