Gladys Pearl Baker

Gladys Pearl Baker Mortensen Eley ( Monroe; May 27, 1902 – March 11, 1984) was the mother of American actress Marilyn Monroe.

Early life

Gladys Pearl Monroe was born on May 27, 1902 in Piedras Negras, Coahuila Mexico. Her mother, Della Mae Monroe (née Hogan), was from Arkansas, and her father, Otis Elmer Monroe, was an aspiring painter from Indianapolis, who worked for the National Railway. The family soon migrated to Los Angeles County, and Otis started working for the Pacific Electric Railway Co.

First marriage

In 1917, Gladys married Jasper Newton "Jap" Baker (1886–1951) and gave birth to a son Robert Kermit "Jackie" (1918–1933), followed by a daughter, Berniece Inez Gladys. After abusive incidents, she filed for divorce from Jasper in 1921, leading him to kidnap the children and raise them in his native Kentucky.

Second marriage and Marilyn Monroe

In 1924, Baker married Norwegian immigrant Martin Edward Mortensen (1897–1981). They divorced in 1928, after Baker met her superior at RKO Pictures, Charles Stanley Gifford (1898–1965). While working for him as a film negative cutter, she became pregnant and gave birth to her third and final child, Norma Jeane Baker on June 1, 1926, in the Los Angeles County Hospital. Gifford was often assumed to be her father, though the identity remained uncertain until 2022, when DNA testing confirmed he was the father. Baker registered the surname ''Mortenson'' on Norma Jeane's birth certificate, using the name of her ex-husband and specifying his address as unknown. Norma Jeane was baptised with the name ''Baker'', in an act of her grandmother Della to hide the illegitimacy. Della Monroe died shortly thereafter of a heart attack. Gladys' brother Otis disappeared in October 1929 and was pronounced dead in 1955.

Baker placed Norma Jeane with evangelical Christian foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender in the rural town of Hawthorne. In the summer of 1933, Baker bought a small house in Hollywood with a loan from the Home Owners' Loan Corporation and moved her daughter in with her. They shared the house with lodgers, actors George and Maude Atkinson and their daughter, Nellie. In January 1934, Baker had a mental breakdown and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. After several months in a rest home, she was committed to the Metropolitan State Hospital. Norma Jean became a ward of the state, and her mother's friend, Grace Goddard, took responsibility over her and her mother's affairs.

Third marriage

Baker was married for a third time in 1949, to the electrician John Stewart Eley. Eley died three years later of a heart infection.

Final years

Out of hospital, Baker worked at a nursing home in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles and as a housekeeper in Los Angeles. She was sent money regularly by Norma Jeane, who became an actress under the stage name Marilyn Monroe (adopting Baker's maiden name). Baker was admitted to Rockhaven Sanitarium in 1953, and was supported by Monroe with $250 a month. She was looked after by Monroe's business manager, Inez Melson, until Monroe's death in 1962.

Gladys was left a trust fund of $100,000 by her daughter, of which she received $5,000 a year. She made multiple attempts to escape from the sanitarium. In 1963, she was reported to have walked 15 miles to Lakeview Terrace Baptist Church. After being transferred to Camarillo State Mental Hospital, she was released in 1967 and went on to live with her daughter Berniece, until moving into a retirement home in Gainesville, Florida, where she died on March 11, 1984.

In popular culture

Baker's mental health made headlines in her daughter's career early. In an interview with the ''Los Angeles Daily News'', Monroe stated:

Over the years, Baker's relationship to her children became a subject of debate and was addressed in many films about Monroe, such as: ''My Week With Marilyn'' (2011), where she is mentioned but not portrayed onscreen; ''The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe'' (2015), where she is played by Susan Sarandon and Eva Amurri; and ''Blonde'' (2022), where she is played by Julianne Nicholson.

References

Sources

*
*
*
*
*

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker, Gladys Pearl
Marilyn Monroe
1902 births
1984 deaths
People from Los Angeles
American expatriates in Mexico
People with schizophrenia