Marilyn Monroe

by Charles Casillo

  At 4:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 1:00 a.m. in Los Angeles, Lawford called the White House. Obviously he wanted to talk to John F. Kennedy about his extreme concern for Marilyn, perhaps the dangerous consequences of something happening to her. Lawford was unable to reach the president this time. The log for the call says Lawford was calling about plans for a vacation in Maine.

  Lawford was losing coherence. At last—his mind sufficiently numbed to avoid the thought of Marilyn in peril—he retired to his bedroom, pulled the phone jack out of the wall (as he did every night), and passed out in bed.

  By this time it didn’t matter. Marilyn Monroe was already dead.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “WE’VE LOST HER”

  Mrs. Murray had retired to the guest room early; in retrospect she thought it was about eight thirty. In interviews she would always explain that she was never really aware of the time that night—she simply wasn’t paying attention to it. What could be taken from the number of stories she told is that sometime after midnight she woke up with the sense that something was wrong.*

  Mrs. Murray got out of bed to do a quick check of the house. The first thing she noticed was that the phone cord was still snaking into Marilyn’s room from under the door. This was unusual and sent an “electric shock” through her body. Marilyn never slept with a phone in her room. Normally, before her drugs kicked in, she would take her private phone into the spare bedroom next to the house phone, and cover them both with pillows and blankets to muffle the sound of their ringing.

  Since Marilyn had such a preoccupation with sleep, Mrs. Murray didn’t dare call out to her or even try the lock on the door. But she was concerned enough to call Greenson. The doctor instructed her to try the door. It was locked. Rather than rush back to the doctor, Mrs. Murray went outside to the front window that looked into Marilyn’s bedroom, while Greenson waited on the phone.

  The window itself was open, but it was protected by heavy Mexican grillwork, and Marilyn’s blackout drapes prevented her from seeing in. Mrs. Murray couldn’t reach the drapes with her hand so she rushed back in for a poker from the fireplace to stick through the grillwork and part the drapes.

  “I saw Marilyn lying on the bed, facedown, nude. The light was on. So everything was wrong,” Mrs. Murray explained. She ran back inside in a panic. She picked up the phone and gasped, “Come quickly!”

  When Greenson arrived at the house a few minutes later, he retrieved the poker and broke into another window, which also opened into Marilyn’s bedroom. He climbed through.

  Greenson saw that Marilyn’s body was cold and blue. The phone receiver was still in her hand. She was clutching it so fiercely, so strongly, that at first he could not remove it. It took some time for him to pry the receiver out of Marilyn’s dead hand. Other than that there was nothing he could do. “He knew it was hopeless,” Mrs. Murray said. “No one could help her.” Greenson opened the door and whispered to Mrs. Murray, “We’ve lost her.”

  He instructed Mrs. Murray to call Engelberg—who arrived at the house in a matter of minutes. Although the following events get very muddled, with each of the participants giving different accounts, it is likely that Greenson called Rudin, his brother-in-law and Marilyn’s attorney, who also came to the house immediately.

  One thing these three early-morning players realized is that one of the most popular and beloved women in the world was dead and they all had a hand in it—some amount of culpability. Though overwhelmed by loss and grief, at the same time they were racked with guilt as well as panic about what their place would be in the history of—and responsibility for—the death of Marilyn Monroe. For instance, when examining Marilyn’s bedside table Greenson discovered the empty pill bottle that had contained the twenty-five Nembutals prescribed by Engelberg the day before.

  “My God, what is this?” Greenson exclaimed.

  Engelberg said: “Oh my God, I forgot to call you!”

  The two doctors and Marilyn’s attorney—each filled with private remorse—were well aware of the level of fame of the woman who lay dead in the bedroom. Ralph Greenson, Hyman Engelberg, and Mickey Rudin spent a long period of time before they notified the police. Just how long they took has never been, and can never be, said with certainty. Mrs. Murray stated many times that she had no idea what these men discussed over Marilyn’s dead body. She felt they were professional people and had good reason to say what they had to say to one another.

  * * *

  They were also well aware that there would be a firestorm of publicity surrounding this death. The level of their involvement would be questioned—and possibly condemned. None of them, however, could ever have imagined the extent of the fascination with the mystery they were helping to create. There would be questions regarding the statements they gave that night. And from those statements through the years, offshoots of questions and theories about Marilyn developed that would lead only to more mystery. For the rest of their lives—and beyond—the narrative of Marilyn Monroe’s life and death would grow beyond the story of a very popular actress of her generation and become an enduring enigma, a true icon of American culture.

  Because of the inquiring phone call he had received about how to handle Peter Lawford’s profound concern, Rudin also called Milt Ebbins.

  “Milt—” he began.

  “Mickey!” Ebbins exclaimed. “What are you doing up so late?”

  He said, “We’ve got problems.”

  Ebbins asked, “How’s Marilyn?”

  Rudin replied, “Not good. Her doctors and I broke into the bedroom … they just pronounced her dead, and we notified the police. You’re the first one who knows about it.”

  Next, to handle the first onslaught of media regarding Marilyn’s death, Rudin called Pat Newcomb.

  * * *

  “There’s been an accident,” he said. “Marilyn’s taken an overdose of pills.”

  “Is she okay?” Newcomb asked.

  “She’s dead,” the attorney informed her.

  Once these phone calls were made, and the police notified, it was a matter of minutes before Marilyn’s small courtyard was filled with curious neighbors, police cars, reporters, and a coroner’s vehicle.

  Mrs. Murray would always remember hearing Pat Newcomb’s screams, coming through the crowd. “Keep shooting, vultures!” she yelled at the reporters who continuously snapped her picture. Being in public relations, she knew some of them. “How would you feel if your best friend had died?” she plaintively asked them. She wanted them to make way for her, to let her get through. Marilyn’s body wasn’t removed until about five o’clock in the morning. “I didn’t want to see it,” Newcomb said. She would recall sitting in the living room with a bunch of people around. She couldn’t remember who was there. But she most certainly did not want to go anywhere near the bedroom.

  * * *

  Part of the silence surrounding Marilyn’s death through the years has been because people who were still alive could be hurt by the information about her affairs with John and Bobby Kennedy. But also Marilyn’s feeling of neglect, her loneliness, her sweetness—made everyone feel they wanted to help her. Because so many failed, there were enough guilty feelings to go around for the major players to feel partially responsible for her death. This added to the fog of secrecy that has surrounded Marilyn’s last days, hours, and the aftermath.

  Mrs. Murray, Greenson, Rudin, Engelberg, Peter Lawford, Pat Newcomb—they all had played inadvertent roles in Marilyn’s death. No one was guilty, except of poor judgment. But each of them probably dreaded being associated with that horrible night.

  It is safe to assume that none of them wanted any kind of blame for Marilyn slipping away, when a few extra steps, some precautionary measures, might have saved her—at least that evening.

  * * *

  Pat Newcomb does not appear to have ever disclosed everything she knows about Marilyn’s last days. She apparently had some sort of romantic feelings toward Bobby Kennedy at the same time Marilyn was t
rying to redefine her own complicated relationship with him. It added to her turbulent emotions. Had Marilyn lived, the two friends might have worked through their difficulties, and Marilyn might have overcome her anger and moved on. But she died that night, forever immobilizing the friendship in the center of the intensity of the jealousy and rage she was feeling that early August.

  It was Newcomb who took Marilyn’s Nembutal bottle into the spare bedroom. Had it been on Marilyn’s nightstand, Greenson would have likely taken the pills away, concerned about Marilyn’s depression that evening.

  Mrs. Murray displayed her regrets about that night with her constantly changing story. Being an assistant to Marilyn Monroe was the highlight of her life. The fact that Marilyn succumbed while Mrs. Murray was spending the night to keep an eye on her well-being was a heavy burden to bear. She constantly adjusted events to appear less culpable.

  Rudin had his own grudging feelings of guilt. Had he taken Ebbins’s phone call more seriously, had he believed there was a reason for Lawford’s deep concern, he might have suggested that someone drive over to the house to check on Marilyn, or at least requested Mrs. Murray to knock on her bedroom door.

  Lawford was eaten up by guilt feelings over Marilyn for the rest of his life. He was one of the main reasons Marilyn was involved with the Kennedys at all. He orchestrated most of their clandestine meetings. He would never forgive himself for not going over to Marilyn’s house that Saturday night. What she had said to him in their last phone call alerted him to the fact that she was in a desperate state of mind, beyond suffering. Had he requested one of his guests to drive him there after the phone went silent, he might have arrived in time to save her.

  Engelberg shared part of the blame because he forgot to tell Greenson about the Nembutal he had prescribed Marilyn the previous day. Because of the difficulties he was going through in his marriage, it slipped Engelberg’s mind to confirm with Greenson that he had okayed the prescription.

  * * *

  And of course there’s Greenson, who had his own feelings of inadequacy and culpability because his decision to treat Marilyn in an unorthodox way—a way that went against everything he believed in regarding his therapy—had failed. Hildi Greenson said her husband was “devastated” by Marilyn’s death. His patient had died, despite his efforts to make her feel part of a family. Instead he increased her dependence on him, rendering her unable to function on her own. He was also tortured by his knowledge of Marilyn’s relationship with the Kennedy brothers—her current terrible frame of mind caused by Bobby—and he had to keep quiet about it.

  In 1964, when William Woodfield called Greenson to try to get more details on Monroe’s death, the doctor said: “I can’t explain myself or defend myself without revealing things I don’t want to reveal. You can’t draw a line and say, ‘I’ll tell you this but I won’t tell you that.’ It’s a terrible position to be in to have to say ‘I can’t talk about it because I can’t tell the whole story.’” Then Greenson said to Woodfield: “Listen, talk to Bobby Kennedy.”

  None of these people is responsible for Marilyn swallowing a fatal amount of drugs. Yet they all had their personal guilt feelings for not having done more for a woman as emotionally disturbed and fragile as Marilyn was that summer. Perhaps they could have been a little more vigilant, but ultimately no one could have saved her.

  * * *

  By the early-morning hours news of Marilyn’s death was being broadcast on the radio and breaking in on television shows. The reports brought on a feeling of profound sadness and loss across the world—the kind of collective mourning that a famous person’s death brings only a handful of times a century. People were shocked and heartbroken by the thought that someone who had brought them so much joy was no longer with them. The feeling that Marilyn brought out in a multitude of people was “If only I had been there, I could have saved her.” In the days following her death, people from all walks of life committed suicide.

  “Her death has diminished the loveliness of the world in which we live,” LIFE cried.

  EPILOGUE

  LINGERING RADIANCE

  Marilyn Monroe died just before the advent of feminism and the blossoming of the civil rights movement. She lived in a generation when people were categorized, where roles were strongly defined and stringently observed. There was very little crossing over lines. She had to find an identity early in her career, and she found one “self” that became beloved beyond her wildest imagination, leaving her other selves looking desperately for a way of expression.

  First she was a delicious blonde. That was okay. They understood that. Still, there were so many other sides to her wanting to get out and display themselves. Then she presented herself as an orphan, a fragile girl, someone who needed to be protected. The public was confused but intrigued, and her star rose. Next she wanted to be seen as a serious actress—and now the media started viewing her as a woman who wanted too much. When she started her own production company so she could exercise more control over her career, they began to think of her as ludicrous.

  Marilyn was trying to be accepted as all these things. “Marilyn Monroe” confused Hollywood, the media, studio executives, and the public. And in their confusion some of them became angry. Although they didn’t really know what they were angry about, it was easier to just view her as a slut who took herself too seriously.

  After Marilyn became successful for one thing, unlike many other people of the day, she wanted desperately to cross the line—to be accepted as many things. But alas, the generation she was born into wouldn’t allow that. And that’s partially what killed her.

  Such acceptance became her motivation, her goal. She tried to develop other aspects of her personality, but her power to seduce was always so potent that she eventually began asking herself, If people don’t find me beautiful, do I really deserve to be here?

  Today we realize that the beautiful Marilyn Monroe was a remarkable woman in so many ways that we simply cannot forget her. Her spectacular, indefinable radiance still lingers here on earth—and we never want to lose it.

  As her friend Ella Fitzgerald said, “She was an unusual woman—a little ahead of her times. And she didn’t know it.” Now she is recognized as an unusual woman for all times.

  Yet throughout her life, Marilyn’s self-doubts, her fears, her lingering questions left her constantly chasing after a sleep that always managed to elude her. On August 4 Marilyn Monroe retired to her bedroom and—her head filled with a myriad of secrets—closed the door.

  * * *

  Naked, sleeping pills flowing through her bloodstream, her face pressed into the pillow, a hand clutching a phone with no one on the other end, Marilyn Monroe—who never told anyone everything—died. What her thoughts were as she drifted toward the death that had always fascinated her, she kept to herself—creating forever her final and most confounding mystery.

  Loved by millions but feeling let down and alone, on a warm summer night, she went out as the most sensational movie star of the twentieth century. She is perfected and frozen in time: beautiful, vulnerable, impenetrable, delicious—forever our white goddess.

  She left us what she needed to leave. We stand back, mouths agape: judging, adoring, questioning. For eternity Marilyn’s skirt billows over a subway grating, she reclines nude against a red velvet backdrop, she slinks around a chorus of tuxedoed men singing the praises of diamonds, she is mobbed on her way out of the hospital, she sings a breathless “Happy Birthday” to our thirty-fifth president, or she says into a tape recorder, slightly high: “I guess I’ll settle for what I am.”

  Leaving each of us to decide exactly who she was.

  All insert photos courtesy of Photofest.

  Marilyn knew Charles Stanley Gifford only from this photograph her mother showed her when she was a little girl, stating, “This is your father.” Marilyn would spend her lifetime looking for him in other men. She once confided a fantasy in which she anonymously met her father in a bar and seduced him.
>
  Norma Jeane on an outing to the beach with her mother, Gladys Baker, in the late 1920s. At the time, the child was living with foster parents, the Bolenders, and she would live with her mentally unstable mother for only a brief period before Gladys was institutionalized.

  Norma Jeane, about age seven. She was living in foster care.

  For the first time in her life, twelve-year-old Norma Jeane felt loved when she was placed in the foster care of Ana Lower, whom she would call “Aunt Ana.”

  Norma Jeane married twenty-one-year-old James Dougherty in 1942, a few weeks after she turned sixteen. The choice was either to marry or go back to an orphanage.

  Before getting her first movie contract and changing her name to Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jeane found steady work as a model while her husband was in the Merchant Marines. She would divorce Dougherty when he objected to her career.

  Shortly after her divorce, Marilyn had a rare lunch with “family.” Clockwise from left to right: her half-sister Berniece Miracle, niece Mona Rae, foster mother Grace Goddard, Grace’s sister Enid Knebelkamp, Marilyn, foster mother Ana Lower, Marilyn’s mother Gladys Baker (flower in hair).

  In 1952, with her career on the rise, Fox decided to try Marilyn out in a dramatic role in Don’t Bother to Knock, playing a psychotic babysitter. The vulnerability and fragility that made audiences want to love and protect her was already abundantly evident.

  A lifelong dream came true when Marilyn was asked to put her hand- and footprints in cement in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre with her Gentlemen Prefer Blondes costar, Jane Russell.

  Baseball great Joe DiMaggio became Marilyn’s second husband in 1954. Although the marriage lasted only nine months, he remained close to her throughout her life. “No woman in the world will ever be loved the way he loved her,” a friend said.