JAMES DOUGHERTY
JAMES DOUGHERTY
1921-2005
Husband of Marilyn Monroe
JamesDougherty was born in Texas, his family moved to Arizona and suffered greatly during the Great Depression and had to live in a tent. Dougherty went to school with actress Jane Russell and went on to become a police officer.
He was working night shifts at Lockheed Aircraft, when he met Marilyn Monroe (known then as Norma Jean Baker). Monroe had to choose between moving back to an orphanage or getting married, she chose marriage.
Dougherty and Monroe married in 1942, she dropped out of high school and became a housewife. They moved to Santa Catalina Island, where he joined the Navy and in 1944 he was posted to the South Pacific. During this time Monroe was noticed by photographer David Conover, she signed a contract with a modelling agency and then later with 20th Century Fox. Pursuing a film career, 20th Century Fox told Monroe that she couldn’t be married if she wanted to succeed. Dougherty was dismissive of her ambitions and she divorced him in 1946.
In 1947, he remarried to Patricia Scoman and they had three children and then married Rita Lambert in 1974. Dougherty died in 2005, aged 84.
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