Now they offered the shopworn vehicle to Marilyn, and she certainly felt it was beneath her. To Marilyn, the studio represented fifteen years of struggle to be viewed as an artist who deserved respect. Fox viewed Marilyn as a troublesome diva, a demanding bitch, a star who was most unpleasant to deal with. They felt a tremendous amount of resentment toward her. These executives still wanted a puppet; a performing doll who did what they said and brought in the money. Marilyn was filled with rage—not just because of the way the studio was treating her but for other things as well. To have struggled and fought for so long and still be exactly where she was at the beginning of her career affected her psychologically, assaulted her physically, and wore her down.
But if Marilyn refused another film, Fox could legally keep her off of the screen in projects for other studios for a long time. A stall in her career was the last thing she wanted at this stage. Peter Levathes, who was then in charge of production at Fox, called Marilyn into his office for a meeting.
Greenson was now also advising her on career decisions. To help Marilyn deal with the studio, he brought in his brother-in-law—the brilliant Hollywood lawyer Mickey Rudin—to represent Marilyn on the negotiations for Something’s Got to Give. Rudin was a big deal—a high-powered, no-nonsense, tough-talking attorney who had worked for Frank Sinatra for years.
The question Rudin was facing was “Can Marilyn perform?” She needed the money, but she also needed the self-esteem of being able to finish a picture. The validation of being able to function was as important as the money. Rudin thought she was in no condition to make the movie and needed at least a year. “Look, you’re pushing her to go ahead,” Rudin told the Fox executives. “I wish you wouldn’t. Give it more time. You may be finishing her. Not the picture.”
Peter Levathes was desperate for a success. “No, no,” he said. “We’ve got to go.” He sensed that Rudin was trying to weasel out of the film and maybe planning to go to another studio for a more lucrative deal for Marilyn. “I wasn’t playing games,” Rudin recounted. “Her problems were obvious. She wasn’t really prepared.”
But Fox was adamant. So while she knew the movie was not a career changer, she also needed to get back on screen and then be free to take more artistic control over her projects. On September 26 Marilyn reluctantly agreed to make Something’s Got to Give at Fox.
* * *
Once the decision was made to go ahead, Greenson and Rudin had to do everything possible to see that Marilyn finished the picture. First and foremost Rudin fought for certain things that her contract didn’t give her but at least made her feel important. Rudin got her cast approval, and she would ultimately demand Dean Martin as her leading man.*
The studio approached George Cukor, on Marilyn’s list of approved directors, who also owed them a movie on his contract. Even though Let’s Make Love had resulted in a failure, the studio was willing to take a chance on another teaming of the director and actress.
* * *
In the meantime the star still needed to get through day-to-day living. Marilyn’s new paid companion, Mrs. Murray, brought in by Greenson, was extremely soft-spoken, often speaking in whispers, with a deceptively timid demeanor. She was a mysterious woman who always seemed to be lurking around corners.
In the coming months Mrs. Murray would go from being a housekeeper who did some errands to what she would describe as a “devoted assistant.” She did anything Marilyn needed—fielding phone calls, marketing, altering clothes, preparing meals, helping Marilyn dress for special occasions, and driving her to appointments. Although she kept her own apartment, Mrs. Murray would sometimes spend the night at Marilyn’s place, even though Marilyn never felt completely at ease with her.
* * *
Some of Marilyn’s friends felt that Mrs. Murray was acting as a spy for Greenson. Even though she wasn’t a nurse, Mrs. Murray had a history of taking care of people under Greenson’s care. In this position she would witness Marilyn’s actions behind the heavy blackout drapes of the Doheny apartment—her behavior during some of her most private moments. It’s terrifying to think of the amount of trust Marilyn was putting into Greenson and the control he exercised over her life: Greenson now had his hands on Marilyn’s mind, home, and career.*
Greenson was also nudging Marilyn to make another momentous decision, because he didn’t feel that Marilyn’s tiny apartment was a place for a celebrity of her magnitude, and suggested she find a more suitable space. “I suggested to her that she look for a little house of her own, a piece of ground which was hers and she could therefore stop being an orphan and a waif and homeless,” he wrote. As a result Mrs. Murray’s first assignment was to help Marilyn find a house. Dr. Greenson also suggested the area: some place in his neighborhood.
