Charles Casillo put forth in his 2018 biography Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon that as the years passed, “Her stutter was more pronounced now, so she spoke very little.” He also reinforced what most of her biographers report about the after effects of her child abuse, “We know that she began to stutter after the first attack, and she struggled with stuttering throughout her lifetime.”
In Marilyn Monroe: The Final Years, the 2010 biography by Keith Badman, again it is conveyed that Marilyn’s stuttering began after childhood trauma. The book states, “But when she came face-to-face with Gladys(her mother), she was unable to fully explain what happened. Her dramatic experience had precipitated a stammer.” That her traumatic experiences activated her stuttering is widely put forth in other biographies. Badman stated about her childhood, “Norma Jean’s stutter continued to blight her.” He quoted her about her entrance into an orphanage, “So I stopped crying right away and I stuttered.”
Her speech impediment became so bad that she could not finish her sentences. In a 1955 discussion with the American columnist Maurice Zolotow, Marilyn recalled, “I guess you could say I gave up talking for a long while. I used to be so embarrassed in school. I thought I’d die whenever a teacher called upon me. I always had the feeling of not wanting to open my mouth, that anything I said would be wrong or stupid.
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...she was unable to fully explain what happened. Her dramatic experience had precipitated a stammer.”
With the advent of social media, people are able to hear Marilyn Monroe discuss her history of stuttering in her own words. A YouTube video entitled “Marilyn Monroe – I Just Stuttered” features an interview in which she describes how her stuttering first started in an orphanage and then returned in her teenage years. She exclaims, “Oh, it’s terrible!”. Then the actress goes on to explain how if she is nervous or excited, she might slip back into the stuttering speech. She describes her work on one movie in which an assistant director scolded her before a scene, and then immediately after she stuttered badly on her lines. The assistant director said to her. “You don’t stutter”, to which she responded, “That’s what you think.”
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