Hollywood's Glitz, Triumphs & Tragedies

Lucille Ball fared well in her show Lucy goes to a Hollywood Premiere (February 7, 1966). The script was weak but enlivened by the guest appearances of such big name stars as Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, and Vince Edwards, with whom she had co-starred in the past. Later, Lucille made two TV appearances, each with Dean Martin. The first, on February 10, was on The Dean Martin Show, with other guests who included Kate Smith, Dan Rowan and Martin. Dean Martin had long been one of Lucille’s admirers. Martin always had the same greeting for her, “Hi ya, Redhead!” Dean had once joked with her over lunch, “In Hollywood, if a guy’s wife looks like a new woman, she probably is.” Allegedly, June Allyson asserted that one night, she wanted to talk with Dino after they’d been messing around, but Martin curtly told her, “Wanna talk? Call your stuffy husband.” Dinah Shore had warned Lucille and June, “Dean Martin is a bastard. At night, it’s wine, roses, and champagne. But in the morning, it’s a pat on the ass with the promise, ‘See you around, gal.’”

During one of their skits on the Dean Martin Show, Martin and Kate Smith delivered a duet of songs from the early days of 20th Century vaudeville. As a chorus girl in the background, Lucy had acted her way through a pantomime of their lyrics. As “repayment” for agreeing to star on his show, Martin returned the favor by appearing in an episode of her show in Lucy Meets Dean Martin (February 14). There’s a zany aspect to its plot, as always. Lucy wants him to take her out on a date, but he’s too busy. He tells her that he’s going to fix her up instead with his stunt double, Eddie Feldman. But at the last minute, Eddie is not free, so Martin goes instead. Without knowing it, Lucy dates the real Dean Martin, thinking the man she’s with is merely a stand-in. According to its scriptwriter Bob O’Brien, “I didn’t think it was any good.” On Sunday afternoons, Desi Arnaz often retreated to his kitchen, where he turned out Cuban specialties introduced to him in Santiago, Cuba, when he was a boy. “I challenge anyone to make a better black bean and rice casserole than ‘yours truly.’” One night at a party in Palm Springs, he told Dean Martin, “I hear Don Juan seduced 1,003 gals. I never bothered to count my seductions. My highlights besides Lucy were Betty Grable, Lana Turner, and Ginger Rogers.” 

“How about you?” “Oh, it’s hard to say,” Martin answered. “Marilyn, certainly, but June Allyson ranks at the top of my list. That gal was a real challenge for me. Lana, too, was a treat for me. But so was Rita Hayworth. And Judith Campbell Exner. She was sleeping with both Jack Kennedy and with Sam Giancana, maybe passing messages between them. What the tabloids never knew was that I was also bedding her. She assured me that my dick was bigger than JFK's and Giancana’s.” Eventually, Martin went mute about June Allyson, probably intimidated by her very jealous and proprietary husband Dick Powell's scolding. Hedda Hopper had advised Powell to broke the nose (job) of Dino, but it's likely Powell instead used his sharp tongue to demolish Martin's ego. Mel Tormé appeared as a regular on CBS’s The Judy Garland Show (1963-64). In the aftermath of many wrenching arguments and disputes, Garland fired him. In episode 87 of The Lucy Show, Lucille is working for the president of a record company. Tormé, her neighbor, is an aspirant songwriter. They went over so well together that she would invite him back later on. 

For the two episodes that followed, Joan Blondell, who had desperately wanted to permanently replace Vivian Vance, was hired. The first, released on October 11, was entitled Lucy and Joan. In it, Lucy tries to fix her up with studly Keith Andes, a man who had sustained a friendship with her since they’d co-starred together on Broadway in Wildcat. In The Lucy Show’s next episode, Lucy and the Stunt Man (telecast October 18), Blondell returned to the series. In this episode, Blondell has a boyfriend who is a stuntman. Lucy replaces the injured man and saves the day by performing (with disastrous but occasionally comic results) his dangerous stunts. All did not end happily for the two female leads. At the end of Blondell’s big scene, Lucy confronted her. “So you think you know how to do comedy?” she asked. “You didn’t make one of your lines the least bit funny.” “That’s because your writers only fed me straight lines to deliver to you,” Blondell protested. At this point, Lucille mockingly mimed the act of pulling the “flush” chain of an old-fashioned toilet and imitated the sound of flushing. “Why are you doing that?” Blondell asked. “Because you stink and I’m flushing it.” “Fuck you, Lucille Ball!” Blondell shouted at her before storming off the set, never to return. Later, members of that day’s live audience spoke to the press, relaying what had happened: “We were stunned,” said a fan from San Diego. Joan Blondell learned that Vance’s slot might be still available, and although she promoted herself, she was rejected. “Blondell is a fine actress, and I’ve worked in the past with her and would again in our future. But there is just no chemistry between us,” Lucille said.

