The Life of Norma Jeane

Birthplace and Date

     Marilyn Monroe was born on June 1, 1926 at 9:30 AM in the Los Angeles County Hospital. She was also born the year Valentino died. Her original name was Norma Jeane Mortenson which was soon changed to Baker. Monroe’s birth certificate says her father is Martin Edward Mortenson, although some say her real father was Stanley Gifford. She was the third child born to Glady’s Pearl Baker, and also the easiest birth. After Marilyn was born she was put into foster care and lived with a family known as the Bolenders. She also spent twenty-one months in an orphanage.

Family
      Marilyn’s mother was Gladys Pearl Baker. Gladys was mentally unstable and financially unable to care for the young Norma Jeane. She was a film tech and foreman who spliced together processed negatives at consolidated Film Industries. Her “father” Stanley Gilford worked there as well but was not around for long. Twenty- five years later Marilyn found out he was still alive and worked as a dairyman. She also discovered that he lived in Hemet, CA, but he refused to answer when she would call to visit.

     Marilyn’s Grandfather Mr. Monroe was nearly an insane man and his first name is still unknown today. He spent the last part of his life committed to an asylum. Mr. Monroe’s wife Della Monroe Grainger, was born Hogan, from a lower-class family of Hogan’s in Missouri. She also had insane rages at night and was committed to a mental hospital before she died. Della ended up dying in the summer of 1927. Marilyn’s uncle also died of a suicidal death.

 

Marilyn as a child.

Childhood and School Life

     Norma Jeane was baptized at the Angeles Temple in the Foursquare Gospet Church. She was a veteran of many foster homes. Marilyn spent seven years with the Bolenders who were a poor family. On Saturdays her mom would visit because the Bolenders lived across from Della, her grandmother. Then, in 1933 Gladys bought a house and brought Norma Jeane to live with her. A few months later Dladys began a series of mental episodes that plagued her for the rest of her life. Gladys’ best friend. Grace Mckee, then became Marilyn’s guardian. Lastly, Marilyn attended Van Nuys High School.

Hobbies and Sports

      Marilyn Monroe’s favorite things to do in her spare time were reading and listening to music. She also loved to shop and usually dined out. Marilyn was known as a workaholic and spent most of her time focusing on her career. She was either rehearsing her lines at home, posing for photos or going to acting, singing and dancing lessons.

Anecdotes
      Marilyn was only the third woman to start her own production company and the very first person to start an independent film production company in 1956. She was the first woman to get script and director approval in her films. She was in the #1 rated comedy of all time. Some Like it Hot. She was in the most ironic film scene of all time in the Seven Year Itch. She won France’s Crystal Star and Italy’s David Di Donatello award for the Prince and the Showgirl.

One of Marilyn's famous photos.

Career
      Norma Jeane was noticed by David of the US Army airforces, who urged her to apply to the Blue Rock Modeling Agency. She became one of the Blue Rocks most successful models and appeared on dozens of magazine covers. Ben Lyon, who, had offered Norma Jeane a standard six-month contract changed her name to Marilyn Monroe. He thought the name was sexy and had a nice flow. As she was introduced to acting she showed up in small roles of films. The small films caused a breakthrough in her acting life, giving her larger roles in future films.

Reason for Fame

      Marilyn was every man's love affair with America. She was also known as the Angel of Sex. Monroe became an American actress, model and singer. Ben Lyon, the Fox Executive, said Norma Jeane remined him of Marilyn Miller. He decided to change her name to something that he thought was sexy and had a better flow. From then on out she was known as Marilyn Monroe.

Death

Marilyn on stage.

      As Marilyn furthered her career in acting, she had been through a few divorces and depended on alcohol and prescription medication and ended up becoming very ill. On August 5, 1926 at 4:25 AM, LAPD Sergeant Jack Clemmens received a call from Dr. Ralph Greenson, Monroe’s psychiatrist, saying she was found dead in her home in Brentwood LA, CA. Marilyn was only thirty-six years old. Eight milligram percent of chloral hydrate and 4.5 milligram percent of Nembutal were found in her system and Dr. Thomas Nogurchi of the LA county coroners office recorded cause of death as “acute barbiturate poisoning” resulting from “probable suicide”.

West Hills Girls Varsity Basketball

   Sneakers squeaking on the court, the sound of the buzzer, and the emotion stretched throughout the 

 

crowd. Heading to Serra for the semi-final game West Hills' anticipation grew. Tonight would be the 

 

night that everyone would see what hard work the girls varsity basketball team has put in to get this

 

 far. The game begins and unfortunately Serra starts out in the lead. Shortly after, West Hills strikes 

 

back and it's a rally for points there on out.

