
Norma Jeane Baker

Her mother separated from Martin Edward Mortensen well before Marilyn was conceived and legally divorced him in 1928. So Marilyn was subsequently baptised with the surname of her mother's first husband (Baker) and thereafter became known as Norma Jeane Baker. (In childhood, when her foster parents parked her at a movie theater on weekends and she saw the big film stars of the day on the screen, she said that she used to fantasize that Clark Gable was her father.)
Gladys (Monroe) Baker and Norma Jeane

Gladys Baker had been married at 15 to an older man, John Newton Baker (24), and they had two children - a girl and a boy. In 1921, they divorced and John kept the two children with him, returning to his home state of Kentucky. Marilyn didn't meet her sister until she was an adult.


In one of the foster homes, she was sexually abused. Finally, she became a ward of the state and was sent to an orphanage. Life remained impermanent for Marilyn, bouncing around from the orphanage to another foster home (and more sexual abuse), and then again to more foster homes. She managed to stay in school but when her final foster home couldn't keep her any longer (they were moving out of state), she married a neighbor - Jim Dougherty, age 24 - when she was 16.
Marilyn and a friend at Catalina Beach


She was curvy and did not have the body type for high fashion modeling, so most of her jobs were of the pin-up type - in men's magazines and advertisements. She cut her hair and dyed it blonde.


Arthur Miller and MM on their wedding day

In a relaxed moment

Entertaining the troops in Korea


Marilyn Monroe's Funeral

