The Enchanters (Marilyn), Affairs to Remember

Bug mounts meant potential tapped phone lines. The Marilyn Monroe crib featured three extensions. Living room, spare bedroom, Marilyn’s boudoir. I made the rounds and ran receiver checks. I pulled the handsets off the phones and unscrewed the perforated tops and bottoms. I checked for stashed mini-mikes and got zilch. But—I saw left-behind circuit spacers. That meant the three phones had been tapped. The spacers were frayed and corroded. My spacers and mikes had been inset in the handgrips. Monroe bought the house in February and moved in March 10. My surveillance job began April 11. I photographed the three spacer sets and replaced the receiver caps. I dropped the damp prints in my kit. I returned to Monroe’s bedroom and worked up fibers and prints. Hardwood flooring. Two throw rugs by the foot of the bed. One wood-veneer dresser. The flooring would not trap dry-constituent fibers. The rugs would. The dresser had good touch-and-grab planes that might sustain latent prints. Hoffa brushed crumbs off his lap. “Jack the K is ramming this nutty nympho, Marilyn Monroe, I have this on good authority, but I can’t reveal my source. I want you to build a derogatory profile on Monroe, Jack, Bobby, and any other extraneous cooze those whipdicks are slipping it to, not to mention whatever bedroom dirt you can get me on Miss Marilyn Monroe herself.” Tilt. Royal flush. Money tree. Three-cherry jackpot.

“You want full-time bugs and taps. Listening posts, monitor shifts, tape copies and transcriptions, summary reports, physical surveillance on Monroe and the other principals, and you want all this shit to rock around the clock, and you are keenly aware that it’s going to cost you a great deal of money.” Hoffa went harumph. “You’re a camel jockey, and you’re out to bilk James Riddle Hoffa with no compunction.” I leaned close. Hoffa flinched. I ticked points, wham-bam.  Hoffa snapped his waistband and buffed his gold watch. “I want it ugly, Freddy. I want lots of sordid behavior, with an emphasis on sex.” My first thought: Where’s Marilyn’s address book? Where does she list her friends, colleagues, flunkies, ex-husbands, and lovers for real? My second thought: Where’s her received correspondence and fan mail? Where’s her hotsville missives from John F. and Robert F. Kennedy?

My first guess: Stashed on the premises. My second guess: She keeps her address book and all hotsville notes on her person. My third guess: She’s mercurial defined. She dumps boring correspondence and fan mail. She keeps the good stuff in a bank vault. Marilyn justifies her "Got to Give" misconduct. Marilyn calls her work-shirking ailments “manifestations of existential malaise.” Marilyn Monroe’s got a secret life within her overarching life of dissolution. It affirms her resolve to plow a thoughtful and steady course as internal chaos subsumes her. I’m stitching evidential and theoretical links. They encompass her cash stash, her disguises, her surreptitious phone calls and her Valley jaunt. Lawford’s calls out and calls in ran innocuous. He called agents and studio geeks. They called him. The Lawford house was bedlam. Kids ran through and grabbed phone extensions. Lawford was on the outs with the Rat Pack. He was on the outs with June Allyson, who begged Dick Powell forgiveness. Of all people, Dino wanted a piece of Allyson too. But Lawford warned Dino about Powell and Nixon. -The Enchanters (2023) by James Ellroy 

Dick Powell and Ellen Drew, guests at the opening of Preston Sturges´ restaurant The Players, stray into the pantry for a mid-evening snack, 1940. The Great McGinty had won Sturges the Academy Award for best screenplay. His other new project was a rambling former private home at 8225 Sunset Boulevard. It was underneath the Chateau Marmont. Sturges personally oversaw the renovation of his building into a two-level restaurant and supper club. He helped design the interior, hired the chefs, worked on the menus and the menu's design. The menu was strictly American, remembered writer Philip K. Scheuer in the L.A. Times. In 1959 Preston Sturges died penniless in a comped room at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City. He was 60 years old. During renovations work crews discovered the revolving stage, the dance floor and the infamous secret tunnel connecting to the Chateau Marmont. 

The film critic Ephraim Katz wrote that Sturges films "...parodied with pungent wit various aspects of American life from politics and advertising to sex and hero worship. They were marked by their verbal wit, opportune comic timing, and eccentric, outrageously funny camo characterizations." In 1942, in his review of The Palm Beach Story, critic Manny Farber wrote: "He is essentially a satirist without any stable point of view from which to aim his satire. He is contemptuous of everybody except the little woman who, at some point in every picture, labels the hero a poor sap. Another phase of his attack is shrouding in slapstick the fact that the godfather pays off not for perseverance or honesty or ability but merely from capriciousness." According to Allan Royle, Christmas in July was one of the most acidic portrays of the double sword within a capitalist system, and his research seems to indicate the stars Dick Powell and Ellen Drew might have had a fling behind the scenes, since Drew was in a process of divorce of her first husband Fred Wallace, which became official on October, 8, 1940, coinciding with the widenation release of Christmas in July on October, 18.  -Affairs to Remember (2016) by Allan Royle

Icon: What Killed Marilyn Monroe

Two reliable sources who were also guests at the Cal-Neva Lodge, Betsy Hammes and the actor Alex D’Arcy, told biographer Donald Spoto that Sam Giancana was not present. D’Arcy, a friend of mobster Johnny Roselli, told Spoto: "There was absolutely never any affair between Marilyn and any of these mobsters. In fact, there was no connection between Marilyn and the mob at all! She was in Lake Tahoe that weekend [July 27-29], and I saw Marilyn eating dinner. Giancana and his crowd weren’t there, and I would have known if they were." On December 17, 1982, Assistant District Attorney Ronald Carroll requested information and reverse directories for 1962: •​General Telephone •​Pacific Telephone •​Haines Company, Reverse Directory Publications •​Los Angeles Police Department •​Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department •​Federal Bureau of Investigation •​Los Angeles City Public Library. Investigator Alan Tomich successfully obtained photocopies of Monroe’s telephone records. None of the agencies retained 1962 telephone reverse directories, but telephone companies and the library retained Los Angeles directories. The Los Angeles District Attorney LADA’s investigation confirmed through “confidential LAPD records” that LAPD seized Monroe’s phone records. The seizure included toll records from General Telephone Company covering the period from June 1, 1962, to August 18, 1962. During this period, eight toll calls were placed from Monroe’s residence to RE 7-8200, a telephone number in Washington, D.C. The last of these calls was made on July 30, six days before her death. Using law enforcement resources, LADA investigators determined the number RE 7-8200 in Washington, D.C., was the published number of the U. S. Department of Justice headquarters. The number belonged to the general listing for the main switchboard and not a private line. 