 

     Half time approaches and, sadly, Serra is once again ahead. No matter what the situation our girls,

 

 the West Hills team, will never give up. The 

 

crowd continues to cheer throughout the entire 

 

game to encourage the team. West Hills put on a 

 

strong fight until the last buzzer went off. Even 

 

though the frustration they all endured wanted to 

 

overpower them, they resisted. Their love for 

 

the team, sport, coach and the school really 

 

showed through out the night.

 

     The girls agreed that they like to spend a lot of time together outside 

 

of practice to strengthen their friendships. This ultimately helps them on 

 

the court. Getting along with everyone and knowing each others' 

 

strengths and weaknesses is a necessity when it comes to teamwork. 

 

     The West Hills girls basketball team won league in 2008, 2009, 

 

2010, 2011 and 2013. They also won CIF in years 2009 and 2010. 

 

Overall, the girls have put in a tremendous amount of work and time to 

 

reach the level they did that night. I believe I can speak for everyone 

 

when I say, "We should have won that game!".

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Coraline Movie Review

                                                            Coraline Review

     The movie Coraline, directed by Henry Selick, is the first 3D stop-motion film ever in history, and takes place in Ashland, Oregon. The main character Coraline Jones, voice of Dakota Fanning, is a young girl who is ignored quite often by her busy parents, and forced to entertain herself most the time. The other characters include: Mel Jones and Other Mother, voice of Teri Hatcher; Wybie, voice of Robert Bailey Jr.; the Cat, voice of Keith David; Charlie Jones and Other Father, voice of John Hodgman; Miss April Spink and Other Spink, voice of Jennifer Saunders; Miss Miriam Forcible and Other Forcible, voice of DawnFrench; and lastly Mr. Sergei Alexander Bobinsky and Other Bobinsky, voice of Ian McShane.

Coraline is crawling through the mysterious tunnel.

     It all begins with Coraline and her parents moving into their new home at “The Pink Palace”. Coraline heard stories, previous to her move, about a deep, dark well, so she goes out to look for it. She starts following a trail and begins hearing strange noises that she later discovers were coming from a boy named Wybie and his stray cat. Wybie is around the same age as Coraline and is a very rambunctious fellow that has a tendency to get on Coraline’s nerves. The boy then informs Coraline that she is standing upon the well. Wybie’s grandmother calls for him, so they both decide to head home. When Coraline gets home she tries to make conversation with both her parents, but they are too caught up in their own business to give Coraline the time of day. The only thing her Mother says is that a young boy, Wybie, left a doll at the front door for her. Strangely enough, this doll looked identicle to Coraline. Later on that night, Coraline wakes up and follows a little mouse to a tiny, hidden door. When Coraline opens it and crawls through the purple, blue tunnel she discovers her Other World. Her Other Mother and Father gave her whatever she wanted and everything was extremely bright and flamboyant. Coraline goes to bed, and awakens in her normal, boring room and is very upset. Coraline is already wishing it were the evening so she can rush to bed and visit her Other World again. That is exactly what she does! She finds her Other Father in the beautiful, colorful garden that is designed to look exactly like Coraline. She then watches a tremendous circus act with Wybie, who can no longer speak. This is what seems to be everything Coraline has ever wanted, but will she change her mind after her next and last visit? Her final visit isn’t what Coraline had in mind. The cat, that can talk in her Other World, tries to explain that this isn’t the place she thinks it is and that the Other Mother is evil. Ironically, when the three, the Other Mother and Father and Coraline, sit down for dinner the parents approach her with button eyes. Coraline is appalled and rushes to bed immediately hoping to awaken in her original bed. Coraline has a rude awakening, and is now stuck in her Other World. Eventually, Coraline finds a way out and is in search of her real parents. She finds them stuck behind a sheet of glass, frozen like icicles. Then all of a sudden the glass shatters, and Coraline instantly wants to make a deal with the Other Mother. If Coraline can find her real parents before the sun goes down, she has to let her go, if not Coraline agrees to sew her button eyes on and be hers’ forever. There is such little time to accomplish something so tremendous. Does Coraline get her real parents back, or does she become one of the “Others”?

This is where Coraline proposes a deal with the Other Mother.

