MARILYN MYSTERY
THE identity of Marily Monroe's real father has been a total mystery for decades but the 100-year riddle has finally been solved.
The revelation is explored in the new film on the star's life Blonde, which was based on Joyce Carol Oates' 2000 book of the same name.
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Andrew Dominik's film looks into Marilyn's - portrayed by actress Ana de Armas - rise to fame and her relationships.
A reoccurring theme of the film is Marilyn's father and her efforts to track him down.
The Hollywood superstar, born Norma Jeane Mortensen, was raised by her mum Gladys - portrayed in the film as a deeply unstable woman with mental health issues.
It is believed Gladys had told Marilyn different versions of her father's identity but no one knew who he really was for years.
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Marilyn had a troubled childhood, with her mother spending time in a psychiatric hospital.
She spent her youth between foster families and an orphanage.
Even though Gladys' husband, Martin Edward Mortensen, was listed on Marilyn's birth certificate as her father, it's been revealed that her biological dad was actually one of her co-workers, a man named Charles Stanley Gifford.
Earlier this year, a DNA test using a strand of Marilyn's hair, which was still kept at the coroner's office after her death and a cheek swab from the great-grandchild of Charles Stanley Gifford, confirmed he was her biological father.
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The DNA test was part of the research carried out for the François Pomes documentary Marilyn, Her Final Secret released in June 2022.
Gifford was a shift foreman at a Hollywood film-developing company, where he reportedly met Gladys.
The pair had an affair in 1925 and the film cutter fell pregnant at age 26, before giving birth to Marilyn, on June 1, 1926.
Charles is said to have disappeared around this time and never contacted his love child.
Gladys reportedly never reached out to Marilyn's father, nor did she ask for money from him to support them.
Gifford remarried in 1919 and fathered two other children with his wife, before the pair later divorced.
Marilyn tried to forge a relationship with him but he vehemently denied the film icon's claims until the day he died.
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The star's first husband, James Dougherty, previously described how Marilyn was "left sad" after her dad denied knowing her.
Dougherty said: "She got on the phone and she looked up his number and she called him.
"He wouldn’t recognise her, he said ‘No, I don’t know who you are. See my attorney’."
Charles Casillo's book, Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon details how the superstar managed to track down Gifford and called him to confront him.
According to the book, his response was: “I’m married, and I have a family. I don’t have anything to say to you. Call my lawyer."
The Daily Mail reported that Marilyn's friend Sidney Skolsky said she had visited Charles for the second time in 1950.
When Marilyn returned to the car where Skolsky was waiting, she called her father a "son of a bitch."
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He died in 1965, three years after Marilyn, while living near Hemet, California.
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The forensic team was able to track down his 75-year-old granddaughter, Francine Gifford Deir for the DNA test.
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