The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Even toward the end of Della’s life, she had been a somewhat stabilizing factor for her daughter. In part, it may have been because Gladys was responsible for managing her mother’s health and state of mind. This duty helped keep her focus off her own paranoid delusions. That paranoia, however, was now building—and during Gladys’s time alone she began to find it more difficult to remain rational. Naturally, her first plan of action was to find a man, which she would do often at one of the nearby speak easies. Of course, these unions rarely lasted more than an evening or two. Also, it was getting harder for her to lure the opposite sex, not so much because of her reputation as a woman of loose morals, but because something just seemed a little “off” about her. Through it all, though, Gladys felt she had a reasonable expectation of having at least one person with her all the time: Norma Jeane. She was her daughter, after all. When she gave her to Ida, it was in the hope that she would one day be capable of caring for the baby herself.

  One afternoon, in the middle of what must have been a full-force episode of paranoia, Gladys pounded on the front door of the Bolender home. The daughters of a friend of Ida’s from church—both interviewed for this book—explained for the first time the exchange that occurred, as described to them by their mother:

  “Where’s Norma Jeane?” Gladys demanded, pushing past Ida.

  “What is it, Gladys?” Ida replied, regarding her carefully. “What’s happened?”

  Gladys said that Norma Jeane could no longer stay at the Bo-lenders’. She had come to take her, she insisted, as her eyes darted about the small home. It was impossible to reason with her. Ida told her that she wasn’t making any sense and suggested that she sit down and talk to her. However, Gladys was adamant. With her eyes flashing, she cried out again that Norma Jeane was her daughter and that she was taking her home. Ida grabbed Gladys’s arm, delaying her momentarily. “This is her home,” she told her. “We just haven’t made it official yet… but once we get the adoption papers together…” Gladys then insisted that there would never be an adoption. Norma Jeane was hers, she said, not Ida’s. With that, she yanked herself free and ran to the backyard, where the three-year-old was playing with a dog that had followed Wayne home one day and whom Norma Jeane had named Tippy. Ida followed Gladys into the backyard, begging her to come to her senses. However, Gladys insisted that she was only taking what was rightfully hers. Then she scooped up a now crying Norma Jeane and said, “You’re coming with Mommy, sweetheart.”

  According to the story passed down a generation, there was mayhem—a barking dog, a weeping child, and Ida pulling at Gladys in an effort to save a little girl from a confused, possibly dangerous woman. Still tussling as they got to the kitchen, Gladys managed to push Ida outside, slamming the back door and quickly locking it.

  Frantic, Ida pounded on the door. Then she tried to force it open with all her weight. After a few moments of futile effort, she ran down the driveway, around the house, and entered her home through the front door. By this time, she was out of breath, panting. She listened for a moment. Nothing.

  Ida then ran back out the door again to see if Gladys had somehow made it out to the sidewalk in front of the house. Once outside, she looked both ways down the street—no one was in sight. At a loss, she was about to burst into tears when suddenly the front door flew open. It was Gladys, her face now flushed and red.

  Then Ida heard the muffled screams of Norma Jeane. To Ida’s horror, Gladys had managed to stuff the child into a large military duffel bag that Wayne Bolender had used to store his tools. The bag hung on her shoulder, completely zipped shut. Gladys, now moving clumsily with her awkward baggage, attempted to cross the lawn. Ida grabbed one of the handles of the canvas sack and tried to free it from Gladys’s grip. This bizarre tug-of-war would last only moments, ending with the bag splitting open and the helpless Norma Jeane tumbling onto the ground. Norma Jeane’s weeping ceased for a moment before she finally screamed out, “Mommy!” Both women turned and looked down at the child, whose arms were now outstretched—in Ida’s direction. Ida whipped the child quickly up into her arms and ran inside the house, locking the door behind her.

