Hello, Norma Jeane: The Marilyn Monroe You Didn't Know

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NORMA JEANE MORTENSEN

• 1 •

Marilyn’s Los Angeles

To better understand Marilyn is to put her in the context of her birth city and in particular the time frame in which she grew up. Marilyn was born in Los Angeles right as it was transitioning from a smaller, dusty Western town to a giant metropolis booming with oil, ports, aerospace, military, urban sprawl, freeway expansion, and, of course, the hub of the entertainment business.

In the 1880s, the railroad reached Los Angeles, making the city in the far West of the United States more accessible to the rest of the nation. Marilyn’s grandfather Otis Monroe was part of that industry. Then oil was struck, which brought industry and laborers looking for work. Starting at the turn of the twentieth century, those who had visited Los Angeles raved about the warm climate and clean, dry air. Soon tourists were flocking to town and buying land for vacation homes. Much of the land was ripe with natural blossoming fruit trees. A couple of short movies were filmed in Los Angeles in 1911, but the movie industry remained rooted on the East Coast for the time being.

Two things happened in 1913 that forever changed Los Angeles from a quaint little town with Victorian houses and fruit tree groves to what it would become. One, the Los Angeles Aqueduct opened, bringing water to the area. Two, Cecil B. DeMille filmed the first full-length movie, The Squaw Man, in the area of the city known as Hollywood.

Los Angeles proved to be the ideal center for moviemaking. The sunny, warm weather allowed for year-round production, especially in the early days when so much filming was done outside. Within just a couple of hours of driving, there was access to any kind of terrain needed, from mountains, snow, and beaches to forests and deserts. Land was cheap and studios swooped in to purchase large parcels of land where they could build backlots and sound stages, which were ideal once artificial lighting improved.

View of the Cahuenga Pass, Mount Hollywood, and San Fernando Valley from Hollywood in 1915. Within just a few years this area would be teeming with people, industry, and cars. Pierce, C.C. (Charles C.), 1861-1946 / Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, the population of Los Angeles jumped from 102,479 in 1900 to 576,673 in 1920. It also marked the point that the population of Los Angeles surpassed San Francisco (although Los Angeles also has a significantly bigger square mileage). During the 1920s—the decade in which Norma Jeane was born—the population jumped again, this time to 1,238,048. California supplied 29 percent of the nation’s oil and was the largest supplier of crude oil in the United States. In the 1920s, this expanded further when several additional large oil fields were discovered in Southern California.

It was also a time of change in the United States. During the 1910s, American homes felt the devastation of World War I and the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic. On January 17, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment, better known as Prohibition, went into effect just as the nation wanted to party away the misery of the last decade. With alcohol consumption pushed underground, women were now free to enter spaces designated for drinking. Prior to Prohibition, bars and saloons had been previously regulated to men. That same year, the world further opened for women when the Nineteenth Amendment passed, granting females the right to vote. It was a time of liberation, and women flaunted their new freedoms by not just drinking and voting, but also shortening their skirts, cutting their hair, and wearing cosmetics. One of those ladies was none other than Marilyn Monroe’s own mother, Gladys.

The year 1920 marked the first year that the population was higher in cities than in rural areas. The number of factory workers doubled from 4.7 million in 1900 to 9 million in 1920, with many of the positions being filled by a wave of recent immigrants. It was the decade vehicles changed the United States. In 1920, 8,131,522 cars were registered in the United States. The number was 23,120,897 by 1929. With average folks now better able to afford their own automobiles, the exotic land of Los Angeles that everyone seemed to love so much was more accessible than ever. And of course—after decades of lobbying, women received the right to vote in 1920 thanks to the Nineteenth Amendment.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Hollywood Bowl was built, as were countless movie theatres and palaces. It was an early indication that Los Angeles would be a city by artists, for artists. In 1923, a large wooden sign reading HOLLYWOODLAND was erected on Mount Lee as a temporary advertisement for a real estate development. Instead the sign came to symbolize the region’s growing entertainment industry.

It was an extraordinary time for architecture. World War I soldiers coming home from Europe were inspired by the buildings they saw overseas. Los Angeles, now attracting creative types, was especially lucky because many of these folks had the skills to build anything from homes to small retail businesses to grand high rises (tall for the time, anyway). Tudor, Normandy, Arts & Crafts, Craftsman, Spanish, Colonial, Storybook, Mexican, Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, Googie, Beaux-Arts, Moorish—all styles had a place and were appreciated. Many artistic types found Los Angeles inspiring so musicians, writers, photographers, painters, architects, and all-around dreamers and freethinkers found the city welcoming.

This was the Los Angeles Norma Jeane was born into on June 1, 1926. During the years of her childhood, she was in the middle of the city’s transformation. In a way, she and Los Angeles grew up together and she was a product of her environment.