If Monroe had called the Attorney General RFK, she would have been transferred via operator assistance to another number. Newspaper articles placed Robert Kennedy in San Francisco and Gilroy the weekend of Monroe’s death. A review of the toll records indicated that no phone calls were made to San Francisco area during the entire period covered by the records. Message unit records were also secured by LAPD for both phones in Monroe’s residence covering June 1 to August 18. The numbers, 476-1890 and 472-4830 are the same numbers for which the long-distance toll records had been secured. Four calls with message unit billings were placed from the Monroe residence on August 5. Two calls were made from each phone. Two of the calls were for two minutes each and two were for one minute each. These calls could have been placed from one minute after midnight on August 5 to one minute before midnight at the end of the 24-hour day. 

It is impossible to pinpoint the exact time of Monroe’s death from the records obtained by the original investigation. The evidence available regarding the level of drugs in her system and the apparent slow absorption rate indicate she probably died or was comatose around midnight the night of August 4, 1962. The records were secured 15 days after Monroe’s death, and it was during this period that rumors surfaced alleging she died while on the telephone or after fading out during a telephone call. If Monroe’s overdose was intentional, there was a legitimate need to investigate the possibility of her having been triggered to take her life by the content of a recent telephone call. The author cross-referenced the phone numbers appearing in the collection of Monroe’s 1962 account statements with Monroe’s 1962 address and telephone book. The results are as follows: •​TR7-7877 – attorney Milton Rudin’s residence in Los Angeles. •​TR5-1357 – friends Norman and Hedda Rosten’s residence on Remsen Street in Brooklyn. •​TR7-2212 – acting coaches Lee and Paula Strasberg’s residence on Central Park West in Manhattan. •​EL5-0954 – close friend Ralph Roberts’ residence on East 51st Street in Manhattan. •​PL8-0800 – attorney Aaron Frosch on East 56th Street in Manhattan. •​WBURY 263-3500 – Arthur Miller’s residence in Roxbury, Connecticut. •​OR3-7792 –Joan Copeland’s residence on Peter Cooper Road in Manhattan. •​PL9-4014 – Monroe’s private residential line at 444 E. 57th Street in Manhattan. •​MU8-4170 – photographer Richard Avedon’s office in Manhattan. •​LO5-0400 – dress manufacturer Henry Rosenfeld’s office on 7th Avenue in Manhattan. •​PL5-4400 – Joe DiMaggio’s residence in Manhattan. •​K13-1512 – Henry Sabini, driver of Exec-u-Car on West 60th Street in Manhattan, and •​CH2-3655 – poet Ettore Rella’s residence on West 14th Street in Manhattan. 

WHAT WAS DR. HYMAN ENGELBERG’S CULPABILITY? Psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson described internist Dr. Hyman Engelberg as a narcissist, and Engelberg’s wife accused him of overmedicating her prior to their separation. Engelberg prescribed nearly 900 units of medication to Monroe in her last 60 days, giving her an arsenal of lethal substances. Monroe died of an overdose of Nembutal and chloral hydrate, contraindicated medications that should not be prescribed or taken together. Engelberg prescribed both medications and later lied to authorities about prescribing chloral hydrate. His name appears on prescriptions for chloral hydrate issued to Monroe in her last months and on the label of the vial of chloral hydrate photographed in her residence by Barry Feinstein on the day her body was discovered. Engelberg and Greenson recklessly coordinated her treatment. Communication between the medical professionals broke down in Monroe’s last weeks because Engelberg had become preoccupied with his marital separation. In 1982, Engelberg accused Dr. Lou Siegel of prescribing Nembutal and chloral hydrate to Monroe, but the original police investigation documented Engelberg had refilled a month’s supply of Monroe’s drugs two days before her death. 

Engelberg prescribed 25 units of Nembutal to Monroe on July 31, 1962, and refilled the prescription on August 3; a total of 50 pills—and a lethal amount if consumed in an overdose. He also prescribed chloral hydrate to Monroe on July 25 and refilled the prescription again on July 31. These refills, issued less than thirty days apart, may be the “smoking gun” in the case as Monroe died from overdoses of these two contraindicated drugs. Additionally, on July 10, 1962, Engelberg prescribed Monroe the following on one prescription: 50 units of Valmid, 25 units of Seconal, 25 units of Tuinal, and 100 units of Librium. Engelberg’s prescriptions for Nembutal and chloral hydrate in late July and then refilled early on August 3, argues Engelberg’s culpability. In early July 1962, Engelberg prescribed to Monroe Dexedrine, a stimulant drug. This stimulant may have triggered a manic episode or mixed episode of mania and depression, precipitating her overdose death. Although Dr. Engelberg and Dr. Greenson reported to the Suicide Prevention Team their treatment plan to decrease Monroe’s dependence on barbiturates and substitute less dangerous medications in her last two months, Engelberg’s refill of the prescription for a month’s supply of Nembutal only three days after the original prescription contradicts this wildly. 

Marilyn Monroe displayed several symptoms consistent with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), identified but quite misunderstood during the era, and requiring firm and consistent boundaries between the doctor and patient. Dr. Ralph Greenson experienced countertransference feelings in which he found importance and gratification treating and befriending a famous, charismatic female star. He also referred Monroe to his brother-in-law, Milton Rudin, who became her attorney. Greenson’s reactivity triggered Monroe’s feelings of abandonment and behaviors of lashing out at him. In May 1962, Greenson traveled to Europe while Monroe worked on the production of her final, unfinished film. Prior to the psychiatrist’s departure, he prescribed Monroe a combination of a sedative and stimulant which may have contributed to her final decline. The stimulant may have triggered a manic episode or mixed episode of mania and depression, precipitating her death. The mania could have fueled Monroe’s energy, increased impulsivity, and reduced judgement, thus increasing her risk of acting on suicidal ideas.

The Kennedy family had connections to Samuel Rosenman, chairman of the 20th Century Fox studio’s board, and she requested assistance from Attorney General Robert Kennedy in leveraging that connection for her reinstatement in the film production. Änd in the weeks prior to Monroe’s death, the board made significant changes in the studio’s leadership. Greenson stated Monroe appeared depressed and over-medicated when he last met with her on the last day of her life. He instructed Pat Newcomb, a competent woman with a direct communication style, to leave the residence and left housekeeper Eunice Murray, a passive personality, with no specific safety instructions related to monitoring Monroe. Greenson alluded that Monroe appeared angry toward him and often reacted with anger when he disagreed with her. Monroe later called the psychiatrist and asked if he had taken her Nembutal. Greenson did not question her current access to Nembutal. Monroe may have provided a hint that Engelberg had recently prescribed the drug that Greenson later stated he and Engelberg agreed to discontinue and replace. 

Marilyn Monroe clearly had a genetic predisposition for mental illness. Engelberg informed the author and others of her having displayed symptoms consistent with the diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder with mixed episodes of depression and mania making her a high risk for impulsive suicide. Monroe’s maternal grandfather took his own life by hanging; suicide is usually always the manifestation of a psychiatric disorder. Monroe’s maternal grandmother was institutionalized and diagnosed with Manic Depressive Psychosis. Monroe’s mother was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and was institutionalized most of her adult life. Monroe’s complex trauma in childhood may also have led to symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder, increasing risk for suicidal behavior to end her severe emotional pain. The forensic evidence points to Monroe having overdosed on approximately 47 Nembutal, pointing to her ingesting 25 pills in the original prescription and its refill. 

