Watching Marilyn

by Jack Chapman

  Statement by Theodore J. Curphey, M.D.

  Chief Medical Examiner - Coroner

  County of Los Angeles

  Miss Monroe had suffered from psychiatric disturbance for a long time. She experienced severe fears and frequent depressions. Mood changes were abrupt and unpredictable. Among symptoms of disorganization, sleep disturbance was prominent, for which she had been taking sedative drugs for many years.

  On the basis of all the information obtained it is our opinion that the case is a probable suicide.

  I ascribe the death to acute barbiturate poisoning due to ingestion of overdose.

  I tried waving the Fox Press Pass that Jack Scalligan had given me but only got through the line of cops when Lane Sickert gave the nod. Lane too busy to talk to me just then. He had a lot of responsibilities in charge of security at Marilyn Monroe's funeral.

  There were big crowds outside Westwood Memorial Park but well-behaved and patient, not expecting too much other than the temporary enormity of their being in the vicinity. Some had brought food with them, some had cameras, some held up flower wreathes they didn't know what to do with. They were switching their attention between the empty section of Glendon Avenue the cops had cordoned off and the movie newsreel crews who'd set themselves up on scaffolding with their Mickey Mouse-ear cameras.

  Inside the rope and through the gate I walked across the perfect grass to where the privileged were standing about. They had mostly gravitated to the shade of the trees that graced the lawns, it was that class of place. They talked among themselves like guests too early at a garden party before the drinks were served.

  I spotted Sol Marx and he split off to come and meet me. It wasn't all that big a gathering here inside, nowhere near enough to cover the green splendor of the grass. Those assembled were nearly all male, an occasional woman of the older type clinging to a man to prove she was somebody's wife. The men all in dark suits apart from the uniformed Pinkertons and a couple of studio photographers working in white shirt-sleeves.

  "When do the stars get here?" I asked Sol like I was any other tourist.

  Sol gestured across the lawn at Joe DiMaggio, dour as ever, talking to some badly-dressed, forty-ish woman looking out of place. "It's Joe's made all the arrangements for some reason, sent out the invitations. No movie stars, even the ones who knew her. No press in here either if he has his way, better keep low, Frank. All the top executives at Fox found more pressing appointments. I hear they've abandoned hope of any suit against her estate for losses on Something's Got to Give."

  "Dean Martin told me the studio had the film insured. Can they collect if the verdict's suicide, Sol?"

  "That's my guess, else they'd have told you to frame someone so they could claim on a murder."

  "You think it was really suicide?"

  "She had a history of overdosing on barbiturates, only the previous occasions she made sure someone found her in time."

  No stars on the lawn. No Kennedys. Scattered men in dark glasses wearing black suits might have been from Washington but it was a bright day and a sombre occasion, one in particular could have been the man on the stairs outside my office. "Not many women either," I remarked to Sol, I looked around, confirmed again none were the glamorous, movie type, deduced the one next to DiMaggio couldn’t be his wife but the middle-aged woman with Dr Ralph Greenson was certainly his. Maybe she allowed his shaggy moustache in the hope he looked like Einstein. "You manage to persuade Sherri to fly back?"

  "She didn't want to. But you know there's not a damn thing she can do up there. Also she’s so mad with Tommy Guppy if she’s left alone in the same hospital she’ll finish the job by beating him to death with a bedpan. So I told her best thing she can do for TJ, if she wants him home the way she does, is come back and get things ready, find an agency where she can fix up some nursing care. Plus I need to be here anyway to sort out a contract. Sooner I start work I told her, sooner we make sure we've got enough to cover the medical expenses."

  "Wish I could help."

  "Appreciate it, Frank, but I'm really okay for the money. Don't tell Sherri too much but I got work on a film of Lolita that Kubrick's moving into production."

  "‘My name is Lolita’. That was a line from one of Marilyn’s songs."

  "No," Sol shook his head.

  "Lead-in to My Heart Belongs to Daddy, Marilyn sang it in Let’s Make Love. ‘My name is... Lolita! And I’m not supposed to play... with boys!’ "

  "Good advice, Frank. But this is a book by Nabokov, not Cole Porter."

  "She read Nabokov."

