The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe: The Shocking True Story Read Free Page B

newspaper, Ida Bolender added, ‘When my mother was alive, she was very upset about it. We treated her [Marilyn] like our own child because we loved her.’
    Quite possibly, the only accusation one could hurl at the Bolenders was that Norma Jeane was inadvertently made to feel like an outsider in their home. For instance, during the regular, once-a-week bath time, the children would all share the same water and, according to her, she would always bathe last. Another example came on Christmas Day morning 1926, when she happily made her way over to her first gift-laden festive tree. Aware that she was going to receive a present from Albert and Ida, she waited patiently for her turn while the other children unwrapped their expensive gifts of huge toys and bicycles. However, when her present was brought out, it was nothing more than a cheap trinket purchased from the five and ten cent (nickel and dime) store. Frantically, she tried to hide her dejection. She knew then that she was regarded as an outcast in the family. (Marilyn often remarked how extremely vivid her memories as a young child were. ‘I can remember when I was just six months old,’ she once admitted. ‘I know you’re not supposed to, but I do .’)
    Norma Jeane was, in general, lovingly doted on by Ida and her husband, Albert, a postman by trade. In time, she went on to enjoy a warm relationship with the dwelling’s five other siblings, Lester, Mumsey, Alvina, Noel and Nancy. She grew particularly close to Lester. Norma Jeane also relished normal schoolgirl activities, such as playing hopscotch, learning the piano and (from December 1933, at 7.30 each Friday evening) listening to her favourite radio show, The Lone Ranger , starring Earle W. Graser. (It has long since entered Marilyn folklore that she also used to enjoy tuning in to The Green Hornet during this time, but that is incorrect. The show did not reach American radio until January 1936, by which time she was living away from the Bolenders’ home.)
    Other pleasurable pursuits for the young child were her frequent visits to the cinema and her play-acting the role of a detective, prowling up and down the nearby streets, intently jotting down the numbers of the local motor car licence plates. Gambolling with her small black and white dog, Tippy, was another favourite pastime. However, their time together was cut short when the pet was tragically sliced in two by Raymond J. Ernest,her hoe-wielding next-door neighbour, who became enraged over the dog’s incessant barking. ‘I loved that dog,’ Marilyn sorrowfully announced, ‘and he loved me. He was the only one who did love me in all those years. I told him everything.’
    Deprivation was an occasional occurrence for Norma Jeane. Once, when she requested from her mother a white pair of shoes, she was given a black pair instead, because they were cheaper. Yet in her posthumously published, ghost-written, highly embellished 1974 book, My Story , on the subject of her childhood, Marilyn paradoxically wrote, ‘When I look back on those days, I remember, in fact, that they were full of all sorts of fun and excitement. I played games in the sun and ran races.’
    In 1962, she reminisced to American show business columnist Bob Thomas, ‘When I was five, I think that’s when I started wanting to be an actress. I loved to play. I didn’t like the world around me because it was kind of grim.’ Two years later, at the age of seven, Norma Jeane became fascinated by screen actress Jean Harlow. ‘I had white hair,’ she recalled. ‘I was a real towhead and she was the first grown-up lady I had ever seen who had white hair like mine.’
    In July 1934, Norma Jeane and her mother moved out of the Bolenders’ home. Using money saved from her job as a negative film cutter, and an advance from the California Mortgage Company at Long Beach, Gladys managed to put down a payment on a three-bedroom, six-room bungalow situated at 6812 Arbol Drive, a short distance