Then one day Grace came home and found Gladys lying on the couch, having what appeared to be some sort of seizure. "She started kicking and yelling," Grace later recalled. "She was lying on her back, staring up at the staircase and yelling, "Somebody"s coming down those steps to kill me." "
There are many conflicting accounts of what happened in the following minutes, some claiming that Gladys had brandished a knife in order to fight off her imagined "attackers." Marilyn remembered the fallout of the event in her memoir. She and "the English couple" (the Atkinsons) were having breakfast when she heard someone fall down the stairs. It was her mother. Though she was told to stay in the kitchen, the little girl peeped out and managed to catch a glimpse of Gladys screaming, laughing, and acting in a completely irrational manner. With eyes alert and knowing-not even fearful-Norma Jeane seemed to realize that this moment would be a defining one where her mother was concerned. Indeed, Gladys Baker had suffered a severe psychotic break. Because it appeared that she was now a danger to herself and others, the police were called and it was quickly determined that she would be sent for psychiatric evaluation.
Once she was at a hospital, a number of doctors came to the same conclusion. Gladys was diagnosed as being paranoid schizophrenic and would now have to be committed to the state mental inst.i.tution, Norwalk Hospital, indefinitely. It seemed to have happened so fast-or had it? Truly, it had been coming for years. Schizophrenia is an often misunderstood brain disorder that affects over 1 percent of the country"s adult population. Each year more than one hundred thousand people are diagnosed with schizophrenia in the United States alone. One in four of them will attempt suicide at least once in their lifetime, and one in ten will succeed. Paranoid schizophrenia-a severe and disabling form of the condition-has frightening symptoms, which most commonly include sufferers hearing voices, thinking others can read their minds, and believing that plots are being developed to harm them. Often, schizophrenics have no signs of the disease until a certain period after adolescence, when a mental shift takes place. While this change in behavior occurs earlier in men (their late teens and early twenties), women sufferers can experience this dramatic shift later, usually in their twenties and thirties.
It"s worth noting that this terrible diagnosis came with some sense of relief for Gladys, as well as for those who loved her. After years of worrying about a total mental collapse in the future, that fear was now relegated to the past. At thirty-two, Gladys Baker had spent much of her life battling the voices-and now, undoubtedly, the voices had won.
Grace Is Norma Jeane"s Legal Guardian.
With Gladys in the sanitarium for an indeterminate period of time, the question, as always, remained: What to do about Norma Jeane?
As an adult, Marilyn Monroe would recall having overheard a conversation between Grace McKee and friends as they tried to convince her not to take on the responsibility of raising the child. They said she was a "mental case." Marilyn said that she lay in bed "shivering" because even though she didn"t know what a mental case was, she was sure it wasn"t good. Indeed, Grace"s friends talked about all of the people in Norma Jeane"s family who had mental problems and said they were sure the same fate would befall the little girl. Still, Grace decided that she would take care of her friend"s daughter, somehow. She soon filed the necessary papers and became her legal guardian.
It was decided, though, that Norma Jeane would continue to live, at least for the time being, with the Atkinsons. Therefore, for the rest of 1934, she stayed with them in the Arbol Drive home. After just becoming accustomed to having her mother around, now she had to readjust to living without her. For weeks, she would ask where Gladys was and when she was going to return. Even though she"d had that terrible exchange with her mother where her mother wished her dead, Norma Jeane felt that they"d gotten closer in recent months. She was finally happy. Now it seemed as if it were all over, and she wanted to know why. As always, Grace was very patient with her. "Your mommy is gone, sweetheart," she told her, "and she"s not going to be back for a long time. But I"m here for you now."
Following the union strike at Consolidated Studios, Grace was working at Columbia Pictures in the movie company"s film library. Because she worked on the periphery of show business, she knew a great many people in the movie business and often discussed with them the current crop of movie stars and their careers at Columbia. Columbia Pictures, though, was considered a "poverty row" operation, not the huge film company it would become in later years.
In the early 1930s, Columbia was a fledgling company that laid claim to the most popular comedy trio of the day, the Three Stooges, who would display their screwball slapstick comedy in 190 short films between 1934 and 1957. The studio"s primary focus was low-budget comedies, westerns, Sat.u.r.day afternoon serials, and any story that could be shot in a week and in theaters in another week. Speed and economy were its strong suits, and Columbia was the best studio in Hollywood for that kind of fare. Grace was inspired by her surroundings and began to wonder if perhaps she could become involved in the movie business in some way other than as a film cutter.
As Grace came to know Norma Jeane better, she began to believe that the young girl had some potential in show business, maybe as an actress. Not only was she very pretty, but there was something more complex about her. Her eyes were large and intelligent. She was interesting to look at, to watch. She had unusual charisma for such a young child. Of course, it is easy to make such a retrospective judgment about the girl who would one day become Marilyn Monroe, but it was really true just the same. Grace told everyone she knew that she had a strong feeling about the child and that, as she put it, "there might be something there." Today it would be said that what Grace perceived in Norma Jeane was the "X" factor-a quality that can"t be described but that somehow conveys stardom.
"My mother told me that Grace would dress her up in the prettiest little outfits and bring her to work," recalls Dia Nanouris, whose mom was an a.s.sistant film editor at Columbia. "She doted on her and seemed to love her very much, as if she was her own daughter. In fact, most people did think they were mother and daughter.
"Grace was a big fan of Jean Harlow"s and my mom thought it was Jean Harlow"s career that Grace had in mind for Norma Jeane. One thing was sure, Grace had made up her mind that Norma Jeane would be in show business, and from what was known about Grace, once she had her mind made up about something, it usually happened. She took Norma Jeane to see several Jean Harlow films back then and talked a lot about Harlow to the little girl."