• 2 •

Marilyn 101: The Basics

Born: June 1, 1926, at 9:30 a.m.

[1] Los Angeles General Hospital (now Los Angeles County USC Medical Center)

1200 North State, Los Angeles

Birth name: Norma Jeane Mortenson

Died: August 5, 1962

[2] 12305 Fifth Helena Drive

Brentwood, a neighborhood in Los Angeles

Burial: Westwood Memorial Park

[3] 1218 Glendon Avenue

Westwood, California

Mother: Gladys Pearl Monroe Baker Mortenson Eley (married three times)

Father: Charles Stanley Gifford (biological)

Edward Mortenson (listed on her birth certificate)

Half sisters: Berniece Baker Miracle, Doris Elizabeth Gifford

Half brothers: Robert Kermit Jackie Baker, Charles Chuck Stanley Gifford Jr.

Hair: Her hair was blonde and straight in childhood. As an adult, she was a brunette with curly hair. Starting with modeling days, her hair was dyed various shades of blonde. Marilyn’s curly hair required straightening. The many years of bleaching and straightening damaged her hair, as can be seen later in life.

Eyes: Blue

Height: 5 feet, 51/2 inches

Weight: Generally, between 115 and 120 pounds. During her marriage to Arthur Miller, she weighed about 135. After her divorce from Arthur and her gallbladder removal in 1961, she lost weight and weighed 117 pounds at the time of her death.

Dress size: Ten, twelve, sixteen (Depends on who you ask; and this doesn’t account for custom-made clothing). However, clothing sizes were significantly different in Marilyn’s era than they are now. By today’s standards, Marilyn would likely have been a size two or four at her thinnest, and an eight or ten at her heaviest.

Shoe size: Seven, although many of her shoes were custom-made and had no sizes printed on them.

Dominant hand: Right

Marilyn in 1952. By New York Sunday News / Wikimedia Commons

• 3 •

Marilyn’s Family

Marilyn Monroe is commonly called an orphan, and there is a kernel of truth in this because she spent most of her childhood in foster care and a couple of years in an orphanage. Marilyn did, however, have a family. To better understand Marilyn is to look at how her family shaped the woman she grew into.

TILFORD HOGAN

Marilyn’s great-grandfather, Tilford Marion Hogan, was a humble farm laborer from rural Adams County, the westernmost county in Illinois. He was born on February 24, 1851, to George and Sarah Hogan, both of Kentucky stock. Little is known about his life, other than he married at least twice, moved to Missouri at some point, and outlived three of his four children.

Tilford Hogan’s death predicts a sad reality for his descendants—mental illness, as his death certificate indicates suicide by hanging on May 27, 1933, in Missouri at the age of eighty-two.

One of the three children he outlived was his daughter, Della Hogan Monroe, who died in California about five years before her father. Della’s lineage produced Marilyn’s maternal line.

DELLA HOGAN MONROE

Della Mae Hogan, Marilyn’s maternal grandmother, was born in Missouri on July 1, 1876, to Tilford and Charlotte Virginia Sellers, who was born in Carroll County, Missouri, on April 10, 1857. When Della was thirteen, Tilford and Charlotte made the unusual decision for the time to divorce, leaving her to bounce between her parents. During her youth, Della was known for her outgoing and mischievous personality, traits that no doubt attracted the attention of her future husband, Otis Monroe, whom she met in 1898.

OTIS MONROE

Born May 14, 1866, in Marion County, Indiana, to Jacob Monroe and Mary Stewart, Otis Elmer Monroe had big dreams of moving to Europe, studying the great painting masters, and becoming an artist. He was never able to realize his dreams, but he did succeed in winning the love of a young and vivacious Della Hogan, whom he married in 1899, one year after meeting her.

Instead of the European life of an artist, Otis and his bride traveled the country looking for work. The search took him to Mexico, where he accepted a job for the Mexican National Railway, not too far from the Texas border.

While living and working in Mexico, Della gave birth to the first of two children, a girl named Gladys Pearl Monroe, on May 27, 1902. The job in Mexico did not last long, and the Monroe family was once again on the move, returning to the United States in the spring of 1903.

Otis once again accepted work for a railroad, this time Pacific Electric Railway (sometimes called Red Cars) in Southern California, which was rapidly expanding and in need of transportation. The private transit system connected Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Orange counties via streetcars and buses.

Otis, Della, and baby Gladys settled in Los Angeles, and soon the family expanded once again. A second child, a boy named Marion Otis Monroe, was born in Los Angeles on October 6, 1904.

Now a foursome, the young family may have decided on a life in Los Angeles, but they still moved several times every year. Otis was known to drink heavily, so when his memory began failing it probably went largely unnoticed—at least in the beginning.

