Blonde Rebellion

Pets
    During her long stay with foster parents Ida and Albert Bolender, Norma Jeane had her very own pet, a little black and white dog- a stray in some accounts, a gift from Albert Bolender in others- which she named Tippy. The little dog faithfully followed Norma Jeane to school and waited patiently for her to emerge at the end of the day. In early 1933, a neighbor shot Tippy dead, either because he was kept up one night by the dog’s barking, or because he was angry at damage done to his garden, depending on accounts. Norma Jeane was almost inconsolable. Her mother Gladys Baker came to help her bury the pet; she paid the last installment on her daughter’s room and board, and took her little girl away to live with her. Marilyn remembered that dog to the end of her life; she named the cocker spaniel brought in for some scenes of Something’s Got to Give Tippy.
   Soon after marrying James Dougherty, Norma Jeane got a new pet, a collie called Muggsy (other sources spell it Muggsie). Accounts differ as to whether she found it as a stray or was given it by her new husband to keep her company while he was with the Merchant Marine. Muggsy died not long after Norma Jeane began her modeling career, and had no time to visit the dog, who was living with her mother-in-law at the Dougherty family home.
    For her twenty-fourth birthday, studio chief Joseph Schenck gave Marilyn a female chihuahua called Josefa, which Marilyn pampered and fed calf’s liver. The dog, however, was never house-trained, and caused quite a lot of friction with Natasha Lytess, with whom she stayed at the time. Josefa was less trouble at the Palm Drive home Marilyn shared with Johnny Hyde. The dog died within a year. Also, Marilyn reportedly had a Persian cat called Mitsou when she first lived in New York in 1955.
   A basset hound called Hugo lived with Marilyn and husband Arthur Miller in the late fifties, at their New York apartment and at their country house at Roxbury, Connecticut. After they divorced, Marilyn thought it was best for the animal to stay in the country. In 1958 Marilyn and Arthur bought a horse called Ebony from Miller’s close friend Frank Taylor. Marilyn rode Ebony around their extensive grounds only a few times. A Siamese cat called Serafina joined the Miller household in 1959.
   Marilyn’s last pet was Maf Honey(pictured in the photograph), a small white poodle she was given after her brief sojourn to a psychiatric hospital. Maf, like other dogs Marilyn owned, was not properly house-trained. Maf moved with Marilyn back to Los Angeles. At her final home, on Fifth Helena Drive, Maf slept in its own room on an old beaver coat of Marilyn’s, said to have been a gift from Miller. After Marilyn died, Maf was taken in by Gloria Lovell, Frank Sinatra’s secretary.

-The Marilyn Encyclopedia by Adam Victor

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