Many biographers deny Monroe’s potential for intentional suicide; they may be unaware of Borderline Personality Disorder crises that results in suicide gesturing to communicate emotional pain or to end emotional pain.  Greenson later reported Monroe was “quite upset” and “somewhat disoriented.” It was clear to him that she had taken some sleeping pills during her last day. “Marilyn was talking in a confused way,” Greenson told author Maurice Zolotow, “and it was hard to know what exactly what was bothering her.” If she accidentally overdosed, her condition suggests depression, disorientation, or disorganization. Individuals may take their own lives in a mixed or manic episode of Bipolar Disorder, when the serotonin levels in the brain increase energy and decrease judgement. Was Pat Newcomb concerned about Monroe’s stability and intentionally prevented Monroe’s access to Nembutal by keeping it secured in the bedroom where Monroe had invited her to sleep? Could this be the reason Monroe asked Greenson in their last telephone conversation if he had removed the vial of Nembutal? Had Newcomb indirectly deferred to Greenson’s judgment about granting Monroe’s access to the Nembutal in the room where Newcomb had slept the previous night? The constellation of Borderline Personality Disorder and Substance Misuse Disorder clearly increased Monroe’s risk for intentional or accidental overdose. 

Monroe struggled with sleep disturbances for many years, and according to Joan Greenson, especially in her last months. Monroe routinely took steps to create an environment conducive to falling to sleep and minimizing disturbances to awaken her. The fact that one of the telephone extensions remained in her bedroom suggests Monroe had not prepared for sleep when she ingested the overdose. This clue supports the theory that she intentionally overdosed. Of course, we cannot ascertain Monroe’s intention to die or to end emotional pain by overdosing. Nor can we ascertain if Monroe had acted out by risking her life in a suicide gesture during a Borderline crisis as a cry for help while hoping to be rescued. There is no hard evidence of Monroe and JFK’s involvement in an intimate relationship. Monroe’s friends, Ralph Roberts and Sidney Skolsky, wrote about her disclosing to them a brief affair with the President. But how accurate are these sources? Skolsky had been Monroe’s friend since the early days of her career and reunited with her in Los Angeles during her last year. Probably, Skolsky may have been influenced to write about an affair by his publisher. As a close friend and confidant, Roberts had frequent contact with Monroe in New York and Los Angeles during the last two years of her life. 

There are rumors of Monroe and Kennedy being together at Bing Crosby’s residence in Palm Springs in March 1962. The most compelling source is Monroe’s friend and confidante Ralph Roberts who documented a phone call from Monroe in Palm Springs in March 1962 and claims he spoke to a man with an unmistakable Bostonian accent. However, the phone call alone is not evidence of an intimate relationship with JFK. Monroe met Robert Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy at a reception hosted by Peter Lawford and Patricia Kennedy Lawford in February 1962 prior to the couple’s departure for a goodwill tour of Asia and Europe and socialized with them again during the President’s birthday gala in New York in May. In June 1962, Monroe declined an invitation from Robert and Ethel Kennedy to attend a reception at their home in Virginia during her negotiations with the studio. Monroe also had brief contact with Robert Kennedy at two social receptions at the Lawford residence in late June and late July. In June, Robert Kennedy briefly visited Monroe’s residence in the presence of Eunice Murray. Monroe contacted Robert Kennedy through the main switchboard of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, from June 25-30, 1962. These calls were precipitated by her termination from 20th Century-Fox Studios following her appearance in May at the President’s Birthday Salute in New York. Monroe’s calls to the Attorney General were related to Kennedy’s connection to Samuel Rosenman, chairman of the board of Fox in New York. The simple explanation for Monroe’s calls is possibly her efforts to request Kennedy’s leverage of Roseman to support changes which would result in her return to the studio. In the end, Darryl F. Zanuck eventually returned and criticized the studio leadership’s decisions which had included Monroe’s termination. 

There is no evidence of Monroe and Robert Kennedy engaging in an intimate relationship either. Ethel Kennedy’s invitation to Monroe supports this along with Monroe’s reported denial of an affair to close friends such as Norman Rosten and Ralph Roberts. Most likely, Monroe had a social acquaintanceship friendship with both Kennedy and his wife, initiated through mutual friends Patricia Newcomb, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, and Peter Lawford. Ralph Roberts’ published memoir, Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn and the Making of “The Misfits” contains the author’s notes related to Monroe’s last excursion to Lake Tahoe. The notes include a nonspecific reference to “her disagreement with Joe DiMaggio.” Apparently, Monroe quarreled with her former husband leading to increased stress during the weekend. “I didn’t want to go,” Roberts quotes Monroe as telling him. “Pat [Lawford] persuaded me. It turned out to be a complete disaster.” Why was Monroe at the Cal-Neva Lodge? The simplest explanation is that she accompanied the Lawfords to support Dean Martin, her co-star in Something’s Got to Give, who was headlining in the resort’s Celebrity Show Room. The Reno Gazette-Journal promoted Martin’s booking at the Cal-Neva in July 26, 1962.

 

WHO FAILED TO INTERVENE DURING MONROE’S FINAL CRISIS? Peter Lawford called Marilyn Monroe on the last night of her life and after speaking with her, believed she was in danger. He described her slurred speech and voice fading out during the call. When he called Monroe back, her phone was busy. He called an operator who informed him of no conversation on Monroe’s telephone line, indicating her telephone receiver was off its cradle. Intoxicated and unable to drive, Lawford enlisted his friends, Joseph and Dolores Naar and manager Milton Ebbins, to check on her. Dolores Naar Nemiro is the only surviving guest of Lawford’s reception that evening (she is a member of SHARE, the oldest charity in Beverly Hills, started by the wives of the famous Rat Pack). Milton Ebbins went on recording having advised Lawford not to become involved in Monroe’s crisis as Lawford was married to the sister of the President of the United States. Ebbins initiated a series of telephone calls to enlist others in intervening, including his leaving a message with Milton Rudin for a call-back. Robert E. Litman, a psychiatrist who co-founded the nation’s first comprehensive suicide prevention center in 1958 in Los Angeles, examined Monroe's “psychological autopsy,” thinking after a deliberate overdose, she made a call for attention and she wanted to be rescued.