Otis’s health continued deteriorating at a rapid clip, soon developing into migraines, shakes, and violent rages, which frightened Della and the children. It was clear more was going on than just drinking.

As the symptoms of dementia overtook Otis, he was admitted to Patton State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital, in 1908. There he was diagnosed with syphilis, which one can contract through sexual contact, deep cuts in the skin, or mucous membranes. In the case of Otis, it is generally believed he contracted the disease from unsanitary living conditions in Mexico. By the following year, Otis was unable to recognize his own family and passed away at Patton in 1909, at the age of forty-three.

Although there was a medical diagnosis explaining the death of Otis Monroe, Della, and his children were convinced he had suffered from hereditary mental illness.

LIFE WITHOUT OTIS

In 1909, there were not many options for single mothers with young children. Della soon married one of Otis’s coworkers from Pacific Electric Railway, but the marriage only lasted two years.

As for the children, Gladys and Marion had not experienced much stability in their formative years. They had moved frequently, making it difficult for them to make friends or develop a sense of security. Now without a father to provide for them, life continued to unravel.

Believing Marion needed a male influence, Della sent her son to live with relatives in San Diego. Gladys stayed with her mother, and by the time she was a young teen, mother and daughter moved into a modest boarding house within walking distance of the Pacific Ocean in Venice Beach.

Della had begun dating again and fell in love with a man who clashed bitterly with fourteen-year-old Gladys. The poor relationship between Gladys and her mother’s suitor created problems at home, especially because Della was hoping to marry this man, or at least settle into a long-term relationship.

A TEEN BRIDE

A solution to Della’s problem presented itself in a way she wasn’t expecting but seemed to welcome nonetheless. Like her mother, Gladys was dating. Unlike her average-looking mother, however, Gladys had developed into an unusually beautiful young woman.

Gladys’s suitor was Jasper Baker, an older man of twenty-nine (born on March 16, 1886) and a native Kentuckian. When Gladys discovered she was pregnant, Della eagerly married off her teenage daughter. Gladys married Jasper (listed as John Baker on the marriage certificate) on May 22, 1917, five days short of her fifteenth birthday. Her age was falsified on official paperwork to make her appear older than her actual age of fourteen. With Gladys out of the way, Della was now free to pursue her romantic relationship without interference.

Gladys delivered her son, Robert Jasper Baker, nicknamed Jackie, on January 16, 1918, in Venice Beach, California. A daughter, Berniece Inez Baker, also born in Venice Beach, followed on July 30, 1919.

The Baker marriage was a catastrophe. Gladys was a young girl from a dysfunctional family, and not at all prepared for motherhood. When Jackie was a toddler, he nearly lost an eye after Gladys placed broken glass in a trash can within his reach. Jasper blamed Gladys for the infraction.

Just as Gladys struggled, Jasper was hardly a model husband. He was known to verbally and physically abuse Gladys, including whipping her across the back with a horse bridle after speaking too long with one of his brothers. During a physical fight between the couple in their car’s front seat, Jackie accidentally opened the backseat door and fell from the moving vehicle into the street.

Unable to tolerate the abuse any longer, Gladys filed for divorce in 1921. It was granted in 1922, but it was not the end of Gladys’s drama with her husband. On the contrary, Jasper kidnapped their two small children and fled to his native Flat Lick, Kentucky. A devastated Gladys traveled to Kentucky in pursuit of her children, even settling in town and working as a housekeeper for a family with young children, one of whom was a little girl named Norma Jean.

Jasper remarried, this time to a woman who was the exact opposite of his first wife. An older, matronly woman would serve as stepmother to Jackie and Berniece, a move on Jasper’s part that effectively cut their biological mother out of their lives. Unable to regain custody, Gladys reluctantly traveled home to Los Angeles to start her life over—without her two children.

RETURN TO LOS ANGELES

Los Angeles in the 1920s was a rapidly growing metropolis. Gladys took a job as a film cutter in the burgeoning movie industry to support herself, but she seemed to go through a second adolescence—or perhaps the adolescence she never had in the first place.

By day she worked, but at night she lived the life of a flapper. She stayed out late to dance, drink, and date. Her best friend and adventure buddy was Grace McKee, a friend she met at work. Still only in her early twenties, Gladys continued to radiate beauty. Grace, on the other hand, was a few years older and plainer, but her outgoing personality made her the life of any party. Despite their opposite appearances, they had the same interests and became inseparable. Although no one knew it early on, Grace’s friendship would make her a pivotal person in Gladys’s life, someone loyal to her through thick and thin.

One person who did not see the value of Gladys’s partying ways was her mother, Della. Gladys needed to settle down, Della argued, and become a respectable wife. Feeling pressured, Gladys gave in and married again, this time to a man roughly her same age with a good job working for the gas company. Gladys Monroe Baker married Martin Edward Mortensen on October 14, 1924, in Los Angeles.