Despite his own marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor, the hotel mogul Conrad Hilton, warned his stubborn son Nicky Hilton that he was “falling in love with a photograph” when he started dating Elizabeth Taylor. But Nicky married her anyway. Taylor later told her friend June Allyson that “it was well worth the wait.” Sinatra had become the leader of the Rat Pack band. It would be easier to draw up a list of actresses he didn’t seduce. Included among the more famous of the women he conquered were Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Lana Turner, Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood, Lauren Bacall, Shirley McLaine, Judy Garland and possibly Nancy Reagan. “When Sinatra dies, they’re giving his zipper to the Smithsonian,” claimed Martin. After hawking his talents at several different studios, Sinatra finally signed a contract with RKO, and was immediately cast in the film version of Higher and Higher (1943). It had originated as a Broadway musical in the spring of 1940, starring June Allyson. For $15,000, RKO had purchased the rights to this film specifically as a vehicle starring Frank Sinatra, featuring him singing four songs by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson. However, because of pre-existing contracts with Michèle Morgan and Jack Haley that gave these performers the star spots, Frank received third billing. For some reason Variety magazine's review was cruel: “At least Frank Sinatra gets in no one’s way.”

Peter Lawford, a self-loathing heel supposedly said to Sinatra's valet George Jacobs: “Frank and I ended up seducing some of the same women, like Marilyn Monroe, Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Maxwell, Dorothy Dandridge, and June Allyson.” Jacobs didn't put much stock on Lawford's drunken confessions. According to James Spada, some of Lawfords’s female conquests might have included June Allyson, Janet Leigh, Lucille Ball, Anne Baxter, Judy Holliday, Judy Garland, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Lee Remick, Elizabeth Taylor, and even Nancy Davis Reagan. On Rita Hayworth, Lawford went on another limb: “She was the worst lay in the world. She was always drunk.” It seems that didn't stopped Dean Martin of bragging of his own pretense fling with Hayworth. Certainly both Lawford and Martin were often inveterate liars. After Frank Sinatra’s breakup with Ava Gardner, Lawford asked her out on a “date” in 1954. It seemed relatively harmless, and apparently did not lead to a renewal of their sexual trysts of the 1940s. But that is not how Sinatra viewed it. Peter recalled that he was in bed alone when a call came in from Frank who did not identify himself. “Listen, creep, and listen good. You wanna keep your nuts intact? Stay away from Ava. I’m warning you only this one time. Got that, faggot?” 

By the time Dean had actually passed his prime, his drinking-for-show had evolved into drinking-for-real. He was in pain, having developed ulcers and several liver problems. He’d also become addicted to Percodan, which he had originally taken as a pain-killer for alcohol-induced headache. “I like Judy a lot, and, except for me, she’s the most popular singer in America,” Sinatra told Ava Gardner. “I called it off with Judy because hysterical women are not my cup of tea.” One night, back in Hollywood, Judy called Joan Blondell at around 10pm. She contacted Joan only when something major was going on in her life. Judy begged her to come over for dinner, and after listening to her protests, Joan finally gave in. When she arrived at Judy’s home, she found an elegantly set table, still under the glow of candlelight. Judy confided in her, “Frank was due here for supper. He stood me up.” An hour later she disappeared into her bathroom and emerged looking drugged. Whatever she’d taken seemed to have loosened her tongue. “I’m in love with Frank. He’s going to be my next husband.” “But he stood you up tonight,” Joan said, trying to bring reality into the conversation. Judy insisted that Joan go into Liza’s room where the little girl was sleeping. Later Judy collapsed on the floor of her living room, and Joan covered her with a fur and quietly left the house. 

It would be later June Allyson who became Judy's main confidante after Blondell's rushed flight. On MGM’s set of Annie Get Your Gun, Judy often arrived drugged after a night of heavy boozing. It was a western, and she had a phobia about guns and horses. After spending a million dollars (in 1949 money), there were only six minutes of usable footage. Judy’s contract was suspended as of May 10, 1949. Judy placed an urgent call to Frank Sinatra, although his career also seemed in a hopeless slump. This time, he took her call, hoping to cheer her up. He didn’t want to marry her, but he sure as hell didn’t want her to despair, either. “We’ll come back,” he told her. “We’ll show the bastards. One day in the near future we’ll come back bigger than before,” before finally claiming, “Let’s just be friends.” In spite of their occasional rifts, Frank was always there for Judy when she faced her latest crisis. During her stay in a Boston hospital, he did more than send flowers every day. He even flew in a plane load of friends from Hollywood to cheer her up. Frank Sinatra was always protective of Judy, the way he had been with Marilyn Monroe. He spoke frequently about Judy to his fourth and final wife, Barbara Marx. One night, he introduced Judy to Barbara. “She was so enormous and puffy-faced,” Barbara recalled. “It was sad to see her like that.” Frank was such a loyal friend that he opted to be with Judy the night Liza Minnelli was born. “I ordered pizzas for the waiting group of Judy loyalists,” he said. “When I first heard cries from Lisa’s throat, I knew a star had been born.”