Arriving in Hollywood during the declining years of the silent era, Jean Harlow (nee Harlean Carpenter) traveled the usual starlet route, appearing in Hal Roach shorts and bit parts in forgettable films, before her career took off like a rocket thanks to the legendary Howard Hughes, who cast her in the princ.i.p.al female role in his 1930 World War I aviation epic, h.e.l.l"s Angels h.e.l.l"s Angels, an international blockbuster. She would appear in five films the following year for five different studios, including The Public Enemy The Public Enemy, a groundbreaking gangster film that established James Cagney as a superstar and Warner Bros. as the premier studio for the gangster genre. This was also the year-1931-that Columbia Pictures" top director, Frank Capra, cast her in a film, Platinum Blonde Platinum Blonde, whose t.i.tle provided her with a lifelong identification.
Grace McKee"s prediction about Norma Jeane"s film future was perhaps more prescient than even she could have imagined. Saratoga Saratoga, Jean Harlow"s last film, though incomplete, costarred Clark Gable, and with an irony that"s hard to ignore, Marilyn"s last film completed completed was was The Misfits The Misfits, also starring Gable. (Some Monroe biographers list as her final film Something"s Got to Give Something"s Got to Give, but the picture was never finished and never released to theaters.) * *
"There was something a little unusual about Grace"s intense interest in Jean Harlow," recalled Dia Nanouris. "My mom said that every time she brought the girl to work it was like an audition. She would have her prance about and pose or pout. "Show them how pretty you are, Norma," she would say. "Just like Jean Harlow! Or show them how you smile. Just like Jean Harlow. Show them." My mom thought it was strange. After all, Norma Jeane was just eight. The girl was wearing a little bit of makeup, she had her hair curled, and Grace was talking about having her nose "fixed"! Grace gave her an enormous wide-brimmed hat to shield her little face from the sun. "Doesn"t it look stylish?" she would ask. But Grace was always a little eccentric. If you look at pictures of her back then, she had peroxided blonde hair, wore a lot of makeup-but wore it well. She wasn"t trashy. She was very theatrical. When I see those pictures today in family sc.r.a.pbooks, I can"t help but think, yes, this is where Marilyn Monroe got it from."
Marilyn Monroe summed it up best herself: "Aunt Grace would say things to me like no one else would ever talk to me.... She would sit me down and tell me things and hold my hands. I felt as whole as a loaf of bread n.o.body"s eaten."
Norma Jeane"s Troubling Visit with Gladys.
Late in 1934, it was decided that Gladys Baker would be able to obtain leave from the sanitarium on occasional weekends. Because her medication seemed to be working, her doctors thought it might be beneficial if she were able to travel in the outside world, just as long as her time away from the facility was supervised by a responsible person. Grace, of course, was eager for her friend to regain some sense of normalcy in her life and said she would be more than happy to be accountable for her during these intermittent sojourns. However, as it would happen, these weekends with Gladys-once every month or so-which began in September, were to be quite difficult. Gladys, though better than she was when first inst.i.tutionalized, was still not well.
On one such weekend in late November 1934, Grace took Gladys and Norma Jeane to the Amba.s.sador Hotel for what she hoped would be a lovely lunch in elegant surroundings. The Amba.s.sador, a grand, sprawling hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, was quite the "in" place at this time, its Coconut Grove nightclub a destination point for an evening on the town for some of Hollywood"s biggest stars. In fact, because the sixth annual Academy Awards presentation had taken place in its Fiesta Room eight months earlier, Grace was certain that a luncheon at such an auspicious place would be a special treat for all of them. Moreover, Grace was proud of the physical transformation that had taken place in her little charge over the last year, and she wanted Gladys to see it for herself.
Norma Jeane now wore her long blonde hair in dangling curls. Of course, she had those cornflower blue eyes, and now even a touch of red brushed across her pouting lips. Somehow, she seemed much more precocious than the last time Gladys saw her. Actually, some in Grace"s circle found the makeover a tad disconcerting. It was as if Norma Jeane were far more mature than her eight years, perhaps even being forced into adulthood-not that her childhood had been, thus far, one to cherish. However, Grace had a specific image of how she wanted the youngster to appear and comport herself in public, and she"d spent many hours tutoring her in order that she would rise to those standards. For instance, she"d taught her to curtsy, to be polite, to look people in the eyes when speaking to them, and also to speak clearly and enunciate every syllable. It was as if Grace were running a charm school with only one pupil.
According to a later recollection, when Gladys laid eyes on this new version of her daughter, she didn"t seem interested one way or the other. "I think we could have eaten in the coffee shop downstairs and that would have been a lot better than this," she told Grace, ignoring Norma Jeane from the outset. She seemed angry. In fact, the severity of her expression did not change during the entire meal. "I shouldn"t be in that place," she kept insisting, speaking of the sanitarium, "and I want out."
Obedient and very quiet, Norma Jeane just picked at her food while Grace struggled to engage Gladys in conversation.
In truth, Gladys was too self-involved at this point in her sickness to care about Norma Jeane or anyone else. So immersed was she in her mental illness and in her desire to obtain her freedom, it didn"t matter to her that her daughter was sitting before her. This kind of scene would be repeated for many years to come, whenever Norma Jeane would have an occasional weekend with her mother. "I just don"t think she even liked me very much, let alone loved me," is how the adult Marilyn would recall it. Of course, there were myriad reasons for Gladys"s emotional disconnect from her daughter, so many that it had become impossible for others-like Grace-to even begin to understand the complex machinations of Gladys"s mind.
At one point during the troubling meal, Grace said to Norma Jeane, "Tell your mother what you want to be when you grow up." Norma Jeane, perhaps hoping to impress her mother with her exciting goal, turned to Gladys with eager brightness and said, "I want to be a movie star." In response, Gladys just looked at her daughter with eyes cold as steel. Then she went back to her meal without saying a word.
Norma Jeane in an Orphanage.
