Marilyn Monroe Boyfriends – A Complete & Authentic List
Norma Jeane Mortenson was born in 1926, Marilyn Monroe would go on to become one of the world’s most enduring icons. She dated a lot of high-profile men. Some were rumored and some were true.
A celebrated actress and model, Monroe was also well-known for her tumultuous personal life.
She was married three times, first to Jim Dougherty, then to baseball player Joe DiMaggio, and finally to playwright Arthur Miller.
In addition, she had a number of high-profile relationships, including with president John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.
While she was often romantically linked with some of the most eligible men of her day, Monroe famously said that “men are just interested in you because you’re pretty. If you’re not pretty, they don’t care what kind of person you are.”
Indeed, her relationships were often tumultuous, and she struggled with depression and insecurity throughout her life. Though she passed away at the young age of 36, Marilyn Monroe remains one of the most famous and enigmatic women of the twentieth century.
Marilyn Monroe Boyfriends – A Complete List
Marilyn Monroe is one of the most iconic actresses of the twentieth century. Though she was only active in Hollywood for a brief period of time, she left a lasting impression on the industry.
Monroe was known for her beauty, her talent, and her tumultuous personal life.
In particular, Monroe was famous for her many relationships with high-profile men. Over the course of her career, Monroe was linked with some of the most notable figures in Hollywood, including Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, and John F. Kennedy.
Though each relationship ended in heartbreak, Monroe continued to search for love.
1) Jim Dougherty
Monroe married Dougherty, a classmate from Van Nuys High School when she was 16 years old and still going by the name Norma Jeane Baker.
When Dougherty enlisted in the Merchant Marines and she started modeling, their relationship started to fall apart. By 1946, they were divorcing.
She would still be Mrs. Dougherty today if he hadn’t joined the Merchant Marines during World War II, he said to PEOPLE in 1976.
2) Charlie Chaplin, Jr.
According to rumors, Marilyn had a relationship with Charlie Jr., the iconic star’s son, around 1947. Charlie supposedly discovered Marilyn in his brother Sydney’s bed, ending their relationship.
In his 1960 autobiography, Chaplin recalls the relationship. Anthony Summers also makes reference to it in his book, Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe.
3) Milton Berle
On the set of Ladies of the Chorus in 1948, the comedian and Monroe had their first encounter. Even though Adele Jergens, a famous actress, was his official girlfriend at the time, Berle himself claimed to have had a brief affair with her.
In the 1960 movie Let’s Make Love, which had the fitting title, Berle, the first TV superstar (and, according to Truman Capote and Hollywood lore, notably well-endowed), costarred alongside Monroe as himself.
In his biography, he stated that Marilyn was “on the rise in Hollywood, yet there was nothing cheap about her.”
“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.”
4) Natasha Lytess
When she accepted a brief contract with Columbia Pictures in 1948, she first met Lytess, her cherished theater coach. Over the following seven years, the pair would practically become inseparable on and off set, giving rise to relationship speculations.
Monroe’s reliance on Lytess became so great that she started refusing to participate in scenes where her coach wasn’t present. When the actress moved into Lytess’s house to prepare for her part in the 1952 film Don’t Bother to Knock, suspicions were heightened even more.
Although the specifics of their relationship are unknown, Lytess was openly antagonistic to Joe DiMaggio in particular and all of Monroe’s other male admirers.
“She was a fantastic teacher, but she was really envious of the men I seemed to attract. She believed herself to be my husband!” Monroe once remarked about her coach. They ultimately split up in 1956.
Regarding allegations of more lesbian relationships, such as those with Marlene Dietrich and Barbara Stanwyck, Monroe appeared to put the matter to rest in her 1954 book. According to a man who once kissed her, “I was very likely a lesbian because obviously I had no response to males, meaning him,” she stated. “I refrained from challenging him because I had no idea who I was. Now that I had experienced love, I understood who I was. Not a lesbian, either.”
