Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, in the charity ward of the Los Angeles County Hospital.[1][2] According to biographer Fred Lawrence Guiles, her grandmother, Della Monroe Grainger, had her baptised Norma Jeane Baker by Aimee Semple McPherson.[1] She obtained an order from the City Court of the State of New York and legally changed her name to Marilyn Monroe on February 23, 1956.[3]
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Gladys Pearl Monroe was born on May 27, 1902, in Porfirio Diaz, Mexico, now Piedras Negras, to Otis Elmer Monroe and Della Mae Hogan.[4] The family returned to California where Gladys' brother Otis was born in 1905. Their father, suffering from syphilis that had invaded his brain, died on July 22, 1909 in Southern California State Hospital in San Bernardino County.[5] Gladys married Jasper Baker, a native of Kentucky, in May 1917 and had two children, Robert Kermit Baker (born January 24, 1918) and Berniece Baker (Miracle) (born July 30, 1919). Both children were born in Los Angeles.[6][7] After Gladys and Jasper divorced, he kidnapped the children and moved to Kentucky, where he had been born, according to Miracle's book My Sister Marilyn. Gladys moved there to be near her children but later returned to Los Angeles. Her son died without her ever seeing him again, however she managed to reunite with her daughter many years later. Gladys died on March 11, 1984, in Gainsville, Florida, aged 81 years.
Marilyn's biological father remains unclear. After Gladys returned to Los Angeles, she married Martin Edward Mortensen (1897–1981) on October 11, 1924.[8] They separated on May 26, 1925, and they divorced on August 15, 1928. Martin's father, also named Martin Mortensen, was born in Stavanger, Norway on February 8, 1861, and had emigrated to the United States in 1878 where he married Stella Higgins on October 10, 1894 in Vallejo, California. Their son was born in Vallejo, California.[9]
Biographer Donald H. Wolfe in The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe, writes his belief that Norma Jeane's biological father was Charles Stanley Gifford, a salesman for RKO Pictures where Gladys worked as a film editor. Her birth certificate lists Gladys's second husband, Martin Edward Mortensen, as the father. Although Mortensen separated from Gladys before her daughter's birth, some biographers speculate he may have been the father.[10] In an interview with Lifetime, James Dougherty, Monroe's first husband, said Norma Jeane believed that Gifford was her father. Whoever the father was, he played no part in Monroe's life.
Unable to persuade Della to take Norma Jeane, Gladys placed her with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, California, where she lived until she was seven years old. In her autobiography My Story, Monroe states she thought Albert was a woman.
One day, Gladys announced that she had purchased a house. A few months after they had moved in, Gladys suffered a nervous breakdown. In My Story, Monroe recalls her mother "screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly removed to the State Hospital in Norwalk. According to My Sister Marilyn, Gladys's brother, Marion, committed suicide via hanging upon his release from an asylum, and Della's father did the same in a fit of depression.
Norma Jeane was declared a ward of state, and Gladys' best friend, Grace McKee (later Goddard) became her guardian. 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, as her mother could not look after her.
The Goddards were about to move to the east coast and could not take her. Grace approached the mother of James Dougherty about the possibility of her son marrying the girl. They married weeks after she turned 16, so that Norma Jeane would not have to return to an orphanage or foster care.