Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn's Sad Childhood

Marilyn Monroe Fact: Marilyn Had A Sister

Marilyn was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in the charity ward of the Los Angeles County Hospital on 1 June 1926. Her grandmother, Della Monroe Grainger, had her baptized Norma Jeane Baker. Her mother was Gladys Pearl Monroe. For many years it was believed that Gladys's second husband Martin Edward Mortenson was Marilyn's father and name is even listed on her birth certificate. However Marilyn herself believed a salesman named Charles Stanley Gifford was her father. In either case, she had no father figure in the practical sense.

Her mother placed her with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, California, where she lived until she was seven.

Gladys returned to the picture when she bought a house and reunited with Marilyn. But a few months after they had moved in, Gladys suffered a breakdown and was forcibly removed to the State Hospital in Norwalk.

Marilyn had a half-sister, Berniece Baker Miracle. The girls did not learn of each other until Berniece was 19 and Norma Jeane 12. But once each did discover the existence of the other, they stayed in close contact--both before and after Norma Jeane became Marilyn. Bernice wrote a biography called "My Sister Marilyn" which was published in 1994 to critical acclaim. Marilyn left $10,000 to Bernice in her will.

Her mother's best friend, Grace McKee (later Grace Goddard) became her guardian. But after McKee married in 1935, Norma Jeane was sent to the Los Angeles Orphans Home (later renamed Hollygrove), and then to a succession of foster homes. Her foster sister Eleanor 'Bebe' Goddard became notorious for manufacturing and selling fake Marilyn memorabilia.

James Dougherty a 21 neighbor of Marilyn's married her weeks after she turned 16, so that Norma Jeane could escape the life of orphanages and foster homes.