Marilyn Monroe got married to avoid being sent back to the orphanage

Marilyn Monroe initially known as Norma Jeane, spent a lot of her childhood in and out of foster homes, state care, and the custody of different family friends. Her mother had suffered mental health problems, and she had never met her father. Grace Goddard, a family friend who had been housing Baker when she was 15 years old, decided to move to West Virginia but was unable to take Baker with them.

She would have been returned to an orphanage if she hadn't married. They turned to James Dougherty, the 20-year-old neighbor, and proposed marriage. He subsequently admitted that he initially felt she was too young, but that they got along well after talking. Just 18 days after Marilyn Monroe turned 16, they got married - an interesting fact about Marilyn Monroe.

James was drafted during the ongoing Second World War. He joined the merchant marines and was stationed with his wife at the Santa Catalina Island military base off the coast of California. Her beauty was beginning to draw attention. Norma Jeane was loyal to James but he was envious of the other guys staring up his wife. The night before James left for his South Pacific posting in 1944, she urged him to make her pregnant so she "would have a piece of him" in case something went wrong.