“I knew and acted with Marilyn Monroe,” Niagara co-star and actor Joseph Cotten later wrote. “I am proud of having had that privilege. May she rest in peace.” “She did an awful lot to boost things up for movies, when everything was at a low state,” remarked actress Betty Grable, co-star of How to Marry a Millionaire. “There’ll never be anyone like her for looks, for attitude, for all of it.” “Nobody discovered her,” Twentieth Century-Fox Studios’ head Darryl F. Zanuck professed, “she earned her own way to stardom… I disagreed and fought with her on many occasions, but in spite of her temperament she never let the public down.” Evidence surfaced in the early 1990s demonstrating Fox was negotiating with Monroe’s attorney to rehire her during the summer of 1962 due in part to Robert F. Kennedy using his influence to get her reinstated by 20th CenturyFox Film studios.
What did Hyman Engelberg report in 1982? On September 27, 1982, Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office investigators Al Tomich and Robert Seiler interviewed Hyman and Miriam Engelberg at Engelberg’s office at 465 N. Roxbury Drive, Suite 1003, Beverly Hills. Engelberg identified himself as Monroe’s physician at time of her death and for approximately the last five years of her life. He directed his wife to retrieve Monroe’s medical file for specific information, but she was unable to locate it. Engelberg stated the file may have been released to the coroner’s office following Monroe’s death. According to Engelberg, he coordinated her treatment and medication with her psychiatrist, Dr. Greenson, who was considered the primary doctor in charge of her treatment. While working on Something’s Got to Give, Monroe suffered from a sinus infection, and Engelberg treated her with liver vitamin injections. He recalled visiting her residence on the evening of August 3, 1962, and administering such an injection, using a small needle on her arm. Engelberg also reported having prescribed Nembutal to Monroe as a sleep aid, regulated at one pill per day. On August 5, 1962, Engelberg was living alone in the West Los Angeles area and received a phone call at approximately 2:30 or 3:00 AM. He was awakened by call, but could not recall the caller’s identity, only that the caller informed him that Monroe had died. Engelberg stated he arrived at her residence about fifteen minutes after ending the call. Engelberg recounts entering Monroe’s residence and entering the master bedroom where he found Greenson. Engelberg observed Monroe “sprawled” on the bed. Monroe’s internist recounts his examination of the body for signs of life by using a stethoscope for heart rate and checking the eye pupils for a reaction to light. He determined she was dead. “Dr. Greenson knew anyway,” Engelberg says in the recording, “but I had to go through the motions.” In the recording of the excerpt of Engelblerg’s interview, the investigator states, “There was apparently quite a volume of pills that were discovered upon her death.” “Yes,” Engelberg affirms. “Do you recall looking at a list of those pills and were they all prescribed by you?” “Only one had been prescribed by me,” Engelberg responds. “I had prescribed Nembutal to help her sleep, but as I recall to the best of my ability, I was surprised to see at the side of her bed a large number of other sleeping pills which looked like Seconal, which she had apparently purchased on a recent trip to Mexico. It is my understanding that in Mexico you could go into any pharmacy and buy any tranquilizers or sleeping pills you wanted.” “Chloral hydrate specifically?” asks the investigator. “I didn’t notice that specifically,” Engelberg responds. “I know that the coroner told me after that they had found evidence of barbiturates and chloral hydrate. I knew nothing about any chloral hydrate. I never used chloral hydrate.” “So, you wrote her prescription for Nembutal only,” the investigator clarifies. “That was it,” Engelberg asserts. “The only prescription I wrote.” This is simply not true. The Los Angeles Coroner’s Report of Chemical Analysis report dated August 6, 1962, listed four vials of medications prescribed by Engelberg in addition to Nembutal (confirmed by prescriptions that subsequently were photographed or went to auction): • Librium 5 mg, 50 units prescribed on June 7, 1962. • Librium 10 mg, 100 units prescribed on July 10, 1962. • Chloral hydrate, 0.5 mg, 50 units prescribed on July 25, 1962, and refilled July 31, 1962. • Nembutal 1.5 gr., 25 units prescribed on August 3, 1962. • Phenergan 25 mg, 25 units prescribed on August 3, 1962. According to the investigator’s summary report of Engelberg’s interview, the physician “further stated he never prescribed chloral hydrate for his patients.” We now know that Engelberg lied about prescribing chloral hydrate to Monroe. The vial of this medication may have been found on her night table, as it was photographed by Barry Feinstein and published in LIFE and Paris-Match in 1962. Engelberg’s name, Monroe’s name, the date, and the name of the medication are visible on the label in the photograph. Additionally, on June 7, 1962, Engelberg prescribed Monroe one hundred units of chloral hydrate. Evidence of this came to light when the prescription was auctioned by Julien’s in Los Angeles on May 7, 2011.
