Anna Ruby Gordy was born in Georgia in 1922, raised in Detroit, and in the 1950s ran a photo concession at the Flame Show Bar with her sister Gwen. She moved into record distribution for labels such as Checker and Gone, and in 1958 co-founded Anna Records with Gwen and Billy Davis. Her network distributed Barrett Strong's Money (That's What I Want), the first national hit for her brother Berry Gordy's company. In 1961 Anna Records became a Motown subsidiary, and she turned to songwriting, co-writing for Mary Wells, the Originals and Stevie Wonder's What Christmas Means to Me.
Marvin Gaye came to work for her in 1959; they dated from 1960 and married in 1963, and he said Stubborn Kind of Fellow and Pride and Joy were about her. She co-wrote God Is Love on What's Going On. They separated in 1973, she filed for divorce in late 1975, and after two years the settlement paid her from the royalties of his next album, the 1978 Here, My Dear, which dissected their marriage. She threatened a $5 million lawsuit but dropped it. They reconciled as friends in the 1980s, and she attended the 1983 Grammys when he won two awards for Midnight Love.
In 1966 the couple adopted a son, Marvin Pentz Gaye III, presented publicly as their biological child; his birth mother was Anna's niece Denise Gordy.
She received a co-writing credit on Just to Keep You Satisfied, which Gaye reworked in 1973 as a song about their marriage ending.
After Gaye was killed in 1984, she and his three children scattered most of his ashes in the Pacific, and she kept a portion.
She and their son accepted Gaye's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
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