Marilyn Monroe

by Charles Casillo

  Dear Marilyn—Mother asked me to write and thank you for your sweet note to Daddy—He really enjoyed it and you were very cute to send it. / Understand that you and Bobby are the new item! We all think you should come with him when he comes back east! Again thanks for the note. / Love, Jean Smith

  Soon after the Lawford dinner party, Joan Greenson visited Marilyn’s new house. As they sat chatting in the guest room near the daybed, the subject turned to boyfriends. Joan knew that Marilyn was seeing someone new, and she asked her about it. Marilyn told Joan that there was a new man in her life who was “really terrific and cute,” but the man was “so important” she didn’t want her to know more than that.

  “She didn’t want to burden me with knowing who it was, so she was going to call him ‘the General,’” Joan recalled. They both laughed. Marilyn seemed to enjoy the intrigue.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “NEGATED SEX SYMBOL”

  In keeping with Greenson’s own home decor, Marilyn decided to furnish her house with authentic furniture and accessories. A trip to Mexico was planned. Mrs. Murray was sent first to scout out stores and to do some advance shopping (she had done Greenson’s interior decorating), and Marilyn would follow a week later with Pat Newcomb and her hair and makeup man, George Masters.

  Evidence of Marilyn’s continuing popularity can be found in the incredible excitement on her arrival in Mexico City on February 20. Newcomb arranged a press conference in the Grand Ballroom of the Continental Hilton Hotel.

  Though surrounded by media hysteria, she appeared serene. As Whitey Snyder said: “No matter what you saw on the surface, underneath was always nerves and uncertainty.” Yet with assurance and grace, she walked toward the throng of two hundred reporters. She slowly turned, showing off her newly slim figure, clad in a clingy green Pucci dress—a recent favorite of hers (in a few months it would be chosen for her to wear in the casket). The Mexicans were fascinated by her blond beauty, her golden radiance.

  Marilyn drank champagne steadily throughout the press conference as she continued to answer questions and pose for photos. Toward the end, it seems, Marilyn had imbibed a bit too much. Some of her elegant control had left her, and she was emboldened to strike some campy poses—almost in a self-parody, demonstrating the Twist and climbing up on the back of a couch. The Mexican press didn’t seem to mind. They were enraptured by Marilyn, and images of her from this appearance would be on magazine covers for months to come.

  All along Marilyn had planned to combine this trip with a shopping expedition and a minivacation. On the social front, two of Marilyn’s Connecticut friends arranged an introduction to Frederick Vanderbilt Field and his Mexican wife, Nieves. Field (who had been heir to the Vanderbilt fortune but was disinherited by his family because of his politics) became more than just another man on Marilyn’s ever-growing list of left-wing friends. There was an instant attraction between Field and Marilyn. Almost immediately after meeting, they started an affair. He was happily married, but of course that hadn’t stopped Marilyn in the past. She even befriended his wife, and the three of them socialized together.

  Marilyn may have become hastily involved with Field because she was deeply disturbed when a few days before, she received news of Arthur Miller’s wedding to Inge Morath (a photographer he had met on the set of The Misfits). Marilyn was insulted by Miller’s quick remarriage. Was she so easily replaced? Marilyn probably didn’t know yet that Morath was already pregnant with Miller’s child.*

  Field was a longtime communist and a dedicated Marxist. He had left America in 1953 and was part of a circle of Mexican communists. In an era when hostilities between America, Russia, and the rest of the world were reaching dangerous new heights, even casual associations with someone with communist tendencies were classified as dangerous by the FBI. Because of this relationship Marilyn became the subject of a new file opened by the agency. It shows that Marilyn’s activities in Mexico were being monitored very closely indeed. Informants reported to the FBI that a “mutual infatuation” had developed between Field and Monroe, which “caused concern among some in her inner circle.”

