The Genius and the Goddess Read Online Free

a little jingle during her
nightly prayers, "I promise, God helping me, not to buy, drink, sell,
or give alcohol while I live. From all tobacco I'll abstain, and never
take God's name in vain." Ida also warned her, with threats of fire
and brimstone, that even minor transgressions would send her straight
to Hell: "If the world came to an end with you sitting in the movies,
do you know what would happen? You'd burn along with all the bad
people. We are churchgoers, not moviegoers." 2
    Norma Jeane spent her first seven years with the strict but decent
Bolenders. Better parents, by far, than Della and Gladys, they provided
a proper home and did not mistreat her. Yet these respectable people
were quite fanatical, imposed severe and inflexible discipline, and
considered Norma Jeane a bastard, an outcast and a sinner. They
constantly ordered her to stop doing anything that gave her pleasure,
stifling her natural feelings and making her feel she was dirty. She
learned to avoid conflict by being passive and docile, and as a child
she retreated into a fantasy life. She said she had a powerful impulse
to take off all her clothes, before all the pious worshippers in church,
and stand up naked so God and everyone else could see her. (Obsessed
with her own sensuous figure, Marilyn was never ashamed of nudity.
She loved to show off her naked body at home and in public, in
photographs and in films.)
    In 1933 Gladys qualified for a government-sponsored, low-cost
mortgage. In the fall she reclaimed her daughter and moved into a
modest, three-bedroom house just next to the Hollywood Bowl. To
help meet expenses, Gladys took in tenants, a couple of English actors,George Atkinson and his wife. George played bit parts; his wife was
an extra in crowd scenes and a stand-in for Madeleine Carroll. Like
so many camp followers in Hollywood, the Atkinsons were infatuated
with its glamor and fantasized endlessly about the big break that
would make them great stars.
    Gladys' hedonistic regime, the complete antithesis of the Bolenders',
transformed Norma Jeane's daily life and moral values. Gladys loved
to indulge in cigarettes and alcohol, candy and perfume, frequent trips
to dance halls and long nights at the movies. Norma Jeane, with her
strict religious background, was shocked by her mother's wild life.
She thought Gladys would be sent to hell and spent a lot of time
praying for her. For the first seven years of her life she had never
known a mother's tender voice or affectionate touch. She now lived
with her mother, but did not feel close to her. Always self-absorbed,
Gladys never gave her the love and care she sought. Her mother never
smiled at her, never kissed or caressed her. She was so nervous, Marilyn
recalled, that she'd become upset when she heard someone turning
the page of a magazine.
    Gladys had attempted suicide several times, swung perilously
between depression and mania, and had her first mental breakdown
in January 1935. She suddenly started to laugh, scream and curse
hysterically and, with a sudden outburst of violence, to shatter dishes
against the wall. She would lie on the floor, stare up the staircase and
yell that someone was coming down the steps to kill her. One night,
after accusing her co-worker and best friend,Grace Goddard, of trying
to poison her, she grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed her. The tenants
called the police, and two officers finally overpowered her. She was
taken to Norwalk state hospital, where in 1927 her mother had died
in a straitjacket. The sight of Gladys' nervous collapse terrified
the eight-year-old Norma Jeane and remained, for the rest of her life,
a warning that the same thing might also happen to her. The
memories of her promiscuous and unstable mother were disturbing
and shameful.
    Norma Jeane's half-sister,Berniece, later explained the reasons for
Gladys' breakdown: "divorce, desertion, the death of her mother,
separation from two of her children, the frustration of dead-end dating,
the toll of