The next chapter in young Norma Jeane"s life has always been confusing to Marilyn Monroe historians. In the fall of 1935, Grace McKee decided to take nine-year-old Norma Jeane to the Los Angeles Orphans" Home Society at 815 North El Centro Avenue in Hollywood. * * The question has always been why Grace, who not only had strong maternal instincts toward Norma Jeane but also a goal of stardom in mind for her, would suddenly put her in an orphanage. Some Marilyn Monroe historians have theorized that the Atkinsons had become abusive to Marilyn, though she never suggested as much in any of her interviews. However, Grace McKee did tell Berniece many years later that she learned they had not been treating Norma Jeane well and dismissed them. That may have been true, but the Atkinsons also felt they had film opportunities in London and decided to return to their homeland. The question has always been why Grace, who not only had strong maternal instincts toward Norma Jeane but also a goal of stardom in mind for her, would suddenly put her in an orphanage. Some Marilyn Monroe historians have theorized that the Atkinsons had become abusive to Marilyn, though she never suggested as much in any of her interviews. However, Grace McKee did tell Berniece many years later that she learned they had not been treating Norma Jeane well and dismissed them. That may have been true, but the Atkinsons also felt they had film opportunities in London and decided to return to their homeland.
At this same time, Grace became the legal custodian of all of Gladys"s affairs and, as such, took on the complicated responsibility of caring for all the loose ends her friend had left behind before being inst.i.tutionalized. One of her first decisions was to sell Gladys"s home in order to pay off her debts, mostly medical expenses. Next on her agenda was the possibility of adopting Norma Jeane. It was just a seed of an idea, but it was something she would discuss openly with her friends (most of whom seemed to be against it). Grace already thought of the girl as her own and she knew that Gladys would not oppose the idea. For her part, there was no one else Norma Jeane would have wanted to be with at this time, other than perhaps her Aunt Ida. She loved her "Aunt Grace" and felt that she could do no wrong.
By this time, Grace had married and divorced a third husband and was on her fourth. That she was barren had become an issue in all three of her earlier marriages. In fact, it was specifically responsible for the demise of at least one of them and caused tension in the other two. In her fourth marriage, she found a man who came with a ready-made family. Her new husband was Ervin Silliman G.o.ddard-known as Doc. Ten years her junior, he was divorced and had custody of his three children, aged nine, seven, and five. An amateur inventor by trade-thus the nickname-his profession wasn"t exactly a lucrative one. Grace felt that she had to make this marriage work. In her forties, she viewed it as her last hope for true happiness. As strong-minded and self-sufficient as she was, she still wanted to have a romantic partner in life. "I just don"t want to end up old and alone," she had said. She also felt that little Norma Jeane would be a perfect addition to her new family. However, there was to be a big stumbling block in her way.
Because Norma Jeane had grown so attached to Grace, it became difficult for her to watch her guardian alter her focus and direct some of it not only to a man but, more troubling, to his daughter, Nona, the only one of his three children who was living with him at this time. There"s little doubt that it called to mind Norma Jeane"s growing abandonment issues. She had lost so much in her nine years, and now it must have felt like she might lose Grace as well. Doubtless in reaction to these disconcerting feelings, Norma Jeane suddenly became obstreperous. She started having surprising temper tantrums and alarming emotional outbursts. She also began making impossible demands of Grace, crying whenever she couldn"t be with her. Sometimes she and Nona got along beautifully, but often they did not. Grace found herself being harsh and exacting where Norma Jeane was concerned, and that wasn"t like her at all.
Norma Jeane"s fear of losing Grace quickly became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Doc felt that they didn"t have enough money to support the one child living with them, and he wanted to bring his other two children into the household at some point soon. "I think she has to go," he said of Norma Jeane. Grace feared that if something didn"t change very quickly, she would end up alone again. She definitely didn"t want to lose her new husband. What she really wanted was to adopt Norma Jeane, bring her into the domestic fold, and have all of them live happily together. At a loss as to how to handle this complicated situation, she made a difficult decision. Taking Norma Jeane for a short, private walk, she explained to her that she would have to put her into an orphanage, "but just for a little while, I promise." Of course, Norma Jeane didn"t understand. "I can be a good girl," she said, crying. "Please don"t send me away." Grace tried to calm her, but it was useless.
Somehow, it"s not known how, Ida Bolender heard that Norma Jeane was going to be sent to an orphanage. " "Over my dead body" was her reaction," said a relative of hers. "She said that she simply wouldn"t allow it. She called Grace and said, "Please, I am begging you to now allow us to adopt that child. Or, at the very least, let us take care of her again. Don"t put her in an orphanage. Think of what"s best for her. Her brother and sisters miss her. We love her. She has a home here. Don"t do this!" "
It was clear that, by this time, Grace G.o.ddard did not like Ida. In fact, she felt that Ida had been much too territorial where Norma Jeane was concerned. Besides, she had made a promise to Gladys that she would never allow Ida to have the girl again. Gladys had apparently told Grace that she was afraid that if they allowed Ida to ever take in Norma Jeane, they would never see her again. Of course, this was Gladys"s sickness talking, yet Grace allowed it to influence her. Thus the two women had it in their heads that Ida Bolender was the enemy, and there was nothing Ida could do to change that perception.
Ida Bolender wrote Grace G.o.ddard a long letter at this time, reminding her of all she had done for Norma Jeane. "We loved her, we cared for her... when she was sick, we were there for her. My husband and I feel that we were the only family she had ever known and we would happily take her back rather than see her be sent to a frightening place like an orphanage."
"Thank you for your kind offer," Grace wrote back to Ida. "But we have already made suitable arrangements for Norma Jeane."
On September 13, 1935, Grace packed up Norma Jeane"s things in one suitcase and one shopping bag and drove the little girl to her new home.
"I thought I was going to a prison," Marilyn would remember many years later. "What had I done that they were getting rid of me? I was afraid of everything and afraid to show how scared I was. All I could do was cry."
