The Genius and the Goddess Read Online Free Page A

working overtime, and now a strike at her company just
when she had taken on the huge financial obligation of a home."
Apart from brief intervals when she seemed to improve and was
temporarily released from confinement, Gladys spent the rest of her
long life in insane asylums. Norma Jeane occasionally saw her, but
since Gladys became a fanatical Christian Scientist and retreated into
herself, they could never establish meaningful contact. Norma Jeane's
first husband, who met Gladys during World War II, found her affectless,
remote and withdrawn: "Gladys seemed to be reaching for
something but there was nothing there to grasp. She couldn't find it.
I never saw her angry and I never saw her laugh. She was very pious
and apparently content."
    The Hungarian photographerAndré de Dienes, who drove up the
coast to the Northwest with Norma Jeane in 1945, described another
dutiful but dreary encounter. On that occasion, the forty-three-year-old
Gladys failed to respond either to her daughter or to the presents
she'd brought: "Norma Jeane's mother lived in an old hotel in the
center of Portland, in a depressing bedroom on the top floor. The
reunion between mother and daughter lacked warmth. They had
nothing to say to each other. Mrs. Baker was a woman of uncertain
age, emaciated and apathetic, making no effort to put us at our ease.
. . . A silence ensued. Then Mrs. Baker buried her face in her hands
and seemed to forget all about us. It was distressing. She had obviously
been released from the hospital too soon." The visitors escaped as
quickly as they could.
    Despite her history of mental illness and apparent estrangement
from the world, Gladys recovered sufficiently to find another husband.
In April 1949, without bothering to get divorced, she contracted a
third marriage to an electrician,John Eley. After his death three years
later, she sent a sad and rather paranoid letter from a state mental
hospital, which made Norma Jeane feel both guilty and distressed, as
she always did whenever they had any contact: "Please dear child Id
like to receive a letter from you. Things are very annoying around
here & Id like to move away soon as possible. Id like to have my
childs love instead of hatred. Love, Mother." 3
II
    After Gladys' violent crack up and sudden disappearance, Grace
Goddard became Norma Jeane's legal guardian. From January to
August 1935 she made temporary and increasingly desperate arrangements
for the child. At first Norma Jeane lived with Gladys' lodgers,
the Atkinsons, but when the house was sold they gave up their hopes
of stardom and returned to England. She then moved in with new
foster parents, theHarvey Giffens, and then with Grace's mother,Emma Atchinson. This proved equally unsatisfactory, and the little
refugee must have been very troubled during these frequent displacements.
In September 1935 Grace took the drastic step of putting her
into a children's home, where she remained for the next two years.
Her father, mother and sister were alive, but she had no one to care
for her. Technically, she still had a family; practically, she did not.
Condemned to be an orphan, she felt fear, loneliness and utter despair.
    Orphanages were then notorious for their poor food, onerous
chores and harsh discipline, and seemed to punish children for their
parents' disappearance or death. One authority, emphasizing the physical
and mental deprivation, stated thatorphanages
    were, quite literally, a last resort for almost all who turned to
them. . . . [They] were often highly regimented institutions
where children had relatively little positive interaction with
adults and limited opportunity to develop emotionally or
psychologically. . . .
    When disaster struck their families, such children were
provided with food, clothing, shelter, companionship, and at least
some education. . . . Such children probably lacked emotional
warmth from a parental figure and the opportunity to act
independently in society.
    During the Depression, as