It was a Saturday night, and those involved may have been drinking alcohol and under its influence. First, Ebbins contacted the answering service of Milton Rudin, Dr. Greenson’s brother-in-law and Monroe’s attorney. Ebbins remained at home where he was meeting with comic Mort Sahl. When Rudin returned Ebbins’ call from a dinner party, Lawford’s urgent concern about Monroe may have been minimized. Rudin called Monroe’s residence but did not communicate an urgent concern when he spoke to Eunice Murray, housekeeper/companion. Murray stated Monroe was fine. Rudin did not press the issue with Murray. Murray’s lack of action may also have been influenced by Monroe’s intentions of firing her along with Greenson. After receiving Murray’s feedback, Ebbins called the Naars and told them not to drive to Monroe’s nearby residence to her. In the end, no one checked on Monroe’s safety after Peter Lawford raised the alarm. In this scenario, Murray delayed intervening until it was too late to save Monroe’s life. Toxicological and chemical analysis revealed Nembutal and chloral hydrate were present in high concentration in Monroe’s liver and low concentration in her blood, indicating an oral ingestion and complete metabolism of the drugs. Monroe slipped into coma, and cardiac activity and respiration slowed before ceasing. Time of death is estimated between 12:30 am to 1:00 am on August 5, 1962. Monroe ingested approximately forty-seven units of Nembutal and seventeen units of chloral hydrate. Medical Examiner-Coroner Theodore Curphey informed the press in 1962 that Monroe’s toxicology report indicating 4.5 milligrams of barbiturate poisoning per 100 cc of blood constituted about twice the amount usually considered a lethal dosage. 

Does anyone really want to know what lead to Marilyn Monroe’s death? I think not. That would close the case. It is the retelling of her death story that interests the public, sells books, attracts viewers to documentaries and dramatizations. Monroe is killed in each narrative. Writers recycle information regardless of its accuracy and despite it having been disproven. Marilyn Monroe was a resilient survivor of childhood complex trauma who succumbed to intergenerational mental illness. On August 18, 1962, according to the Suicide Team report, Monroe’s case should be classified as a “probable suicide.” The Coroner’s Office held a press conference to announce the findings during which the Chief Medical Examiner stated his conclusion: Monroe’s death was caused by a “self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode of death [was] probable suicide.” On October 1, 1983, Simon & Schuster released the first edition of Dr. Thomas Noguchi’s autobiography, Coroner, co-authored by Joseph Dimona. The former coroner went on record to defend his official findings of the cause of Monroe’s death. “In my opinion, the official conclusion stated the situation correctly (if evasively): ‘probable suicide,’” he wrote, “I would call it ‘very probable.’” The cause of death by acute barbiturate poisoning determined to be a “probable suicide” seems an appropriate conclusion based upon the forensic data and psychological history of Marilyn Monroe. —Icon: What Killed Marilyn Monroe, Volume Two (2023) by Gary Vitacco-Robles

Jean Shepherd's elegy to JFK

For nearly sixty years, there have been widespread suspicions that JFK died at the hands of a conspiracy, as did his brother Robert Kennedy a few years later. Although these “conspiracy theories” have been ignored or dismissed by nearly our entire mainstream media, they have inspired hundreds or thousands of books and films along with countless articles, and have been widely believed by large portions of the American public. The resulting loss of faith in our major institutions has been dramatic, leading to today’s intense popular skepticism on so many other issues, whether justified or unjustified. Our government has still never released all of its official records on the death of our 35th President, but after almost six decades that monumental cover-up may finally be starting to collapse.

Tucker Carlson has the most popular cable news show, and late last week he aired an explosive segment in which he declared that the JFK assassination had been the work of a conspiracy, with our own CIA heavily involved. His nightly broadcast audience is over 3 million and just one copy of his Youtube video has already been watched 1.6 million times. So these shocking claims from a major media outlet have now reached many millions of ordinary Americans, probably more than anything else on this topic in the thirty years since Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning film JFK was playing in the theaters. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a prominent public figure and best-selling author, nephew of the slain President and son of his murdered brother. He praised Carlson’s show as “the most courageous newscast in 60 years,” and declared: “The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d’etat from which our democracy has never recovered.” Source: unz.com

The tape of what appears to be Jean Shepherd’s first broadcast after Kennedy’s assassination shows he did not talk about the assassination the way others did—he spoke soberly, seriously, about what he saw and had long seen and talked about—indications in the United States of serious problems. Some years later, he commented that he still had a tape of this show. Surely, he recognized that it constituted an extraordinary elegy: "Well, tonight we’re going to talk about Mr. Kennedy and a lot of other associated problems and facts of American life, if we can. If you’re expecting any great revelations, I don’t think you’ll get it. I remember the first time I heard about John Kennedy. I’ve always been a Kennedy man. The one thing that I have always noticed about Kennedy, that appealed to me specifically, was that Kennedy was a realist. And being a realist in today’s world is very dangerous. Because realism is not a thing that is easily accepted by Americans in the 1960s. And I always felt sorry for Kennedy because I recognized the fact that Kennedy did not give people a soft pap that most of them somehow wanted–on both sides of the political fence..." 

[Shepherd talked about Kennedy’s intelligence, humor, zest—all of which made people nervous.] "I have a feeling inside of me—there is a great sense of—apprehension, of fear. It’s a kind of free-floating thing—a strange unreasonableness—a fanaticism that is slowly beginning to grow in this land. About a year or so ago I began to be aware-of a growing belief in violence in America—a growing impatience with the processes that are slow and painful, the processes of democracy—shall we say. More and more people see themselves as solitary, beautiful, sensitive individuals—arrayed against an unseen, unthinking, grinding, totally an—insensitive society. You might say it’s the Holden Caulfield syndrome beginning to grow. Today, more and more, we are beginning to believe in passion as a substitute for reason." 

[Shepherd talked about the television broadcast from Arlington Cemetery.] "Here was just this little, simple grave—and—it was just a hole in the ground—there was this little, simple bronze coffin. And there was a quick shot, which they cut away from. I don’t know whether you saw this or not—but it was one of the most poignant shots of all. It was a little moment after the funeral party had left Arlington and—the cars were winding back up the drive over the bridge, back over the river to Washington. And the four soldiers were still standing guard over the grave. You saw, coming down from the lower left hand corner, two workmen. Did you see them? Dressed in overalls? Just two workmen with baseball caps, and they were coming to do the inevitable. There was a brief shot of them. They walked up, and one of them sort of kneeled down, and he started to pick things up around the grave. And they cut away from it very quickly. Maybe this was too much. I saw how small we are. Maybe this was one of the things that so profoundly moved me, and frightening about it, and at the same time, vaguely reassuring—it gave us all a sense of unbelievable loneliness... Maybe this is why people rushed off to football games—although that’s probably being kind to them. Because I wonder whether the British would consider having a professional soccer game in London—the day after the king died. I doubt it. We’re a different kind of people. This is not to say good, bad, or indifferent. Just very different. Sometimes you wonder just what kind we are. It was a terrible weekend. And I’m not so sure that we’re not in for a few more in the next hundred years."