  "It ain't boys were the problem."

  "I know. Kubrick'll never film it. Won't be allowed."

  "Excepting this Nabokov got thrown out by the Soviets and therefore is apple-pie."

  "Lot of people think those Reds had a point."

  "Make sex a political issue and you’ve got a decent premise to wallow in filth. Anyway, whatever reason, Lolita’s the fastest selling book after Gone With The Wind, and that's all the studios care about. But listen, there's this one thing you could do for me."

  "If it’s underage girls you'll be better asking someone from the swamps."

  "Seriously. Maybe you could bring TJ back? The doctors say he's gonna be okay enough to travel in a week or so. It would really help. Sherri wants him out of hospital and back home. There's no way he can make the journey without someone to look after him. I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't like the stress if Sherri and Guppy are up there alone together. Best thing is she avoids the situation. And you're her brother and she'd trust you to look after TJ."

 

  "Yeah. I'll get TJ back. What's family's for?"

  "I'd really appreciate it, Frank. And what I said before, you know? Before we knew what Guppy had done with TJ and I wanted you to track him down? What I said about disclosure of certain information? You know that was the fear talking. Let's just forget it."

  It was peaceful among the lawns, the August sky a bright, cloudless blue and the trees casting pleasant shade. Off in the distance sprinklers kept the grass green. The crowded masses of humanity were held outside the walls, it was like heaven ought to be except for the incongruity of the graves. The sort of place made people walk softly and talk in hushed voices and when they all stopped whispering in a wave that rolled from the gate it was like the silence got louder.

  Everyone turned in the same direction as Marilyn glided up in a brand-new Cadillac Eurek hearse. It drove at walking pace flanked by six uniformed Pinkerton guards.

  Lane Sickert began moving from group to group shepherding everyone except the photographers towards the Westwood Chapel of Rest. He reached Sol and me last.

  "This all you're expecting, Lane?" I waved at their backs.

  "Who you want?"

  "Maybe Sinatra, Lawford, Dean Martin. People she knew."

  "Joe didn't want any celebrities distracting from the solemnity."

  "Who was Joe just talking to?" Sol asked.

  "According to the guest list that must be her sister Bernice. Only the one family member here, even fewer friends."

  This was Bernice Miracle, the older sister Marilyn had said she'd only discovered when she was twelve. "No Arthur Miller?" I prompted.

  "I doubt he was asked. Or he'd want to come."

  "He lasted longer than any of her others."

  "He gave her a certain gravitas she wanted that was lacking elsewhere in her life."

  "What'd she give him, Lane?"

  We were almost in the Chapel by this time. Sickert paused. "You know Willie Loman?"

  "I don't know most people here."

  "He’s not here either. You heard of Death of a Salesman?"

  "Maybe."

  "The Loman character's haunted by the past, he’s lost, confused, endlessly chasing popularity and success but he finds they’re empty, in the end he kills himself. So Miller's always been a big nam
e in Hollywood, he could take his pick of well-stacked women. It was the ghost of Willie Loman attracted him to Marilyn Monroe."

  "You buy this story Marilyn was a suicide?"

  "As stories go it’s a real bargain."

  "I thought Miller was supposed to write about the common man."

  "Common man up against society's false morality."

  "Marilyn may not have been an ordinary person," Sol put in. "But there was always the suspicion deep down inside she had a lot of potential to become ordinary."

  I shrugged. "Well she lied about being an orphan, Sol. Her mother was still alive first time she married. That name you couldn’t remember, it was Jim Dougherty."

  "It was all lies, Frank," Lane Sickert said. "The orphan thing was an image the studio promoted in her early days."

  "Sounds like denial on all manner of levels. You got to wonder what her psycho-analyst made of it."

  "If Dr. Greenson had a mother like Gladys Baker he'd lie about her too."

  The Westwood funeral chapel was recently built and modern-furnished. Someone was playing Over The Rainbow on the organ as we filed past the open bronze casket.

  Marilyn didn't look asleep, her colour was wrong. Her skin was too tight on her face and too loose on her hands. She was wearing a green dress. Sol Marx was in front of me, Lane Sickert following. We were a long way down the line because Lane had kept hanging back, he preferred people in front of him where he could watch them.

