Anna Gordy Gaye

Anna Gordy Gaye (born in 1922 in Detroit, Michigan) is the eldest sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy and was the first wife of soul music legend Marvin Gaye.

She was also a successful collaborator and formed her own label after her own name around 1959. The first hit for the label was the first hit for Motown – the Barrett Strong hit, "Money (That's What I Want)".

It was in 1961 that a 38-year-old Gordy first laid her eyes on a 21-year-old musical newcomer named Marvin Gaye. After several years as a couple, they finally married in 1964. Gaye would later said had it not been for Anna, he wouldn't have been the superstar he became during the 1960s and 1970s. The two were also collaborators of hits for groups like The Originals who recorded their compositions of "Baby I'm For Real" and "The Bells" and took them to the top 10 of the Billboard charts at the end of the sixties and into the seventies.

By 1973, however, Marvin and Anna's marriage had imploded shortly after Gaye was seen with a beautiful teenager named Janis Hunter, who was ironically 17 years younger than Gaye (Gaye was 17 years younger than Gordy Gaye). After Hunter gave birth to Gaye's two children, Nona Gaye and Frankie, Anna filed for divorce in 1975.

The marriage offically ended in 1976. Gaye would produce some of his most cryptic music based on his marriage's implosion with Anna on 1978's Here, My Dear. Anna, however after Marvin returned to the U.S. after a short exile in Europe, remained close to Marvin before Marvin was killed in 1984.

Gaye and Anna are the parents of Marvin Gaye, III, who was Gaye's biological son when he was born in 1965 but was conceived by another member of the Gordy family because Anna couldn't produce kids.