Because of film offers on the horizon from both RKO and MGM, Sinatra had moved to California with his family in the spring of 1944. Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra starred with Esther Williams in Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), a Technicolor period piece set in 1908. Betty Garrett returned to the screen to work with Frank in this ode to the nostalgic fun of baseball. Esther was a last-minute choice. Originally, the role had been intended for Judy Garland, who had become undependable because of her drug habits. The part then went to June Allyson, who had became pregnant from Dick Powell. The film grossed four million dollars, which defined it as a hit in those days. Frank Sinatra also seemed to have known June Allyson, in what capacity it's kind of a mystery. When Peter Lawford allegedly asked Sinatra if he’d ever had a fling with her, Frank said, “I’m not dodging the question. I truly don’t remember.” Although for some folks Frank was falling in line with Dean Martin's sudden silence, it's much more probable that Sinatra was just teasing and mocking Lawford. Indeed, June Allyson never mentioned Sinatra in a romantic context, and she never mentioned Martin, for whatever reason. As a young man, Freddy Frank worked as an extra, mainly on every picture Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made. Costello seemed intrigued with Freddy’s endowment. Costello spread the word that it was “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” using the same claim used by Chaplin about his own endowment. In private, Costello revealed the names of some of Freddy’s conquests. The honor list would have shocked the Hollywood censors: Lucille Ball, Lana Turner, Tallulah Bankhead, Lynn Bari, Wendy Barrie, Constance Bennett, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Betty Grable, Norma Shearer, Ann Sheridan and maybe June Allyson!

Virginia Gregg joined up with 5 other young female musicians. They called themselves The Singing Strings and they were fortunate to be hired as staff at CBS-Radio and after a year, as staff at Mutual Broadcasting. Though she loved music she had dreamed of being an actress. In 1938 Virginia played twenty shows a week at the studio and had to rehearse for all of them, but she still managed to find enough time to play a few small parts and one lead at the Pasadena Playhouse. Virginia had listened to enough rehearsals to know the script and she asked if she could read it. The director didn't like the idea, but there wasn't anything else for him to do, so he gave her the script. Virginia played the part on the air, taking her cues from a very nervous director. It wasn't until after the broadcast that she had time to tell him about her acting experience. Virginia credits Calling All Cars as being the first radio show she appeared in regularly. She most likely joined it in the late 1930s. Around 1941 other radio worked followed. Fortunately she had friends who were already in the radio business and they helped her get started in shows like the prestigious Lux Radio Theater.  

Dick Powell and Virgina Gregg during the ABC run of Richard Diamond from KECA Studio X in Hollywood. She was "Helen Asher" to Dick Powell's Richard Diamond, Private Detective on NBC-Radio from 1949 to 1952, then on CBS-Radio for the 1952-53 season. "Helen" was the Park Avenue girlfriend who was always trying to lure Diamond up to her gorgeous digs, where, if he ever did have time to get there he would head for her baby and burst into song! Virginia also guest-starred on The Adventures of Philip Marlowe (CBS-Radio 1948-51) starring Gerald Mohr (Dick Powell was actually radio's first "Marlowe") for which Mohr, in 1950, was named Best Male Actor on Radio by Radio and Television Life Magazine. Virginia was also "Betty Lewis" on the radio series Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, under production of her husband Jaime Del Valle. Virginia witnessed how steeply Powell's marriage to Blondell crumbled. She hinted that Blondell left Powell for Mike Todd in 1943. When Lux Radio Theater was purchased in 1954 by philanthropist Huntington Hartford, it was briefly called the Huntington Hartford Theater and then the Doolittle Theater. 

Gracie Allen played a piano concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Allen hired a composer to write the "Concerto for Index Finger," a joke piece in which the orchestra would play madly, only to pause while Allen played a one-finger scale with a final incorrect note. The orchestra would then play a musical piece that developed around the wrong note. On her final solo, Allen would finally hit the right note, causing the entire orchestra to applaud. The actual index-finger playing was performed offstage by a professional pianist. The concerto was featured in the film Two Girls and a Sailor (1944) starring June Allyson. Allen found Allyson refreshing, and like Virginia Gregg, she couldn't understand the vitriol that Joan Blondell spread behind her back. Jane Wilkie hints that June had an ease to form female friendships that eluded Blondell. June identified easily with other female stars in Hollywood: Marie McDonald, Ginger Rogers, Rosemary Lane, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Gloria DeHaven, Claudette Colbert, Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh, Lana Turner, Dinah Shore, Doris Day, Virginia Mayo, etc. 

