Thanks for tuning in! This is a continuation of my series of
blog posts titled “Breaking Down ‘The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe’ the
movie.” If you have not, please check out part 1 of this review.
This particular post would not have been possible without my
go-to gal April VeVea, a Marilyn Monroe scholar who worked with me to create a comprehensive
timeline of Marilyn’s childhood and who answered many of my questions late into
the night.
Episode 1 continued: Gladys Baker + a look into Marilyn’s
childhood
In the last breakdown, we left off with a brief discussion
of Marilyn’s history with psychotherapy. At this point in the movie, Marilyn
(played by Kelli Garner) begins opening up to the the fictional Dr. DeShields
about her childhood. She starts with her mother Gladys’s meltdown, which began
the course of her mother’s institutionalization for the rest of her life.
The first scene we see from her childhood is “the duffel bag
story.” Gladys races up to the Bolenders’ home attempting to take Norma Jeane
with her. The Bolenders were the first family that she lived with, they took
Norma into their care when she was just 2 weeks old. Gladys paid them each
month to take care of her. She stayed there until she was 7 years old. A
screaming Gladys, played by Eva Amurri Martino, Susan Sarandon’s daughter in
real life, rushes up to the house demanding Norma Jeane to come to her. The
result is Gladys eventually making it into the house, then attempting an escape
with a duffel bag over her shoulder. Ida Bolender and Gladys fight over the
bag, which drops, and out crawls little Norma and into Ida’s arms.
About this duffel bag story: it didn’t happen. There’s just
no evidence to even suggest something like this. In fact, I don’t recall hearing it
before I read Secret Life the book, so I’m not sure where it originated, therefore I am not sure where Taraborrelli came up
with it. There are no personal accounts by either the Bolenders or Gladys herself that she ever came by to kidnap her daughter. The sad but true part is though, at the end of this scene, Norma Jeane
yells for “momma” directed at Ida Bolender. Ida then tells her that she’s not
her mother, and to call her aunt instead. Here is what Marilyn had to say about
this later in a recorded interview:
“The people I was
staying with, I was about 3. And one morning I was having a bath and I referred
to the woman as ‘momma.’ And she said ‘I’m not your mother. The one who comes
here with the red hair, she’s your mother. Don’t call me mother anymore, call
me aunt.’ But the one I was concerned was her husband I said ‘but he’s my
daddy.’ And she said ‘No. You call him uncle.’ Although they weren’t my aunt
and uncle.”
 |
| From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" |
 |
| Gladys Baker, 1924 |
Later on, the movie presents a scene where a young Gladys is
screaming and crying at the foot of a set of stairs in a small house. Seconds
prior to this, we see Grace McKee (Gladys’s co-worker) and Norma Jeane at the
table flipping through a magazine article which focuses on Jean Harlow, one of
Marilyn’s real life movie idols. Startled by the sudden outburst, Grace races
over to her friend while Norma Jeane tries to get a better view of what is
happening to her mother.
 |
| Gladys with baby Marilyn |
Get ready because a lot of dates are coming up! Let’s start
with this house. The house shown in the movie represents the 3 bedroom home
Gladys purchased in 1933 in Hollywood, California. After Gladys left her job as
a film splicer at Consolidated Studios, she needed a source of income to pay
the bills. Gladys rented out part of the house to an English couple called the
Atkinsons. George and Maude Atkinson were both bit part actors, stand-ins
trying to build a career in Los Angeles. They had a teenage daughter named Nell.
Beginning in January of 1934, the Atkinson family moved into the house on Arbol
Drive and paid rent to Gladys. They also helped take care of 8 year old Norma
Jeane. It was during that month and in this house that Gladys had a psychotic
meltdown. Gladys had been going through a lot of hardships in her life, she
didn’t have a job and couldn’t afford to care for her child, her father had died
in a mental hospital, in 1927 Gladys’s mother Della died of heart failure
during a panic attack, and in 1933 Gladys learned that her grandfather, Tilfred
Hogan, had committed suicide. These traumatizing events ultimately led to
depression and realizing one of her worst fears that eventually became one of
Marilyn’s own: that her family’s mental illnesses were hereditary and that she
would inherit them. It was at that house on Arbol drive that Gladys broke into
a mental panic. She was then admitted to a rest home in Santa Monica in January
of 1934 and stayed there until an unknown date before being transferred to Los
Angeles General Hospital in that same year. The following year, in January of
1935, Gladys was declared legally insane and transferred to Norwalk State
hospital. Norma Jeane continued to live with the Atkinsons during this time and
until May of 1935 while Grace McKee attempted to obtain legal guardianship and
permission to be in charge of Gladys’s financial affairs.
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| Grace McKee |
At some point that May, Grace had Norma removed from the
Atkinsons’ care apparently after discovering that they had been neglectful. Later
in life, Marilyn recalled them as being very busy with work and understandably
not wanting to be “bothered with a child.” From then, she was placed in the
care of the Giffen family, who didn’t live far from the Bakers. She stayed with
them for only 2 months, leaving in July of 1935. Harvey Giffen worked as a
sound engineer in Hollywood. Norma Jeane lived there with him, his wife Elsie,
and their 3 young children. However, Harvey had plans on leaving his job and
moving all the way to New Orleans, so he became interested in adopting Norma
Jeane. He contacted Gladys regarding this, but Gladys refused, and Norma Jeane
was sent to live with Grace.
At this point, Grace was still in the midst of working on receiving
guardianship of Norma Jeane, but the courts allowed her to live with Grace
temporarily. This began at some point in July of 1935. Grace would marry Doc
Goddard that August. Doc had 3 children from a previous marriage: Eleanor
(nicknamed Bebe, she was also born in 1926), John, and Nona. Norma Jeane was
allowed to live with them until September of 1935, when she was required by law
to board at an orphanage for at least one year before legally being allowed to
live with Grace. From September 1935 to September 1936, Norma Jeane lived at
Hollygrove Orphanage in Los Angeles, California before finally being able to
move in with Grace.
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| Hollygrove Orphanage |
 |
| Marilyn in 1933 |
So, that’s a ton of information and dates. If all of this is
too confusing and you feel a little scrambled, I don’t blame you, it’s a lot of
information! Here is the basic timeline:
·
January 1934: The Atkinsons move in with Marilyn
and Gladys at Arbol Drive
·
January 1934: Gladys has a mental breakdown and
is admitted to a rest home in Santa Monica where she is then transferred to Los
Angeles General Hospital at an unknown date
·
January 1935: Gladys is transferred to Norwalk
State Hospital
·
May 1935: Marilyn is removed from the Atkinsons’
care
·
May 1935: Marilyn moves in with the Giffen
family
·
July 1935: Marilyn is removed from the care of
the Giffens
·
July 1935: Marilyn is allowed to temporarily
live with Grace and Doc
·
September 1935: Marilyn is moved to Hollygrove
orphanage
·
September 1936: Marilyn leaves Hollygrove to
live with Grace full time
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, and I hope you learned more
about Marilyn’s difficult childhood. Bouncing around to different homes is
definitely not ideal, and led to Marilyn’s fear of abandonment and feeling of
being unwanted and forgettable. Especially being that she was not in the foster
care system, there was no social worker on her case inspecting the homes she
lived in. The main focus of the next post will be her marriage to Jim
Dougherty. Thank you for reading!
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