PART 3
CLOSE TO CAMELOT
TWENTY-SIX
COMPARTMENTALIZATION
In early December a party was thrown in John F. Kennedy’s honor at the Park Avenue apartment of the Manhattan socialite Mrs. John “Fifi” Fell. Peter Lawford arranged for Marilyn to be a special guest at the dinner—she was flown into New York specifically for the occasion. It was a very swank affair—black-tie, cocktails at eight with dinner to follow. A famous French chef was hired for the evening. Of course the main course at any party was Marilyn Monroe.
The Lawfords’ manager, Milt Ebbins, was put in charge of getting Marilyn to the party on time—a noble challenge but impossible feat. He remembered it as one of the most excruciating nights of his life. “I arrived at her apartment a little before seven,” Ebbins recalled. Marilyn was in her bedroom getting her hair done by the world-renowned Mr. Kenneth Battelle.
“By eight o’clock I still hadn’t seen any signs of her,” Ebbins said. A maid came out of Marilyn’s bedroom: “Miss Marilyn is almost ready.”
Lawford was calling every five minutes, “Where is she?”
Ebbins kept assuring him. “She’s almost ready. I’m just sitting here. I haven’t seen her yet.”
“Well, hurry her up!”
Twenty minutes later the maid came out again. “Kenneth is doing the final touches. She’ll be a few more minutes.” Then the maid left for the evening.
At nine fifteen an exhausted Mr. Kenneth emerged from the bedroom. He was leaving for the night too. The phone rang again: “Where the hell is she? Everybody’s waiting!”
Ebbins said, “She’s still in her bedroom.”
Lawford screamed into the phone, “Well, go in there and get her! Everyone’s waiting!”
There was no one else in the apartment now. Ebbins walked into her bedroom. There Marilyn sat, at her vanity table staring dreamily into the mirror. “Marilyn, come on!” Ebbins implored. “We’ve got to go.” Suddenly Ebbins noticed that she was completely naked. Ebbins was so flustered he nearly fainted.
Marilyn stood up. “Will you help me get dressed?” she asked breathlessly, stepping into her shoes. Marilyn handed Ebbins a white beaded dress and lifted her arms, saying, “Watch out for my hair.”
Ebbins began pulling down the dress, which was like donning a glove two sizes too small.
“Oh, careful of the beads!” Marilyn said.
“Now I’m on my knees pulling down the dress over her hips. My face is a few inches away from her crotch. I couldn’t believe it! Talk about temptation.”
Ebbins finally got the dress on her. “Oh, she looked like a dream!” he said.
Trying to push her out the door, Ebbins was surprised to see that Marilyn paused again to put on a red wig. She had just had her hair done. Then she put on a scarf around the wig, dark glasses, and threw on a mink coat. “They’ll never know me,” she told Ebbins.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
When they arrived in the lobby of the apartment building, the place was swarming with photographers. Marilyn was right. No one recognized her. She and Ebbins walked through the crowd and went up the elevator. When they arrived at the floor, the Secret Service men—who recog
nized Ebbins—started laughing. They knew the redhead in the mink was Marilyn. Methodically she took off the scarf, wig, and glasses and jammed them all into the pocket of the coat, which she handed to Ebbins. Then she fluffed out her platinum hair, and they knocked on the door.
Marilyn walked into the room, and Kennedy spotted her immediately. “Finally, you’re here!” the president gushed. “How good to see you!” Ebbins watched them talking intimately for a few minutes. “I was standing there, and she turned around and gave me a wink and then turned and walked away from him.” The actress Arlene Dahl was one of the guests: “I had seen a lot of celebrities be the center of attention,” she said. “But I never saw anyone enchant a room so quickly. She was magic to watch.”
