Norma Jeane Research Paper

Norma Jeane's mother was a flighty, and later mentally unstable individual who would abandon Norma Jeane to various mother figures throughout her life: the controlling Bolender's, who would teach her to strive for perfection in all things and give her a strict religious upbringing until age two; her close friend Grace McKee, who would become the engineer of Norma Jeane's future as a famous starlet a la Jean Harlow by starting to teach Norma Jeane about make up at the age of ten but who would later end up as unpredictable as Gladys; Ida Martin, at whose home Norma Jeane was sexually assaulted by her 13-year-old cousin for the second time in her life (Grace's husband Ervin "Doc" Goddard had tried to force himself on Norma Jeane when she was six); and Ana Lower, a kindly older woman who spoiled Norma Jeane but also expected her to keep to a religious code and kept her secluded socially. Norma Jeane also spent a few

The marriage was one of convenience rather than love, although Norma Jeane was very dependent on Dougherty in the beginning of their marriage. The idea for the sixteen year old to get married was due to the fact that if Norma Jeane did not marry before her eighteenth birthday she risked being sent back to the orphanage because "Aunt Ana" had become ill and Grace was moving to the East Coast and could not afford to care for her (Spoto, 1993).While Dougherty, a merchant marine, was away at seas, Norma Jeane began modeling, lightening her hair and making connections in Hollywood. Although he was at first supportive, Dougherty eventually demanded Norma Jeane stop her career, and start a family with him (Spoto, 1993). They divorced in 1946, the same year Norma Jeane signed her first movie contract with Fox and began calling herself Marilyn Monroe ("Marilyn Monroe",