Real Name: Jacintha Darlene Gardner
Born: October 5, 1985 (age 35 years)
Birth Place: Los Angeles, CA
Father: Chris Gardner
Mother: Jackie Medina
Siblings: Christopher Jarrett Medina Gardner
Grandparents: Bettye Jean Triplett, Thomas Turner
Aunts: Sharon Triplett, Kimberly Triplett
Table of Contents
Story About Jacintha Darlene Gardner
Jacintha Darlene Gardner is the daughter of Chris Gardner and Jecky Medina. Chris Gardner is an American businessman, stockbroker, investor, motivational speaker, author, and philanthropist. He got married to Sherry Dyson in the year 1977. Chris Gardner had an affair with a dental student whose name was Jackie Medina. She got pregnant with his child only a few months into the affair. After three years of marriage to Sherry, he left her to move in with Jackie and to prepare for fatherhood. Nine years passed before Sherry and Chris were legally divorced in 1986. With Jackie, Gardner had two children, Christopher and Jacintha. Jackie and Gardner later broke up.
Story of her father
Christopher Paul Gardner was born on February 9, 1954, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His childhood was far from being a fairy tale; he had an absent father, and his mother, Bettye Jean, married a man named Freddie Triplett, someone who would deeply mark Chris’s life.
Triplett was abusive to his wife and children. He even reported Chris’s mother to the authorities and had her sent to prison for working while receiving help from Social Services. During that time, Chris and his 3 sisters had to temporarily live in foster homes. Months later, Bettye was released, but she would go back to jail again. Drowned in despair, she even tried to set Triplett’s house on fire with him inside.
But out of all that suffering, one day would remain in Chris’s memory forever. It was Christmas and he was 16 years old. He was taking a bath when his stepfather suddenly broke into the bathroom with a shotgun and kicked him out of the house, leaving him on the street, wet and naked on a cold night.
After having lived through these sad experiences, Chris was clear about something: he would not become his stepfather. He chose to take his mother as an example of strength instead.
After going through considerably tough times and standing out as a dedicated and persevering intern, Chris took the exam to obtain his license as a stockbroker in 1982. He passed and managed to get a stable job with a much better salary. Now he was able to pay rent.
Chris had gone from being an apprentice with nowhere to sleep to being a respected stockbroker. He was even offered a chance to work on Wall Street in New York and lived in that city for 2 years before moving to Chicago and starting Gardner Rich & Co., his own company with an initial investment of $10,000 in 1987.
Books of her Father
In 2006, Chris Gardner wrote a memoir about his struggles as a homeless man. The memoir was called the Pursuit of Happiness. Later that same year, a movie was written and produced based on his memoir. It had the same title. In this film, Garder was played by Will Smith.
Chris Gardner has also written one other book, Start Where You Are: Life Lessons in Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. This book is less of a memoir and more of a how-to guide. Growing up without much, in this book, Gardner writes about how a person can accomplish anything if they work with what they have instead of focusing on what they don’t have.
Awards and Accomplishments
For work with the charity, National Fatherhood Initiative, Chris Gardner has won the Father of the Year Award, in 2002. Also for charity work, he has won the following: the 25th Annual Humanitarian Award and the Friends of Africa Award.
Gardner’s most famous book, the Pursuit of Happiness, has won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for a Biography/Autobiography. The movie adaptation of the book also won and was nominated for several awards, including the ASCAP Award for Top Box Office Films.