Patricia Dorothy Douglas (1917–2003) was a dancer and movie extra. Douglas was the subject of the documentary Girl 27 (2007) documenting her sexual assault in 1937 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer salesman David Ross. Douglas was one of the first people to come forward after experiencing sexual assault in the film industry, leading to a massive scandal. Douglas retired from the industry after the scandal, but appeared on camera 65 years after being contacted by biographer David Stenn, who learned about her while uncovering the story of the 1937 assault and the MGM cover-up. Speaking out against her rapist was reevaluated with the emergence of the Me Too movement. Actresses such as Jessica Chastain and Rose McGowan praised the documentary and the telling of Douglas's story. “You’re trusting with the studios. You’re not expecting anything except to work in a movie. That’s what you’re there for,” explained Patricia Douglas, who remembered that one of the few sympathetic stars was Dick Powell (at the height of his fame after starring in Gold Diggers of 1937). Powell offered her a compassionate ear and a lunch serving her a milkshake to console her. Yet Powell was tied up because he belonged to another studio Warner Bros. MGM treated Patricia Douglas like trash, but she outlived all her abusers. Louis B. Mayer died from leukemia in the 1950s. Burton Fitts died by suicide in the 1970s. And David Ross died from rectal cancer in the 1960s. Douglas, meanwhile, became a great-grandmother until 2003 when she died at the age of 86.

As his marriage to Jane Wyman deteriorated, Ronald Reagan spent more time socializing with MGM star George Murphy, featured with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly in For Me and My Gal (1942). Dick Powell also became part of that circle. Both he and Murphy were staunch Republicans who greatly influenced Reagan’s new political direction. Although firmly entrenched as the Democratic President of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan would eventually switch his allegiance from the Democrats to the Republicans. Preoccupied with her own career, Jane Wyman resented Reagan’s attempts to enlight her on every matter. One evening while Reagan was debating with Dick Powell about politics, Wyman leaned over to Powell’s wife, June Allyson, and told her, “Don’t ask Ronnie what time it is because he will tell you how a watch is made.” George Murphy entered politics before Reagan, running successfully for the seat of a California senator. He later urged Reagan to enter politics by running for the governor of California. —Sources: "Frank Sinatra: The Boudoir Singer" (2011) and "Hollywood Remembered: Glamour, Glitz, Triumph & Tragedy: All the Gossip from the Glory Days of Hollywood" (2024) by Blood Moon Productions

Debunking myths about Marilyn's last days

Jim DiEugenio: The whole Marilyn Monroe case became a sensationalistic industry in the mid seventies. And there was probably no person more responsible for that than Robert Slatzer. He literally made up this story about him being married to Marilyn, which was complete and utter BS. In fact he promised to pay a friend of his if he would lie for him about it to Anthony Summers. Well, the guy lied, Summers bought it, but Slatzer welched on the deal and did not pay him. So the guy then told the truth: that Slatzer made up a cock and bull story in order to sell his book. In  his volume, Murder Orthodoxies, Donald McGovern spent 20 pages utterly dismantling that piece of rubbish story. 

And I have to add that as bad as Norman Mailer's book was, Slatzer's was even worse. His book really broke the dam, and once it was out there, and went through a mass market paperback sale, all bets were off. Anything was now allowed. And I mean anything. Even space aliens. And Bobby telling Marilyn about how he was involved in Murder Inc. Which he was not. In fact, its ridiculous. But Slatzer printed that garbage. Thus the gates flew open. It was open season now on MM. She could be turned into anything you needed her to be: Mafia moll, UFOlogist, secret KGB spy, foreign policy expert for JFK.  I wish I was kidding but I'm not. Slatzer ended up selling two books and two documentaries out of his phony claims. Which turned out to be lucrative for him. Very bad for everyone else. Especially for the memory of Marilyn Monroe.  

Authors like McGovern and Vitacco-Robles have spent years and thousands of hours working on both MM's life and her passing. And they have done original research. That is they have interviewed many, many people. People likely do not know this, but the DA's office conducted a year long inquiry into these matters, including the charges made by people like Slatzer and Jeanne Carmen. Very similar to what Rothmiller comes up with more recently. DA Ronald Carrol wrote a 641 page report which refuted them specifically and in detail.  The MM nuts only mention a 27 page report. But that was  only the summary. Gary VItacco Robles petitioned the office for the full report. And he uses it in his book Icon. According to Mike Rothmiller, Bobby was in Brentwood not once, but twice that day! How, with the contravening evidence? Which as Don notes, Rothmiller says RFK was desperate for the diary, which did not exist. Her actual journals--which included poems--were discovered later in the Strasberg archives. As per the first detective on the scene, is Mike for real? Don McGovern proved that Clemmons was not just a fabricator but he was indicted on libel charges and forced to leave LAPD. Don proved that everything Clemmons said about the scene was false. The lie about the washer dryer, thus making Murray into some kind of unwitting accomplice was really kind of sick. 