5) Elia Kazan
While he was married to playwright Molly Thacher, Kazan, one of Hollywood’s all-time great directors, acknowledged having a brief romance with a young Monroe.
Kazan admitted having sex with the actress in freshly discovered private letters to Thacher, writing, “I’m not sorry about it.”
I’m not ashamed at all, not in the slightest, of having been drawn to her, he said. She is not what she appears to be right now, or even what she seems to have changed into. When I first saw her, she was a tiny stray cat.
In his letters to Thacher, Kazan, a close friend of Monroe’s future husband Arthur Miller, also mentioned Joe DiMaggio and claimed that the baseball player had “many times” physically assaulted Monroe.
6) The Kennedy Brothers
President John F. Kennedy and later his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, were the subjects of Monroe’s most notoriously alleged affairs. Some have even asserted that the two men’s friendship with her contributed to her premature demise.
Her seductive rendition of “Happy Birthday” for the president during his 45th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1962, just months before she passed away, is thought to have contributed to the rumors of an affair.
Even while there is no evidence that the Kennedys were involved in Monroe’s death, according to Monroe’s biographer James Spada, “it was very evident that Marilyn had had sexual encounters with both Bobby and Jack.”
7) Joe DiMaggio
After meeting Marilyn Monroe on a blind date in 1952, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio remarked to a friend that she was “like a good double-play combo.”
Six months into his retirement, he thought of the 26-year-old actress as “a lovely blonde showgirl who may double as a dedicated mother and homemaker,” in the words of Monroe historian Donald Spoto.
Monroe was taken aback by the well-known baseball player since she shared his desire for a house and kids. She added, “I was expecting a flamboyant New York sports type, and instead I met this quiet guy who didn’t make a pass at me right away.” He gave me special treatment, I said.
On January 14, 1954, they were wed in a private ceremony at City Hall in his hometown of San Francisco.
However, issues started to surface as DiMaggio grew uncomfortable with his wife’s meteoric ascent to prominence. DiMaggio was used to being the biggest star in the room.
Nine months after being married, in October, the couple filed for divorce. He replied.. exposing my legs and thighs, even my crotch — that was the last straw, Monroe later recalled of the now-famous billowing skirt sequence from The Seven-Year Itch.
Nevertheless, they remained close friends, and for 20 years following Monroe’s passing, DiMaggio sent flowers three times each week to her grave.
8) Arthur Miller
When Monroe first met the author and playwright in 1950 while working on the set of As Young As You Feel, she would later remark that it was love at first sight.
The two did not meet again until 1955, a year after her divorce from DiMaggio and relocation to New York City. They started dating in secret and got hitched in 1956.
Monroe initially thrived outside of Hollywood in a more regular life. She started caring for Miller’s children, who all adored her and started cooking, cleaning, and looking after them. But their relationship broke down when Monroe returned to work on Miller’s The Misfits.
In 1961, just before the film’s release, Monroe and Miller divorced after five years of marriage because of Monroe’s drug addiction, which created issues both on and off the set. Only 19 months later, Monroe overdosed and died.
9) Frank Sinatra
Following her divorce from Arthur Miller, The Blonde Bombshell dated Ol’ Blue Eyes for a short while.
Monroe temporarily resided at the crooner’s home after divorcing the playwright before returning to Los Angeles. By 1961, when Sinatra proposed to Juliet Prowse, the relationship had soured, although the two remained friends until Prowse’s passing.
10) Jerry Lewis
In a candid interview with GQ in 2011, the late comic claimed to have had a hidden romance with Monroe.
Lewis first asserted that Monroe’s relationship with Kennedy was a fabrication, adding, “I’m sharing what I know with you. Never! And the only reason I am aware of it is that I did. Okay?“
Lewis reassured the interviewer that the story was authentic, explaining that Monroe utilized sex similarly to how he used to make jokes: “She wanted that contact to be sure it was real.”
So what was the relationship like? He sighed regretfully and added, “It was… long.” “I was unable to move for a month.” And I thought Marlene Dietrich was fantastic,” he joked after another pause.