The marriage sounded good in theory, but in reality Gladys was far from finished when it came to sowing her wild oats. Mortensen was a respectable young man, but Gladys was not ready for a quiet life dedicated to homemaking. She quickly grew bored living as Mrs. Mortensen, and the marriage crumbled accordingly. Gladys and her new husband soon separated, and she resumed the life she’d had with Grace before marriage.

A LITTLE GIRL COMES INTO THE WORLD

Gladys began dating her supervisor at work, Stan Gifford. Sometime around the holidays of 1925, Gladys discovered she was pregnant. When she informed Stan, he said it was a good thing she was already married because she could put her husband’s name on the birth certificate.

Gladys delivered a baby girl in the charity ward of Los Angeles General Hospital on June 1, 1926. She took her ex-lover’s suggestion and named her estranged husband, Martin Edward Mortensen, on the birth certificate as the father to avoid the stigma of illegitimacy.

Baby Norma Jeane was born to a single mother who was unable to properly care for a child and a father who denied responsibility. As an adult, the woman who became known to the world as Marilyn Monroe recounted feeling unwanted from the beginning of her life. By Dell Publications, Inc. New York / Wikimedia Commons

The lie on the birth certificate took care of the illegitimacy issue, but it did not solve the fact that Stan Gifford refused responsibility for his child. Gladys was alone in an era with few resources for single mothers. Worried she could not raise a child on her own, Gladys placed her infant daughter in the care of Wayne and Ida Bolender on June 13. Soon after accepting Norma Jeane into their home, the Bolenders took in another infant, a boy named Lester who was born in August. The children were so close in age that Wayne and Ida sometimes referred to them as the twins and raised them as brother and sister.

The Bolenders lived across the street from Della in Hawthorne, a Los Angeles suburb, and were known for taking in foster children. Gladys visited occasionally and even took Norma Jeane out on day trips, but everyday responsibilities fell to Wayne and Ida.

With Norma Jeane at the Bolenders’ house, Gladys resumed life as a single woman. She worked during the day, including a stint at the RKO studio in Hollywood, and partied at night, often with Grace. Della still lived across the street from the Bolenders, but it wasn’t an ideal situation. She was now struggling with mental illness, and one day took it upon herself to cross the street and violently break the glass of the Bolenders’ front door. They were unable to calm her down and called the police for assistance. Shortly after, Della died in Norwalk State Hospital on August 23, 1927. The official cause of death was myocarditis (heart disease) with manic depressive psychosis listed as a contributing factor.

Just a little over two years later, Gladys’s brother Marion disappeared in November 1929. One day he left home, which included his wife Olive and three small children, and was never seen again. Olive finally had Marion legally declared dead in 1939 so she would be eligible for state financial aid. Although he never received a diagnosis, it is generally believed Marion may have had schizophrenia.

After Norma Jeane turned seven, life was about to take a turn when the Bolenders approached Gladys about formally adopting the little girl. They were adopting Lester and wanted to make the family they had created with both children permanent.

Gladys didn’t just refuse the offer; she removed Norma Jeane from the Bolender home and took back custody of her daughter. It is unclear exactly why Gladys believed she could suddenly care for a child—or why she didn’t just simply refuse the adoption request and continue allowing Norma Jeane to live with her foster family. Most likely, Gladys was afraid of losing yet another child after her first two had been taken from her. Whatever Gladys’s reasoning was, mother and daughter were reunited.

Initially, Gladys rented an apartment in Hollywood near RKO, where she was employed, but soon set her mind on purchasing a house, probably to establish stability for her child. Grace advised against the purchase of a home. A new mortgage, raising a child she was trying to reestablish a bond with, working full time—it would all be too much, Grace warned. Gladys disregarded the good advice and bought a three-bedroom house near the Hollywood Bowl.

As it turns out, Grace had been correct all along. Life was becoming overwhelming for Gladys. For the first time she found herself in the role of single mother. She was working full time. She struggled to make her mortgage payments, so she was forced to rent part of the house to an English couple who worked as actors. Then in 1933, she received news of two deaths in the family. In May, her grandfather Tilford committed suicide by hanging himself. Not long after, she received word that her estranged fifteen-year-old son, Jackie, died in August of tuberculosis of the kidneys.

Gladys’s emotional health deteriorated and, in retrospect, was already showing signs of the mental illness that would eventually overtake her. She exhibited severe depression and had difficulty expressing affection, including for her daughter.

In January 1935, all these factors came together in a perfect storm and climaxed when Gladys suffered a complete mental breakdown. The English couple who lived with Gladys initially tried to calm her but were ultimately forced to call an ambulance for assistance. Gladys was admitted into Norwalk State Hospital, the same psychiatric hospital where her mother had died a few years before. Doctors were finally able to diagnose Gladys and reached the conclusion she had paranoid schizophrenia with delusions of persecution.

