Anna Gordy Gaye

Anna Gordy Gaye
Birth name	Anna Ruby Gordy
Born	December 12, 1922 (1922-12-12) Detroit, Michigan
Origin	Detroit, Michigan, United States
Genres	R&B, soul
Occupations	Songwriter, composer
Labels	Anna, Motown
Associated acts	Berry Gordy, Marvin Gaye, The Originals

Anna Gordy Gaye (born December 12, 1922) is an American songwriter and composer, known as the elder sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy and the first wife of soul legend Marvin Gaye, who used their troubled marriage as the focal point of his critically acclaimed 1978 effort, Here, My Dear, an album from which Gordy agreed to receive royalties due to their divorce court proceedings.

Biography

Early life

Born Anna Ruby Gordy in Detroit, Michigan to Berry Gordy Sr. and Bertha Ida (née Fuller) Gordy. Shortly before her birth, her family had moved to Detroit to get away from racial tension in Georgia; Anna was born shortly after the Gordys had migrated. She was the third eldest of eight (Fuller, Esther, Anna, Loucye, George, Gwen, Berry and Robert). Most of the Gordy siblings got involved in the music business in the late 1950s forming several production companies in Michigan. Berry, in particular, gained success writing hit songs for Jackie Wilson and a popular Detroit-based vocal group called The Miracles. In 1959, Gordy's brother formed Motown Records and within a few months, Anna, sister Gwen and Billy Davis formed Anna Records, the label would be the national distributor for Barrett Strong's local Tamla single, "Money (That's What I Want)", which in turn became a top forty hit and became Motown's first hit single.

Marriage to Marvin Gaye and later career

Main article: Marvin Gaye

In 1960, Harvey Fuqua and one of his proteges, Marvin Gaye, moved from Chicago to Detroit shortly after Fuqua disbanded his version of the legendary doo-wop group The Moonglows. Fuqua had gotten acquainted with Anna's sister Gwen Gordy and introduced Gordy to Gaye, who then introduced the singer to Motown president Berry Gordy. While performing at the annual Christmas party at Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studios, Anna and Marvin met. In her book, Berry, Me and Motown, Raynoma Liles Gordy said Fuqua and Gaye concocted a plan to date Anna and Gwen with Fuqua dating Anna and Gaye dating Gwen. However, Gaye wanted to do a switch, which Fuqua agreed on. The plan, according to Liles, worked when Marvin and Anna got involved in a serious relationship and Harvey and Gwen also began dating. Prior to them dating, Marvin signed with Motown Records as a solo artist, staff writer and sometime session musician in December 1960. In later documentaries on her ex-husband's life, Gordy would often say that she played hard-to-get with Gaye, who she said kept showing up at her house at a certain time. When Gaye didn't show up one day as Anna had expected, she started to get concerned until Marvin suddenly cocked his head to the side and asked "you missed me, didn't you?" After that, the 21-year-old Gaye and the 38-year-old Gordy started dating.

Despite snickers over the couple's seventeen-year age difference, Gaye and Gordy openly carried on an affair, and their affair later inspired some of Gaye's early hits. Gaye's 1962 single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", was based on an argument Gaye and Gordy had, leaving Gordy to ask Gaye "what makes you so stubborn?" Always motivated by personal experiences, Gaye wrote "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", with extra composition by Anna's brother George and Mickey Stevenson. The song became a hit. Another Anna-inspired single came in 1963 with "Pride & Joy", Gaye's first top 10 pop hit, followed by 1964's "You're a Wonderful One". In Gaye's earlier Motown career, Gaye bluntly told Motown executives, Berry Gordy in particular, that he wanted to be a standards performer, having no desire to have a career in the pigeonholed R&B genre. Anna Gordy was said to have been the defining factor in Motown's decision to try the standards route with Gaye as the singer's first album, 1961's The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, featured mainly standards and jazz covers with two rhythm and blues tunes, one co-written by Anna, to compromise. As Berry Gordy predicted, however, the album failed and Gaye, realizing he was connected to the Gordy family, decided to use the leverage to get fame from singing R&B though he privately chided at the demands. Anna would encourage Marvin to record, even if Marvin didn't feel up to recording on a particular day, sometimes leading to spats, both privately and publicly, according to Marvin.

In Motown's carefully concocted public relations stories, Marvin and Anna married as quickly after they started dating in 1961. However, according to Gaye, they married in 1964, as he shouted after a bridge in his song, "I Met a Little Girl". The date of their marriage was January 8, 1964. Marvin was 24, Anna was 41. The marriage was deemed controversial not just due to their age difference but also put Gaye in conflict with some of Motown's peers, who accused him (and later Diana Ross) for marrying/having relations with the company and also bristled at Gaye's stubbornness towards the label's grooming school, which Gaye hardly attended though Anna Gordy was a co-founder and president of that school. Gaye would later account, however, that even with his famous in-laws, he felt like he was an outsider. The Gordys' liberal sense of life was also different from Gaye's conservative childhood, growing up in a Seventh day Adventist home in Washington.