  Sol stopped when it was his turn "That's a Pucci original from Italy they've put her in," he said, "but black would suit her better with that platinum wig."

  "Fuck's sake," Lane Sickert hissed at him and pushed him back into motion to keep the queue shuffling along.

  Joe Di Maggio stayed standing next to her as long as he could. At the end he kissed the corpse before they closed the coffin.

  Outside Sol and I drifted into the spread-out group waiting on the lawn while Sickert went off to make double sure the Pinkertons knew what they were about on the short procession to the crypt.

  "Stressed out," Sol said at Sickert's receding back.

  "His job to make this a perfect day. He doesn't want your constructive criticism might be overheard by the Press."

  "You know the autopsy left her so flat the embalmers had to stuff cotton wool behind her falsies?"

  "Where in Christ's name you hear these things?"

  "Fox insisted on their own hairdresser and make-up man."

  "You can be cruel, Sol."

  "Just a realist, Frank. You could do with facing some reality yourself."

  "What else do I ever do?"

  "You’re not getting younger. Life’s short. Day like this should make you think. You don’t have a social life. Try and enjoy what you got left. Live it to the full."

  "I’ll bear that in mind."

  "You need a woman in your life, Frank. Someone to care about. Someone who’ll reciprocate. It’s been too long for you. First chance I’m gonna fix you up with a nice girl."

  "You intending to make my sister an honest woman?"

  "Frank, you know she’s still married to that bastard partner of yours," Sol sounded offended.

  "Not for long."

  "We ought to hit the town together, you, me and Sherri. Soon as things settle down. It would help take her mind away from worrying about TJ and things she can't control. You got some girl you want to bring along?"

  "No."

  "Leave it to me."

  I examined Sol. For a Hollywood hairdresser he looked respectable but there were parts of the city I’d have been concerned to stand next to him. "I’ve got a lot keeping me busy just now, Sol. Maybe some other time."

  Crypt 24 in the Corridor of Memories reminded me of a freezer drawer in a hospital mortuary. It was outdoors, the mausoleum wall was clad in white marble, and it was surrounded by large bouquets but underneath the flowers her crypt was just one in the rows along the stone wall, second from the bottom, second from the west corner.

  The Lutheran minister conducting the service kept calling her Marilyn, conveying the impression he’d known her as intimately as everyone had. What he didn’t say was she was only Norma Jean Mortenson, who’d grown up as Norma Jean Baker and never knew which, if either, was her father’s name. The headlines called her Marilyn Monroe but dust to dust, ashes to ashes, she’d been baptised Norma Jean Something and that was the name God would judge her by.

  Lane Sickert relaxed some as soon as she was safely locked behind the square bronze door and there was nothing left to go wrong they could blame him for. He came over to stand beside Sol and me. His eyes were still moving over the crowd checking for irregularities.

  "Like clockwork, Lane." I said.

  "Wonderful performance," Sol said.

  Sickert didn’t look at us but asked out the corner of his mouth, "Who won the Oscar?"

  "What?"

  "The Oscar."

  "Which Oscar?"

  "Best Actress."

  "When was this?"

  "Same time every year. Little affair they hold down the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Around Easter. So this year - who won Best Actress?"

  It was rhetorical. He knew and I knew, everyone in Hollywood knew. Most of the world had watched Bob Hope host the show on television. To keep up my side of the conversation I said "Audrey Hepburn."

  "Breakfast at Tiffany’s won, yes, but Holly Golightly, no," Sol shook his head.

  "You see how much you know? Everyone believes that. People see what they want to see, not what happens. Fact is Audrey was nominated, sure, but Best Actress went to Sophia Loren," Lane said with a degree of self-satisfaction.

  "Sophia Loren in La Ciociara," Sol agreed.

  "In what?"

  Lane shook his head. "That’s the Academy for you. If it was up to the paying public Audrey would have won no contest."

  "I never heard of it."

  "My point. Outside the industry no one’s heard of La Ciociara. The way it is, Breakfast at Tiffany’s only got Best Music over West Side Story. But Holly Golightly, you know who Truman Capote wrote that part for?"

  "Amaze me."