As was the lie about there being no glass in MM's bedroom and it being neat. Pat Newcomb was a former student of Pierre Salinger. She was heartbroken after MM's death since she left the house that day over an argument about whether or not MM should pose nude in Playboy. She was against it. She was so broken up after her death that she left her job as a PR person and Salinger got her a position. Newcomb was not any kind of informant since there was nothing to inform about while she was there. Don McGovern describes how MM was positioned on the bed by the first group of cops to arrive after Clemmons left. And its not how Thompson describes it. Doug Thompson is an amateur. As for Rothmiller, he has joined up in the MM mythology/scatology industry. He tells us utterly nothing about JFK, RFK or MM. What he does is create false smears of them, which people who do not know anything about the case think are credible. When, in fact, that is the last thing they are. Its part and parcel of something I once called the posthumous assassination syndrome. Don McGovern demolished the Rothmiller story about MM and JFK having dinner during the second night of the 1960 Democratic Convention, when in fact she was not even in California! Rothmiller used Fred Otash? That seals it.  Otash was about as bad and amoral as they come. He made Spindel look like a decent guy. Wait until you see what I have on him in my upcoming article  "Joyce Carol Oates, Brad Pitt and the Road to Blonde."

And that whole thing about a press conference is even worse. Gary VItacco Robles interviewed the guy from her PR company and he said, nope. Not one word about it. This is what is called doing research for cross checking purposes. As per the Unheard Tapes, consider the way she was asked the question: "But, on the show, Summers did not ask Eunice if Robert Kennedy visited on August 4th: the term the author used was “that day,” along with “that afternoon.” We know that Robert Kennedy visited Marilyn, accompanied by Pat and Peter Lawford, on the 27th of June in 1962. Eunice Murray recounted the attorney general’s brief visit on that Wednesday for biographer Donald Spoto. The Lawfords arrived at Fifth Helena that afternoon to collect Marilyn, and Robert Kennedy was with them: Marilyn wanted them to see her new home. After a brief tour of Marilyn’s humble hacienda, the group proceeded to the Lawford’s beachside mansion for a dinner party. That June visit, residential tour and dinner party was the fourth and final meeting of Bobby and Marilyn.

There were no such questions in any literary form about MM's death until 1964. This was when inveterate Kennedy hater and professional Red hunter Frank Capell issued his pamphlet on the subject. Which no one today takes seriously since it is so obviously a political hit piece on RFK. Secondly, if say Allen Dulles or Curtis LeMay, had wanted to know where RFK was that weekend, they would have consulted with Hoover and Hoover's report said that he was in GIlroy with the Bates family.  That report included time of arrival and departure. So like with many things, what on earth  is Mike talking about?  The MM fables did not begin in earnest in any way until Mailer's book, several years later.  And then Mailer admitted on TV that he threw RFK in for one reason: he needed the money.

MM did not have "affairs" with either JFK or RFK. You can only adduce that if you rely on more jokester sources like the discredited David Heymann or Jeanne Carmen, both proven frauds. Don McGovern examined every major tenet of the Rothmiller book. It is not my opinion that RFK had nothing to do with MM's death.  It is an established fact that he was in Gilroy about 350 miles away at the time. And there is a plethora of evidence, including a series of photographs in time sequence, that demonstrate this beyond doubt. For many years on end, actually decades, cheapjack writers like Robert Slatzer and David Heymann simply manufactured a mythology that had no basis in fact in order to sell their pulpy books to an all too willing populace. What Don McGovern did was to carefully analyze the information in these books, compare them to each other, and compare them to the adduced record. The pills MM took were ingested, they were not injected or supplied by enema. And Don proves this scientifically. 

The mixture she took of Nembutal and Chloral Hydrate should have never been allowed by her doctors. There is no evidence that there was anything at all between RFK and MM. There is some evidence that there was a one shot encounter between JFK and MM, back in 1961. There was not any continuing affair. The work that has been done on this by skilled and professional writers uses the calendars that are demanded of the AG and POTUS, with the MM day books by Carl Rollyson and April Vevea. April Vevea has become a really good and valuable writer on the subject. And she has been one of the most proficient sources to effectively counter all the crapola that came from people like Slatzer and Mailer and Carmen. The difference being she does some careful and logical and fact based work. As per RFK and Gilroy, how much evidence do you want? Pictures, testimony, newspaper stories. As per Summers and Shaw, their books, for me, are like one step below people like Slatzer. Just take a look at how much Summers relies on Slatzer, Carmen and Smathers.  And I should also add Gary Wean. I actually sent away for Wean's book. And what Summers left out about this guy is the real story that you will hear soon.  Source: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com