  Now inside, an extremely shaken Ida Bolender stood in a doorway to the kitchen. Clinging to little Norma Jeane with everything she had, she kept her eyes on the front door, all the while ready to run out the back if Gladys tried to get into the house. All she could hear was the child’s whimpering as she watched the front doorknob turn slightly back and forth. Gladys could not get into the house. Ida spent the next few minutes peeking out various windows as Gladys circled the house, muttering to herself and occasionally trying to open a window or a door. Finally, Ida screwed up enough courage to shout through a closed window, “I’ve called the police! They’ll be here shortly!”

  With the now quiet Norma Jeane still in her arms, Ida Bolender listened. There was silence. Gladys Baker had disappeared just as abruptly as she had arrived.

  Ida Wants to Adopt Norma Jeane

  Within three years’ time, Ida Bolender had taken to little Norma Jeane and begun to love her as if she were her own. Norma Jeane had bonded with her as well, and now called her “Aunt Ida.” Ida’s intention had always been to see to it that this child be raised with a sense of independence, even at such an early age. She knew that her life would be a difficult one and she’d already decided that she wanted to prepare her for it. She thought of it as a mission, a part of God’s plan not only for Norma Jeane but for herself as well. She was serious about it, too—as she was about most things. However, that said, Ida often worked against her own intentions, because whenever her charge displayed any degree of determination—when she was willful or stubborn—Ida reprimanded her as if trying to reel her back in, lest she become too noncompliant. In Ida’s mind, there was a fine line between independence and disobedience, and with Norma Jeane she seemed to have trouble defining it. Still, she loved the child with all her heart and decided that she wanted to legally adopt her.

  According to memories of family members—Monroes and Bolenders—Ida invited Gladys over to see Norma Jeane, have supper, and discuss adoption possibilities. Grace McKee had explained to Ida that Gladys’s behavior the day she tried to take Norma Jeane was the unfortunate consequence of her not having taken her medication. Therefore, Ida tried to put the dreadful episode out of her mind. It wasn’t easy, though. It’s probably a testament to Ida that she was ever able to strike a conciliatory tone with Gladys, so traumatized was she by the events of that day. Still, she was the type of woman who always found a way to stay focused on the business at hand. She needed to meet with Gladys—there was no way around it—and she knew that Wayne was home and in the next room in case anything went wrong.

  Once they finished their meal, Gladys began playing with her daughter. Ida walked over and lifted the child into her arms. When she did so, Norma Jeane clung to her. Ida went to the couch and took her seat next to Gladys. With the baby in her lap, Ida reminded Gladys that it had been three years since she’d left her child in the care of her and her husband. She explained that they both loved Norma Jeane very much and now thought it would be best if Gladys allowed them to adopt her. As she spoke, the child fell asleep, cradled in Ida’s arms and seeming blissfully content.

  After hearing Ida out, Gladys began to cry softly. She told Ida that she couldn’t bear to lose another child. She had already lost two, after all. Certainly, Ida understood. However, as she patted Norma Jeane on the back, it was easy to see that the little girl was very happy with her. Surely, she told Gladys, “you want her to be this happy for the rest of her life, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then, please. Make the proper decision,” Ida said, according to a later recollection. “Give this little girl the life she deserves. It’s the best thing for her. She’ll always live deep in your heart, dear.”

  Gladys rose from the couch. “Never,” she said firmly. Then she reached over to take her child from Ida. However, as soon as she touched her,
Norma Jeane began to cry. Her tears came without relief for at least a minute. Even though Ida was still holding the little girl, she sat motionless, maybe waiting for Gladys to reach out to her. The moment hung awkwardly, mingled emotions running together as both women just stared at the child. Then, finally, Ida swung into action and began to comfort the girl. When she could take no more, a tearful Gladys ran from the room and out of the house.