  More alarming, one of the informants in the FBI files seems to be Eunice Murray (wrongly identified as Eunice Churchill), who said: “The subject was much disturbed by ARTHUR MILLER’s marriage on 2/20/62 and feels like a negated sex symbol.” Surprisingly, it was also alleged in this document that the “subject reportedly spent some time with ROBERT KENNEDY in the home of PETER LAWFORD in Hollywood”—confirming that the FBI was already aware of Marilyn’s acquaintance with Bobby.

  Simultaneously Pat Newcomb fixed Marilyn up with José Bolanos, a sexy, twenty-six-year-old screenwriter with one film credit to his name, La Cucaracha, about a woman soldier. The meeting was Newcomb’s way of encouraging Marilyn to go on some casual dates with a handsome, uncomplicated Latin-lover type.

  They did see each other a few times, but by all accounts (except Bolanos’s), this was a very casual vacation flirtation. Mexico proved to be a lovely distraction for Marilyn. Other than the furniture she purchased, it had nothing to do with her future plans.

  * * *

  Back in Los Angeles, Marilyn had received word that the Golden Globes planned on naming her as the Female World Film Favorite at a showy Hollywood ceremony on March 5.

  She talked with Pat Newcomb about who should be her escort to the event. “I guess I’ll go with Sidney Skolsky,” Marilyn said, settling on her columnist friend. “Why don’t you surprise them all?” Newcomb suggested. “Show up with José Bolanos!” Newcomb cannily predicted it would further enhance Marilyn’s modern image to appear with a dark, handsome Latin. Marilyn by no means considered Bolanos a serious romance, but she liked the idea of being seen with a mystery man and invited him to the event. He gladly flew in to be Marilyn’s date.

  * * *

  The media would be there in full force, some expecting an aging, overblown sexpot. It would be an ideal time to reveal to the American paparazzi her trim figure, her new white-on-white beauty, and to demonstrate that her appeal was stronger than ever. It was expected that Marilyn would appear at an industry event in a gown that was in some way provocative. As George Masters explained, she was “so concerned with her cleavage and the crack in her rear end that she would stand for hours while seamstresses sewed her into her sequined sex come-ons with all her curves showing.” This time Marilyn was sewn into an emerald green gown by Norman Norell, a top American designer.

  As always, her patience paid off. When she arrived at the event held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, her appearance—with her exposed back and teased, pillowcase-white hair—caused absolute pandemonium. There was no sign that fascination with Monroe was in any way waning. Among the biggest names in the business, the crowd of photographers and fans were clamoring to get to her—a beam of light in emerald sequins—impossible to look away from. Once again, though, Marilyn needed alcohol to coax out the astounding “Marilyn Monroe” who stunned and seduced.

  Susan Strasberg remembered that Marilyn arrived “four sheets to the wind and proceeded to go for five.” Even so, Strasberg confessed that Marilyn’s entrance “knocked me out. There was a room full of the biggest stars in the world, and when Marilyn walked in and made her way slowly to the table, her dress was so tight she could hardly move, some people in the room stood on chairs just to get a look at her, like kids. I’d never seen stars react to another star like that.”

  But the adoration did not reassure her, did not relieve her anxiety. “I sat near her.” the columnist James Bacon observed. “She gulped wine by the glassful. When her name was called, she had to be helped out of her chair onto the stage.”

  Handing out some of the awards that year was Stefanie Powers, then a young starlet chosen to be a presenter. “She was giving them the image they wanted,” Powers remarked. “You have to understand that in that time, Marilyn was still kind of a joke in the industry, still not being taken seriously—which is what she really wanted at that point. Even this eve
nt, the Golden Globes, was not a serious ceremony back then. It was a poor man’s Academy Award. But as she approached to receive the award, she was glowing. The closer she got, the brighter she glowed. I mean, you understood why in a room filled with the biggest stars it was Marilyn that was the focus. We—the photographers, the celebrities, the guests—all just circled around her. She was the center. It seemed to just happen naturally with her.”

  The award was presented to her by Rock Hudson. Marilyn’s acceptance speech was exceptionally short: “Thank you,” she whispered, slurring the words. “I’m grateful to you all.” Bacon said that she accepted the award almost in a caricature of herself. An opinion Susan Strasberg shared: “Didn’t she know she was better than this?” Susan lamented. “Worth more than this?” Charlton Heston, who was on the stage when she accepted the award, wrote in his diary: “Monroe was absolutely smashed, unable to say a word. Probably just as well.”