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

Marilyn Monroe in "The Enchanters" (2023)

Jimmy Hoffa assigns Freddy Otash to get dirt on Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys, who are squeezing the Teamster head’s organized crime scene. Freddy starts his investigation. Then, Monroe is found dead. Bobby Kennedy, his brother John F. Kennedy’s attorney general at the time, wants to know what Freddy knows. So do LAPD Chief Bill Parker and his right hand and intelligence ace, a future chief by the name of Daryl Gates. Bobby the K doesn’t want evidence of his brother’s sexual promiscuity, especially among Hollywood starlets and hangers-on, to fall into the wrong hands. Parker wants to blackmail the attorney general into making him FBI chief. Then there’s the episode that kicks off the novel, in which Freddy and the Hat Squad, a real-life quartet of elite and dangerous LAPD detectives, are called in to solve the kidnapping of a B-movie actress named Gwen Perloff. They end up dropping one suspect off a freeway overpass. 

Freddy Otash: I blew off the floor and vacuumed the rugs. I filled half an evidence sheath with threads and unknown gack. I brush-dusted the touch-and-grab planes on the dresser and got useless partials, smudges, and smears. Monroe was a hoarder. My prior B and E’s taught me that. The dresser drawers deserved a toss. I might find all-new shit. It might be evidentially germane. The bedroom was hot, hot. I was dexedrined and jungle-juiced. This prowl-and-seek gig eroticized me. I penlight-flashed the bed and saw that white-blond hair on the white pillow. I opened the top drawer and viewed the contents. I inventoried nine pairs of nylon stockings and a red crocheted bikini. I photo-snapped said contents and counted off sixty seconds. I pulled the print and dropped it in my evidence kit. The room heat spiked. I broke a sweat. A strong wind rattled the windows. I reached under the bedsheets and touched Marilyn’s leg. It felt dead cold and hot-room warm all at once. Drawer #2 contained assorted slips and Chanel No. 5 sachets. Hot-room air merged with perfume residue. I counted six sachets and slips. The slips were all pale pastel. 

There’s a big sign out front. It denotes the “Loser of the Week.” Eddie Fisher begins his reign tonight. He’s the designated schmuck and all-star attraction. I’m bodyguarding Eddie. We’re perched in the greenroom. There’s a full bar and a deli-nosh spread. Note the goblets crammed with goofballs and bennies. Eddie said, “Nixon’s been Loser of the Week twice. Rock Hudson got the nod last month, but nobody knows why.” I lit a cigarette. “Sheriff’s Vice caught him blowing a quiff in the john at the Hamburger Hamlet. The nod’s to the cognoscenti. The Rock’s got a secret-life scenario going. He’s not a signature loser, like you and Nixon.” The Life pix were a worldwide sensation. 

The pictorial corkboard oozed Monroe. It featured the Polaroids from my 4/11 break-in. The dissolute bathroom and bedroom. The forty grand stashed in the lockbox. The jumbo-girl clothes. The coin stash. The lists of lovers and dope-dispensing physicians. The name-scrawled sheets of paper. Monroe’s nutty screed stuck inside Paul de River’s nutty book. The adjacent corkboard featured the week’s random notes. I unpinned them and typed them into bullet-point briefs. I started with Pat’s emphatic assertion: Jack and Marilyn coupled a half dozen times, from ’54 up to now. They were abbreviated assignations. Always conducted in neutral locations. Calvinist Bobby wouldn’t poke Marilyn with a long stick. Marilyn attended last week’s Lawford-house do. I feigned interest in the Jack/Marilyn rumors. Pat supplied the above tattle. I dissembled my way to Pat’s punch line: Marilyn and the K boys were now kaput. Pat said she encountered Marilyn at the Palisades Gelson’s. Marilyn spun a tale of recurrent break-ins at her new pad. The burglar moved around various objects and left her weirdo notes. 

The burglar besieged her with breather calls. Pat cited Marilyn’s “mystery intruder” on a prior tapped call. I’ve got Marilyn dialed. The “mystery intruder” was Monroe fantasia. I used Pat to get this information. The big reunion went down. I bullet-pointed the week’s legwork. That paper slip in Deedee Grenier’s wallet supplied a solid lead. She’d jotted pay-phone numbers for Barrington and Beverly Glen parks. I spot-surveilled the two locations, all week. Monroe failed to show. The phones never rang. Nobody called out on them. Fox kingpin Darryl Zanuck got tipped off. Some unknown woman called him. She finked Danforth and Stein and spilled one of their two girl-stash locations. Zanuck called his tight pal, Bill Parker. Chief Bill bootjacked the kidnap job. He dispatched Freddy and the Hats to a house off 6th and Dunsmuir. We grabbed Danforth and Stein. 