After five minutes in her presence all the guests had forgotten that they had been waiting for her for more than two hours. Apparently they also forgot about eating dinner. The food was ruined, Milt Ebbins recalled. “Nobody ate. The French chef tried to jump out the window. No kidding. He tried to commit suicide.” His prized dinner remained untouched. Marilyn, perhaps, did not.
“They say that afterwards she spent the night with Jack at the Carlyle Hotel,” Ebbins said in his usual evasive way when discussing Marilyn and Kennedy. “I couldn’t say one way or another. I had left by that point.”
* * *
Soon after the holidays Mrs. Murray found a house for Marilyn on Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood, about a mile from the Greenson residence. It was a 2,900-square-foot, one-story, L-shaped Spanish colonial-style home—very modest by movie star standards. It sat at the end of the street in a cul-de-sac or, as Marilyn called it, “a dead end.”
But she fell in love with the house at first sight and—in typical Marilyn fashion—wanted to make arrangements to buy it immediately. Her first step was to call Joe DiMaggio to ask him to come back out to look the house over. Purchasing her first home was a big step, and she wanted someone she trusted to help her.
True to form, DiMaggio flew out to Los Angeles to survey the property. She walked DiMaggio through the gate, past the garden, up the red tile walk to the entrance of the house.
Embedded in the concrete at the front door was a tile with a coat of arms and a Latin inscription: Cursum Perficio, which translates to “End of my journey.” She was aware of the meaning, but it didn’t bother her. On the contrary she told a journalist, “I hope it’s true.”
She described it as “a cute little Mexican-style house with eight rooms, and at least I can say it’s mine”; it was “a fortress where I feel secure.” DiMaggio approved of the property. After offers and counteroffers went back and forth between the owners and Marilyn’s lawyer, she was able to buy the house for $57,500. It was a substantial amount, but for a movie star of Marilyn’s magnitude certainly not exorbitant. Still, at the moment she was strapped for cash and had to borrow $5,000 from Joe DiMaggio to make the down payment
Marilyn’s spending habits remained the same when she was a major celebrity as when she was a struggling starlet—she spent what she had when she had it and borrowed when she didn’t. “When I try to balance my budget,” she sighed, “somehow I’m always overdrawn.”
It wasn’t that she was broke, exactly. She had some very big money coming in from Some Like It Hot and residuals from other projects. Plus she still could command a huge salary for television appearances and with other studios. But Marilyn never seemed to be able to hold on to money—and often had very little to show for her substantial earnings. Marilyn’s more affluent friends knew she earned big money, yet she didn’t have expensive jewels or cars. She owned no property. She didn’t travel. She often wore a favorite dress repeatedly.
Famous for saying she didn’t care about money, Marilyn actually lived up to that statement. Yet she spent indiscriminately, generously, and impulsively. She never went over the accounting of her bills, which made her fair game for just about everyone. Vendors had a way of making Marilyn feel that she should pay more for her success. “They think I’m rich,” she sighed. “Everyone is begging me for money.”
It’s also accepted fact that Marilyn simply loved to give her money away. She presented Susan Strasberg with a Chagall drawing for her birthday. Jane Fonda recalled lunching at New York’s Sardi’s restaurant with Marilyn, Shelley Winters, and Lee and Paula Strasberg. Marilyn gifted Lee and Paula ten thousand dollars to travel to Europe to attend a Stanislavski festival. That was an enormous amount of money in the day—almost double the average annual salary.
So when Marilyn signed the papers for her new house, she did so with money borrowed from her ex-husband and a mortgage that would extend over the next fifteen years. At the signing, Marilyn abruptly burst into tears. “I couldn’t imagine buying a house alone,” she said. “But I’ve always been alone so I don’t know why I couldn’t imagine it.”
* * *
On Thursday, February 1, Peter and Pat Lawford threw a party for Bobby and Ethel Kennedy, who in a few days would be leaving on a world tour starting in Japan. Marilyn was one of the carefully selected guests, and for this meeting she wanted to be sure she had a lot of important political topics to talk to the attorney general about.
