Marion Jorgensen - Early Life and Marriages

Early Life and Marriages

Jorgensen was born to a well-to-do family in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Nellie and Leroy Newbert. Her family's wealth can be attributed to her grandfather, Thomas Griffin, an Irish immigrant, who was the founder of a very successful company which manufactured railway wheels in Baltimore. In 1913, her family traveled west to Los Angeles by private railroad car. Marion attended Marlborough School, a college-preparatory academy. She obtained her pilot license by the age of 17, and went on to attend the liberal-arts Finch College in New York City.

In 1930, she returned to Los Angeles and, despite being Christian and attending exclusive schools which restricted their enrollees to gentiles, she married Jewish-American talent agent, Milton Harold Bren. Bren would go on to become a very successful movie producer and real estate developer. They had two sons: Donald Bren, who later became chairman of the Irvine Company in Newport Beach, California, and Peter Bren, who is now a senior partner with KBS Investors in New York City. In the 1940s, while Europe was at war, Marion founded the "Bundles for Britain" (note: Lady Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton was also credited with founding Bundles for Britain in 1940);) organization, which provided non-military aid to the British people. Women joined the organization and made clothing, which was sent overseas. Upon the entrance of the United States into the war, Bundles for Britain evolved into the United States Naval Aide Auxiliary. Marion served as president of the organization.

In 1948, the couple divorced. Marion then married Tom Call, the son of Asa Call, chairman of the Pacific Mutual Life Company and to whom the rapid ascent of Richard Nixon from representative to president is widely attributed. They divorced in 1952.

Marion began doing volunteer work for the American Red Cross, where she met Danish American steel entrepreneur Earle M. Jorgensen through Hollywood connections. They were married in 1953 and remained married until his death in 1999. Jorgensen, the son of Danish immigrants to San Francisco, made his fortune selling surplus steel to oil drillers and later the aircraft industry eventually growing his company, the Earle M. Jorgensen Company, into a $100 million in sales behemoth by 1960.