  "Truman wrote it for Marilyn Monroe," Sol said.

  "That so?"

  Lane Sickert nodded. "Sort of part Marilyn made her own, only more urbane and sophisticated which is the direction she wanted to go in. Truman however is a god-awful unqualified judge of the female sex. The producers overruled him."

  "Same as Kazan when Tennessee Williams wanted her for Baby Doll," Sol added. "Said she was too old. And Billy Wilder said she wasn't a real person at all, just the greatest product DuPont ever invented. But writers, now they always wanted her, especially the fags."

  Lane shrugged. "Just overwhelmed to find someone in this industry read them outside a screenplay."

  Up beside the wall of crypts someone I didn't recognise had started a eulogy in that hollow voice theatrical people use around graves. I looked to Sol.

  Sol knew of course. "Lee Strasberg, her New York acting coach, runs the Actors Studio. Lee's been like a surrogate father to her these past few years after she developed the vocation to be a serious actress. She must have been a goldmine for him. It was Lee gave her away at her wedding to Miller. Gave her away and kept her longer."

  DiMaggio was now conspicuous by his absence. Strasberg had his script rehearsed though it sounded a little less natural than the Method aimed for. He wanted to inform us death was a dreadful accident curtailing her plans for a big future on the stage. Hollywood was just a stepping stone to something important. "She created a myth of what a poor girl from a deprived background could attain." Like a politician selling snake-oil. "For the entire world she became a symbol of the eternal feminine."

  "Prick's too pompous to say sex symbol," Sol muttered.

  "That’s a long time, eternal." Lane turned his dark glasses to me. "There’s n
othing lasts eternal. What I’m saying, Frank, about the Oscars, it was easy for her, even a couple of years ago, to look good alongside Jack Lemon in drag on black and white film stock. But women her build when they get old they get fat. And times are changing. This is the Sixties. New generation. Different fashion. Look at Monroe, look at Audrey Hepburn. Different physical type altogether. Old and new. Compare them. She was knocked off the roost. She knew it. That’s what destroyed her."

  "Marilyn killed herself because she didn’t win an Oscar?"

  "Beauty’s a cruel and fleeting thing. Audrey Hepburn killed Marilyn Monroe as sure as if she put a gun to her head."

  "You said before that it was Willie Loman."

  "Willie Loman in the film version, it was Frederic March played the part," Sol announced as if he’d solved a crossword clue. "Ten, twelve years ago. Frederic March was nominated for best actor but it went to Bogarde in African Queen."

  "She had his piano." I had a feeling almost a revelation, it was in the piano she’d kept her secrets.

  "When she was a little girl, before the third guy she was going to marry had even thought of Death of a Salesman, Marilyn had this old piano of Frederic March’s. Her mother bought it for her. It’s like everything is chained together. Her mother in the past to her husband from the future. Maybe everything has to happen because fate’s all connected up and there's only one way anything can happen."

  "You know so much about her, it ought to be you up there reading the eulogy." Lane didn't seem to have listened to my point. "I’ll tell you something. Marilyn was never once nominated. Not ever. Not Best Actress, not Best Supporting Actress, Marilyn was never nominated by the Academy for anything. Audrey? Maybe three nominations in the last four years. That tells you something about how much Monroe was liked in the industry."

  "She could be difficult," Sol agreed.

  "Audrey Hepburn can be difficult. On Breakfast she had Frankenheimer paid off because she wanted a bigger director. Hepburn stamped her foot until she got her way. That’s how Blake Edwards inherited the job. Audrey’s difficult, sure she is, she's a star and a star's an actress out of control. But people Audrey works with still like her. Despite it all. That’s the difference."

  "You really go for the suicide theory, Lane?"

  Lane Sickert took off his dark glasses and scanned the crowd of mourners. "No one in the movie business liked Marilyn Monroe. A lot of them tried to feed off her but she knew well enough not one of these damn hypocrites cared a shit."

  "That sort of concern must keep you awake at night, Lane. You must have been up and on the ball when Greenson rang in the middle of the night and told you there was a situation at Marilyn's house needed fixing pretty damn bad."

  After a while he put the dark glasses back on to stare up where the sun was a big, yellow smile in the empty, blue sky.