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January 31, 2014
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Anna Gordy Gaye, the first wife of late soul legend Marvin Gaye and an older sister of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy, died Friday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 92.

An official statement from Anna's family provided to ABC News Radio says Gaye "was surrounded by her loving son Marvin Gaye III and other family members" when she passed away.

Anna married Marvin Gaye in 1963, and the couple had a turbulent relationship that ended in divorce in 1977. They had one adopted son, Marvin III, who was born in 1966 and is the biological child of Anna's niece, Denise Gordy.

A songwriter and music entrepreneur in her own right, Anna co-founded Anna Records in 1958. The label, which eventually was absorbed into Motown, recorded such artists as Temptations singer David Ruffin, Joe Tex, and Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier early in their careers.

Anna Gaye went on to become a staff songwriter for Motown, and co-wrote many songs that appeared on Gaye's albums, including two featured on his classic 1971 release, What's Going On. In addition, she and Gaye collaborated on a couple of hits for the early-'60s Motown group The Originals. She also is said to be the inspiration for a number of Marvin's compositions, including "Pride & Joy" and "Stubborn Kind of Fellow." Gaye even wrote an entire album, 1978's Here, My Dear, about their relationship and contentious divorce.

After divorcing, Anna and Marvin resumed a friendship, and she and their son were on hand to accept Gaye's posthumous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

[Edited 2/1/14 5:27am]

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Rest in Peace, Anna...

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Anna and Marvin are reunited at long last. (Not making a joke)

Why couldn't Denise raise her own child?

RIP.

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Another Anna related tune

Here are some of Anna's co-writing credits:


"Baby, I'm for Real" by The Originals
"The Bells" by the Originals
"I Let Love Slip Away" by David Ruffin
"What Christmas Means to Me" by Stevie Wonder
"When Are You Available" by Shorty Long
"I Love You Secretly" by the Miracles


"God is Love" by Marvin Gaye
"I'm Yours, You're Mine" by Mary Wells
"Just to Keep You Satisfied" by Marvin Gaye
''I'm So Glad I Got Somebody (Like You Around)'' by the Supremes
"Flyin' High (In the Friendly Sky)" by Marvin Gaye

RIP.

The beginnings of Motown begin with her. Had a label Anna Records out before Tamla/Motown.

Anna Records artist included:

David Ruffin (pre-Temptations)

Joe Tex (First charting single with Anna)

Barrett Strong (first hist for Anna or Tamla/Motown Money That's What I Want)

and future writer/producers Johnny Bristol and Lomant Dozier as recording artist.

Marvin was a session drummer for Anna records.

can anyone answer my question about marvin jr?

The answer was one of Marvin's best-kept secrets.

[Edited 2/3/14 9:59am]

scriptgirl said:

can anyone answer my question about marvin jr?

The only people who know the real deal about it are already dead.

Isn't it true that Marvin, at the age of 26, knocked up Denise, Anna's niece, who was only 15 at the time?

scriptgirl said:

Identity said:

Isn't it true that Marvin, at the age of 26, knocked up Denise, Anna's niece, who was only 15 at the time?

Allegedly she acted as a surrogate of sorts for Anna and Marvin.

Identity said:

Isn't it true that Marvin, at the age of 26, knocked up Denise, Anna's niece, who was only 15 at the time?

Denise was 16 (she was born in November 1949 and Marvin III was consummated in March of 1966) when Marvin III was consummated and was 17 when he was born on November 11, 1966 (not that that makes it any better). The Marvin connection is a mystery. Marvin III looked too much like the Gordys. Nona and Frankie Gaye, Marvin III's half-siblings, looked more like Marvin, Jr. than he did. Denise apparently got pregnant to become a surrogate for Marvin and Anna. That part of the story is confirmed and official. Whether or not Marvin Jr. got involved with the siring of Marvin III is still a question mark. Besides Marvin and Anna, only Denise Gordy knows what really happened. For now, I'll believe that Marvin and Anna adopted Marvin III. It's Denise's child but I don't think Marvin sired him with Denise. That's just me.

[Edited 2/3/14 22:21pm]

One of the first pictures of Marvin & Anna together alongside Harvey Fuqua and Gwen Gordy:

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This was taken around 1959 or 1960. I think it was right before Marvin got signed with Motown. He was 20 or 21 when this photo was taken. Anna was already 37 by the time she met.

She was born on January 28, 1922 in Georgia so she died three days after her 92nd birthday.

About Marvin III, Marvin and Anna had actually tried hard to conceive naturally but Anna was told by doctors that something happened in her childhood health wise that stopped her from having children. Plus she was 44 so pregnancies by women over 40 were not common back then. Allegedly, Anna tried to get her sisters to produce a baby and then have Marvin and Anna adopt the child. Esther Gordy at 46 was too old. Gwen Gordy, the youngest sister, at 38, turned it down (she was married to Harvey Fuqua at the time and they had a son, Glen).

Denise Gordy was Motown songwriter George Gordy's daughter. I'm thinking Denise's parents agreed to have their daughter impregnated just so Marvin and Anna could have a baby. Either way they went, that's a weird way of bringing children to the world.

