Summary of J. Randy Taraborrelli's The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 Ida Bolender was a foster mother who looked like a schoolmarm. She was very efficient and diligent, but she didn’t have time for superficialities. She had opened her home to underprivileged children in the 1920s, and she wanted a better life.

#2 In 1918, Ida married Albert Wayne, and the couple moved to California. They had no plans other than to work hard and pray hard, and they lived what they believed was a decent life based on scripture.

#3 Della Monroe, 49, was not a wealthy woman in 1925, but she still had a craving for extravagance. She would hunt down bargains wherever she could, even in places where she didn’t feel welcome. She had been a spectacularly attractive woman in her prime, but time had not been kind to her.

#4 Della was a free spirit who enjoyed what would have been considered a loose morality in the early 1900s. She had always been a clothes buyer for Ida Bolender, who made a decent amount of money from the church. Della was going to leave in December 1925 to join her husband in India.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Sep 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350030655

IRB Media

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Insights on J. Randy Taraborrelli's The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Ida Bolender was a foster mother who looked like a schoolmarm. She was very efficient and diligent, but she didn’t have time for superficialities. She had opened her home to underprivileged children in the 1920s, and she wanted a better life.

#2

In 1918, Ida married Albert Wayne, and the couple moved to California. They had no plans other than to work hard and pray hard, and they lived what they believed was a decent life based on scripture.

#3

Della Monroe, 49, was not a wealthy woman in 1925, but she still had a craving for extravagance. She would hunt down bargains wherever she could, even in places where she didn’t feel welcome. She had been a spectacularly attractive woman in her prime, but time had not been kind to her.

#4

Della was a free spirit who enjoyed what would have been considered a loose morality in the early 1900s. She had always been a clothes buyer for Ida Bolender, who made a decent amount of money from the church. Della was going to leave in December 1925 to join her husband in India.

#5

Della’s paranoia and instability were well known among her friends. She had a difficult time connecting with what Ida was saying, but she knew her mother was right. She and Gladys should not be the primary caretakers of the baby they were carrying.

#6

Gladys’s mother, Della, was a tough woman who never acquiesced to anyone’s will. The arguments between them began on their honeymoon and never ceased. In 1909, Otis Monroe died of syphilis of the brain. His family said that he had gone insane, but Della feared that he had contracted syphilis, which then led to his death.

#7

Della was a very attractive woman who could be fun to be around, but she could also be unpredictable and, if in one of her moods of despair, even morose. She had two children with her first husband, Otis, and when he died, she was on her own with two small children.

#8

Gladys Baker, after her divorce from her first husband, became notorious for her promiscuity. She began an affair with a man named Charles Stanley Gifford, a sales manager at the company.

#9

In 1925, Gladys learned that she was pregnant. She told Stanley Gifford that he was the father of her child, but he refused to accept responsibility, saying that she’d been with other men. She insisted that he was the father, and he never believed her.

#10

On June 1, 1926, Gladys Baker, Della Monroe’s daughter, gave birth to a child in the charity ward of the Los Angeles General Hospital. The baby was placed on her mother’s chest, and she just held her, with her eyes closed.

#11

The transfer of Norma Jeane from Gladys to Ida was difficult and emotional. After a long and difficult farewell, Gladys walked out the front door of Ida’s house without the child named Norma Jeane Mortensen.

#12

In 1927, Gladys’s mother, Della, returned from India with malaria. Her husband Charles Grainger decided not to come back to the States with her, leaving most people to believe that their relationship was over.

#13

Marilyn’s time with the Bolenders was not unpleasant, but she often exaggerated the difficulties she experienced there in her memoirs. She loved playing with their chickens and goats, and her favorite childhood memory was spending rainy days under the dining room table.

#14

The house Norma Jeane and her family lived in was small and cramped, and there were five foster children who were there most of the time: the aforementioned Lester, Mumsy, Alvina, Noel, and Nancy.

#15

Ida Bolender was a difficult woman, and she was tough and resilient. She was the first powerful woman Norma Jeane had ever met, and she was determined to be a stable and decisive adult in her life.

#16

Ida Bolender’s strength and determination was what helped shape Norma Jeane Mortensen into the woman she would become. However, she also had to mold