In Michael Eric Dyson's book, Mercy Mercy Me: The Art, Loves and Demons of Marvin Gaye, Dyson contented that Gaye was put into a corner when, desperate for a child with Anna, the Gordy family insisted they arranged for Gaye to have a baby with a much younger member of the family, 16-year-old Denise Gordy (George Gordy's daughter and later the wife of actor Richard Lawson). Gaye was said to have initially resisted the demand but soon, as he felt powerless in Motown at the time, he agreed to a quickie pregnancy plan with Denise. Marvin's first child, Marvin Pentz Gaye III, was born on November 17, 1965. And Gaye III was adopted by Anna Gordy shortly after the birth. Despite some claims of this supposed concocted plan in the book and in Steve Turner's Trouble Man biography, the Gordy family has never confirmed the story and Gaye himself said he and Anna both adopted him. When asked the reason why they adopted Marvin III, Gaye said Anna couldn't have children and Marvin lied (mainly through Motown public relations stories) that Marvin III was conceived naturally. Gaye said he didn't want to be accused for not being able to naturally conceive a child.

Prior to Marvin III's arrival, Anna Gordy struggled to have children and was later told by a doctor that she would never have children on her own, which caused the Gordy family, wanting a perfect image for Motown's then-leading male star, to concoct a plan to make Gaye seem like a homebody. While lovingly doting on his son, Marvin and Anna's own relationship began falling apart. Motown concocting duets for Gaye, to boost his ladies' man image, gave Gordy reasons to believe Gaye was unfaithful especially with rumors he was dating Mary Wells, though Wells was married to Herman Griffin at the time Gaye and Wells did their duets. Kim Weston and Tammi Terrell were also accused of having a romance with Gaye though Weston and Terrell were with others and Gaye had budding friendships with both singers. Gaye's road musicians contended that Gaye was faithful to a fault with Gordy, because he was in love with her and, they said, Gaye often compared Gordy to his mother favorably. Overtime, however, Gaye would hear rumors of his own that Gordy was also being unfaithful to him.

The rumors of infidelity by the two of them caused nearly violent arguments, often in front of the public. This is what said to have inspired Gaye's impassionate reading of his signature 1968 hit, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", which main subject was rumors of infidelity. By the late 1960s, Gordy was still involved in songwriting and soon, with Gaye, helped to co-write several songs, mainly because of Gaye, who wanted to prove to Motown executives that he can produce and write on his own. Motown's then-background vocalists The Originals proved to be his best test to prove them wrong, and he and Gordy wrote the group's signature hits, "Baby I'm For Real" and "The Bells". The couple also wrote for The Monitors and Diana Ross. In 1971, Gaye released his acclaimed What's Going On, which included two songs Gordy co-composed with Gaye ("God is Love" and "Flying High (In The Friendly Sky)"). Despite this success, Gaye and Gordy's personal relationship kept falling apart.

Following the couple's move to Los Angeles in late 1971, Gaye separated from Gordy after a public spat. Gaye and Gordy would reconcile several times afterwards but they grew more volatile and distant, especially after Gaye began a relationship with 17-year-old Janis Hunter in 1973, which was a reverse of Marvin and Anna's 17-year age difference, only this time with Gaye as the older suitor in his relationship with Janis. After Gaye had two kids with Hunter in 1974 and 1975, Marvin and Anna agreed to file for divorce, however, Gordy's demands, including child support, alimony and spousal support, would lead to a nasty court battle that lasted into March 1977. The failure of the marriage, the court battle, and Marvin's personal feelings, led to the creation of Gaye's so-called "divorce" album, Here, My Dear.

After Marvin Gaye

Main article: Here, My Dear

Following a divorce settlement in March 1977, it was reported that Gaye agreed to give up royalties of his upcoming studio album to Gordy as money for support and alimony payments, since Gaye was deeply in debt to the IRS at the time. Gaye released the sarcastically-titled Here, My Dear, which included personal details of their relationship. It's said when Anna Gordy heard the album, she was moved to sue, but later stopped short of pursuing a lawsuit against her ex-husband. Ironically, despite a nasty divorce, Gaye and Gordy kept seeing each other even after the split. Gaye's attorney Curtis Shaw once noted that Gaye came over at Gordy's home in Los Angeles and was shocked to see the former married couple hugging and kissing each other with Gordy calling for Shaw to come in. Shaw thought it was the most bizarre thing he had ever encountered especially considering the former couple's nasty spat in divorce court.

Anna Gordy turned into a recluse shortly after her divorce from Marvin Gaye, only to show up briefly for parties with her family. Gordy still kept in contact with Gaye, even after Gaye had moved to Belgium to avoid paying back taxes and to also not be noticed by anyone. After Gaye reclaimed superstardom following the release of Midnight Love and its parent single, "Sexual Healing", in 1982, he moved back to the United States and got reacquainted with Gordy and their son Marvin III. The couple were together at Gaye's CBS Records-hosted party celebrating the singer's recent success. Gaye and Gordy made another public appearance together at the Grammy Awards where Gaye won his first Grammy Award of his entire career. Rumors later specified that Gaye and Gordy had even considered remarriage at this point but in the end decided to remain as friends. Gordy was said to have been depressed following news of Gaye's death at the hands of his father in 1984. After Gaye's funeral, Anna, Gaye's three children, and several of the children's friends, went on a boat and spread what remained of Gaye's ashes near the Pacific Ocean because, Anna later said, Marvin wanted to be cremated and be near nature and for doing this, Marvin would be at peace. Gordy occasionally was in the public eye after Gaye's death usually in matters relating to Gaye's legacy. In 1987, she and son Marvin III were present to accept Gaye's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Three years later, they, and Marvin's two other children, were present when Gaye was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Gordy again drifted into seclusion.