As with Walt Whitman’s elegy to Lincoln, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed,” the death of a president gave Jean Shepherd the opportunity to express sorrow in a form that encompassed some of his recurring themes. And the workmen seen fleetingly in a corner of the TV screen was a fine example of what Shepherd had frequently insisted—that the nearly unnoticed “cracks in the sidewalk” could reveal a truth. Shepherd’s style that week was atypical. Instead of giving the feeling of an informal dialogue with listeners, he spoke at them, in serious essays on subjects connected to the American temperament. He had indeed complained in broadcasts before about what he felt were naively unjust criticisms of his country by his countrymen. This must be understood in the context of the 1960s ferment—student unrest, civil rights struggle, civil disobedience, demonstrations, and riots in the streets. And the relentless America-bashing by Americans. Indeed, many Americans were criticizing America for not living up to its ideals. Shepherd admitted the problems, that America indeed needed to work to improve itself—but commented that other countries had even more problems, and those problems were inherent in humanity. He seemed to feel that the criticism had created a climate that resulted in violence and assassination, and in part, he implicated the popular “seriously funny” comic satirists and intellectual commentators of the day. On his next broadcast after the JFK assassination, he ruminated:

"I imagine right now there must be at least thirty-five thousand writers who earn a living on one principle—proving to all the other Americans that America has the worst way of life in the world. The dishonesty, the hypocrisy, blah, blah, blah—I think it must be based on an unbelievable lack of knowledge of the rest of the world. Mr. Kennedy—I think in so many ways—almost embodied America. He was the embodiment of us. His attitudes, the way he talked, the way he moved. The look in the eyes. And I think one of the great feelings of shock that all of us have is when he went, somehow a bit of our life went too. Because, you know, life is contagious. And I think a lot us caught it from Mr. Kennedy. Kids, are you listening? There is a limit, kid, to what you can do. Now you don’t know it—and maybe you’ll never find it out—but there is a limit in almost every direction you care to choose." —The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd (2005) by Eugene B. Bergmann

"Blonde" by Dominik: A Cynical View of the Hollywood Studio System

Farran Smith Nehme—Some thoughts about Blonde: I relished the aspect-ratio shifts and the switching between black-and-white and color. Our memories of Marilyn have just such shifts, from widescreen Technicolor to intimate black-and-white snapshots, and that’s plenty enough justification. Blonde appears bold and creative after years of mustard-and-beige digital. I do love an iris shot. Other things I liked: Lily Fisher, the exquisite child actress who plays young Norma; a scene between a cop (Michael Drayer) and Julianne Nicholson as Norma’s mentally ill mother; Adrien Brody as Arthur Miller, balancing his empathy towards Marilyn and his bewilderment about his wife's mood changes; Toby Huss as Marilyn’s faithful makeup man Whitey, a warm and unaffected take on a relationship that I think could have been better developed. Now for the bad news. Dominik claims his film isn’t anti-abortion. He says Marilyn is “seeing her own fears and desires projected onto the world around her… and I think sort of this desire to look at Blonde through this Roe v. Wade lens is everybody else doing the same thing. They’ve got a certain agenda where they feel like the freedoms of women are being compromised, and they look at Blonde and they see a demon, but it’s not really about that.” 

No, this will not do. I can’t accept that an artist and a person of intelligence, and I presume Dominik is both those things, makes these scenes and believes we see an anti-abortion message because “it’s difficult for people to be able to hold two things in their mind at once.” I don’t know his personal politics, but I do know what this movie is saying, and it says it throughout. Exhibit A is the reproachful talking fetus, which reminded me of the Doonesbury strip where a 12-minute-old embryo’s final words are reported as “Repeal Roe v. Wade.” That cartoon was one of six that Garry Trudeau drew to mock 1984’s propaganda short The Silent Scream. Incredibly, Blonde goes one better than the short by giving its fetus character—both times from a pregnancy so early it hasn’t changed Marilyn’s waistline yet—a newborn’s sweet little face. Pregnant Marilyn tells her mother she’s so grateful she wasn’t aborted: “You did the right thing.” Fictional letters to Marilyn from the “daddy” who abandoned her are read over the action, and we’re probably meant to think they exist only in Marilyn’s head. Maybe that’s why the letters’ narrator has the same exact accent and intonation as Paul Roebling, the voice of Sullivan Ballou from Ken Burns’s documentary The Civil War.  

I’d prefer to think that was some kind of grim joke, but Blonde is anti-joke, in the sense of antimatter or an antihistamine. And there’s more, like Disembodied Daddy Sullivan Ballou talking to Marilyn after a miscarriage, offering philosophical thoughts about “the death of an unborn soul” and how its “innocence is unsullied.” What’s most infuriating is that there’s no solid evidence, save hearsay from friends, that Marilyn Monroe even had an abortion. We do know she had three miscarriages, but I guess losing a wanted baby three times—once to a painful ectopic pregnancy that required emergency surgery—isn’t tragic enough. The script also goes out of its freaky way to connect Marilyn’s single on-screen miscarriage to her prior abortion. Her pregnancy loss comes after a chat with the fetus that could have been scripted by Randall Terry: “You won’t hurt me this time, will you? You won’t do what you did last time?” “I didn’t mean to.” “Yes, you meant to. It was your decision.” Do you got that? It was just her personal decision. 

Sure, Mr. Dominik, anything you’re saying here must all be in my head, just like it was in Marilyn’s. How dare anyone make a big deal out of an everyday reincarnated talking fetus with a grudge? This crap alone put me in a “fuck you” frame of mind. Yeah yeah, Blonde isn’t a biopic, it’s based on a fictionalized novel. Yet it’s still reductive as hell. Marilyn’s psychic pain in Blonde is part daddy issues and maternal abandonment, but to a far greater degree, it’s guilt over having an abortion. Really? My response to Dominik’s response is, either he’s lying, or, more possibly, he’s lying. Just my little old opinion. In Blonde many characters are mean to Marilyn. That includes people who were probably kind to her in real life, such as Charlie “Cass” Chaplin Jr., safely dead at 42 so he can’t see himself jammed into a threesome with Marilyn and Edward G. “Manny” Robinson Jr., who died in 1974 at age 40 due to years of alcoholism. Cass Chaplin Jr and Manny Robinson were deeply troubled guys, but deserving of some sympathy, in my opinion. As conceived by Blonde, both Juniors are affected, sneering gigolos. DiMaggio is shown as a scary abusive husband. How do you explain that Marilyn kept a friendly relationship with DiMaggio throughout her life? It's a mystery for Dominik, I guess.

The actual Cass Chaplin Jr and Edward Manny G Robinson stayed friendly with Marilyn, as did many of her ex-lovers, and they continued to regard her with plenty of affection. But that isn’t a pattern that interests Dominik, any more than he gives a damn about Marilyn’s deep capacity for friendship. It’s a director’s prerogative, even their duty, to jettison or change anything that’s going to qualify what they are trying to say. But this film critic finds it enraging that so many recent sagas of bygone Hollywood turn a decent, even tragic person into a creep because it helps some thesis about how much the studio system sucked. Dominik is far from the only offender; Ryan Murphy, I’m looking at you. I agree with most of reviews that criticize the way the film ignores Monroe’s talent. The only moments when Blonde suggests—quite unintentionally, I believe—that Marilyn Monroe was a unique artist are the Deepfake insertions of Ana de Armas into Marilyn’s movies. Every last one of those scenes proves Monroe had something de Armas can’t actually reproduce. 