Gwen Perloff was stashed elsewhere. I held Danforth’s right arm. Max held his left arm. Red jammed his head down and force-fed him look-sees. Max went Where’s the girl? Red went Give it up or you fly. Harry, Eddie, and Pervdog Stein stood ten feet back from the drop. It was August-in-L.A. hot and humid. Max and Red sweated through their shirts and suit coats. Danforth wriggled and squirmed. He dug his feet in and thrashed. Dirt clods skittered off the cliff. The fucking drop loomed. I scoped Max and Red. They looked impatient. I clamped Danforth’s arm. He buckled against me. My hand went numb. My legs fluttered. Max and Red ran six-four and 240. Their legs fluttered. Red said, “You’re wearing us thin, Richie. We can’t keep this up all night. Tell us where the girl is, so we can walk away from here.” Danforth giggled and spit on Red’s shoes. He said, “I’m having fun.” I slid on my brass knucks and kidney-punched Richie. He stifled a screech and dug his feet in. I looked over the cliff. Cars zigged by—fast, with no letup. Max sighed. Red sighed. Max said, “Sink him, Freddy.” They dropped their hands. I shoved Danforth off the cliff. He treaded air for one split second, it came out garbled. I heard him hit a car roof. I heard brakes squeal. I heard wheels thump over him. Crisscrossed headlights lit him up. A mobile Caddy dragged him against a guardrail and sheared off his feet. We dumped Buzzy Stein with the DB guys at Highland Park station. Buzzy saw the drop show and finked a hostage pad in Encino. Gwen Perloff was stashed in a vacant bachelor crib off Woodman. The Fidel Castro dimwits hid her in a broom closet. Max called the lead Sheriff’s IO. He ran the command out of the West Hollywood substation. Six Sheriff ’s cars blew past us. The Ventura Freeway was all siren blare and hot lights. It vibed interagency grief. Bill Parker usurps a county job from Sheriff Pete Pitchess. 

Parker went rogue for Darryl F. Zanuck. Pitchess overplays the rescue of Gwen Perloff. The alley dead-ended at Saticoy Street. Déjà vu ditzed me. I knew I’d been here before. My brain wires fritzed. I couldn’t place the context. This summer was half booze-and-dope blur. It was San Fernando Valley hot. The torches leaked propane. The air reeked. The sky pressed down, explosive. The Hats plus Freddy O. We’re here to observe. We killed one guy and locked one guy up. LAPD came in early. The Sheriff ’s came in late. Let’s watch them save the girl. Crane shot. Motel Mike Bayless and Gwen Perloff walk out. Gwen’s unruffled and unmussed. It’s ninety-three degrees at 10:00 p.m. She’s been locked in a broom closet. There’s no sweat pools on her mint green shift. There’s no tape-gag residue. There’s no wrist-restraint chafe marks. She’s redoubtably composed.She’s an actress walking into a crowd. Some men whistle. Some hopped-up stews jump and wave. My biz phone rang. I grabbed it two rings in. A Brit-voiced man babbled at me. I made the voice. It was Peter Lawford. He was half-gassed and far-gone panicked. I heard “dinner party”/“no show”/“found the body.” I said, “Calm down and make sense.” Lawford wheezed. My phone line staticked up. I heard “late for dinner party”/“oh my God”/“Marilyn Monroe.” Gasps and garbles spelled it out. The line cleared. He went over/he saw the pill vials/there was no housekeeper extant.

"Freddy, she was cold. She was such a talent, the greatest female film star of her era..." Nembutal, Seconal, chloral hydrate. Instant dreamland. Lois twirled her ashtray. “The story’s inevitable. Jack and Marilyn. Bobby and Marilyn, when the wind drifts a certain way. People pick up glimmers or bits of stories, and they embellish like mad.” I feigned a yawn. Jack and Marilyn/Bobby and Marilyn. Nat and Lois talk. Pat confides in Bobby. It’s all extraneous yak-yak. “Let’s change the subject. You’ve got the stewardess-in-love flick, and you’re reading for this schlock guy at Fox, Maury Dexter. I heard he’s a pillhead in the Freddy O. mode. What else? Oh, yeah—he’s got a giant-rat job and a twist flick, and you’ll have to settle for scale.” Miss Lytess sipped champagne. “Marilyn overestimated her sway over people. She played her cards too quickly and desperately, in her efforts to impress and seduce them. If these people you posit were canny and properly reserved, and if she wanted to imitate their self-sufficiency and general hauteur, she would have set out to prove herself to them in most dangerous ways.” I squinted. The camera swung low. I saw legs and feet but no faces. I caught the hemline on the dress. I caught thin ankles and the black pumps Monroe wore as herself sixteen minutes back. She went somewhere. She changed clothes. Why did she do it? 