Gladys was adjudged insane on January 15, 1935. Gladys and Norma Jeane’s time together had been brief, and a maternal bond never had time to develop.

Just as Grace had been Gladys’s best friend during the good times, she continued to be a friend when Gladys needed her most—and when Norma Jeane needed her. Grace filed legal paperwork to become Norma Jeane’s permanent guardian. She also began the laborious task of cataloging Gladys’s possessions so she could sell them off and pay any outstanding debts.

Once diagnosed, Gladys spent her life in and out of sanitariums and rest homes. The treatment of schizophrenia in the 1930s was in the early stages of development, and nowhere near what is possible today. For Gladys, life would be anything but peaceful. On January 20, 1937, Gladys escaped from a guard’s custody in Atascadero, California, during a transfer from Norwalk State Hospital to Portland, Oregon. It was the first of several escape attempts to come over the years.

There is, however, a bright spot during this time frame. Gladys finally realized her wish to make contact with her oldest surviving child, Berniece, but her letters were so rambling and confusing the now-adult daughter initially wondered if her long-lost mother had brain damage.

Berniece came to visit her mother during the summer of 1946 while Gladys was attempting to live outside the confines of a sanitarium. The family lived in one of Ana Lower’s duplexes.

During one of her extended stays on the outside, Gladys married for the final time in 1949. Her new husband, John Eley, was still technically married to his previous wife, but he and Gladys continued to live as a married couple until he died in 1952. When it came time to institutionalize Gladys again, Grace suggested to the now-successful movie star Marilyn Monroe the possibility of a private sanitarium instead of a state-run facility.

Through Grace’s research, she found Rockhaven Sanitarium in 1953, a private facility located in the Crescenta Valley, not far outside of Hollywood. Rockhaven opened in 1923 and had a long-standing reputation for high-quality care. It accepted women only and, furthermore, hired female employees, which was intended as a means to keep vulnerable women safe from predatory male patients and employees.

Marilyn financed Gladys’s stay at Rockhaven, but it is unknown if Marilyn visited. Given her commitment to a time-consuming career and, later, move to the East Coast, the likelihood seems low.

Grace’s hunch that Rockhaven would make an ideal home for her long-time friend was correct. Gladys thrived at Rockhaven. The registered nurse who founded Rockhaven, Agnes Richards, had observed while working at asylums what helped patients and what increased their discomfort. Keeping their minds busy with projects could sometimes slow the progress of mental illness, so Gladys, along with other residents, participated in crafts, knitting, and gardening.

Schizophrenia presents itself differently in each person, but a common symptom is a preoccupation with a particular subject. For Gladys, it was religion, Christian Science in particular, and at Rockhaven she was permitted to study her Bible in peace.

Although it is unlikely Marilyn visited her mother during this era, paying for Gladys to live at Rockhaven was an act of love. She even took the step to set up a trust for Gladys’s care in her will.

In November 1959, Marilyn consented for her business manager Inez Melson to become Gladys Eley’s conservator. A few weeks later in December, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Burdette Daniels granted Inez’s request and named her as Gladys’s legal guardian.

It’s not clear when Gladys was informed of her youngest daughter’s death on August 5, 1962. She knew within a few weeks, though, because a letter written to Inez was postmarked August 22. What’s clear was Gladys knew Marilyn died and comprehended the loss. "I am very greatfull [sic] for your kind and gracious help toward Berniece and myself and to dear Norma Jeane, the letter read. She is at peace and at rest now and may Our God bless her & help her always. I wish you to know that I gave her (Norma) Christian Science treatments for approximately one year."

Marilyn had provided for Gladys and her continued care in her will, but it would take time for everything to go through the probate process. There was also a process for paying Marilyn’s outstanding debts before moving forward with the trust and paying Rockhaven for Gladys’s stay. Inez and Berniece wanted to keep Gladys at Rockhaven, which was the best place for her, but the issue of payment was worrisome while Marilyn’s will and estate worked out legalities.

Marilyn’s will was signed and dated January 14, 1961, which was while she was in the process of divorcing Arthur Miller. Her estate was valued at one million dollars. Marilyn’s will revealed she had left her mother a trust of $100,000 with $5,000 to be paid per year for Gladys’s care.

The value of Marilyn’s estate was due to television interest in her movies, but it took a few years to pay off the heavy taxes and creditors. Marilyn’s on-set acting coach, Paula Strasberg, for example, was owed $22,200 and Joe DiMaggio was owed $5,000 for a loan that was used as a down payment for Marilyn’s house in Los Angeles. Her agents filed the largest claim for $80,168.