Norma Jeane was nine years old when she found herself in the Los Angeles Orphans" Home. The adult Marilyn Monroe would always paint her time there-roughly a year and a half, from 1935 to mid-1937-as one of the darkest periods of her life. "Do you know what it"s like to be forced into uncertainty?" she once asked. She would also recall that she did not feel like an orphan since her mother was still alive and she also had her Aunt Grace. She didn"t want to go to the orphanage, and she stood on the steps of the building crying out, "But I"m not an orphan. I"m not an orphan." It was just another cruel twist of fate in a life already filled with this kind of despair.
Magda Bernard"s stepbrother, Tony, was at the Los Angeles Orphans" Home at the same time as Norma Jeane. She recalls, "My family"s circ.u.mstances were such that Tony had to stay at the orphanage until we could take him in, but we went to visit him every week. I clearly remember Norma Jeane as being this pretty blue-eyed girl with a big heart who seemed to just want to be loved. She was a beautiful but somehow sad-seeming child.
"The orphanage wasn"t as bad as you might think it was if you judge it only on what Norma [as an adult] would say about it. Personally, I think they did a pretty good job with the kids. There were about sixty children there, twenty-five of them being girls. There were twelve beds to a room. The age range was from about six to fourteen.
"There were holiday parties, day trips to the beach. The orphanage actually had a beach house, so the kids got to go there quite often and play in the sand and ocean. There were presents for everyone at Christmastime. They had a bit of pocket money for sweets. They went to the circus, had many kinds of day trips like that... the Griffith Park Observatory, for instance. They went to the RKO film lot for tours, got to meet celebrities. During the week, they attended the Vine Street School in their gingham uniforms. On Sundays they would get dressed properly so that they could attend the Vine Street Methodist Church. It actually was quite nice for the kids, I think.
"I know in later years Marilyn complained about all of the ch.o.r.es she had to do at the orphanage. I remember reading that she said she had to wash hundreds of dishes and was stuck doing laundry for hours and hours at a time. She said she had to clean toilets and wash floors. She was exaggerating!"
After Marilyn was famous, an orphanage official named Mrs. In-graham was quoted as saying, "I really don"t know why Miss Monroe tells these awful stories about it. And people print them, whatever she says. This story of Marilyn washing dishes is just silly. She never washed any dishes. She never scrubbed toilets. She dried dishes an hour a week. That"s all. She had to make her own bed and keep her section of the girls" cottage tidy, and that was all."
"I used to wake up and sometimes I"d think I was dead," Marilyn once told her friend Ralph Roberts of this time, "like I had died in my sleep, and I wasn"t part of my body anymore. I couldn"t feel myself and I thought that the world had ended. Everything seemed so far away and like nothing else could bother me."
Perhaps what"s most interesting about these terrible days in her childhood is the way Marilyn described how she would pa.s.s the time. She would fall back into her fantasy world, and now her dreams were about being picked from the lot of other children as something special. "I dreamed of myself becoming so beautiful that people would turn to look at me when I pa.s.sed," she would recall. "I dreamed of walking very proudly in beautiful clothes and being admired by everyone-men and women-and overhearing words of praise. I made up the praises and repeated them aloud as if someone else were saying them." * *
Grace v. Ida.
Grace G.o.ddard felt that she had no choice but to place Norma Jeane Mortensen in an orphanage, but she was still devoted to her. Life just hadn"t worked out the way she had hoped, but she remained determined to one day find a way to bring Norma Jeane back to the G.o.ddard home. Meanwhile, she visited Norma Jeane every week, bringing her presents and new clothing. Often she would take the little girl off the property and to the movies. "She felt terrible about it," said Bea Thomas. "Every time she went, she"d leave crying. But while she was with her they would talk about movies and Grace used to tell Norma Jeane, "One day you"ll be just like Shirley Temple. Just wait and see." She still had this idea that Norma Jeane was going to be in films, but she had switched her ideal from Jean Harlow to Shirley Temple."
An interesting twist occurred in Norma Jeane"s daily activities at the orphanage when Ida and Wayne Bolender began visiting her. It was no surprise that they wanted to see her, given their strong feelings for her. Norma Jeane was overjoyed to see them. She still thought of them as her parents, and if it had been up to her, she no doubt would have very much preferred living with them and her foster siblings rather than with strangers in an orphanage. As it happened, each time Ida came to the orphanage with warm chocolate chip cookies and hand-me-down clothing from one of Norma Jeane"s siblings, the girl would parrot back to her the notion that she was one day going to be the next Shirley Temple. Soon, even Ida began encouraging her in her Shirley Temple fantasies. When Norma Jeane mentioned as much to Grace, she became suspicious. She felt it strange that the religious and often sanctimonious Ida Bolender had suddenly begun endorsing Norma Jeane"s show business aspirations. The more Grace thought about it, according to her relatives, the unhappier she became about it. After all, times were tough. Wayne Bolender was a mailman and government jobs were in jeopardy during the Depression. Did Ida think that she might have an opportunity to one day exploit Norma Jeane for profit? The girl was uncommonly pretty and maybe even talented. Grace speculated that if she was so convinced that it could happen-that the girl could one day become famous-who was to say that Ida didn"t think so as well?
"When Grace would ask Norma Jeane what she and Ida talked about, it was always "Shirley Temple, Shirley Temple, Shirley Temple," " said Bea Thomas. "Grace didn"t like it. She disliked Ida already, and for Ida to now take an interest in Norma Jeane"s movie star aspirations was just a little too strange. I wouldn"t go so far as to say that Grace herself wanted to exploit her in films, but... well, all I can say is that she didn"t want Ida visiting Norma Jeane, that"s for sure."