An interview with Hyman Engelberg appears in the documentary Marilyn Monroe: The Mortal Goddess, which aired on A&E network’s Biography television series on September 29, 1996. On camera, he reported his theory surrounding Monroe’s death, based upon his belief that Monroe called Peter Lawford in a cry for help. However, according to Lawford’s interviews by investigators in 1975 and 1982, Monroe had not initiated a call to Lawford, he called her. Engelberg explained his theory about Monroe’s symptoms of Bipolar Disorder and possible situational triggers in the documentary: "I believe she was in a manic phase and then something happened to suddenly depress her, and she grabbed pills there— she had plenty of pills at the bedside. I think she was suddenly depressed and in that sense it was intentional. Then, I think, she thought better of it when she felt herself going under because she called Peter Lawford. So, while it was intentional, at that time, I do believe that she changed her mind." Engelberg also discussed Monroe’s battle with Bipolar Disorder, which he referred to as manic depression, in the documentary Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days, released in 2001. “I had never given her Seconal,” Engelberg vehemently asserted in The Mortal Goddess. However, a prescription auctioned by Julien’s of Los Angeles on October 21, 2011, proves otherwise. Dated July 10, 1962, the prescription revealed Engelberg prescribed Monroe twenty-five units of Seconal, “one for sleep,” along with fifty units of Valmid, “one for sleep,” twenty-five units of Tuinal, “one for sleep,” and one hundred units of Librium, “as directed.” This totals two hundred pills. Again, Engelberg lied about the medications and quantities of medication he prescribed to Monroe in her final months. In the documentary’s interview, Engelberg denied prescribing Monroe chloral hydrate just as he had denied to Los Angeles District Attorney’s investigators prescribing her Seconal. “I never gave her chloral hydrate,” he asserted, “and I don’t think any doctor in the United States gave it to her.” Of course, we know this is simply not true.
Following her divorce from Arthur Miller, Pat Newcomb supported Monroe through a major depressive episode resulting in two consecutive psychiatric hospitalizations in New York in early 1961. The publicist also assisted Joe DiMaggio in coordinating Monroe’s discharge from Payne Whitney Clinic in February, transfer to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital’s Neurological Institute, and discharge from the latter hospital in March. Newcomb maintained an apartment in Los Angeles on South Canon Drive when Monroe returned to the West Coast in the late summer of 1961 to resume her film career. Newcomb also accompanied Monroe to Mexico in February 1962 on a shopping spree for authentic furnishings, décor, and art for her recently purchased Spanish Colonial hacienda. Following Monroe’s termination from 20th Century-Fox Studios, Newcomb assisted her in emotionally rebounding and orchestrated a media blitz to salvage her career. Loyal, stable, and grounded, Newcomb spent Friday night, August 3, 1962, at Monroe’s hacienda. The publicist lounged by her host’s swimming pool beside a medicinal desert-air lamp. The lamp provided relief from bronchitis, asthma, and head colds. According to Newcomb and accounts provided by Eunice Murray and Dr. Greenson, Monroe was irritable on Saturday. Newcomb had slept soundly the previous night, and Monroe’s sleep had been disturbed. Newcomb went on record to state she believed Monroe’s irritability had not been related to the difference in their sleep patterns. In 1969, Newcomb co-founded Pickwick Public Relations with other prominent female agents including Lois Weber Smith (Monroe’s former publicist), Pat Kingsley, and Gerry Johnson. At the time, the motion picture studio system was ending, and studios no longer provided public relations services.
Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office investigator Al Tomich interviewed Patricia Newcomb at her residence on Hidden Valley Road in Beverly Hills on September 7, 1982. Newcomb described Monroe as a “very secretive and suspicious person.” In response to investigator’s questions, Newcomb stated Monroe did not relate to her any romantic relationships with John F. Kennedy or Robert F. Kennedy. Newcomb recounted spending the night at Monroe’s residence on Friday, August 3, 1962, at Monroe’s suggestion because Monroe had a heat lamp to alleviate the publicist’s symptoms of bronchitis. Newcomb recalled accompanying Monroe to a restaurant in Santa Monica or Brentwood. She described Monroe’s mood that night as “very up” and observed her “laughing.” They returned to Monroe’s residence after dinner where Newcomb spent the night. Newcomb surmised Monroe’s anger was clearly not really triggered by the difference in their sleep pattern. On Saturday, August 4, Newcomb utilized Monroe’s heat lamp and also observed Dr. Greenson’s arrival at Monroe’s residence in the late afternoon. When Greenson later exited Monroe’s bedroom, he told Newcomb it would be better if she left. She followed his directive and departed. Newcomb described Eunice Murray as “very strange.” Newcomb also reported no knowledge of Murray being a psychiatric nurse. According to Newcomb, Monroe’s closest confidante was Ralph Roberts. Newcomb told investigators that she believed Monroe’s death was accidental. Newcomb was aware that Dr. Hyman Engelberg was supposed to advise Dr. Ralph Greenson of when Monroe requested medication. Newcomb had heard from an unknown source that Monroe’s last prescription from Engelberg was not reported to Greenson because Engelberg was experiencing “other problems and forgot.” [Engelberg separated from his wife Esther on May 5, 1962, and the couple’s divorce was finalized June 11, 1964.] Monroe and Newcomb were four years apart and became close personal friends outside of their professional affiliation. As a result of this emotional connection, Newcomb was personally protective of Monroe. She took personal offense to the media’s crass exploitation of Monroe’s death after which she immediately left her position at Arthur P. Jacobs Company. Newcomb remained loyal to Monroe by refusing to publish a memoir about her knowledge about Monroe’s life despite multiple lucrative offers. Columnist Dorothy Manners reported in the 1960s that Newcomb refused a sizeable sum to sell her memories of Monroe to the press. The former publicist has been widely criticized for not publicly responding to every inane rumor about Monroe’s life broadcast in the media over the last sixty years.
Critics fail to consider Pat Newcomb as a member of Monroe’s chosen family who experienced a deep personal loss and labored to achieve healing and closure. Newcomb responded to my calls by defending herself for the first time after three decades of rumors: "The Kennedys never gave me a dime, never offered me anything, and never made a job available to me. On the afternoon of the day Marilyn died, I had been with her, but her psychiatrist advised me to go home, because he wanted to talk with her. I did go home and was awakened at 4 in the morning by the lawyer Mickey Rudin. He told me Marilyn was dead—an overdose. I rushed to Marilyn’s house. The press was there, and I did become overwrought and yell at them, calling them “vultures.” Patricia Newcomb said of Monroe. “But of course, she was under the care of a psychiatrist, and never should have been given as many Nembutal pills as she was given by Dr. Engelberg. Engelberg was supposed to let Greenson know if he gave her such a prescription but that week, he was having trouble with his wife and he forgot about it. It is hard to understand negligence such as that. If there is any doctor to blame, it’s Engelberg.” The author upholds Patricia Newcomb’s privacy and reveals only that she has acknowledged to him her devotion for Monroe and her knowledge of Monroe’s deep emotional pain.