These debts and taxes gobbled up Marilyn’s estate for the first few years and left no funds to pay Gladys’s bill, which in theory meant she could have been asked to leave. At some point, the Rockhaven staff decided to permit Gladys to stay for free until Marilyn’s estate could repay the debt.

In the meantime, although Rockhaven was the best place equipped to handle Gladys, it wasn’t always an easy stay. On July 4, 1963, Gladys knotted a bedsheet and dropped it out her window so she could climb out to freedom. It was a dramatic escape—but it was also a first-floor window. She could have easily walked out the front door of her bungalow.

Regardless, she disappeared off the property. Gladys was found about twenty-four hours later hiding in the boiler room of Lakeview Baptist Terrace Church, located ten miles away from Rockhaven. In her hands were a Bible and a Christian Science handbook.

One of the hallmarks of Rockhaven Sanitarium was the peaceful, home-like setting the ladies lived in while receiving treatment. Pictured is The Pines building, where Gladys lived at the time of Marilyn’s death and later escaped. She was found the next day hiding in a church ten miles away. Courtesy Friends of Rockhaven

Authorities determined she must have walked there and had probably spent the night in the church. When the media learned of the story, photographers snapped Gladys’s picture and printed photos of Marilyn Monroe’s mentally ill mother in newspapers. J. Brian Reid, pastor of the church Gladys had been found hiding in, was considerably kinder than the media. When reporters asked him for a quote, he replied, She was very calm and cool, the kind of person to whom your heart goes out.

It is not clear if Gladys tried to escape as a response to grief after her daughter’s passing or if it was simply the continuation of a pattern, as she had tried to escape before. Rockhaven accepted her back and weathered the scandal even though Gladys’s bill was overdue.

By July 1965, Marilyn’s estate owed Rockhaven $4,133 in back payments for the $425 monthly bill. Inez Melson and Marilyn’s attorneys, Aaron Frosch, who was executor of the estate, and Milton Rudin, continued working with Rockhaven through the mid-1960s. Around this time, Rock-haven received an envelope with a handwritten message reading, Put this on Marilyn’s mother’s bill. Two one-dollar bills were enclosed. It was not much money, especially considering the amount of debt, but likely a show of goodwill or intent on the estate’s behalf. The note was probably written by Inez Melson, who was still Gladys’s guardian and had maintained her visitation schedule. It was also Inez who made a statement to a newspaper: the sanitarium, which has been so nice, isn’t going to set her out on the street.

Syndicated newspaper columnist Earl Wilson wrote on June 21, 1965, Although Marilyn, in death, still earns about $150,000 a year in deferred salaries, and while her total earnings, including movie sales to TV, have come to over $800,000, virtually all is going for taxes. There have been no business expenses to deduct and Marilyn’s continuing income is taxed at the highest bracket, 70 percent. There were also back federal income taxes of $118,000 to be paid for 1958 to 1962.

In 1965, Aaron Frosch made two payments against the outstanding bill totaling $2,547. Inez made another statement to the press to correct information about Rockhaven’s treatment of her. There have been reports in some foreign papers that she is being humiliated because she is in a public ward at the hospital, but these are untrue. Mrs. Eley is an ambulatory patient—she walks around. She has always shared a room with another patient. Even very wealthy patients live in rooms for two people. The institution officials have been kind and generous and she is as contented there as one who is ill can be.

It is doubtful Gladys knew anything about the trouble with her bill. Also, given the graciousness of how everyone handled her 1963 escape, it is clear Rockhaven and Marilyn’s estate were trying to work together to keep Gladys safe. Marilyn’s mother and I go shopping at least once a month, Inez was quoted as saying. Nobody seeing us having lunch would ever suspect that the little white-haired woman who once looked like Marilyn is actually Marilyn’s mother. Her only concern, since she doesn’t read the newspapers, is for her religious books.

Marilyn’s estate continued to make good on the outstanding bill, but Gladys’s mental health took a darker turn the following year. First in April and then again in May 1966, Gladys attempted suicide at Rockhaven by trying to stifle herself with bedsheets. My soul has gone to God, my body might as well go also, she said.

The matter was larger than Rockhaven, and Gladys’s case ended up in court, which concluded she was a danger to herself and others. A newspaper article from September 1966 indicated Gladys was required to move from Rockhaven to a California state mental institution for higher-risk patients. A state hospital is what Marilyn had been trying to avoid for her mother. Although Marilyn was no longer able to step in on Gladys’s behalf, another daughter was—Berniece Baker Miracle.

The daughter who had been stolen from her so long ago now took responsibility. She did not have the financial resources of her younger half sister, Marilyn Monroe, but in November 1966 Berniece requested her mother be released to her care instead of a state-run institution. The request was granted and Gladys moved to Florida to live with her daughter’s family. As she had done in the past, sometimes Gladys lived in facilities, and other times she lived in the outside world. At times she also lived in nursing homes. When Marilyn’s estate had finally been probated and paid taxes, some money was available to care for her mother.

