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Berniece Inez Gladys Miracle (née Baker; July 30, 1919 – May 25, 2014) was an American writer, known for her memoir My Sister Marilyn (1994) about her half-sister, actress Marilyn Monroe.

Biography

Berniece Inez Gladys Baker was born on July 30, 1919 in Venice, California. Her parents, Gladys Pearl Monroe and Jasper Newton "Jap" Baker, were married in 1917, 10 days before Monroe's 15th birthday. Following their divorce in 1921, Jasper kidnapped Miracle and her brother, Robert Jasper “Kermit” Baker, and raised them in his native state of Kentucky. As a child, Robert fell out of a moving vehicle and sustained paralyzing injuries. Monroe tried to get her children back, but no one would help her and eventually, she gave up. Monroe soon remarried and gave birth to a third child, Norma Jeane Mortenson. Miracle also had two paternal half-brothers, Jasper Frederick and Cleon Baker, from her father's marriage to Gertrude Ritze Engle and Margaret J. Hunter Baker. In 1933, at the age of 15, Robert died from kidney failure, a complication he experienced after catching tuberculosis.

In 1935, Miracle began attending Pineville High School. She married Paris Miracle in 1938 and had a daughter, Mona Rae Miracle, an author. Their marriage lasted until Paris's death in October 1990. Mona is married to William Joseph Booth.

During her pregnancy, Miracle received a letter from her mother, informing her that she had a sister, Norma Jeane Mortenson. The half-sisters met in 1944 after exchanging letters and pictures. After meeting, Mortenson wrote the Miracles a postcard reading:

"Dearest Berniece, I just can't tell you both how I enjoyed meeting you. I want to thank you for everything, for I had a wonderful time. Love, Norma Jeane. P.S. Berniece, I will write to you soon. Give Mona Rae my love."

At the same time, Mortenson began a modeling career and became an actress under the stage name Marilyn Monroe. She remained in contact with her sister, who visited her in 1961 in her New York home after Monroe divorced her third husband, Arthur Miller, and had undergone surgery for her cholecystectomy.

Monroe died from a barbiturate overdose a year later and left Miracle $10,000 in her final will. Along with Monroe's second husband Joe DiMaggio and business manager Inez Melson, Miracle arranged the funeral, choosing the casket and dress. In an interview with ina.fr, she stated:

"I don't think she committed suicide. It could have been an accident, because I had just talked to her a short time before. She told me what she had planned to do, she had just bought a new house and she was working on the curtains of the windows. She had so many things to look forward to and she was so happy."

Throughout her life, Miracle avoided the media and worked as a manufacturing inspector, bookkeeper and costume designer. Miracle died in Asheville, North Carolina, on May 25, 2014, at the age of 94. She is buried beside Paris at the Pineville Cemetery in Pineville, Kentucky.

My Sister Marilyn

My Sister Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe was published on June 1, 1994 (on Monroe's birthday and 50 years after the half-sisters first met). Miracle co-authored the book with her daughter Mona; it tells the story of her rare meet-ups with Monroe, up until the latter's death.

It also addresses the mental issues of their mother, Gladys, and the sisters' consequently troubling childhoods, both lacking a mother figure:

We share the same mother, who early in our lives was diagnosed as mentally ill. We grew up feeling abandoned and, though both of us were told we were pretty and talented, we still needed courage and strength. We got that from each other.

The memoir features exclusive photographs and received positive reviews by outlets such as Entertainment Weekly, which wrote that "this portrait of Marilyn is irreplaceable." It remains the only authorized biography of Monroe's family.

References

1. Taraborrelli, J. Randy (2009). The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 978-0-446-55095-6.
2. ^ Joyti (2024-07-25). "The Short Life of Robert Kermit Baker". Liverpoolbuzz. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
3. ^ Leaming, Barbara (2010). Marilyn Monroe: A Biography. Crown. ISBN 978-0-307-55777-3.
4. Geiger, Ruth-Esther (1995). Marilyn Monroe (in German). Rowohlt. ISBN 978-3-499-50507-2.
5. Lyons, Beverley (2015-02-25). "Scots stage star gets approval from Marilyn Monroe's niece to play the icon". Daily Record. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
6. ^ Tremaine, Julie (December 23, 2023). "Who Was Marilyn Monroe's Sister? All About Berniece Baker Miracle". Peoplemag. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
7. "Mona Rae Miracle - Ancestry.com". www.ancestry.com. Retrieved 2023-06-25.
8. Vriesema, Ingmar (2016). Geschwister berühmter Menschen: Maja Einstein, Chris Jagger, Hugo Maradona, Ottla Kafka & viele mehr (in German). Kein & Aber AG. ISBN 978-3-0369-9331-7.
9. Morgan, Michelle (2012). Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed: New edition: revised and expanded. Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 978-1-78033-129-4.
10. Rollyson, Carl (2014). Marilyn Monroe Day by Day: A Timeline of People, Places, and Events. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-3080-4.
11. "Life Magazine 1994 My Sister Marilyn Article. | Etsy".
12. Ott, Tim (9 September 2020). "How Marilyn Monroe's Childhood Was Disrupted by Her Mother's Paranoid Schizophrenia". Biography. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
13. Kashner, Sam (2 September 2008). "The Things She Left Behind". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
14. Brozan, Nadine (1994-06-01). "Chronicle (Published 1994)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
15. "Berniece Baker Miracle talks about her sister Marilyn Monroe". YouTube. 14 August 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-11-21. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
16. Melissa (2023-05-19). "Kentucky's Mysterious Link to Marilyn Monroe: The Final Resting Place of Her Sister". 99.5 WKDQ. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
17. Miracle, Berniece Baker; Miracle, Mona Rae (2012). My Sister Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe. iUniverse. ISBN 978-1-4759-6809-5.
18. Churchwell, Sarah (2005). The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-1-4668-2594-9.
19. "My Sister Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe". EW.com. Retrieved 2020-11-20.

• 1919 births
• 2014 deaths
• 20th-century American memoirists
• 20th-century American women writers
• American women memoirists
• Marilyn Monroe
• People from Gainesville, Florida
• People from Venice, Los Angeles
• Writers from Los Angeles
• Memoirists from California