According to Ralph Roberts, Dr. Greenson appeared heavily influential in Monroe’s life; she seriously considered his recommendation to sever several relationships and placed herself entirely in his hands. Once Greenson secured Eunice Murray as Monroe’s selected companion in the autumn of 1961, he maneuvered Roberts’ distance from Monroe. One November afternoon as Roberts sat in his car parked at the curb outside Greenson’s residence, waiting to drive Monroe home from a session, she climbed into the car sobbing. “Dr. Greenson thinks you should go back to New York,” she wept. “He has chosen someone else to be a companion for me. He said that two Ralphs in my life are one too many…” Trusting Greenson’s judgment, neither Monroe nor Roberts protested. Roberts later described Murray as intimidating, manipulative, and divisive of Monroe and her friends. Roberts and Monroe conspired to maintain their close association by scheduling massage appointments after nine o’clock in the evening, after Murray had gone home. Roberts typically entered the home without ringing the doorbell. On one awkward occasion, Roberts and Greenson accidently confronted each other, and the doctor grimaced with disapproval. Roberts also stated Monroe did not keep a diary in her last year. He described her as sometimes disoriented and disorganized. Roberts denied observing Monroe consuming alcohol except for champagne and never observed her intoxicated. He reported that during Monroe’s last months of life, she took chloral hydrate for sleep. Peter Lawford went on record three times to report his last telephone conversation with Marilyn Monroe in what may have been her last moments of consciousness. This connection has led many to assume Lawford and Monroe were longtime close friends. This simply is inaccurate.
An attractive and desirable playboy in his youth, Lawford had been romantically linked to Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, and Ava Gardner. According to publicist Rupert Allan, Monroe never truly liked or trusted Lawford but shared a friendly association with his wife. Patricia Kennedy Lawford was allegedly smitten with Monroe’s warm personality and celebrity, and like most of Monroe’s friends, wanted to protect and take care of her. Patricia Lawford was vibrant, lighthearted, and acerbic. She especially enjoyed making Monroe laugh. Eunice Murray, Monroe’s housekeeper/companion in the last nine months of her life, overheard Monroe’s telephone conversations with Patricia Lawford and perceived the President’s sister as Monroe’s best friend. “Marilyn had a quiet voice and she would smile at me and head out to walk on the sand with my mom,” Christopher Lawford wrote in Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption. “My mother told me Marilyn was like her ‘little sister.’ It surprised her that Marilyn was so open with her. My mom didn’t come from an environment where emotions and feelings were openly shared. Marilyn Monroe trusted my mother’s love for her.” Christopher recalled Monroe teaching him to dance the Twist in his living room when he was still a toddler. Peter Lawford reported he had phoned Monroe but she was tired and wasn’t going to be able to come to dinner. From her slurred voice, Lawford recognized that she was nearly asleep from pills… Monroe’s voice trailed off, and the phone apparently dropped from her hand. Lawford wanted to go to Monroe’s home but was dissuaded by agent Milton Ebbins. Rupert Allan never believed Monroe would have called Lawford in an emergency. Allan said that Monroe despised Lawford, and her only connection to him was the close relationship she had with Patricia Kennedy Lawford. Allan asserted Monroe would more likely have turned to Patricia if in crisis. Furthermore, Monroe wouldn’t have tried to reach Patricia at the beach since she was aware her friend was visiting Hyannis Port. In all likelihood, Marilyn’s last contact with a human being was the voice of an operator informing her that Mr. Ralph Roberts was out for the evening. At 7:00 or 8:00 PM, Lawford called Monroe again to ascertain the reason she had not yet arrived. Lawford described her as sounding “very despondent,” and her voice was “slurred.” When Monroe’s voice became inaudible, Lawford yelled into the telephone to “revive” her, describing it as a “verbal slap in the face.” Monroe told him she was very tired and would not be coming to his residence. Lawford told investigators that Monroe said, “Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to Jack, and say goodbye to yourself because you’re a nice guy.” When the phone went dead, Lawford assumed Monroe ended the call. He tried redialing several times, but her phone line was busy each time. Lawford described having had a “gut” feeling something was wrong and said: “I still blame myself for not going to her home that night.”