Gladys Pearl Monroe Baker Mortensen Eley passed away in Gainesville from heart failure on March 11, 1984. Her remains were cremated and there was a small memorial for family, close friends, and Christian Science associates. Her final resting place is unknown to the public, per her request. Her life was profoundly impacted by mental illness, both her own and members of her family. What defines her, however, was how badly she wanted to be a good mother to her children, two of whom she outlived. Although it was not the ending she had hoped for or expected, Gladys’s desire to have bonds with her children came true. It was much later than she anticipated or hoped, but her daughters cared for her when she needed them most.

GRACE GODDARD: THE WOMAN BEHIND MARILYN

Without Grace Goddard, there wouldn’t be a Marilyn Monroe.

Clara Grace Atchinson was one of five children born in Great Falls, Montana, to Wallace and Emma Atchinson. Not long after Grace’s birth on January 1, 1894, the Atchinsons moved to California, as the 1900 census shows the family living in Bakersfield.

Her first marriage took place in Fresno on February 17, 1913, at the age of nineteen to twenty-eight-year-old Asher Ewing Service. The marriage didn’t last long and in less than two years, Grace was not only remarried but living in Los Angeles. She married garageman Reginald Evans on February 2, 1915, and the couple settled in the Sawtelle area of Los Angeles. Although the marriage certificate notes she is divorced, she used her maiden name, Grace Atchinson, for the paperwork. The Evans marriage also didn’t last, but this time it was due to death. Reginald Evans died at the age of twenty-four on January 21, 1919, in Los Angeles, from pneumonia brought on by acute influenza. (There was a worldwide flu pandemic in 1918–1919. The CDC estimated about five hundred million people, or one-third of the world’s population, were infected with the H1N1 virus, which killed nearly fifty million worldwide. Of those, 675,000 were Americans.)

On June 12, 1920, she married again, this time to John Wallace McKee, a draftsman in the construction industry. The marriage certificate states Grace Evans is widowed and this is her second marriage—however, it was her third marriage. Her brother Bryan served as a witness. The marriage soon crumbled and the couple separated.

After three marriages in rapid succession, Grace entered the roaring 1920s ready for a fresh start and jumped into the life of a flapper. She supported herself by working at Consolidated Film Industries, where she met Gladys Baker. The two young women had a lot to bond over—failed marriages, heartbreak, and surviving trauma. They quickly became best buddies, a friendship initially dedicated to dancing, drinking, and parties. Over the years, however, they supported each other through life’s most challenging moments. During the first years of their relationship, they shared an apartment at 1211 Hyperion in east Hollywood.

Grace was a force of nature, as Olin G. Stanley, a coworker at Consolidated Films, remembered, [Grace] was freewheeling, hard-working and fast-living. Ambitious to succeed. A busybody. Whoever and whatever she wanted, she went and got. Partying and booze seemed the most important things in her life, and work was just a means to that end.

When Gladys gave birth to a little girl in 1926 and placed her with a foster family, Grace extended her friendship to the baby, Norma Jeane. Gladys tried to build a relationship with her daughter by visiting frequently and taking Norma Jeane out for day trips. Grace often accompanied Gladys and Norma Jeane on their adventures and she doted on her friend’s girl. The trio went to lunch, the beauty parlor, and the movies—Grace and Gladys both loved the movies. It was a passion they passed along to Norma Jeane, who found refuge in watching movies, an activity encouraged by Grace, who loved telling her she was going to grow up to be a great woman like Jean Harlow.

Through these visits, Grace grew to know Norma Jeane well and developed a deep affection for her. She had no children of her own and channeled any maternal instincts she may have had into Norma Jeane.

Little did anyone know the relationship Grace had built with Norma Jeane would become so paramount to both their lives. The first indication came in 1935 when Grace assumed responsibility for her friend—Gladys had no family to handle her estate or daughter when she was institutionalized.

That year, Grace filed legal paperwork to become the legal guardian of Norma Jean Baker.

Part of the process to become Norma Jeane’s guardian required the little girl to stay at an orphanage, although Grace paid for her board and visited frequently. Despite Grace’s efforts to still be part of Norma Jeane’s life during this transition, the orphanage experience traumatized the impressionable and deeply sensitive young girl.

While Norma Jeane lived at the children’s home, Grace married for a fourth and final time on August 10, 1935, in Las Vegas. Her new husband, Ervin Doc Goddard, was ten years younger. Like Grace, he was divorced but unlike Grace, he had three children. Grace didn’t have biological children but was awarded legal guardianship of Norma Jeane on March 27, 1936. When the mandatory stay at the orphanage was fulfilled, Grace removed Norma Jeane from the orphanage on June 7, 1937.