  “Now It’s Time to Know Your Mother”

  The years passed quickly…

  By the time Norma Jeane turned seven in June 1933, she was having a difficult time relating to other people. She also didn’t get along with children her own age at the Washington Street School she attended in Hawthorne. Certainly, Lester, the child who’d been adopted by the Bolenders, was an ally. But as for everyone else, she seemed afraid to know them or didn’t want to play with them. There was an understandably deep sadness about her. She was shy, withdrawn. However, that said, she had only become more uncommonly pretty with the passing of the years. With her face so clear and luminous and her blonde hair seeming somehow aglow—Ida actually washed it in lemon juice for just such an effect, which suggests that even she was taken by the child’s beauty—little Norma Jeane really was stunning.

  In recent years, Norma Jeane had grown to think of Ida Bolender as her mother. However, Ida would always disabuse her of that notion. Once it had been clarified that no official adoption would take place, whenever Norma Jeane referred to Ida as her mother, she was quickly reprimanded. “I’m not your real mother,” Ida would say very abruptly, “and I don’t want you having people believe otherwise.” In Marilyn Monroe’s autobiography, she quotes Ida as having told her, “You’re old enough to know better. I’m not related to you. Your mama’s coming to see you tomorrow. You can call her mama.” The truth was the truth, as far as Ida was concerned, and she wasn’t the girl’s mother, plain and simple. The sooner Norma Jeane reconciled herself to that fact of life, the better. Ida was a pragmatic woman, not usually sentimental. True, she could have been more sensitive, but she was who she was and she never apologized for it.

  It’s been said (by Marilyn, actually) that Norma Jeane was also not allowed to refer to Wayne Bolender as her father. That’s not true at all. In fact, she called him “Daddy” and did so all of her life. His face weather-beaten from being outdoors, Wayne had a wide, engaging smile and kind, humor-filled eyes. It was as if Norma Jeane sensed his empathy for her, because she quickly became very attached to him. Since he truly believed her circumstances were sad, he went out of his way to be nice. Nancy Jeffrey recalled, “My mother was definitely the disciplinarian in our family, whereas my father was very quiet and comforting. I’m sure that’s why Norma Jeane gravitated to him. She was very inquisitive. There was a stool by the bathtub and I remember that she would sit there and, as he shaved, she would ask him all sorts of questions.” Marilyn also once recalled, “Which way was east or south? How many people are there in the world? Why do flowers grow? I had so many questions and Daddy always seemed to know the answers.”

  Unfortunately, Wayne could not offer much assistance to Norma Jeane if Ida was angry at her. Cowed by his wife, he kept the peace by keeping his mouth shut. If he felt the girl was being treated unfairly, he wouldn’t like it but neither would he do anything about it. Moreover, if he paid too much attention to Norma Jeane or any of the other children who passed through the Bo-lender home, Ida would become annoyed. With her dark eyes blazing, she would lash out at him and accuse him of coddling them, thereby making them that much more difficult to raise. Then, of course, she would feel badly about losing her temper and apologize to him hours later.

  By June 1933, shortly after her seventh birthday, Norma Jeane’s life was settled—such as it was. Yes, there were problems at the Bo-lender home, but it was all that she knew and she was fine there. She got along with her foster siblings and also had one faithful friend who was always there for her and never once brought her anything but joy: her pet dog, Tippy.

  Sadly, however, a tragedy involving Tippy would be the catalyst to Norma Jeane’s departure from the Bolender home. As the story goes—and it’s been told countless times over the years in different variations—a neighbor of the Bolenders became annoyed by the dog’s constant barking. In Marilyn’s memoir, she writes that the neighbor, finally fed up and in a moment of fury, attacked the dog with a hoe, savagely cutting Tippy in half.

  A Bolender family member explained that what really happened was that Tippy was hit by a car and killed. Ida, having witnessed the event, didn’t want the dead animal continually run over in the street. Therefore, using a garden hoe, she lifted the carcass and dropped it on the driveway. She wanted nothing more to do with it, and decided that the gruesome task of disposing of the pet should wait for Wayne’s return. However, before Wayne got home, Norma Jeane showed up after playing with some friends down the street. Obviously, she was devastated by the sight of her best friend’s dead body, mangled and lying in the driveway with a nearby garden tool seemingly part of the macabre scene. She let out a shriek, burst into tears, and ran into the house. For the next few hours, it was impossible for Ida to calm her down.