De Armas is talented, that’s not the issue. If Monroe’s gifts were easy to replicate, we wouldn’t be obsessed with her sixty years after her death. But Blonde can’t have it both ways, and hammer at how the split between Norma Jeane Baker and Marilyn Monroe is essential to understanding her, then suggest, as it does when Marilyn auditions for Don’t Bother to Knock and performs in Some Like It Hot, that her best work might not have been acting at all. This is a question not of biographical accuracy, but simple consistency. What I haven’t seen discussed as much is the disdain, indeed the contempt that Dominik shows for the entire Hollywood studio system. Nobody’s on the lot to do much of anything except sponge off stars, roughing starlets, and rake in money. Almost nothing they make is worth making for Dominik. Take the scene where Marilyn watches “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” at the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes premiere. In real life, that number was a career peak not only for her, but also for choreographer (and director for the scene) Jack Cole, cinematographer Harry J. Wild, costume designer Travilla, and composer Jule Styne and lyricist Leo Robin. Here, cynically it’s almost blown off as a kitsch joke. 

Or maybe the view of the public is the worst, it’s hard to choose. I became fascinated with the fact that the slavering crowds that surround and oppress Dominik’s Marilyn are all men. By which I mean only men, middle-aged and ugly in their historically correct attire, giving the bizarre impression that 1950s Los Angeles and New York were as gender-segregated as Riyadh. Dominik’s showing what he thinks of the work of Marilyn and the studios—it was pandering to squalid male fantasies. The millions of women who loved Marilyn and sustain her fame to this day, well, for the purposes of Blonde, we don’t exist. Marilyn’s women friends like Shelley Winters, Susan Strasberg and Pat Newcomb, they also don’t exist. Hell, even acting coaches Natasha Lytess and Paula Strasberg don’t exist. Again, this is Dominik’s right as a director, to remove all female support and love from his unidimensional Marilyn character. It’s also a choice that becomes more disturbing the longer the movie goes on. 

I’m a little less enamored of de Armas' performance than some other critics, though. The script pushes de Armas into playing the same notes over and over: wistful sadness, fear, insecurity; insecurity, fear, wistful sadness. She does get about seven minutes of screen time being happy with Arthur Miller, and it’s glorious. Then it’s over, and de Armas will mix in notes of drug-addled stupor, which recur until the end. Her Marilyn is obviously the product of intense study and effort. It’s a shame that work was put into a character that’s as repetitive as a music box. Please, I can’t even with the JFK blowjob. I have my limits. I know Norman Mailer is dead, but he has a lot to answer for, as well as a long list of Kennedys' professional haters. You may also have noticed that I haven’t brought up Blonde, the Joyce Carol Oates novel. That’s because I haven’t read it and I don’t intend to. Obviously something disturbing in it spoke to Dominik. I don’t know what that was, and I don't want to guess. As Martin Amis said about Gore Vidal, life is too short. As Vidal said, the saddest words in English are Joyce Carol Oates. On a thematic basis, I don’t get why this film exists. It’s like an artfully shot Billie Holiday movie from someone who’s tone-deaf and believes the Harrison Act was a great idea. Source: selfstyledsiren.substack.com

JFK: America's Last President, WUSA

JFK warned of the danger of a comfortable complacency: The barrage upon truth will grow more constant. And some people cannot bear the responsibility of a free choice which goes with self-government. Finally, shrinking from choice they turn to those who prevent them from choosing and thus find in a kind of prison, a kind of security. We, as a society, have lost the spirit we held when John F. Kennedy was our president.Today, those who question power are considered conspiracy theorists. But where did that term originate? While there was a minimal reference to the term “conspiracy theory” in the first half of the twentieth century, it was not used in a derogatory way. The term became ubiquitous in the late 1960s after the CIA distributed a memo encouraging its assets to use the term to belittle anyone who questioned the Warren Report. The Declaration of Independence was essentially a conspiracy theory document, accusing King George of many things, some of which he was guilty, others not. Our country was born in the spirit of questioning power, John F. Kennedy embodied that spirit, and it died with his assassination. Today, we celebrate fitting in, not standing out. We honor those that follow the established and approved narrative, not those that offer opposing perspectives. Not since John F. Kennedy have we had a president who genuinely worked in the public’s interest. He was thoughtful, intelligent, and empathetic. He tried to create a fairer society, he tried to raise the living standards of the many, and he tried to create opportunity for all. He respected self-determination and abhorred imperialism. He was the president of the people. His presidency was one of those rare shining moments in history when the common man was actually represented in the halls of power. America died on November 22, 1963, and what remains is an illusion. As Robert Kennedy wrote in his book To Seek a Newer World, “Sharp criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country.” We have the right to demand better. And we once did have better. We had a president who genuinely served our interests—and not only our interests but the interests of the common man all around the globe. We are still living under the system that allowed these murders to be perpetrated, and that system is even more entrenched today. —America's Last President: What the World Lost When It Lost John F. Kennedy (2022) by Monika Wiesak 

WUSA is a perfect example of what could be labeled “liberal nightmare” cinema in the form of an abstract political artifact. A garish example of liberal exhibitionism. Stuart Rosenberg over-directed this under-written story of a right-wing political plot in New Orleans, based on an obscure novel by Robert Stone (A Hall of Mirrors, 1967). Paul Newman here is an alcoholic who drinks because he can't face himself. He's married but estranged from his equally alcoholic wife. Joanne Woodward's character is an uneducated young widow and a former hooker. Also, Anthony Perkins is an idealist going mad, and Cloris Leachman is a crippled naïf. First, I have to confess I have a fundamental aversion to movies about beautiful women whose souls have been lost, stolen or destroyed, especially when it isn't clear why. Paul Newman said he wanted the film served to critique “corporate greed” and “apathetic indifference to our national future.” 

Paul Newman plays Rheinhardt, a failed musician turned into a radio newscaster who becomes intrigued by Geraldine (Joanne Woodward), maybe falling in love with her. Geraldine befriends Morgan Rainey (Anthony Perkins), a social worker who is duped by a sinister neo-Fascist radio-station operator: Bingamon (Pat Hingle). Anthony Perkins plays an addled idealist, while Bingamon uses the burn-out Newman as his cat’s paw on his WUSA station. The score by Lalo Schifrin occasionally overwhelms the dialogue, and a late scene in which Newman's Rheinhardt delivers a harangue against the Vietnam War is difficult to hear because of the music—which I can only guess is supposed to mirror the riot that’s occurring onscreen.

