Norma Jeane's divided identity as Marilyn Monroe

Norma Jeane’s divided identity as Marilyn Monroe is not simply a contrast between a private woman and a famous screen persona: it is a struggle over who has the authority to name her, represent her, and define what her work is worth. The stage name is chosen by men while she is present but not consulted; later, she insists that the persona is a role she has made herself. Acting offers her a possible route to recognition, yet the public image that brings attention and opportunity is also one she finds artificial and incomplete.

The name made for the screen

Norma Jeane Baker’s new identity takes shape after she is cast in Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay!. Overwhelmed by the news, she first thinks of calling I. E. Shinn to share it. Instead, she learns that Shinn has already gone to the studio, where he and an executive are discussing a new name for her. They treat her birth name as unsuitable and consider a list of alternatives while she sits before them. Her exclusion from the discussion makes the naming an early scene of divided identity: the person being renamed is physically present, but the decision proceeds as if she were not.

Norma Jeane tries to preserve part of the name she grew up with. She asks to keep Norma, and objects that the proposed surname Miller is no improvement on Baker. When the men settle on Monroe, the connection to Gladys Mortensen gives the choice a private resonance: Monroe was Gladys’s maiden name. Norma Jeane accepts the stage name, which will appear in the film’s credits, but the decision is not presented as wholly her own. The studio and her agent have manufactured a usable identity; she has managed to secure one link between it and her family history.

That link also shapes the disclosure she imagines making. She has not told Gladys about the change and hopes to attend the film’s premiere with her, explaining afterward that the screen name belongs to her. She imagines Gladys feeling proud, with Monroe serving as a connection to her mother. But Norma Jeane’s part is reduced to only a few seconds, leaving her with nothing she feels she can present as an achievement. She concludes that she cannot yet approach her mother seeking approval when she herself is ashamed of the work. The new name therefore carries a promise of recognition that the film fails to fulfill.

A role shaped by work and exposure

Before the screen persona acquires a firm public meaning, Norma Jeane earns money through promotional appearances arranged by the Preene Agency. She is successively presented as a representative of aluminum goods, paper products, hospitality, dairy products, and other commercial displays. The assignments place her in costumes designed to attract attention while she distributes samples or poses as a hostess. The work is poorly paid: one fair brings twelve dollars a day, including minimal meals and streetcar fare; another pays ten dollars on the same basis. The identities she performs in these settings are temporary labels attached to her appearance, not roles she has chosen for artistic reasons.

The agency’s rules also restrict her contact with clients: she must not accept tips or arrange dates, and clients pay the agency directly. This arrangement clarifies who controls the transaction. Norma Jeane supplies the visible presence, while the agency sets the terms and receives payment. Physical discomfort and lost work further complicate the performance. When recurring pain and blurred vision make her unable to work, each missed day matters because her earnings are already small. Her effort to maintain a presentable working self thus takes place alongside bodily strain and financial insecurity.

After the studio lets her go, the gap between the value of her image and her security becomes more pronounced. Norma Jeane is behind on rent in a furnished room in West Hollywood, her secondhand car has been repossessed after missed payments, and the Preene Agency is preparing to drop her. Otto öse has proposed nude assignments for several magazines over a period of years; she has declined them. In this precarious moment, she calls him, and he offers a calendar session for fifty dollars. The account makes clear that the financial return to the model is sharply out of proportion to the later profits others make from the photographs. Her image can become valuable while she remains economically vulnerable.

Being seen and being recognized

At Schwab’s, Norma Jeane experiences ordinary public visibility as a kind of audition. She reminds herself that she is an actress and tries to control her behavior as people turn to look at her. A carefully ironed white satin dress and a new hairstyle prompt a few glances, but most onlookers quickly return their attention elsewhere. In her perception, their brief expectation gives way to disappointment when they realize she is not an important figure. The scene distinguishes being looked at from being recognized: she can attract attention without yet possessing the status that would make it last.

An encounter with Richard Widmark briefly reverses that pattern. He speaks with her, asks whether she works at the studio, and suggests that they might work together someday. Norma Jeane is nervous but manages to answer without stammering, conscious of using a bright, practiced laugh. Even this promising exchange is filtered through performance: she monitors how she appears while trying to meet the expectations of someone whose recognition might matter professionally.

The public response to The Asphalt Jungle provides a different kind of recognition. The promotional material has not named her, and her two short scenes have not earned a mention, but after the public screening people ask who the blonde is. Shinn identifies her as his client, Marilyn Monroe. The moment gives the invented name a public audience, while emphasizing how little control Norma Jeane has over the terms on which she becomes visible. She can be noticed before her name is known, and her agent speaks for the identity the studio has created.

Claiming authorship, confronting dependence

Norma Jeane later challenges Shinn’s assertion that he created her. She tells him that Marilyn is only a role and cannot itself be happy; when he claims to have invented the persona, she answers that she did. Her distinction is exacting: the public figure may have a career and an image, but those do not make it a person with an independent inner life. Shinn’s reply that he understands her and has her interests at heart does not resolve the disagreement. His language of creation and care sits uneasily beside her insistence on self-authorship.

The disagreement is complicated by dependence. Shinn has been an important source of professional support, and Norma Jeane says he is the only person who understands her because he calls her Norma rather than treating her as Marilyn. Yet she also refuses to grant him sole ownership of the identity. Their exchange shows the divided self as an ongoing negotiation: she needs recognition and assistance from people who can help shape a career, while resisting their claim that they therefore possess the person behind the name.

Acting as both refuge and distance

Norma Jeane’s private rehearsal at Schwab’s and her work on La tua bocca brucia show two contrasting forms of performance. In public, she tries to manage the impression she makes, anticipating how strangers will judge her. On the set, she becomes so absorbed in playing Nell that she barely notices Shinn or the other observers. She withdraws between takes, avoids interviews, and leaves her fellow actors uncertain how to approach her. The role can draw her away from the self-consciousness of public appearance, but that intensity also separates her from the people watching her work.

Her identification with Nell includes anger at what she sees as the injustice of a world that punishes madness while rewarding mere normality. Shinn advises her not to press herself so intensely, while other responses to her performance combine admiration, suspicion, and personal attraction. The reactions make clear that her acting is not received in a single way: the concentration that marks the role’s force can also unsettle those around her. Her emerging identity as an actress therefore exceeds the polished blonde image, even as the industry and public keep drawing attention back to that image.

The divided identity remains unresolved rather than becoming a simple choice between an authentic Norma Jeane and a false Marilyn Monroe. Norma Jeane dislikes the artificial name, synthetic blonde hair, doll-like clothes, and mannerisms associated with the star, and hopes for serious parts that would allow her to demonstrate a different range. At the same time, she recognizes the name’s importance and welcomes the attention it brings. The persona is imposed, commercially useful, and incomplete, but it is also a role she claims as her own. Its central tension is that performing Marilyn can open a path to recognition, while the terms of that recognition threaten to make the performer disappear.