Summary of J. Randy Taraborrelli's The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Ida Bolender was a foster mother who looked like a schoolmarm. She was very efficient and diligent, but she didn’t have time for superficialities. She had opened her home to underprivileged children in the 1920s, and she wanted a better life.
#2 In 1918, Ida married Albert Wayne, and the couple moved to California. They had no plans other than to work hard and pray hard, and they lived what they believed was a decent life based on scripture.
#3 Della Monroe, 49, was not a wealthy woman in 1925, but she still had a craving for extravagance. She would hunt down bargains wherever she could, even in places where she didn’t feel welcome. She had been a spectacularly attractive woman in her prime, but time had not been kind to her.
#4 Della was a free spirit who enjoyed what would have been considered a loose morality in the early 1900s. She had always been a clothes buyer for Ida Bolender, who made a decent amount of money from the church. Della was going to leave in December 1925 to join her husband in India.

Sujets

• Autobiography
• General
• General officer
• Biography

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 22 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798350030655
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on J. Randy Taraborrelli's The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Ida Bolender was a foster mother who looked like a schoolmarm. She was very efficient and diligent, but she didn’t have time for superficialities. She had opened her home to underprivileged children in the 1920s, and she wanted a better life.

#2

In 1918, Ida married Albert Wayne, and the couple moved to California. They had no plans other than to work hard and pray hard, and they lived what they believed was a decent life based on scripture.

#3

Della Monroe, 49, was not a wealthy woman in 1925, but she still had a craving for extravagance. She would hunt down bargains wherever she could, even in places where she didn’t feel welcome. She had been a spectacularly attractive woman in her prime, but time had not been kind to her.

#4

Della was a free spirit who enjoyed what would have been considered a loose morality in the early 1900s. She had always been a clothes buyer for Ida Bolender, who made a decent amount of money from the church. Della was going to leave in December 1925 to join her husband in India.

#5

Della’s paranoia and instability were well known among her friends. She had a difficult time connecting with what Ida was saying, but she knew her mother was right. She and Gladys should not be the primary caretakers of the baby they were carrying.

#6

Gladys’s mother, Della, was a tough woman who never acquiesced to anyone’s will. The arguments between them began on their honeymoon and never ceased. In 1909, Otis Monroe died of syphilis of the brain. His family said that he had gone insane, but Della feared that he had contracted syphilis, which then led to his death.

#7

Della was a very attractive woman who could be fun to be around, but she could also be unpredictable and, if in one of her moods of despair, even morose. She had two children with her first husband, Otis, and when he died, she was on her own with two small children.

#8

Gladys Baker, after her divorce from her first husband, became notorious for her promiscuity. She began an affair with a man named Charles Stanley Gifford, a sales manager at the company.

#9

In 1925, Gladys learned that she was pregnant. She told Stanley Gifford that he was the father of her child, but he refused to accept responsibility, saying that she’d been with other men. She insisted that he was the father, and he never believed her.

#10

On June 1, 1926, Gladys Baker, Della Monroe’s daughter, gave birth to a child in the charity ward of the Los Angeles General Hospital. The baby was placed on her mother’s chest, and she just held her, with her eyes closed.

#11

The transfer of Norma Jeane from Gladys to Ida was difficult and emotional. After a long and difficult farewell, Gladys walked out the front door of Ida’s house without the child named Norma Jeane Mortensen.

#12

In 1927, Gladys’s mother, Della, returned from India with malaria. Her husband Charles Grainger decided not to come back to the States with her, leaving most people to believe that their relationship was over.

#13

Marilyn’s time with the Bolenders was not unpleasant, but she often exaggerated the difficulties she experienced there in her memoirs. She loved playing with their chickens and goats, and her favorite childhood memory was spending rainy days under the dining room table.

#14

The house Norma Jeane and her family lived in was small and cramped, and there were five foster children who were there most of the time: the aforementioned Lester, Mumsy, Alvina, Noel, and Nancy.

#15

Ida Bolender was a difficult woman, and she was tough and resilient. She was the first powerful woman Norma Jeane had ever met, and she was determined to be a stable and decisive adult in her life.

#16

Ida Bolender’s strength and determination was what helped shape Norma Jeane Mortensen into the woman she would become. However, she also had to mold her daughter into a person who could stand on her own, unlike herself.

#17

Gladys was a film cutter at Consolidated Studios, and she had little opportunity to build friendships. She was often paranoid, and she had difficulty luring men. She felt she had a reasonable expectation of having at least one person with her all the time: Norma Jeane.

