Ex-husband of Marilyn Monroe dies

LEWISTON – James Dougherty, a former husband of Marilyn Monroe who lived much of his life in Maine, died of complications from leukemia.

Dougherty, who was 84, died Monday in San Rafael, Calif.

Dougherty married Norma Jeane Baker, who later changed her name to Marilyn Monroe, in 1942, before he went to sea as a merchant mariner. Baker set out to pursue a Hollywood career while Dougherty was gone, and the two were divorced in 1946. Dougherty remarried twice.

During Dougherty’s marriage to his second wife, Pat, he destroyed 200 love letters and pictures from Monroe because he didn’t want her to find them and get upset.

Dougherty worked for the Los Angeles Police Department for 25 years, serving as a detective and training the department’s first Special Weapons and Tactics group. After his retirement in 1974, he moved to Arizona and later to Maine, living in the town of Sabattus.

While living in Maine, he served a stint as an Androscoggin County commissioner and taught at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy. Dougherty also played several stringed instruments and sang.

“His years with Marilyn Monroe, that was just a small part of his life,” said Schani Krug, who wrote, produced and directed a documentary titled “Marilyn’s Man” about Dougherty’s life last year. “He was everything she never had.”

Dougherty refused for years to talk about his time with Monroe, but after his second divorce he was more comfortable with the subject and was interviewed for magazines and television programs in the United States and other countries.

In 1997, Dougherty wrote a book titled “To Norma Jeane, Love Jimmie.”

His third wife, Rita, died in 2003. Dougherty’s family plans to fly his body back to Maine for burial, said his stepdaughter, Annie Woods of Sabattus.