  Photographs from the evening show the ambiguities in Marilyn’s beauty in 1962. In some of the pictures, taken early in the evening, she looks vibrant, stunning, ageless. But as the evening wore on (and the wine continued to flow), Marilyn at times appears messy and brittle.

  Still, the lovely and much younger Susan Strasberg was envious of Marilyn. “Even drunk, barely in control, overly made-up, she still exuded innocence and a vibrant life force that surrounded her like an aura.”

  * * *

  John F. Kennedy was planning on spending a weekend in Palm Springs—the beautiful resort town in the desert, one hundred miles southeast of Los Angeles. Many celebrities had weekend homes there, and Kennedy intended to spend his visit at the home of Frank Sinatra, but eventually the plans were changed so he could stay at Bing Crosby’s house. The attorney general didn’t want the president associated with Sinatra because of his mob ties.

  The president thought it would be nice to at last have some uninterrupted time with Marilyn, and he invited her to be his date for the weekend. He had probably thought about her since their last encounter, in her white beaded dress and tousled hair, at the Fifi Fell dinner party.

  The Palm Springs weekend was planned in an atmosphere of secrecy and high drama that appealed to Marilyn. She agreed to join him. It was arranged that she would fly from Los Angeles to Palm Springs in disguise, escorted by Peter Lawford. This was where the training of Norma Jeane took over. She could take refuge from grim reality in a fantasy world of her own devising, playacting, becoming one of the dramatic heroines she saw on the screen. Interludes with the president were taking on a fantasy quality—a temporary escape from her encroaching problems. It was fun for him, and it was a pleasurable distraction for her. The problem was, Marilyn wanted it to last. She wanted Kennedy in her life. Strong men were her protectors. They were, in fact, her father.

  It’s alarming to consider how intertwined the sexual and social lives of these high-profile players were. Marilyn was now entangled—to varying degrees—in the attentions of John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Frank Sinatra.

  It’s no wonder that in her therapy sessions with Greenson—when she was feeling lethargic and depressed—she confided that she felt that she was being used. Yet the ego boost that these powerful associations gave her was worth the risk for the time being. In her manic periods, she loved the collusion, the temporary feeling of being in control of her own life.

  On Saturday, March 24, Peter Lawford arrived at her place to drive her to the airport so the two of them could catch the president’s Conair plane, which would take them to Palm Springs airport. As she had with other meetings with Kennedy, Marilyn avoided any chance of being recognized by covering her fresh hairdo with a black wig and wearing dowdy clothes. Lawford got a kick out of Marilyn looking very unlike “Monroe.” To take the masquerade a step further, he told everyone they encountered during the trip that Marilyn was his secretary.

  Once they were safely sequestered at the Bing Crosby estate, hidden away in the desert of Palm Springs, Marilyn and Kennedy could casually stroll the grounds, have long talks, and socialize—with a few select, very trusted friends—without the tension of being found out.

  An affair between Marilyn and the president wasn’t exactly unheard of. By now talk was swirling that Marilyn and Kennedy were seeing each other. To those who saw them together that weekend, it was just confirmation. At the Crosby estate, the two stayed in one of the cottages, where they were met by a loyal group of Kennedy’s friends and Secret Service men.

  * * *

  This is the one time that is generally accepted by all investigative journalists that Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy had a sexual encounter. The reason is a phone call Marilyn made—from the bed she was sharing with the president—to her good friend Ralph Roberts. She even put Roberts on the phone with Kennedy.

  With the president lying next to her, Marilyn had decided to use some of Roberts’s massaging techniques on the president. Kennedy notoriously had a bad back. Somewhere in the course of their pillow talk, the conversation turned to anatomy—a subject on which Marilyn was very knowledgeable and had been for a long time: The human body was one of her main fascinations.

  Marilyn sang a little bit of the classic gospel song “Dem Bones,” with the lyric “Hip bone connected to the back bone.” Meanwhile she wanted Kennedy to understand the importance of the soleus muscle—which Marilyn used for her famous walk.*

  Hence the call to Roberts—all the better for him to explain the soleus muscle to Kennedy. Roberts knew that Marilyn was rendezvousing with the president that weekend; she had told him beforehand (“Pat Newcomb was in on it,” he said), but he wasn’t expecting a phone call. Still, soon Roberts was on the phone listening to the unmistakable voice of the president of the United States. Afterward Kennedy thanked him.

  Philip Watson, a Los Angeles County assessor, one of the select guests at the Crosby property that weekend, was brought into the cottage Marilyn and Kennedy were sharing. He observed Kennedy casually attired in a turtleneck sweater and Marilyn even more casually dressed in her usual choice for relaxing—a robe. He noticed that Marilyn had had a lot to drink. “There was no question in my mind that they were having a good time,” Watson said. “It was obvious they were intimate, that they were staying there together for the night.”

  After the weekend was over, Roberts casually asked her how the president was. “Well,” Marilyn replied coyly, “I think I made his back feel better.”

  * * *

  There was something almost Shakespearean about Marilyn’s saga in her final year. She was the beautiful, mad, aging queen, referring to her mirror and then turning to the mighty king and his ambitious brother to make sure she was still desirable, her position safe.

  When the Kennedys moved into Marilyn’s orbit, who can estimate the significance she put on their attentions? Marilyn’s delicate frame of mind—the crushing loneliness, her fear of fading and losing her beauty, power, and ability to be loved—made her more fragile and needy than ever.

  * * *

  Evidence of Marilyn’s relationship with the Kennedys is mostly anecdotal. Yet the number of people who witnessed them together, and friends whom Marilyn told bits and pieces about the affairs, is substantial. By taking the time to read and listen to all accounts as objectively as possible, and study what evidence there is—and there is an exhaustive amount—the existing data point to the conclusion that Marilyn had some amount of romantic involvement with both Kennedy brothers.

  The definite number of times they were in one another’s company and what exactly they felt for one another can never be known. Marilyn’s affair with John F. Kennedy is more famous and spectacular because they were two people in politics and show business about whom the public was extremely curious. They both entered into an affair with different intentions. Jack—who also had a public persona and a very private self—was married to the elegant and much-loved Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, and they had a young daughter and son. But that didn’t stop him from engaging in numerous flings, with White House i
nterns, call girls, movie stars, and friends, all simultaneously. In the meantime Kennedy had the world to run.

  Her relationship with Bobby Kennedy was more serious—at least to Marilyn—and it lasted longer. It is apparent now that Marilyn put much more expectations and hope in these relationships than either of the brothers did. History has shown that both Kennedys indulged in affairs—John much more indiscreetly and frequently than Bobby. “I’m not saying they were saints in any way,” Pat Newcomb said of the Kennedys. “But who wants to know saints?”

  When we look for tangible evidence of Marilyn’s affairs with the Kennedys—photos, documents, letters—there is little to be found. At least not yet. Some of it has most certainly been destroyed.* Also, it was a different world in the early 1960s. Today we have computerized systems of checks and balances that didn’t exist in 1962. There were no video cameras recording every movement. There were no cell phones that could discreetly capture a moment for posterity. It wasn’t unusual to pay for things with cash rather than traceable credit cards or checks. It was much easier to be clandestine and deceptive in the days when things were documented mostly by hand.

  * * *

  We all have private lives, and share only parts of ourselves with certain people. This was most certainly true of Marilyn, who normally was living several lives at once. “Marilyn Monroe never told anybody everything,” Pat Newcomb famously said of her. “She would slip off and do this. Then she would slip out and do that. None of us really knew everything.”

  It was much easier to compartmentalize your life in the early sixties. It is well known that Marilyn could move around easily without being recognized. She was a master of disguise. When she didn’t want people to know she was traveling, she would do so in a black or red wig, a kerchief, dark glasses, and under a different name.