Indeed, on December 5, 1935, Grace wrote a stern letter to the orphanage"s headmistress, Sula Dewey-a kindly older woman who looked like a prototype grandmother-to tell her in no uncertain terms that no one was allowed "to see or talk to little Norma Jeane Baker unless you have my written permission to do so." (Sometimes Norma Jeane was called Baker; no one was ever consistent with her last name, not even Grace.) Moreover, Grace was very specific in her letter that one person who was definitely barred from visiting the girl was Ida Bolender. She wrote that Norma Jeane was very upset every time Ida came to call. It might have been true. Mrs. Dewey wrote back to Grace and confirmed, "Norma is not the same since Mrs. B. visited with her. She doesn"t look as happy." In the end, the headmistress concluded, "I"ll do as you have requested." However, in a follow-up letter, Mrs. Dewey seemed to have a change of heart: "I think that it"s probably not in her best interest to evaluate Norma Jeane"s moods based on her visitors. We have noticed that this is a child who can sometimes be very unhappy for no apparent reason. In thinking about it, maybe it is not best to keep her from Mrs. B. I had a long conversation with Mrs. B yesterday when she telephoned me. I am convinced that she is not the problem. I would like to have a meeting with you to discuss Mr. and Mrs. B"s future visitations." Grace responded immediately with a very terse note: "Please do as I say. I have good reason for my wishes. Thank you for honoring them."
"I think all of this business said much more about Grace, than it did Ida," Bea Thomas posited. "Please. Ida had no thought of trying to get Norma Jeane into the movies in order to exploit her. How would she have gone about it? She had no connections. It was Grace who had all the connections. In my mind, this just spoke to Grace"s own very strange paranoia.
"It got extremely contentious between the two ladies, especially when Ida found out she was barred from visiting Norma Jeane. You can imagine her reaction when she got to the orphanage one day and was told in no uncertain terms by Mrs. Dewey that she could not visit the little girl. Let"s just say she did not go quietly into the night."
Finally, on June 26, 1937, Norma Jeane left the Los Angeles Orphans" Home to live once again with Grace and Doc G.o.ddard. A month earlier, the young actress whom Grace had hoped to fashion Norma Jeane after-Jean Harlow-had died at just twenty-six. With typical flair for the dramatic, Marilyn Monroe recalled many years later that she had a "strange feeling I was being set free into a world in which Jean Harlow no longer lived." * *
Grace had hoped that when Norma Jeane moved back into her home, she would be able to convince Doc that she belonged there. However, it was not meant to be. The second time Norma Jeane was with the G.o.ddards, there was enough domestic turmoil to convince Grace that, again, her marriage could be in jeopardy. It"s difficult to believe that one little girl could cause so much havoc, and in retrospect it sounds like Grace experienced problems with Doc that probably had nothing to do with Norma Jeane. He was drinking heavily at this time, and Marilyn would recall many years later that he made her feel extremely uncomfortable. "A couple of times he said, "Aren"t you going to give me a kiss?" I would sneak out of the room. He scared me." However, six months after she got to the G.o.ddards", her bags were being packed and she was on the move once again. "But I really want to stay here," she told Grace. "I know," Grace responded. "But it"s time for you to go." Indeed, it was always time for Norma Jeane to go, wasn"t it? Perhaps Grace should have just left her in the orphanage. However, every time she went to visit her, the girl was so clearly miserable.
In December 1937-around the time eleven-year-old Norma Jeane was enrolled in the Lankershim Elementary School-Grace asked the girl"s aunt, Olive Monroe, to take her into her home in North Hollywood. Olive Monroe had her own problems. Ten years earlier, her husband, Marion Otis-Gladys"s brother, the one who had been banished from the family by Della-had deserted her and her three children. Her mother, Ida Martin, a strict disciplinarian, had moved in with her and the two did not get along well. The broken family had little money and was barely sc.r.a.ping by. It"s a wonder that Olive agreed to take in Norma Jeane, and that Grace asked her to do so suggests that Grace must have been quite desperate to find a home for her little charge. Once she got there, Norma Jeane didn"t like living with the Monroes at all. "The other kids knew I was related to them," she recalled, "but I felt on a desert island with natives or primitive people out of the hills of Appalachia. I was more alone and separated from anything than I had ever been. I was feeling the predicament of my life, and that frightened and depressed me so much I would get sick and couldn"t eat. When I did I would often throw up." As an adult, Marilyn would later recall that she was last in line after her cousins for "everything from breakfast to play time to bath time and then bed."
Norma Jeane Learns She Has a Half Sister.
By the winter of 1938, Gladys Baker was more desperate than ever as she continued her unhappy life, now as a patient in the Agnews State Hospital in San Jose, California. In fact, she almost managed to escape. Precipitating her attempt was a series of telephone calls from Edward Mortenson, her former husband and the man she"d listed on Norma Jeane"s birth certificate as the child"s father. Gladys actually thought Mortenson was dead by this time, but he was alive and well and telling her he was interested in resuming their relationship. How could that occur, though, if she was locked up? Gladys-who would prove with the pa.s.sing of the years to have the greatest determination when it came to trying to gain her freedom-somehow got her hands on a nurse"s uniform, put it on, and then slipped out of the sanitarium. It was hours before she was found, walking down the street with no apparent destination. She later explained that Mortenson had promised to meet her at a specific location if she managed to escape, but that he didn"t show up. She was returned to the facility with no trouble, though she was heartbroken. Later that same week, when Grace G.o.ddard arrived for a visit, Gladys begged her to "get me out of here." However, Grace knew better. Gladys was obviously mentally incompetent and was exactly where she needed to be at that time in her life. Grace had no choice but to turn down her friend"s pleas. However, Gladys then decided to try another route. She wrote to her long-lost daughter, Berniece. Of course, she didn"t know exactly how to locate her, so she sent the letter to the address of one of her ex-husband"s relatives in Flat Lick, Kentucky. Somehow, the correspondence ended up in Jasper"s hands. He wasn"t sure how to proceed, but after discussing the matter with his wife he reluctantly decided to give it to Berniece. By this time, Berniece was nineteen. She"d just been married, was living in Pineville, and was pregnant with her first child-Gladys"s grandchild.
