[On the early
morning of August
5th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her LA home, in a
moment that quickly became as mythic as
everything else about young Norma Jean Mortenson. So this week I’ll remember
the iconic and singular Marilyn through posts on her life, career, and legacy
as well as her tragic death.]
On three telling,
American stages and details from Norma Jean’s early life.
1)
Her Names: What last name to use for young Norma
Jean reflects both the complex life of her single mother (at the time of Norma
Jean’s birth) and Norma Jean’s own evolving identity. Norma’s mother Gladys Pearl
Monroe first married John Baker in 1917 and had two children with him, but
they were divorced in 1921 and he took those children to Kentucky. In 1924 she
married Martin Mortenson, but they apparently separated just a few months
later. They were still legally married when Norma Jean was born
in LA in June 1926, but the identity of her father is unknown; so while her
legal birth name was Norma Jean Mortenson, she most frequently used Baker as
her last name—until she adopted her mother’s maiden name, Monroe, as part of her
stage name for her first acting agency contract in 1946. Divorce
and single parenthood are often described as late 20th century
trends, but Monroe’s life—like Tillie
Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing”—highlights their cultural presence and
significance far earlier than that.
2)
Ward and Orphan: Gladys wasn’t just a single
mother, though—she was also someone who struggled throughout her life
with psychological problems that were eventually diagnosed as paranoid
schizophrenia. As a result, young Norma Jean moved frequently between her
mother’s care and different homes and situations: Gladys’s friends Albert and Ida Bolender in
nearby, rural Hawthorne (CA); an LA boarding house shared with actors George
and Maude Atkinson; and then, after Gladys was diagnosed and committed to
Metropolitan State Hospital in 1934, Norma Jean became a ward of the state,
living briefly with a number of foster families and then at the Los
Angeles Orphans Home for two years beginning in September 1935. That’s not
even the complete list, but it reflects how within just her first decade of
life Norma Jean had experienced many different American settings and social
spaces, experiences that no doubt contributed to her own malleable and evolving
adult identity.
3)
World War II: Norma Jean was still a teenager
during the war, but she still experienced two significant shifts into adult
identity. When the war started she was living with her mother’s friend Grace
McKee Goddard and her husband Doc, who sexually
molested Norma Jean. Doc’s job was relocated to West Virginia in early
1942, but fortunately child protection laws made it impossible for the Goddards
to take Norma Jean out of state. Rather than return to the orphanage, a few
days after her 16th birthday Norma Jean married a 21-year old
neighbor, factory worker Jim
Dougherty. Jim enlisted in the Merchant Marine in 1943 and Norma Jean moved
with him to Santa Catalina Island, but when he shipped to the Pacific Theater
in April 1944 she took her own wartime job, going to work for the Radioplane
munitions company in Van Nuys. Before her 18th birthday Norma Jean
had thus become both a wife and a professional, and both those social roles
would continue to inform her life and identity throughout her remaining 18
years.
Next Marilyn
memories tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think?
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