The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

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 Goddard. 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 Goddards, 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 Goddards’, 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 scraping 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 passing 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 Goddard 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