She switched identities in the middle of a roiling protest gig. She’s got the “dreamy eyes” Doc de River attributes to sex psychopaths. Schizo Marilyn. The ’48 pill vial I saw. The ’62 pill vial I saw. Marilyn crossed out “Norma Jean Baker” on the ’48 vial and wrote “Not my name anymore” beside it. Marilyn crossed out the “Marilyn Monroe” on the ’62 vial and wrote “Not my name anymore” beside it. Akin to the Weimar-era pix that Marilyn Monroe hoarded. The lights went up. Some Pali lettermen chanted, “Sex Creep! Sex Creep! Sex Creep!” Sid pointed Morty to the lectern. Morty ambled up. He said, “Here’s a preview of the next installment in my series. I’ve been in serious consultation with an eminent headshrinker here in the City of the Fallen Angels, and he told me the Creep is living through a ‘declension of fan crushes,’ which is to say that he crushed on the late Carole Landis, then went on to crush on someone like Jane Russell, then went on to the crush object of the era—the late Marilyn Monroe.” On to Marilyn. Her coded sessions file delivered. I got verbatim-transcribed Q and A here. The sessions had been tape-recorded and code-transcribed by de River himself. Marilyn consulted him from ’52 to mid-’54. De River coined the phrase “declension of fan crushes” at that time. It preceded her coupling with Timmy Berlin and her own attribution of the phrase. De River used Carole Landis as an example of a “neophyte crusher’s crush.” Marilyn said, “Oh, I knew Carole all right. There’s stories I could tell you.” De River excoriated Marilyn. 

He considered her to be shallow, vain, impetuous, peremptory, whimsical, usurious, and driven by infantile exhibitionism. The only way that she could successfully revise and shape an all-new persona would be for her to go anonymous and cultivate risk in the real world. And revel in the risk of exposure and punishment. Marilyn cited her “bit actress” friend Gwen. She had accomplished just that. Gwen was Marilyn’s age. They shared a room at Hollygrove. Gwen had taken on The Life. They played girl sleuth games at the Grove. Gwen said The Life meant going native. She set up burglary scores and scored seductress film roles. She comported with burglars, armed robbers, and flimflam men. She started stealing young. She underwent group therapy under his direction. De River was starting to bore Marilyn. 

De River fixated on the bold Gwen at the expense of the grasping “dim bulb” Marilyn. Marilyn talked up Gwen. She was her alter ego, doppelgänger, and amanuensis. Gwen carried the symbolic and metaphysical weight that Marilyn could not hoist to her own frail shoulders. Why mince words? De River packed a torch for Gwen and wrote off Marilyn as “stale goods.” She emitted a stale stench of desperate fear and put her own artistic success above all moral considerations. She could not inhabit any role other than the role of herself, at the risk of grave dissociation. My nerves decohered. I popped two yellow jackets to tamp them down and quash this schizzy limbo. I dialed in, dialed out, stepped back and reframed. The dope hit me. It cocooned me, warm and safe. It resituated the shadows and magnified the candlelight.” -The Enchanters (2023) by James Ellroy

Jim DiEugenio: Mike Rothmiller's book has been destroyed piece by piece by the best guy in the field, Don McGovern. Marilyn Monroe took her own life, either willfully or by accident. And Bobby Kennedy was never in Brentwood that day or night and that is provable. Mark Shaw is another of these gaseous blowhards who preaches this rubbish. Don [McGovern] and I will have a decimating review on his public talk in Allen, Texas soon. And I am prepping a long, intricate overview of this whole morass titled, "Joyce Carol Oates, Brad Pitt and the Road to Blonde." Rothmiller claimed to have heard Lawford's confession in 1982 yet made no mention of such a confession for four decades and produced exactly zero evidence that any such confession was actually made. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but Rothmiller has produced no evidence at all. Don McGovern has read something like 120 books on that case. Plus he went through 1000 pages of documents from the  archives at CSUN from the Capell/Slatzer collection. Plus he helped Gary VItacco Robles write his 1200 page bio on MM, Icon, which is probably the best one out there. The truth is, as Vitacco Robles writes, that Lawford did not leave his house or his guests. And the guests corroborate that. And he was always plagued by guilt about it. DA Ronald Carrol wrote a 641 page report which refuted them specifically and in detail. 

The MM conspiracy nuts only mention a 27 page report. But that was  only the summary. Gary VItacco Robles petitioned the office for the full report. And he uses it in his book Icon. Which is how we know that unlike Rothmiller states, neither LAPD nor FBI, or Spindel taped her house. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Mailer's biography of Marilyn Monroe: "Since Mailer did not have the time to thoroughly research the facts surrounding her death, his speculation led to the biography's controversy. The book's final chapter theorizes that Monroe was murdered by rogue agents of the FBI and CIA who resented her supposed affair with Robert F. Kennedy. Mailer later admitted that he embellished the book with speculations about Monroe's sex life and death that he did not himself believe to ensure its commercial success." Source: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com

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