Marilyn Monroe’s Secret Brother: Untold Stories from a Hidden Past
Discover the hidden story of Marilyn Monroe’s secret brother—family mysteries, forgotten ties, and a past Hollywood never revealed.
Translated from the facebook post A Passion for Marilyn. Clique aqui para ler a postagem original.
On August 16, 1933, Robert Kermit Baker , also known as Jackie, Norma Jeane’s older half-brother, died at the age of just 15. Norma Jeane was 7 years old when her brother died and never knew him.
He was the son of Gladys Pearl Baker and Jasper/Jap/Jack Newton Baker. Gladys divorced Jasper after suffering numerous domestic abuse cases and the marriage became unbearable. She was then given full custody of Berniece and Jackie, but the father had visitation rights.
Berniece, Marilyn’s half-sister, stated in her book “My Sister Marilyn, A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe” that her brother was simply unlucky. However, today, these “accidents” he suffered could very well be analyzed by social services.
Berniece tells in the book about a time when young Jackie almost lost an eye early in his life. Apparently, the incident happened when Gladys and her husband were arguing and broke a glass. Little Jackie then picked up the broken piece of glass and put it in his eye. When he was three years old, the child fell out of a car while his parents were arguing. His father blamed Gladys for the incident, saying that he was driving and she should have paid attention to his son. Because of this accident, Jackie began to limp.
After Gladys’ divorce, Jap took his son to the hospital to try to heal his leg. But because of the treatment, his leg became shorter than the other, since the treatment meant that one of them did not grow at the same rate as the other.
During this time, Jackie was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the bone and admitted to a hospital in Louisville. Jackie would spend the rest of his days in and out of hospitals. The next “accident” occurred at a Fourth of July picnic while the boy was playing with fireworks. He set off fireworks in a glass bottle and when it exploded, he lost his right eye.
He was hospitalized again, and his father, against hospital rules, took his son home. With his body weakened, his kidneys began to fail, as the infection in his leg would never heal. A short time later, the boy died at home from kidney failure.
Gladys received the news tragically. She immediately attacked her young daughter, Norma Jeane, abusively saying that she should have been the one killed. “Why wasn’t it you?” she repeated over and over. Gladys fell into a deep depression that led to a breakdown. She had just regained custody of Norma Jeane, who had just started attending school.
In this photo, we see Robert Kermit “Jackie” Baker as a child. His short life was even more tragic than that of his famous half-sister, Marilyn Monroe.
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