Lawford reported first meeting Monroe in 1951 and described her as shy and introverted. He told investigators Monroe experienced episodes of depression during which she withdrew and isolated from others. Lawford was unable to estimate the frequency of these depressive episodes. In her last years, Lawford observed Monroe taking pills but was unaware of the medications prescribed to her. He speculated that she took a sleeping medication named Placidyl. Lawford also stated Monroe drank champagne but was “not a drunk.” According to Lawford, his former wife, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, met Monroe in 1958, and both women became “close friends.” Patricia attempted to help Monroe reduce her intake of pills and suggested Monroe use Dramamine as an alternative to more dangerous drugs. The President and Monroe never engaged in a romantic relationship, Lawford asserted. Also, Lawford told investigators Monroe and Robert Kennedy were not engaged in a romantic relationship either. When Lawford called Monroe at 7:00 PM, her phone was busy for thirty minutes. He called the operator who told him Monroe’s phone was off the hook. Lawford then called Milton Ebbins, his agent, and expressed his concern about her. Lawford instructed Ebbins to contact Monroe’s attorney, Milton Rudin, and psychiatrist Ralph Greenson, to check on her well-being. Lawford consistently reported in interviews documented in 1962 and 1975 that he had initiated the last telephone call to Monroe. “We all knew Marilyn took too many pills and was drinking heavily,” Ebbins recalled. “I suggested we could call Milton Rudin, Marilyn’s attorney, and her psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, and ask them to go to her house. I talked to Milton about Peter’s apprehension.” As corroborated by Eunice Murray’ statement to the police, Milton Rudin called Monroe’s house. Ebbins recalled Rudin called him at 7:30 to say he had spoken to Murray “who said she had looked in on Marilyn.” According to Ebbins, “Murray told Milton, ‘She does this every night. She takes the pills, calls somebody and falls asleep. She’s fine.’” Lawford’s telephone calls to Ebbins continued into the night. “Peter called me twice more when he was getting a little drunk,” Ebbins recalled, “expressing his fear that Marilyn was very ill. Peter called me once after midnight and he was bombed.” One can imagine Rudin advising both Dr. Greenson and Dr. Engelberg as the psychiatrist and the internist discussed the medications discovered in Monroe’s home, some of which were contraindicated, and some prescribed by Engelberg without Greenson’s knowledge. The following is a transcription of a recording of Milton Ebbins’ interview with biographer Anthony Summers archived at the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills: "Peter Lawford invited her to dinner that Saturday night. He asked me to come out. I stayed home watching TV. Then he called me and told me that Marilyn was not going to come because she was tired. She wanted to have a sandwich and go to bed. And then he said he got a phone call from her. It was quite a strange phone call. She had obviously taken some medication to sleep which she did whenever she went to bed. It was about 8 o’clock at night and she talked, kind of rambled along, she told Peter how marvelous everybody and the Kennedys were, and she loved his wife Pat. And all of a sudden, the phone went dead. So, Peter called back, and he said he got a busy signal. So, he called the operator, and she said the phone was out of order. I know Jack Kennedy and Robert weren’t going to kill her. That's absurd. They were very fond of Marilyn Monroe."
