Norma Jeane settled into her life with the Bolenders, but while Gladys continued to visit her daughter at the weekends, her presence was confusing for the child. “Her mother paid her board all the time.” A difficult start to life “(Norma Jeane) was never neglected and always nicely dressed,” said Ida Bolender. Eventually, she moved in with her friend Grace McKee, staying at the Bolender home occasionally, and always contributed to her child’s care. While it began with good intentions, the commute from Hollywood to Hawthorne and back turned into a struggle for Gladys.

Ida later said, “She stayed in Hollywood when working nights as a negative cutter and stayed with me while working days.”

Just weeks after the birth, Gladys and Norma Jeane moved to the home of Ida and Wayne Bolender – a religious couple who lived across the road from Gladys’ mother, Della. When she gave birth to Norma Jeane (Marilyn's real name) on June 1, 1926, Gifford was long gone, and Gladys was on her own, trying to care for her child, and hold down a full-time job. While there has always been debate on who the father was, Gladys believed it to be Gifford. In May 1925 Gladys left Mortensen, and that autumn, became pregnant. There, she became friends with a colleague called Grace McKee and, in 1924, married Martin Edward Mortensen, though shortly after began an affair with Charles Stanley Gifford, one of the bosses at Consolidated. A heartbroken Gladys followed her children, but she could not win them back, so returned to Los Angeles, where she worked in the processing lab at Consolidated Film Industries.

When Gladys filed for divorce, Jasper deemed her an unfit mother and, in 1922, he snatched his children – Berniece and Robert – and moved them from California to Kentucky. The relationship was abusive, with Baker calling her vile names and causing “extreme mental pain, anxiety and humiliation”. Of all the relationships Marilyn Monroehad, perhaps the most complicated was the one with her mother, Gladys.īorn on May 27, 1902, Gladys was pregnant and married to the much-older Jasper Baker, just before her 15th birthday.

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