Early Life
Dana Sue Gray was born Dana Sue Armbrust on December 6, 1957, in southern California to Beverly (née Arnett) and Russell Armbrust. Russell worked as a hair dresser and had three previous marriages before marrying Beverly, who was a former beauty queen. They had several miscarriages before she was born. Beverly was an aggressive, vain woman who frequently maxed out her husband's credit cards; they finally divorced when her husband found her grappling with an older woman who had angered her. Dana Sue was two years old at the time and afterwards rarely saw her father; she began acting out to get attention. Whenever Beverly would discipline her, Dana would retaliate by stealing money to buy candy and would occasionally fly into fits of violence. In school, she did not get along well with other students and did poorly in all her classes. She was suspended from school many times for forging notes to get out of class.
When Dana was 14, her mother developed breast cancer; Gray decided to become a nurse after watching hospital nurses treat her mother. After her mother's death, Gray moved in with her father but was forced to leave after her stepmother found drugs in her room. A few years later, she became involved with a skydiving instructor, who got her pregnant twice; he convinced her to abort both pregnancies, something she resented.
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