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Marilyn Monroe Filmography
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Marilyn Monroe: Early life
A Los Angeles native, she was born
Norma Jeane Mortensen in the charity ward of Los Angeles County Hospital. Her grandmother, Della Monroe Grainger, later had her baptized
Norma Jeane Baker by Aimee Semple McPherson. While biographers agree the man listed on her birth certificate, Martin Edward Mortensen, was not her biological father, her paternity has never been firmly established. The most likely candidate seems to be Charles Stanley Gifford, a salesman for the studio where Marilyn's mother, Gladys Pearl Monroe Baker, worked as a film-cutter. The just-divorced Gifford had no desire to be tied down and left Gladys when she informed him of her pregnancy.
Unable to persuade Della to take the baby, an overwhelmed Gladys placed Norma Jeane with Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, southwest of Downtown Los Angeles, where she lived until she was seven. The Bolenders were a religious couple who supplemented their meager income by being foster parents. In her autobiography,
My Story, ghostwritten by Ben Hecht, Marilyn said she thought Wayne and Ida were her parents until Ida, rather cruelly, corrected her. After Marilyn's death, Ida claimed that she and Wayne had seriously considered adopting her, which they could not have done without Gladys's consent.
According to
My Story, Gladys visited Norma Jeane every Saturday, but never hugged or kissed her, or even smiled. One day, Gladys announced that she had bought a house for them. A few months after moving in, she suffered a breakdown. Marilyn recalled Gladys "screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly removed to the State Mental Hospital in Norwalk, where Della had died; Gladys's father, Otis, died in a mental hospital near San Bernardino.
Norma Jeane was declared a ward of the state. Gladys's best friend, Grace McKee, later Goddard, became her guardian. After Grace married in 1935, Norma Jeane was sent to Los Angeles Orphanage, then to as many as twelve foster homes, in which she was subjected to abuse and neglect. However, there is no evidence that Marilyn had actually lived in so many foster homes and that she really had been abused. In her interviewes Marilyn often gave exaggerated information about her childhood. Then in September 1941, Grace took her in again. She was then introduced to a neighbor's son, James Dougherty, who would become her first husband. The Goddard family was moving to the East Coast and felt marriage would be the best solution for the teenaged Norma Jeane.Since Marilyn was underaged at the time, she had to get married or otherwise she would have had to return the orphanage. Norma Jeane had come to think little of herself, yet also developed a gritty, opportunistic side and a super-human drive. She was very intelligent and more unhappy than her screen image suggested. Some say she was a genius.
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Start of career >>
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Latest Film News
Latest news on Marilyn Monroe
LiteratureEarle Hagen, Andy Griffith Show, Mod Squad, I Spy composer (RIP)
Earle H. Hagen, who not only composed the theme from the Andy Griffith Show but also whistled the familiar melody, died yesterday. He was 88 years old. From the Associated Press (photo from EarleHagen.net): During his long musical career, Hagen performed with the top bands of the swing era, composed for movies and television, and wrote one of the first textbooks on movie composing. He and Dick Rogers were nominated for an Academy Award for best music scoring for the 1960 Marilyn Monroe movie "Let's Make Love." For television, he composed original music for more than 3,000 episodes, pilots and TV movies, including theme songs for "That Girl," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." Link to AP article, Link to EarleHagen.net...
Published: Wed, 28 May 2008 04:45:48 GMT - Source: Boingboing.Net - Read the article
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