Berniece was stunned to receive a letter from her mother, a woman she had long ago decided was probably dead. Though she didn"t know much about Gladys, what she did know was not favorable. For years, her stepmother, Maggie, had criticized Gladys for leaving her children behind, as if Gladys had had a choice in the matter. Berniece"s daughter, Mona Rae Miracle, says that anything her mother learned about Gladys had to be "squeezed like water from a stone from Jasper and Maggie." Berniece, however, was still always curious about her mother and kept a small framed photograph of her on her dresser. Often she would remark to Jasper about Gladys"s beauty. Jasper agreed that, indeed, Gladys was a gorgeous woman, but, he said, she was also an irresponsible woman. It seemed clear to Berniece that she would never have much of a relationship with her mother, and so after many years of wondering, she had made up her mind that Gladys was dead. Then, out of the blue, she received a letter from her. Most of Gladys"s missive was a long rant begging her daughter to help her get out of the mental hospital. She asked Berniece to get in touch with an aunt of Gladys"s, Dora, in Oregon and ask her to also try to get a release for her. Then she gave Berniece some stunning news. She told her that she had a twelve-year-old half sister named Norma Jeane. Gladys also sent Norma Jeane"s and Grace G.o.ddard"s addresses to Berniece and suggested that she contact both of them.
Berniece was surprised: She was amazed that her mother was alive, stunned to learn that Gladys was in a mental hospital, and shocked to learn that she had a half sister. There was no question about it: She wanted a relationship with her. She decided to first write to Grace. A week later, she received a return letter from Grace, who was elated to hear from her. She suggested that Berniece write to Norma Jeane. Then Grace told Norma Jeane that she had a half sister. "Grace decided that it might do Norma Jeane some good to know that she wasn"t really alone in the world," recalled a relative of Grace"s, "that she had a family member who wanted to know her. It all seemed to come together at the same time, Gladys"s letter to Berniece, Grace"s decision that it was the right thing to do to have Berniece contact Norma Jeane, and then telling Norma Jeane about Berniece."
Norma Jeane was astonished to learn that she had a half sister in Kentucky. "It was like the answer to a prayer," said a Monroe family member. "It changed everything for Norma Jeane. She wanted to know Berniece, everything about her. She wrote her a letter and sent a picture of herself. Berniece wrote back immediately with her own photograph. It was an amazing connection from the start. From the very beginning, Norma Jeane signed all of her letters "Your Sister." She and Berniece then began a new friendship, one that would last throughout Norma Jeane"s life."
"We grew up feeling abandoned," Berniece would explain many years later, "and, though both of us were told we were pretty and talented, we still needed courage and strength. We got that from each other."
Norma Jeane Marries.
In the fall of 1938, it was decided that Norma Jeane Mortensen would go to live with Edith Ana Lower, sister to Grace"s father. Lower seemed a better candidate for foster motherhood than most of the adults who took Norma Jeane in over the years. At fifty-eight, she was a kindly, gray-haired woman with a soft face and warm hug who just seemed to want the best for everybody in her life. Divorced but financially secure, she owned a two-story apartment building at 11348 Nebraska Avenue, renting out one unit while she lived in the other. To supplement her income, she also worked as a Christian Science pract.i.tioner, meaning she sat and prayed with clients and also instructed them in the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science movement. A positive-thinking and extremely spiritual woman, Ana would prove to be an enormous a.s.set in young Norma Jeane"s life. Norma Jeane soon referred to her as "Aunt Ana," and the two hit it off immediately.
When Norma Jeane moved in, Ana made it a priority to have inspirational conversations with her in an effort to build her self-esteem. "She would tell her that she should not care what others thought of her," said Marybeth MillerDonovan, whose aunt, Ethel, was Ana"s best friend. "She reminded her that she was a beautiful young girl not only outside but inside as well, and she had no reason to feel like anything less."
About a year and a half after moving in with Ana, Norma Jeane began attending Emerson Junior High School in Westwood at the age of thirteen. Mabel Ella Campbell, her science teacher, once recalled, "She looked as though she wasn"t that cared for. Her clothes separated her a little bit from the rest of the girls." Once there, though, she did begin to exhibit more self-confidence, dressing in sweaters that would show off her young figure and even wearing a little more makeup. She began to see herself in a different light, and as she did so, the other students soon followed and she became more popular. It was at this time that she began to recognize the value of her beauty and how she might be able to make it work for her. She also began to see her stunning appearance as its own ent.i.ty, quite apart from anything s.e.xual. Indeed, it was a magnet that could draw people in. When she realized as much, she started looking for ways to make them love her even more and think she was even more beautiful. She kept adding to the presentation. Makeup. Lipstick. Tighter clothing. Whatever it took to enhance the package, that"s what she wanted to do. She began to create a character that people would not only love, but also adore-a process that started at the age of thirteen and would continue all the way up to her death at thirty-six. "I just felt like I was on the outside of the world," she later recalled, "but then, suddenly, everything opened up. Even the girls paid a little attention to me just because they thought, "Hmmm, she"s to be dealt with." And I had this long walk to school-two and a half miles to school, two and a half miles back-it was just sheer pleasure. Every fellow honked his horn... the world became friendly."
True to form in the youngster"s life, Norma Jeane"s time with Ana would not last long. Now sixty, Ana had a number of health problems, including a serious heart ailment. Reluctantly, in February 1940 she decided to turn the girl back over to Grace and Doc G.o.ddard. At this same time Ana moved to West Los Angeles, and the G.o.ddards moved into her former home in Van Nuys. But before Ana parted ways with Norma Jeane, she was sure to talk to her about being self-sufficient. "You mustn"t spend your entire life dependent on others," she told her, according to the recollection of a friend of her family"s. "When you grow up, you have to be your own person. I"m not always going to be there for you. In fact, no one will always be there for you."
Hopefully, this time Norma Jeane would be able to blend in with the G.o.ddard family. It looked promising. When Norma Jeane moved back in with Grace and Doc, she became friendly with Doc"s daughter, BeBe, and even the extended G.o.ddard relatives. Now that Norma Jeane had more self-confidence, there seemed to be less conflict with the G.o.ddard family.