Monroe reportedly received telephone calls congratulating her on the interview with Richard Meryman on the topic of fame, published in the August 3rd issue of LIFE magazine currently on newsstands. Meryman was clearly touched by the charismatic child-woman he discovered at her home on Fifth Helena Drive. He recorded memories in an article titled “A Last Long Talk with a Lonely Girl” published in LIFE shortly after Monroe’s death and in an HBO documentary Marilyn: The Last Interview (1992). Meryman perceived “the house was saturated in paranoia,” with an eerie “me-against-the-world” quality. Aside from finding Monroe to be surprisingly unsexy, he was astounded by her excellent taste in decorating. Meryman especially admired a Chinese horse carved from wood from San Francisco’s China Town. When he had difficulty setting up his tape recorder, Monroe offered help and the use of the recorder given to her by poet Norman Rosten. At midnight during the interview, Monroe suggested grilling steaks. They searched the refrigerator for food but found it nearly empty. In Dr. Robert Litman’s first interview with Dr. Greenson on the day prior to Monroe’s funeral, Geenson summarized his history of treating her. Monroe’s psychiatrist reported first providing services to her in late 1959, during the filming of Let's Make Love (1960) directed by George Cukor.
The psychiatrist told Litman that Monroe exhibited “extremely weak psychological structures” and further described her as “extremely impulsive, she felt unimportant and derived self-confidence from her beauty.” Apparently, Monroe shared with Greenson her perception of the most important aspect of her life being her acting profession. Litman went on to document Greenson’s description of Monroe having “neurotic complaints” and “extreme sensitivity to rejection.” In Litman’s second interview with Greenson, one-week later, on August 14, Greenson “made it clear she was not a drug addict.” Engelberg, who was in charge of the prescription of medication while Dr. Greenson handled the psychotherapy, began to cautiously try out Nembutal again to help Miss Monroe sleep.” Interestingly, in the four-page letter, Litman wrote of a third doctor involved in Monroe’s care: “Unknown to Greenson, however, Miss Monroe obtained sleeping pills from two doctors. Furthermore, the two doctors did not know that she was getting pills from the other one. She received a prescription for 25 Nembutal tablets from Dr. Siegel (filled August 3, 1962 and found empty in her bedroom), and 50 chloral hydrate capsules refilled July 31 from Dr. Engelberg. Litman also confirmed that when he interviewed Engelberg in 1962, Engelberg stated he may have prescribed Nembutal to Monroe. Finally, Litman also reported having interviewed Dr. Siegel in 1962, who stated he prescribed more Nembutal. However, only the prescription number on the Nembutal vial’s label #20858 was recorded on the toxicology report. Another prescription number corresponds with prescription #20857, visible on the surviving prescription for Phenergan dated August 3, 1962, and signed by Engelberg. This appears to prove that Engelberg wrote at least these two prescriptions for Monroe on the same day. If Dr. Lou Seigel had also prescribed Nembutal to Monroe around the same time, the vial of this supply of the medication was not documented by the authorities.
Stanley J. Coen’s article, “Narcissistic Temptations to Cross Boundaries and How to Manage Them” (published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Associate) referenced Dr. Greenson’s apparent countertransference in the life of his arguably most impressive and tempting patient. Without passing judgment on Greenson, Coen identified the warning signs of the amount of time the doctor devoted to Monroe at the expense of other patients and his family, his involvement in her career, and his talking about her with others. In his article, published in 2007, Coen explored the rarely studied danger of an analyst’s narcissistic neediness; steering treatment away from the patient’s needs and toward the analyst’s own needs, seemingly describing Dr. Greenson and Monroe’s dynamic. An analyst may find a patient “impressive” by her celebrity, power, wealth, attractiveness, sexiness, and youth. He may inflate one or more of these features into making the impressive patient and himself somehow special and wanted to share the patient’s world. The analyst may also attempt to manage his own feelings of both envy of and separateness from his impressive patient by overly identifying with her. Coen pinpointed Dr. Ralph Greenson died on November 24, 1979, three years before the Los Angeles District Attorney’s threshold probe into the death of his most famous patient. However, he went on record to discuss his perceptions in two interviews with Dr. Robert E. Litman on August 7 and 14, 1962, and in correspondence with Dr. Marianne Kris dated August 20, 1962. Eleven years after Monroe’s death, in response to Norman Mailer’s explosive mainstream allegation of her murder, Greenson also consented to an in-depth interview with biographer Maurice Zolotow.
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