  Ida, in an attempt to make the pain of the dog’s death seem more bearable to Norma Jeane, explained that some unknown party had shot Tippy in the head and that his death was immediate. She thought that if the girl believed that not much suffering had been involved, she would feel better. However, Norma Jeane refused to believe Ida and had invented her own story. “Tippy was cut up with a hoe,” Norma Jeane insisted through her tears. “The neighbors finally killed him!”

  Ida tried everything she could think of to shake that scenario from Norma Jeane’s mind, even telling her the truth at one point. It didn’t work. The girl was absolutely convinced that the neighbors had been plotting her dog’s death for some time and had finally succeeded at it. Ida found this very disturbing—maybe even paranoid. “Ida wondered if Norma Jeane was starting to have delusions like her mother, Gladys,” explains a relative, “because she wouldn’t let go of this crazy idea that the neighbors had hacked up her dog. On some level, I think Ida had always been afraid of Gladys… and now she was wondering about her daughter. She had become very uneasy about it.”

  Norma Jeane’s paroxysm lasted into the next day, with the family enjoying silence only during her slumber. Ida had a real problem with this kind of expression of emotion. Actually, she’d recently begun to wonder if she had even been put on this earth to raise such a sensitive child. This certainly hadn’t been the first time Norma Jeane became upset when something in her little world went awry. Ida started to wonder if perhaps her influence was backfiring. While her goal had always been to strengthen Norma Jeane, maybe her firm hand and distant affection was actually having a negative effect on the girl. Had it created a child who would spin out of control when faced with any emotional trauma?

  It seems clear now that Ida was confused and felt she was at a crossroads with her foster daughter. She had once believed she and Wayne would adopt the girl. However, Gladys had again made it clear that this would not be the case. In fact, in recent months, Gladys had started saying that she wanted Norma Jeane back. Stalling, Ida always had an excuse as to why the girl could not be returned—she was in school, she had made friends, she was not feeling well. Finally, Ida decided that perhaps the time had come. Norma Jeane was already distraught, Ida told Wayne, so why not let her traumatizing memory of her dog’s death blend with the difficulty she would suffer during a transfer of custody? The next afternoon, she telephoned Gladys. “I think it would be best now if you came and took Norma Jeane,” she told her. “She’s very upset. I think she needs her mother.”

  This was not an easy decision for Ida. “She loved her,” said one of her relatives, “but I think she began to feel as if she was failing where Norma Jeane was concerned. She took the child’s fragility as an indication that she had not done what she set out to do with her, which was to make her stronger. But Norma Jean
e was strong. She was just a girl. She was very sensitive, very vulnerable… and that’s what threw Ida off, I think.”

  The next day, Norma Jeane was told that her mother was on her way and that she would be taking her home with her. This was confusing. “But I am home,” Norma Jeane said. “Yes you are,” Ida told her, “and you can come back anytime you want to.”

  Still quietly sniffling through tearful moments for the rest of the day, the little girl kept her eyes fixed on the street outside the front window waiting for the mysterious—and sometimes even scary—woman who had come from time to time to visit and promise her a good life “someday.”

  Silent and focused only on getting the job done in an efficient manner, Ida packed a little suitcase for Norma Jeane, just a few things. Then she called her into the kitchen and sat her down at the table for a talk. “I want you to know that we’ll always be here for you,” she told her, according to a later recollection. She spoke very slowly as if to give more weight to her words. “We’ll always love you,” she added reassuringly. “But we just think that it’s time for you to know your mother. Your real mother. Do you understand?” As Ida spoke to Norma Jeane, all of the other foster children were grouped in the living room, crying. The noise must have driven Ida crazy. Clearly, no one wanted to see Norma Jeane go, even though the time had come for her departure. Ida began to rethink things. Was this really the right decision? Perhaps she was being hasty? Should she call Gladys back and say she had changed her mind? No. She had always been decisive and now was not the time to change.