Marilyn Monroe: French Documentary Filmmaker Reveals Who Her Father Was

Francois Pomes brought to light one of Marilyn Monroe’s best kept secrets. On the 60th anniversary of the death of the actress from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, the French scholar, thanks to science, managed to discover who the interpreter’s father was.

The documentary producer and director took 3 years to decipher this mystery. And it is that the absence of her father was a key point in Monroe’s childhood, that she always noted this loss of her in different interviews and in her relationships with her partners in the future.

YOU CAN SEE: Lili Reinhart criticizes Kim Kardashian for Met Gala outfit: “Everything to fit in a damn dress?”

“I think one of the cracks that makes Marilyn’s destiny what it was is the absence of her parents. And more particularly that of her father”, Pomès declared in an interview with EFE shortly before the release of her film“Marilyn Monroe, the dernière verite” (Marilyn Monroe, the last truth).

Pomès confesses to having been fascinated with the actress since he was a child, when he went to see her films with his parents. The first feature film he remembers seeing is “Whit skirts and being crazy”. That same fanaticism was what prompted him to start this investigation.

This is the lock of hair used to extract the DNA of the actress. Photo: EFE

“Three or four years ago I thought about how I could mark this anniversary. There are many documentaries about Marilyn and hundreds of biographies and I wanted to bring something different. I realized that only one piece of information was missing: the identity of his biological father.”, says Pomes.

Who was Marilyn Monroe’s father?

News of the find was released by Paris Match magazine. It announced exclusive photos of one of the descendants of an unknown man who would be the father of the Hollywood star.

YOU CAN SEE: What did Marilyn Monroe die of and what are the conspiracy theories behind her death?

The samples were collected by two sources. The first came from Marilyn’s hairdresser, who cut her hair in 1962 when she sang happy birthday to John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The second was collected by the man who embalmed the interpreter after her death the same year.

The hairs were analyzed by a laboratory in Texas, United Statesand another in Toulouse, France. Only the second managed, after two years of tests, to recover 22% of the actress’s genome in 5% DNA remains that remained in her hair.

Photos of Charles Stanley Gifford provided to the press by his descendants. Photo: EFE

Pomès does not hide the luck behind this discovery. And it is that rescuing human remains in rootless hair is extremely complicated. Despite this, what was found in the samples it was enough to do DNA studies with the descendants of Charles Stanley Gifford. “It was positive… bingo!”, exclaimed the director.

A childhood without parents

Norma Jeane Mortenson, Monroe’s real name, never got answers in life about the identity of his father. Her mother suffered from various mental health problems, so she spent much of her daughter’s childhood confined to her in psychiatric hospitals.

YOU CAN SEE: Madonna recreates Marilyn Monroe’s death for V Magazine cover

However, Marilyn’s mom kept a photo of a mysterious man whom the actress presumed was her father. Upon gaining fame she tried to track him down, but he was never interested in meeting her. “Monroe was built without his parents. Her father never knew her. And in the Hollywood of the time growing up without a father and without a mother was complicated. Some cracks in Marilyn are linked to this abandonment, to that family framework that she did not have, ”said the French producer.

More Marilyn Monroe Secrets Revealed?

22% of the actress’s genome is being kept in a computer safe. And it is that the DNA found could reveal other unknowns that have always haunted the interpreter, such as the origin of the supposed depression that she suffered or the myths about her strange death.

“It would be opening Pandora’s box. But we won’t…unless other networks feel like making a documentary about what it might reveal.”, advances Pomès, without completely closing off the idea.