In September 1941, Norma Jeane and BeBe both enrolled in Van Nuys High School. A problem did arise in getting the two girls back and forth to school, though. Grace"s previous residence had been in close proximity to Van Nuys High. Ana"s home-where she and Norma Jeane now lived-was quite far from the school. Because Norma Jeane was finally so happy and popular, Grace didn"t want to uproot her and enroll her in a different school. As it happened, Grace was still close to her former neighbor, Ethel Dougherty. Grace knew that Ethel"s son, Jim, had an automobile. If the girls walked to the Doughertys" home after school, would it be possible for Jim to then drive them back to their own neighborhood? Ethel asked Jim, who was reluctant because he said the girls were young and giggly-he was five years their senior-and he knew he wouldn"t have anything in common with them. But he agreed.
Born in Los Angeles on April 12, 1921, James Dougherty was a good-looking young man with tousled brownish blond hair and blue eyes so deep they were almost violet. He wore a small mustache over his ma.s.sive, toothy grin. Lanky and st.u.r.dy, this young man was a real so-called "jock." He was the youngest of five children raised in difficult circ.u.mstances, the family always in financial trouble. Popular in school, he was on the football team and was also president of the student body in his senior year. Grace liked him a great deal and thought he would be a good match for Norma Jeane. She even arranged the first date between Jim and Norma Jeane, at a party in 1941. After a few more dates, it became clear that the two were at least mildly interested in one another. Grace"s decision to encourage Norma Jeane into a relationship with the older Jim does seem strange, that is until one considers what happened next. At this same time, Doc G.o.ddard got a job as head of East Coast sales at Adel Precision and the G.o.ddards decided to move to Virginia. It was also decided that Norma Jeane would not be going with them. Doc simply didn"t want the responsibility of another child at the same time as his big move. So what to do about Norma Jeane now?
Understandably, Norma Jeane was very disillusioned. She trusted Grace implicitly, and now that she was being left behind, she could not help but feel that she"d been betrayed. "Of course she was absolutely right," Jim Dougherty observed. "When Grace had taken her out of the orphanage to her last foster home, she"d told Norma Jeane that she would never have that kind of life again. Norma Jeane felt that Grace had gone back on her word."
With all possibilities exhausted, it looked as if Norma Jeane was going to have to go back to the orphanage until someone adopted her or until she was eighteen, whichever came first. Knowing how unhappy this would make her, Grace G.o.ddard was frantic to find a way to avoid it. Therefore, she hatched a plan with Ethel Dougherty. "What if your son marries Norma Jeane?" Grace suggested. "That would keep her out of the orphanage, and it"s not as if they don"t already like each other." It seemed like a good idea to Ethel, too, and so she approached her son with it.
As it happened, Norma Jeane would turn sixteen in June, the legal age to marry in California. Though Jim felt that she was too young for him, he had to admit that he liked her. She was pretty and fun. Still, dating her was one matter, marrying her an entirely different one. Many years later when talking about his thought process as a young man, Jim would say that he couldn"t think of a good reason to reject the idea, especially if it meant that Norma Jeane would be saved from the orphanage.
For her part, Norma Jeane didn"t have much choice in the matter. When she was presented with the idea, she agreed, though reluctantly. Not only had she never seen a marriage work out, but she was afraid of what it would mean being Dougherty"s wife. She was particularly concerned about being intimate with him. When she expressed her fears to Grace, Grace tried to be understanding, telling her that she "would learn in time." It does seem, in retrospect, that Grace might have been more understanding of Norma Jeane"s fears. However, in the greater scheme of things, it seems that Grace"s main objective was to get the girl married as quickly as possible. Grace"s friends would say, many years later, that she was just trying to do what she could to keep her charge out of another orphanage. However, some people who are more critical of her feel that Grace just wanted to marry Norma Jeane off in an expedient fashion so that she and her husband could go on with their lives with a clear conscience.
Plans quickly fell into place. At the end of 1942, the G.o.ddards took off for Virginia. Meanwhile, Norma Jeane dropped out of high school in the middle of her soph.o.m.ore year, saying that she wanted to concentrate on learning how to be a wife. She would always regret it, though, and never felt comfortable about dropping out. "She was sorry she"d done it," Jim said many years later, "and she didn"t need to. It was a snap decision, I think, to just end her education. Everything was happening so fast, I think she felt she had to focus on one thing at a time."
The wedding, officiated by a minister, took place on the evening of June 19, 1942, in the home of a friend of the G.o.ddards, Chester Howell. Howell"s great-nephew, Alexander, says, "From what I have heard over the years through my family, it was a haphazard affair. The G.o.ddards didn"t even attend, which I think was a surprise. Of course, Norma Jeane"s mom, Gladys, wasn"t present, either. Ida and Wayne Bolender were there, though, and that was a bit of an issue, from what I understand."
Indeed, it was Norma Jeane"s decision that she would not get married unless her "Aunt Ida" and "Daddy" were present. By this time, she was well aware of the animosity between Grace and Ida. However, she also knew that Grace was not going to be present at the wedding-she had just gotten to Virginia and wasn"t going to turn around and drive back-so she saw no reason not to invite Ida. When she told Ethel Dougherty of her plans, however, Ethel thought it best to alert Grace. Of course, Grace was not at all happy about it. She called Norma Jeane and told her that she would prefer it if she did not invite Ida. She took no issue with Wayne"s attendance, she said, but she had to draw the line at Ida"s. Norma Jeane said that she was no longer going to be a party to the ill will between her two aunts, and that she wouldn"t even consider marrying Jim Dougherty without Ida being present. "In fact, I"ll just go back to the orphanage," she said, according to one of Ida Bolender"s relatives. "What difference does it make? I was miserable before and I"ll be miserable again. I can handle it." Indeed, it would seem that Norma Jeane was becoming a little more like Ida with each pa.s.sing year-a determined, willful young lady who didn"t like being pushed around. In the end, Grace didn"t have much choice. She told Norma Jeane to do what she thought was best, but by this time Norma Jeane had already called Ida to invite her to the ceremony, so Grace"s opinion was moot.