This glitzy, formal dinner was filled with some of the best and brightest in Hollywood circles, including Judy Garland, Angie Dickinson, Dean and Jeanne Martin, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, and Michael and Gloria Romanoff. Marilyn knew beforehand that she would be sitting on one side of Bobby Kennedy, with Kim Novak on the other. Pat Kennedy thought it would be cute to seat her brother between two of the screen’s most beautiful blondes. She probably knew that Bobby had been fascinated with Marilyn for years.
Marilyn always wanted to live up to expectations, and now that she and Bobby would have an extended period of time getting to know each other, she prepared to make an indelible impression. She asked Danny Greenson—a very politically savvy young man—to help her compose a list of political questions she could discuss with the attorney general.
Marilyn had met Bobby before on several occasions, but she seemed to consider this a date. Of course she wasn’t planning on dazzling Bobby with her intellect alone: Before the party Marilyn called in George Masters to do her hair and makeup. As Masters understood it, this was a “first date,” even though Bobby’s wife, Ethel, would be there. “I did an extra-special makeup job on her. When I finished she looked like a fawn, innocent and wide-eyed but supersexy.”
At the party Kennedy was at first impressed with Marilyn’s questions and then amused when he caught her peering at the crib notes tucked in her purse. This could be the night that the serious spark between Bobby and Marilyn started. (Ethel Kennedy was as excited about meeting Marilyn as anyone else.)
The party became lighthearted. When Chubby Checker’s “Let’s Twist Again” was played on the phonograph, they got up to dance, and Marilyn taught Bobby how to do the Twist. Later he asked her to phone his father, Joseph Kennedy, because the elder Kennedy would get a kick out of a phone call from the generation’s greatest love goddess—and she was happy to oblige.
The following month, while talking about the evening with Fred Field, a friend she met on a shopping trip to Mexico, Marilyn revealed that at one point she and Kennedy had slipped away from the party into the den and had a very long, very political talk. What went on within the den walls was known only to Marilyn and Bobby.
Jeanne Martin characterized the Kennedy brothers’ behavior at parties as “sophomoric … high school time.” She told the author Anthony Summers that their wives could be in another room—while they were jumping around with a woman. She recalled having a friend who was in the library with Bobby, and before she knew it, the door was locked and he had thrown her on the couch.
The author Larry Tye interviewed Ethel Kennedy decades later: “Ethel has lived with the rumors for over fifty years, and she says she long ago stopped listening to or reading them,” Tye relayed. “She tried to block them out then, too, although they must have hurt. She never disclosed any suspicions.” Howe
ver, Ethel also acknowledged that there was “no tradition of monogamy in the Kennedy clan. She loved her husband more completely than she dreamed possible … and she knew he always came home. Not just to the kids but to her.”
For her own reasons Marilyn talked to some as if this was her first meeting with Bobby. She was an expert at subterfuge when she wanted to be. “Marilyn had known him before,” Joan Greenson said, “but she was really excited that he was going to be sitting next to her. I don’t think she knew him that well.”
To Arthur Miller’s son, Robert, she wrote: “I had to go to this dinner last night as [Robert Kennedy] was the guest of honor and when they asked him who he wanted to meet, he wanted to meet me. So, I went to the dinner and I sat next to him, and he isn’t a bad dancer either. But I was mostly impressed with how serious he is about civil rights.”
* * *
In the coming weeks Marilyn called Bobby Kennedy at the Justice Department. Some of the telephone records are available, showing how many times (and for how long) Marilyn called Bobby from her home phone. Much has been made of this—and the reasons for the calls have been the subject of much speculation. It is also possible that she called him from pay phones. Also unknown is how many times Bobby called Marilyn.
An undated letter to Marilyn from a Kennedy sister, Jean Smith, sent sometime that year, seems to acknowledge some sort of relationship between Marilyn and Bobby—and that Marilyn was known, and well liked, by the entire Kennedy family, including the parents, Rose and Joseph Kennedy. Marilyn had probably sent Joe Kennedy a get-well message. He had suffered a stroke in 1961 and continued to recover for months to come. Jean responded with a letter:
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