In short, WUSA is a mess - but a fascinating mess, that ends in the most overtly manipulative tear-jerking way imaginable. The truth is there aren't enough politics in WUSA. The film is hobbled by an emphasis on too many wounded or compromised characters. Even the hippies living down the hall turn out to be shameless opportunists who take a gig singing at the right-wing rally, and then they slip their stash into Geraldine’s purse when the cops arrive. But WUSA is strangely fascinating in its complete defeatism. Nothing is ever really stated outright and instead the viewer is left to infer what's going on. It serves as a scrapbook of American sensibility at the end of the 1960s, a time when there really were people who believed we were on the brink of a revolution, when it was not difficult to imagine that the cycle of political assassinations and conflict begun in Dallas in 1963 would not only continue, but would escalate catastrophically. —Deeper Into Movies: Film Writings (1969-1972) by Pauline Kael

"At the movies, we are gradually being conditioned to accept being shown acts of violence. The directors used to say they were showing us how ugly it was in order to sensitize us to its horrors. You don’t have to be very keen to see that they are now in fact desensitizing us. They are saying that if everyone is brutal, the heroes must be as brutal as the villains or they turn into fools. There seems to be an assumption that if you’re offended by movie brutality, you are somehow playing into the hands of the people who want censorship. But this would deny those of us who don’t believe in censorship the use of a counterbalance: the freedom of the press to say that there’s anything conceivably damaging in these films—the freedom to analyze their implications. If we don’t use this critical freedom, we are implicitly saying that no brutality is too much for us—that only squares and people who believe in censorship are concerned with brutality. How can people go on talking about the dazzling brilliance of movies and not notice that the directors are sucking up to the thugs in the audience?" —The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael (2016) edited by Sanford Schwartz 

WUSA was a giant flop in 1970 and the film was lost to history, barely remembered as a footnote to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s careers. Despite its high-quality stack of actors and ideas, WUSA never delivers on its promise to become a political thriller. The screen time spent in examining the rootless characters played by Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward seems unrelated to the story's center of interest, the barely-glimpsed conspiracy. Geraldine sees herself as too dumb for working for a phone company and is quite antisocial. When Rainey goads Rheinhardt to show a conscience about the deal-making he sees back at the WUSA station, the DJ's response is to turn hostile. 

As much as Rheinhardt's disenchantment and apathy may reflect reality, it only frustrates the audience that expects Newman's character can find his moral footing and stop being so passive. WUSA belongs in the company of other "conspiracy" thrillers like All the King's Men, A Face in the Crowd, The Manchurian Candidate, Network, The Candidate, Executive Action, JFK, and Bulworth. Either way, these movies all envision a political environment beholden to corporate interests, a mass media run by capitalist sharks who manipulate the public opinion through demagogues, and an electoral process where candidates are stripped of their ideals in order to gain power. Director Stuart Rosenberg fails to bring WUSA to anything resembling an articulate conclusion. Rheinhardt's hippie neighbors are allowed to entertain at the rally, an unexplained choice that makes little sense. Rheinhardt is finally about to speak against WUSA when gunshots ring out. Later, Laurence Harvey's preacher advises Rheinhardt that the WUSA group is finished and that they'd all best leave town. In reality, it would make more sense that the publicity from the attempted assassination would actually strengthen Bingamton's circle of power.  

Critics of the time acknowledged WUSA's parallels to earlier political films like Frank Capra's Meet John Doe but blamed its failure on an aimless script and Rosenberg's limp direction. The film's passive-apocalyptic tone has more in common with Nathanael West's novella The Day of the Locust. A committed anti-war protester, Paul Newman was added to President Nixon's "unfriendly" list. Newman and Woodward did their best to promote WUSA and were complaining about Paramount's limited support for the film. In at least one interview Newman hinted at political interference, explaining that Rosenberg had been forced by the studio to cut over 20 minutes. But a decade later, Newman's final verdict was that WUSA was "a film of incredible potential which the production loused up. We tried to make it political, and it really wasn't." The DVD offers no subtitles and no extras. This is a shame, as several critics hinted that Robert Stone's Bingamton character was based on oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, who in the 1950s backed a syndicated conservative political TV show called Facts Forum. Hunt is also frequently named in several conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Source: parallax-view.org

Refuting Rothmiller's Bombshell, Murder Orthodoxies by Donald McGovern

During the half century, plus nine years, that have elapsed since Marilyn’s untimely death, the debate concerning the why and how of that tragic event has continued loudly and unabated, almost attaining the ear piercing level of a cacophony. The theories that have attempted to answer all the lingering questions and thereby solve the lingering mystery have become even more bizarre and more sensational while becoming less substantiated. In short, the passing of time has not given rise to a clearer understanding of the facts, just foggier and goofier opinions. The last opportunist release is former LAPD police officer Michael Rothmiller's Bombshell (2021). The case is neither Robert Slatzer nor Jeanne Carmen nor Samir Muqaddin nor the 1982 LADA Summary Report regarding that investigation mentioned Michael Rothmiller. But then, the mythology surrounding Marilyn’s diary, as it relates to her death, is so ingrained in her story and so well known by most of humanity, it is entirely remarkable that more persons have not appeared with odd stories similar to Rothmiller’s. The secret diary mythology has flourished in the unusually fertile firmament of distrust and paranoia; and it has been continuously fertilized by a voyeuristic media and opportunistic individuals adept at manipulating the confusion caused by misinterpretation and misunderstanding, manipulated by those who can invariably grind confusion into monetary benefit. Marilyn’s death is not a complex polynomial nor a mysterious mathematical expression: it only appears to be one due to the overabundance of conflicting and contradictory testimony contained in the numerous pathographies written about her life and what has become her perversely sexualized death. But perhaps the most incredible and startling aspect of Marilyn Monroe is this: despite the horrid tales, despite the defamation, despite her lurid sexualization, she continues to thrive. However, I for one think it’s time for all the muckraking to end, even though, I admit sadly, I know it never will; and undoubtedly, the murder debates will also continue.

Reopening the investigation into the facts surrounding Marilyn's death, in 1982, the Assistant District Attorney at the time, Ronald H. Carroll, and an investigator, Alan B. Tomich, along with several other investigators, reviewed the case files in 1982 between the months of August and December, conducted additional interviews and addressed all the questions raised by various conspiracists. The district attorney’s office then published, in December of 1982, a twenty-nine page summary report, The Death of Marilyn Monroe: Report to the District Attorney, a copy of which I obtained directly from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. The published LADA report concluded: "Although factual discrepancies exist, the cumulative evidence available to us fails to support any theory of criminal conduct relating to her death. Based on the information available, no further criminal investigation appears required into Miss Monroe’s death."

It is rich indeed that Joyce Carol Oates, who wrote Blonde—one of the most loathsome books ever written about Marilyn Monroe—should object to the proliferation of destructive literary works masquerading as biographies; but Oates’ corruption perfectly represented the horns of my dilemma: should I employ the word biography in relation to the books about Marilyn Monroe written by Ted Jordan, C. David Heymann, Anthony Summers and several others?  Most of the books written about Marilyn Monroe are, in fact, pathographies. Blonde is certainly and clearly a case in point; considering the number of books written about Marilyn Monroe, over one-thousand; yet it is difficult to find one that does not have a heavy and undeniable smell of offal. Jay Margolis and Richard Buskin, for example, reported that Ralph Roberts gave Marilyn her regular Saturday massage between 9:00 AM and 10:15 AM, before leaving by the front door. Carl Rollyson cited Ralph Robert’s presence along with Marilyn’s massage; but Rollyson reported that Laurence Schiller did not appear at Fifth Helena until 10:30 AM, a time which completely contradicted Schiller’s memoir. However, Donald Spoto, who interviewed Marilyn’s good friend and masseur, did not mention Ralph’s presence that morning or that alleged massage. Additionally, Gary Vitacco-Robles reported that Schiller arrived sometime before noon and that Marilyn took the photographer on a tour of Fifth Helena during his August the 4th visit. 