Anna wasn't just Marvin's wife, she also was a record executive as well, she distributed records with Checker and Gone before forming Anna Records with Gwen and Roquel "Billy" Davis. Barrett Strong's "Money" was distributed nationally by Anna Gordy from her brother's Tamla label and became a top 40 hit, helping to bring money that led to the creation of Motown Records in 1960.

[Edited 2/3/14 22:35pm]

what happened to Denise? And did Marvin sleep with her or was a turkey baster involved?

This is two of Marvin III's known pictures:

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Just so you can give a good look at how he looks in case anyone was suspicious.

[Edited 2/3/14 23:09pm]

By the way, I wouldn't trust information on Steve Turner's "Trouble Man" or Michael Eric Dyson's "Mercy Mercy Me". They bring up unsubstianated rumors.

For one, the Marvin/Denise siring hasn't been confirmed and is just a tall tale (I think Marvin was telling the truth when he said he and Anna adopted him).

Another, Dyson's book brought up a disgusting rumor that Howard Gay, one of his uncles, brutally raped him at 15. Again this reads like a tall tale to me.

Dyson's book also insinuated (just like with him allegedly siring 16-year-old Denise Gordy just to bring him and Anna a baby) that his friendship with Tammi Terrell turned into a love affair just based off the words of Brenda Holloway (yeah riiiight).

David Ritz's book is more thorough. Though he did list Janis Gaye as being 16 when they met (she was 17 and a high school senior), I guess they went with 16 because it was "riskier" ( ). I don't condone it either way but it is what it is.

Funeral set for Motown executive Anna Gordy Gaye in L.A.

• Susan Whitall
• The Detroit News

The funeral for music entrepreneur and Motown executive Anna Gordy Gaye is set for 11 a.m. Feb. 12 at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles. Gaye died Friday in L.A., age 92, of natural causes.

The former Detroiter is defined in headlines by her relationship to powerful men — her brother was Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr., and her husband Marvin Gaye. But just like all of Gordy’s sisters, Anna was a memorable, entrepreneurial woman in her own right, integral in the founding of her brother’s Detroit company, and in the revolutionary “Motown sound.”

Anna and sister Gwen Gordy founded Anna Records with songwriter Billy “Roquel” Davis in 1958, a year before Berry Gordy got his ducks in a row and launched Motown. Anna Records is a vital link in the Motown story, having first released “Money (That’s What I Want)” by Barrett Strong. When the struggling young Beatles found the record “Money” in a Liverpool shop and fell in love with it, they noticed that the British release credited it to the mysterious “Anna” label out of Detroit.

Strong, “Money” and Anna Records’ assets were acquired by brother Berry and his nascent Motown label, but it had already led to a significant relationship for Anna Gordy — the young Marvin Gaye was Anna Records’ staff drummer.

Despite their age difference Anna — who was 17 years older — the two became inseparable, and married in 1963 leading to many fond references in song by Gaye (“You’re a Wonderful One” and “Pride and Joy,” to name two). She and Gaye lived in a house on West Outer Drive, that her brother Berry lived in before moving to his Boston Boulevard mansion.

While Anna went to work for her brother at Motown, Gwen Gordy formed Tri-Phi Records with singer/producer Harvey Fuqua. Harvey’s son, Michael Fuqua, remembers Anna Gordy and her sisters as glamorous and inspirational, but also dispensing tough love to him.

“The things these beautiful women did!” Fuqua exclaimed. “They were entrepreneurs. They were also all moms to me – Anna, Esther, Gwen and Loucye. They all played a role in me becoming the gentleman I am.”

Born Jan. 28, 1922, in Oconee, Ga., Anna Ruby Gordy was the third of eight children born to the hard-working Bertha Fuller Gordy and Berry Gordy Sr. The family moved to Detroit when she was just a year old, and her parents started several businesses including a grocery store and a print shop. Like all the Gordy children, Anna was expected to pitch in.

Anna enjoyed horseback riding, and like all the Gordy sisters, took modeling instruction from Maxine Powell, and was featured in layouts in the Michigan Chronicle. In the mid-’50s Anna and Gwen Gordy started a photo concession at the Flame Showbar, taking photos of patrons and allowing their little brother Berry entree into the glamorous world of show business.

Anna and Gaye had one son, Marvin Gaye III. Their marriage foundered in the mid-’70s, and he started a relationship (and eventually married) Janis Hunter, with whom he had children Frankie and Nona.

Although Gaye recorded the bitter album “Here, My Dear” about his broken marriage in order to raise money to pay his divorce settlement, he and Anna resolved their differences and became close friends again well before his death in 1984.

In a statement, Berry Gordy Jr. reflected upon his sister’s legacy.

“My sister Anna was the glamour girl of the family. She was beautiful, sexy, playful, lovely. Men loved her but she lived for her family, especially her younger brothers, of which I was lucky enough to be one. She backed me up on everything I tried to do and gave me the confidence to be what I wanted to be. She gave me all the love that a sister could give a brother. When I first came to California as a teenage boxer, Anna lived there and I knew I would have a place to call home. I will miss her so dearly. What I'm grateful for most was that she lived to see me reach my goals and shared them all with me in happiness and joy,”said Gordy.