#18

According to the story passed down a generation, there was mayhem: a barking dog, a weeping child, and Ida trying to save a little girl from a confused, possibly dangerous woman. Gladys managed to stuff the child into a large military duffel bag, which she carried outside.

#19

Ida Bolender, the girl’s mother, was standing in the doorway with her daughter when Gladys Baker arrived. She spent the next few minutes peeking out various windows as Gladys circled the house, muttering to herself. Finally, Ida called the police.

#20

Ida had always wanted to adopt Norma Jeane, and after three years, she finally succeeded in convincing Gladys to give her up. However, Gladys was heartbroken, and couldn’t bear to lose another child.

#21

Gladys, the mother of Norma Jeane, did not approve of her daughter’s relationship with Ida. When Ida tried to comfort the crying girl, Gladys ran out of the room.

#22

Norma Jeane had a difficult time relating to other people as she grew up. She was extremely shy and withdrawn, and she had only become more beautiful with the passing of the years. She was not allowed to call her father Wayne Bolender her father, as Ida believed that she was too old for that.

#23

Norma Jeane’s life was settled in June 1933, when she was seven years old. She got along with her foster siblings and had one faithful friend who was always there for her: her pet dog, Tippy. However, a tragedy involving Tippy would be the catalyst to Norma Jeane’s departure from the Bolender home.

#24

Ida was the one who decided to send Norma Jeane to Gladys. She loved the girl, but she felt she had failed her in terms of making her stronger. She was very vulnerable and sensitive, and that was what threw Ida off.

#25

Grace Atchinson McKee, a close friend of Gladys’s, was with her when she picked up her daughter from the Bolenders. She was also a film cutter at Consolidated Studios. They got along well together, despite their occasional problems.

#26

Gladys and Grace began to rely on each other for advice and guidance. They started acting as a team, making joint decisions about their lives. They cared about each other deeply, and Gladys was convinced that Norma Jeane was unhappy living with her.

#27

Grace and Gladys were close friends, and they decided to give Norma Jeane to another foster family, the Atkinsons, while they figured out their next move. Grace did her research and figured out a way for Gladys to take advantage of Roosevelt’s plan.

#28

In August, Gladys purchased a two-story house with three bedrooms on Arbol Drive near the Hollywood Bowl. She made the down payment of $5,000 by obtaining a loan from the Mortgage Guarantee Company of California. The Atkinsons were more easygoing in nature, and Norma Jeane began to appreciate films while she knew them.

#29

The early 1930s were an interesting time in show business history. Hollywood’s output did not reflect the same euphoria and upbeat mood as the campaign song Happy Days Are Here Again rang in Americans’ ears in 1933.

#30

In October 1933, Norma Jeane’s life was turned upside down by the death of her brother, Jackie, from tuberculosis of the kidneys. Her mother, Gladys, received a telephone call from a family member who told her that her grandfather had hanged himself.

#31

By the middle of 1934, it was clear that something needed to be done for Gladys. Grace finally decided to take her to a neurologist, where she spent a day undergoing a battery of tests. However, no clear diagnosis was made.

#32

Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects over 1 percent of the country’s adult population. Each year more than one hundred thousand people are diagnosed with schizophrenia in the United States alone.

#33

Following the union strike at Consolidated Studios, Grace was working at Columbia Pictures in the movie company’s film library. She knew a great many people in the movie business, and she began to discuss with them the current crop of movie stars and their careers at Columbia.

#34

Grace McKee, Norma Jeane’s mother, was a big fan of Jean Harlow’s and thought that her daughter would be in show business. She took Norma Jeane to see several Jean Harlow films.

#35

In late 1934, it was decided that Gladys Baker could obtain leave from the sanitarium on occasional weekends. However, these weekends with Gladys were to be difficult. She was not well, and she seemed angry and defiant.

#36

The relationship between Norma Jeane and her mother was very difficult. Gladys was too self-involved to care about her daughter, and she would never say anything positive to her or about her.

#37

Grace McKee, who had strong maternal instincts toward Norma Jeane, decided to take her to the Los Angeles Orphans’ Home Society at 815 North El Centro Avenue in Hollywood. The question is why she would suddenly put her in an orphanage. Some Marilyn Monroe historians have theorized that the Atkinsons had become abusive to her.

#38

Grace’s fear of losing Norma Jeane quickly became a self-fulfilling prophecy. She began making difficult demands of the child, and Norma Jeane began having emotional outbursts. They didn’t have enough money to support the one child living with them, so they decided to send her to an orphanage.

#39

When Marilyn was nine years old, she was sent to the Los Angeles Orphan