Grace was a constant in Norma Jeane’s life during her formative years, but even after assuming legal guardianship, Norma Jeane still bounced from foster home to foster home. She was never part of a government-run foster care system. Instead, Grace arranged placement through her network of friends and family.

Norma Jeane continued to live off and on with the Goddards, but other temporary homes included the family of Grace’s brother, Bryan Atchinson, and her sister Enid’s family, the Knebelkamps. Norma Jeane’s favorite guardian was Ana Lower, Grace’s paternal aunt. It was Aunt Ana who showed the troubled child an unconditional motherly love she had never before experienced. (There is a story that Norma Jeane was sent to live with Grace’s other family members after Doc Goddard tried to molest Norma Jeane. There is no evidence to support this claim. The man who allegedly attempted to molest Norma Jeane was likely a boarder who lived with another foster family.)

In 1942, Doc Goddard accepted a work promotion that took the family to West Virginia. The Goddards determined they couldn’t afford to take Norma Jeane along—they were taking Doc’s three children with them, and another mouth to feed was cost-prohibitive. But what would happen to Norma Jeane?

Berniece Baker Miracle was Marilyn’s half-sister through their mother Gladys. They enjoyed a warm, friendly relationship but had missed out on being raised together and met as adults. She is pictured here in 1962 while in Los Angeles for Marilyn’s memorial service. Along with Joe DiMaggio and business manager Inez Melson, Berniece helped make the arrangements. Photofest

Grace arranged a marriage for Norma Jeane to a neighbor’s son, Jim Dougherty. Norma Jeane turned sixteen on June 1 and she married Jim on June 19. Grace had already moved away and did not attend. Norma Jeane had no relatives at the wedding, only Ana Lower, who sewed a white wedding dress for her to wear.

In an instant, Norma Jeane went from a high school girl to a married woman. Grace leaving for West Virginia and marrying her ward off deepened Norma Jeane’s fear of abandonment and feelings of being unwanted.

After Grace moved away and Norma Jeane was married, they kept in touch through letter writing. The Goddards moved back to California in 1946, the same year Gladys’s first daughter, Berniece Miracle, came to visit. Gladys was living outside the hospital at this point so both now-adult daughters could try getting to know their mother. It wasn’t easy, as Gladys was often remote, but Grace filled in many of the gaps by answering questions about their family history. Because she had known Gladys so well before her breakdown, Grace was the link to the past they needed when asking questions.

By this time Norma Jeane’s schedule was full with modeling assignments, making the frequency of their contact increasingly sporadic. Sometimes she accepted Grace’s invitations over for visits; often she did not. But Norma Jeane needed Grace for one more act of guardianship. Even though Norma Jeane had been married and was divorced in 1946, at twenty years old she was still considered a minor. To sign her first movie studio contract, she needed her legal guardian to cosign. Grace accompanied Norma Jeane to Twentieth Century-Fox and proudly signed a movie contract for the girl she had hoped would grow up to be a movie star like Jean Harlow. It was an accomplishment for both women.

Grace died in 1953, the result of a barbiturate overdose and years of alcoholism. Marilyn did not attend the funeral at Westwood Memorial Park, where Grace was laid to rest in a family plot along with Ana Lower.

Marilyn joined Grace at Westwood Memorial just nine years later—the result of a barbiturate overdose.

BELOVED AUNT ANA

The woman Marilyn Monroe called Aunt Ana was not her biological aunt, although one might never know from the loving way Marilyn spoke of her.

Ana Lower was an older, divorced woman with no children of her own, but with the nurturing disposition of a kindly mother or grandmother figure.

As an adult, Marilyn repeatedly spoke of how she felt loved for the first time when she moved into Aunt Ana’s house. As a youngster, Marilyn lived with Aunt Ana off and on between 1937 and her marriage to Jim Dougherty in 1942, and then again in 1946. The only times she didn’t stay with Aunt Ana during that time was when the elderly woman’s health was suffering. She provided the young girl with the security she needed and the love she craved.

Edith Ana Atchinson was born on January 17, 1880, in Bakersfield, California. In her early twenties, she moved to Los Angeles, where she married William Lower in 1910. In the 1920s, she and her husband purchased some bungalows and cottages around the Los Angeles area to serve as rental properties and provide income. She and Will divorced in 1933 and Ana retained two of their properties, one of which was a duplex on Nebraska Avenue where Ana lived in one of the units. The rental properties provided a modest living but the Great Depression often left the landlady in need of tenants.

Counseling people in the Christian Science faith brought some extra pocket change but mostly she enjoyed sharing her faith free of charge. Her generosity took her to the Lincoln Heights jail, where she volunteered to read the Bible to inmates once a week. She was a devoted, but not fanatical, member of the church and attended services regularly.

When Grace placed