Gary Vitacco-Robles in Icon, considered by many the best Monroe biography, or at least one of the top three, also failed to mention that Marilyn received an early morning massage. Biographer Michelle Morgan mentioned a Schiller visit in her Marilyn biography; but she did not mention a tour of Fifth Helena. Donald Spoto did not mention a residential tour and neither did Schiller in his written memoir. Marilyn biographer, Randy Taraborrelli, did not mention a visit by Schiller at all. Likewise, the murder theorists Jay Margolis and Richard Buskin also excluded Schiller’s visit from their accounting of August the 4th’s events. I implicitly trust the assiduously researched, two volume Marilyn biography written by Gary Vitacco-Robles. I also trust Donald Spoto’s biography along with the volume published by Michelle Morgan and, to an extent, the one published by Stacy Eubank; on the other hand, I am not as trusting of Randy Taraborrelli or Lawrence Schiller's. On 16th July, according to Heymann, Marilyn attended a celebratory party thrown by the Senior Kennedy at Romanoff’s, a restaurant in Beverly Hills. Heymann alleged that Kennedy and Marilyn were together during that entire Saturday before the future president elect flew back to Boston, departure time not divulged.

On the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum website, those that are interested can view a video of his twenty-two minute acceptance speech as it was broadcast by CBS television in 1960. Occasionally, the television cameras scan the large crowd, probably searching for attending celebrities, considering the proximity to Hollywood. If Marilyn Monroe was there, arguably the biggest movie star in the world in 1960, the cameras never located her; and I find that strange indeed. Also, there are no contemporaneous media reports that Marilyn attended the Democrat convention in 1960; and that media void leads to obvious and pertinent questions: where was Marilyn and what was she doing during July of that year? She was attending pre-production meetings for filming The Misfits, to begin in late July, Marilyn departed for New York City on June the 25th. She arrived in Manhattan the following day. During the first week in July, Arthur Miller joined Marilyn in New York City where, beginning on the 5th, she performed several screen tests for The Misfits. On July the 13th, the fourth day of the Los Angeles convention, Marilyn located Ralph Roberts playing poker in Maureen Stapleton’s Manhattan apartment. Roberts agreed to give Marilyn a massage. Upon entering the Miller’s apartment, also in Manhattan, Roberts found her watching the Democrat National Convention via her television set as Arthur Miller slept in the couple’s adjoining bedroom. On July the 14th, Thursday, the conventions fifth day, Marilyn sent Ralph Greenson a telegram from Manhattan, accompanied by a bouquet of roses. The telegram noted that she would be in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, July the 17th. According to Donald Spoto, Marilyn attended a therapy session with Dr. Greenson on the 18th of July, and kept an appointment with her internist, Dr. Hyman Engelberg. She departed for Reno, Nevada, by airplane on July the 20th. 

The following day, John Huston filmed the first scene of The Misfits in Nevada. Regardless of the actual date Marilyn left New York City, she obviously did not participate in the events and shenanigans as asserted by C. David Heymann. Marilyn was not in Los Angeles during the week of July the 10th and she was not with John Kennedy during the Democratic National Convention in 1960. According to Gary Vitacco-Robles, Marilyn was en-route to Los Angeles on July the 15th; and therefore, she could not have attended John Kennedy’s acceptance speech at the Los Angeles Coliseum nor met him backstage on July the 15th. The lack of credible evidence to support a love affair between actress and attorney general should come as no surprise: Norman Mailer confessed in 1973 that he fundamentally fabricated that romantic link between Marilyn and Robert Kennedy. Besides, Marilyn invariably spoke highly of John Kennedy and his brother. Simply put, it is more than doubtful that she would ever have participated in such a fabled press conference. Neither John Fitzgerald nor Robert Francis Kennedy were involved in Marilyn’s death. Robert Francis did not visit Marilyn along with Peter Lawford on August the 4th in Los Angeles.  

Additionally, Pat Newcomb, Peter Lawford, Eunice Murray and Dr. Greenson did not induce Marilyn to commit suicide. Doing that would not have been possible, frankly, once we consider Marilyn’s willfulness. Anthony Summers admitted that Peter Lawford refuted the tales regarding John Kennedy’s affair with Marilyn. The ill and aging English actor termed the allegations thereof nothing but balls; and yet, since Lawford’s repudiation contradicted Summers’ entrenched belief, Summers asserted that the facts suggested otherwise. I am not exactly sure which facts Summers meant. Summers relied on quotations from various witnesses, Deborah Gould, for instance, who was married to Lawford in 1976; but as husband and wife, Peter and Deborah only cohabited for two months. Patricia Seaton informed David Johnston, a vocal critic of Heymann’s frequent use of fabricated and deceased sources, that Lawford could not have been interviewed by Heymann as the author had alleged. According to Patricia, Peter was close to death and hardly able to make coherent statements, much less conduct a lengthy interview. Did Heymann interview the dying actor? More than likely, I here assert, never. According to Patricia Seaton, Heymann invented all the quotations he attributed to her husband; and a considerable amount of what Heymann quoted, what he alleged came directed from Lawford, found its way onto the pages of Marilyn pathographies written thereafter; but the quotation most often mentioned in the same breath as the name Peter Lawford became the title of a BBC television documentary, Say Goodbye to the President, broadcast in October of 1985. 

Marilyn Monroe was not a fan of Peter Lawford. Their unique history suggests that Lawford fell romantically for Marilyn at the beginning of her movie career and he pursued her while they were both a part of the local surfing community; but she was simply disinterested. She apparently referred to him as a beach wolf more than once. LAPD interviewed Peter Lawford on 16th October 1974 at 5:00 PM. During that interview, Lawford asserted that Marilyn's last words had been: 'Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to Jack and say goodbye to yourself, because you’re a nice guy.' The preceding quotation is not exactly the same as the one reported by Summers and other conspiracists. Moreover, during his LAPD interview, Mr. Lawford also stated that most of what has been written by various authors, such as Robert Slatzer, Anthony Scaduto, Norman Mailer and others regarding the last days in the life of Marilyn Monroe were ‘pure fantasy’. Odd. No conspiracist of which I am aware has ever mentioned or quoted Lawford’s interview with the LAPD. A few conspiracists have alleged that Ralph Greenson and his associates wanted to gain control of Marilyn’s estate and the millions of dollars it would generate after her death; and so they murdered her. Such an orthodoxy, however, has a central flaw: how could those persons have known prior to Marilyn’s death that her estate would generate any income for any entity other than 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation or the photographer, Milton H. Greene? In fact, they could not have known that Marilyn would become, in death, the icon and symbol that she became. —"Murder Orthodoxies: A Non-Conspiracist’s View of Marilyn Monroe’s Death" (2018) by Donald R. McGovern