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July 19, 2014

Norma Jeane Baker in a Photobooth at age 12, in 1938

I was never used to being happy, so that wasn’t something I ever took for granted. You see, I was brought up differently from the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy.” – Marilyn Monroe, 1954
Norma Jeane Baker (later known as Marilyn Monroe) in a photobooth at age 12 in 1938.

Norma Jeane Baker, later known as Marilyn Monroe, experienced a disrupted, loveless childhood that included two years at an orphanage. When Norma Jeane, born on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California, was seven years old, her mother, Gladys (Monroe) Baker Mortenson, was hospitalized after being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, a severe mental condition. Norma was left in a series of foster homes and the Los Angeles Orphans’ Home Society. The constant move from one foster home to another resulted in Norma’s “sketchy” educational background.

After Norma’s sixteenth birthday, her foster parents had to move from California. To avoid an orphanage or a new foster home, Norma chose to get married. On June 19, 1942, Norma married James Dougherty, but the marriage would all but end when he joined the U.S. Merchant Marines in 1943. Though her difficult childhood and early failed marriage would make Norma Jeane a strong and resilient woman, these experiences would also add to her insecurities and flaws—things that would ultimately shape her into a great tragic figure of the twentieth century.



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