Norma Jeane not only invited Ida and Wayne Bolender, but all of her foster siblings, including, of course, Nancy Jeffrey, who recalled, "I remember the winding staircase in the living room and all of us just staring at the top of the stairs until she appeared. What a beautiful bride."
As soon as Ida saw Norma Jeane in her embroidered lace wedding dress with long sleeves and veil, she was filled with emotion and began to cry. The girl was just sixteen but she was already showing signs of the striking woman the world would one day come to know as Marilyn Monroe. Her smile was stunning, her eyes a cobalt blue. She was a brunette at this time.
After the ceremony, Ida still couldn"t hold back the tears as she stood admiring Norma Jeane. That she had been kept from her former foster daughter for such a long time, and that there had been such a strong, ongoing campaign against her, had worn Ida down over the years where Norma Jeane was concerned. "Thank you so much for inviting us," she told her as she embraced her tightly. "You just don"t know what this means to me. You just don"t know, Norma Jeane." The bride held both of Ida"s hands and looked at her with love. "This day would only be complete with you in it," she told her, now also crying. "Do you think I look pretty, Aunt Ida?" she asked her. Overcome, Ida could only nod her head. Norma Jeane then went to Wayne and hugged him. Dabbing away tears from his eyes, he smiled at her and asked, "Do you have any questions for me? You always had so many questions, Norma Jeane." Everyone laughed. "Just one," Norma Jeane said. "Do you promise to always love me, Daddy?" He smiled. "I do promise," he said. "I really do." And he seemed to mean it.
PART TWO.
Transitioning
Crazy?
After they were married, Jim and Norma Jeane Dougherty eventually settled into a small four-room house in Van Nuys, California. Skipping the traditional honeymoon, Jim went back to work at Lockheed and Marilyn began her new life as a wife. She seemed to enjoy setting up the household, getting great pleasure out of deciding which meager furnishings the couple would purchase. Jim left most of these decisions in her hands. Each article was chosen with care: the drinking gla.s.ses, the cutlery, even the front doormat. She got a tremendous thrill out of establishing, for the first time, a home that included her as a primary resident. She also always made sure she was showered and dressed when her husband arrived home for supper. She wanted him to feel special, and wanted him to think of her in that way as well.
Jim has said that he felt certain that Norma Jeane was a virgin when he married her. Of course, that makes sense. Probably stating the obvious, he also said that she was extremely inexperienced-he even had to teach her how to use a diaphragm-but that once she caught on, she enjoyed having s.e.x. "It was as natural to her as breakfast in the morning," he noted. "There were never any problems." Over the years, he was fairly indiscreet about private times shared by the couple. "Never had I encountered a girl who so thoroughly enjoyed a s.e.xual union," he recalled. "It made our lovemaking pure joy." He even remembered having s.e.x with her outdoors, in public places when others weren"t looking. These remembrances have to be taken with a grain of salt, because Jim apparently also claimed just the opposite about Norma Jeane.
"Jim told me privately that Norma Jeane spent most of their early marriage locked in the bathroom," said Martin Evans, who was a friend of Jim"s at the time of his marriage to Norma Jeane. "She had s.e.x books and manuals that were given to her by Grace G.o.ddard, he said, and none of them made a difference. She was scared. From my information, she even asked Grace if it were possible for her to never have s.e.x with Jim. Could they just be friends, she wondered. She was very skittish about having s.e.x with him and, to be honest, I don"t think they had a good s.e.x life, ever-despite what Jim later claimed."
In retrospect, we should keep in mind that Jim Dougherty"s comments about his s.e.x life with Norma Jeane were made many years after she had become famous as Marilyn Monroe. In fact, they were made many years after her death. At twenty-one, a man marries a girl who, after their divorce, goes on to become one of the greatest s.e.x symbols of all time, a cultural icon. When asked if he was able to satisfy her s.e.xually, is he likely to say he couldn"t?
Marilyn Monroe historian James Haspiel, who knew Marilyn from 1954 until her death in 1962, had an interesting take on this subject when he observed, "It could be argued that Jim Dougherty"s marriage to Marilyn Monroe was the most significant thing he ever did in his life. What I mean is that a man can live his entire life being terrific at whatever job he does, but how can anything ever top having been married to Marilyn Monroe? It"s also the very thing that took him all over the world, doing TV shows and talking about Marilyn. It propelled him into international, eternal fame as her first husband. But then again, anybody who was in her life-and it was known that they were in her life-becomes a great character in history. Doughtery had a role in a cla.s.sic story, and he played on it, just as he probably should have. And for all we know those may be his actual memories of her."
Here"s Marilyn"s view of the matter, from her memoir: "The first effect marriage had on me was to increase my lack of interest in s.e.x."
It makes sense that Norma Jeane would have had trepidation about her s.e.x life with Jim. After all, the truth was that she was forced by circ.u.mstances to surrender her virginity to a man she barely knew just so that she could stay out of an orphanage. That hardly seems an ideal situation for a young girl who had already experienced such trauma. In fact, Norma Jeane began to find new and inventive ways of avoiding lovemaking with her husband. Jim would later say that he was aware that many, if not all, of her phantom headaches, cramps, and a.s.sorted ailments were an attempt at sidestepping her marital obligations. For the most part, as he recalled it, he was patient with her. On one particular night, however, he was insistent. He told her he was going to take a quick shower and that they would then retire to the bedroom and make love. After his shower, Jim came out of the bathroom, expecting to find Marilyn in bed, waiting for him. He didn"t. She was gone.
After a cursory search of the household, he determined that she must have quickly grabbed her coat and run out the front door. It was a balmy evening, but she had been wearing her nightgown and he a.s.sumed she wouldn"t have left wearing just that.