     A piece of filmmaking I found interesting was the making of all the scenes. Everything was created from scratch and by hand. For example, every little flower for the garden had to be done separately. For the scene where the flowers grew one by one, multiple mirrors were placed around one flower and numerous shots were taken. They also moved the petals of the flower slightly to manipulate people’s minds to believe they were all a different flower, when in reality they were all the same. There is another scene as well, where they used fiber optic lights to make plants so that when they put a light under them, they would glow. Also, they slowly pushed the flowers up to make it seem as though they were growing. All the flowers were made out of paper, fiber optic lights, plastic or mesh. Lastly, in the scene where they needed fog, their first attempt was with cotton. Obviously that didn’t work, so they resulted in using dry ice that worked wonderfully.

     The second aspect of filmmaking I enjoyed learning about was all the characters. They first started with creating Coraline because “she was the most difficult to come up with”. They had to create multiple ideas for each character before they came up with the final products. Coraline was given blue hair to make her stand out. Her clothing was made out of cloth and hundreds of outfits were cut out to be identicle to the other. This was because every shot needed to resemble the other. Some outfits had to be purposely dirtied for the scenes where she rolled in mud. Also, the bodies were made out of wire so they could arrange them however they desired, and then placed clay over top to create the humanlike features. The features meant facial expressions, which had to be precise and made hundreds and hundreds of times.

The final decisions in making Coraline's wardrobe.

     So much time and patience was put into making such an amazing film. It is astonishing to see the drive people have to achieve such an amazing goal. The movie itself was played out very well and I loved it in the end. To be honest, I was not very excited at the beginning. It seemed creepy and not very pleasant to watch, but I am glad I did. It is amazing how someone can come up with such extraordinary ideas. Especially, when having to make a doll look real yet cartoonlike all at once. I would definitely recommend this movie to people with an open mind and willing to watch something they wouldn’t usual come across. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to young children, considering I was very skeptical at the start.

TV Premier Review

                                                       Awkward Premier Review

     In the TV show Awkward, the main character is Jenna Hamilton. She is a teenage girl
in high school who isn’t very popular. In fact most people think she is pretty weird. Jenna is
madly in love with one of the most well-known boys in school, Matty. They even hook up every
once in a while, but Matty has always kept it a secret. So far in the show it does not seem like that is going to change.


Matty talking to Jenna secretively.

     In the second season premier of Awkward, Jenna Hamilton, played by Ashley Rickards who is known for starring in “Fly Away”, has quite an accident in the bathroom. Which results in the whole school beginning a rumor that she tried to commit suicide. It is New Years, as well, and Jenna is invited to a party. She is finally excited to spend time with Matty, played by Beau Mirchoff who is known for starring in “Desperate Housewives”, so they can “DTR.” Meaning “define the relationship”. Jenna arrives at the party and is appalled at her first sight. Matty is already accompanied by another female in the Jacuzzi. At the same time Jenna’s best friend, Tamara played by Jillian Rese Reed, is crying over her boyfriend who she caught cheating. Also, Matty’s best friend, Jake played by Brett Davern, gets upset with his girlfriend, Lissa played by Greer Grammer, and exits the front door. Jake sees Jenna getting ready to leave, and catches her attention. The two decide to hang out the rest of the night and learn a lot about each other, besides the fact that Jenna is madly in love with his best friend.


Jenna and Jake talking at school.

     Jake ends up falling for Jenna and kisses her at school, and she does not know how to react. Jake and his girlfriend end up breaking up due to Jake’s actions. Eventually Jake tries to tell Matty he likes someone, and when he says it’s Jenna Matty instantly wants to DTR with Jenna. Jenna is now in a sticky situation with the two best friends. Who will she chose?

Which one will Jenna choose?


     Not only is she worried about boy problems, but Jenna then receives a letter, from a friend, explaining how she is worthless and shouldn’t exist. Tamara is the first to take the blame for writing the letter, because she was upset with Jenna for leaving her at the party. But was it really Tamara who wrote it?
     The viewers are left with many questions pondering in their heads, yet on their toes waiting for more. The episode jumps around a lot and has a lot of emotions being expressed from each actor. Some might say it was hard to follow at times, especially if it was the first episode they had ever watched.
     On the other hand, some would say they liked how eventful it was and that they were
never bored or waiting for something exciting to happen. All the actors were great and the
tension between them all was suspenseful.
     Overall, I believe this was one of the best episodes yet and I love all the pressure and
frustration portrayed by each actor. The producer did an amazing job with spicing up the show,
by throwing the best friend, Jake, in the mix.

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