She was born
Norma Jeane Mortenson in the charity ward of the
Los Angeles County Hospital. According to biographer Fred Lawrence Guiles, her grandmother, Della Monroe Grainger, had her baptized Norma Jean Baker by
Aimee Semple McPherson.
Her mother, Gladys Pearl Monroe, had returned from
Kentucky where her ex-husband had kidnapped their children, Robert and
Berniece. Some of Monroe's biographers portray Jasper Baker as a vicious
brute. Berniece recounted in
My Sister Marilyn that when Robert later suffered a series of physical ailments, Baker refused to seek proper medical attention for him; the boy died in
1933.
Many
biographers believe Norma Jeane's
biological father was Charles Stanley Gifford, a salesman for the
studio where Gladys worked as a
film-cutter. The
birth certificate lists her second husband, Martin Edward Mortensen, as the father. While Mortensen left Gladys before Norma Jeane's birth, some biographers think he was the father. [
citation needed] In an interview with
Lifetime,
James Dougherty said Norma Jeane believed that Gifford was her father. Whoever the father, that he played no part in the child's life has never been in dispute.
Unable to persuade Della to take Norma Jeane, Gladys placed her with
foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender of
Hawthorne, where she lived until she was seven. In her
autobiography My Story, Monroe states she thought Albert was a girl. Some do not consider
My Story trustworthy. It was ghost-written by
Ben Hecht, and designed to promote Monroe's image as a long-suffering orphan.
[1] Hecht divulged to his agent: "It is easy to know when she is telling the truth. The moment a true thing comes out of her mouth, her eyes shed tears. She's like her own
lie detector."
[2]
Some of the link.
I remember when she died.
People thought at that time, she was killed...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe