Norma Jeane Mortenson was born in Los Angeles to Gladys Pearl Baker, nee Monroe, who was married at the time to her second husband, Martin Edward Mortensen, but who was not her father.
Newton Baker and Gladys had married when she was only 14 years old. Baker was reportedly abusive. The couple had two children. Interestingly, she was born to an American family living in Mexico but one that had strong connections to California, where she grew up.
In 1923 the Bakers divorced and obtained custody of all three of the couple's children. He, however, kidnapped the oldest two and moved to Kentucky. Baker was effected by the Roaring 20s and conducted herself to some extent as a flapper and participant in the early feminist movement, which then as later advocated sexual laxity. She was pregnant when she married Mortensen, who she soon found to be boring, leading to divorce.
Norma Jean's father was likely Charles Stanley Gifford, Gladys's superior at RKO Studios, where she was working.
Gladys and Norma Jeane.
Baker was likely mentally unstable ,which seems to have run in her family. Based on what evidence exists, it seems like that there was a genetic component to this and she's spend much of the later years of her life institutionalized.
The rest of this story is, of course, well known. While its speculation, it would seem likely that at least some of the genetic component of her mental instabilities visited themselves upon her daughter, who of course lived a very disrupted early life.
She outlived her daughter and died in 1984.
Andy Griffith was born in Mount Airy, North Carolina. He was at first a voice comedian and later a famous television actor, best remembered for the Andy Griffith Show. He was strongly connected to North Carolina his entire life.
The Andy Griffith Show almost defines a certain vision of rural America to this day, and it retains a very strong following. Unlike the Sheriff protagonist of the show, Griffith married three times and had an affair with one of the shows love interests while it was running. Irrespective of those failings, he remains widely admired.
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