Marilyn Monroe

by Donald Spoto

  Among the first to recognize that Eunice was inappropriate for Marilyn was Pat Newcomb, who had almost daily contact with her client, helping to schedule appointments for photographers and reporters as well as facilitating the ongoing discussions with Fox. “At first,” said Pat,

  Marilyn sought her advice because she was supposed to be this wonderful housekeeper Greenson had found for her. But from day one, I did not trust Eunice Murray, who seemed to be always snooping around. I tried to stay out of her way because I just didn’t like her. She was sort of a spook, always hovering, always on the fringes of things.

  Alan Snyder was also dismayed, frankly describing Eunice as “a very strange lady. She was put into Marilyn’s life by Greenson, and she was always whispering—whispering and listening. She was this constant presence, reporting everything back to Greenson, and Marilyn quickly realized this,” for Eunice could often be overheard telephoning to Greenson the details he desired.

  As Christmas approached, Marilyn telephoned Ralph Roberts in New York, telling him she was having a miserable time in therapy but that she still felt her best option was to stay with Greenson. “She said that she dreaded doing the movie that was being planned for her, that she missed her Manhattan friends, and she asked me to return to Los Angeles with her after the trip she planned to New York early in 1962.” But despite her unhappiness Marilyn was, she told Ralph, looking forward to Christmas: Joe was coming to spend the holidays with her.

  DiMaggio arrived in Los Angeles on December 23, decorated Marilyn’s apartment with a tree and stocked her refrigerator with champagne and caviar. On their behalf, Marilyn had accepted an invitation to the Greensons for Christmas dinner; Joe, always shy with strangers, reluctantly agreed to attend. New Year’s Eve, however, the former Mr. and Mrs. DiMaggio spent quietly together at Doheny Drive.

  That season, Marilyn told Ralph and Pat (and presumably Joe) that Mrs. Murray was on the lookout for a house in Brentwood, a western section of Los Angeles near Santa Monica and Franklin Street. This was the location Greenson and Mrs. Murray thought best for Marilyn. Come to think of it, Marilyn added, it was odd: somehow she could never bring herself to address her housekeeper as anything but “Mrs. Murray,” who always addressed her familiarly as “Marilyn.”

  1. By the time Marilyn’s Estate was finally appraised in 1963, it was valued at $92,781 (orabout $375,000 in 1993 dollars). Lee Strasberg’s second wife, whom he married after the death of Paula in 1966, was his sole beneficiary when he died in 1982; thus Anna Mizrahi Strasberg, a woman Marilyn never knew, became heir to the bulk of Marilyn Monroe’s Estate—which meant primarily income from film royalties and from the licensing of her image on coffee mugs, T-shirts, pens, etc. In 1992, this generated something in excess of one million dollars a year. By this time, Marianne Kris was long dead, and her heirs were the Anna Freud Children’s Clinic in London.

  2. To confuse tourists and fans, Marilyn installed on the doorbell at Doheny Drive the name Marjorie Stengel. Formerly Montgomery Clift’s secretary, Stengel had worked briefly for Marilyn in New York after the departure of May Reis.

  3. This was fortuitous for Brown and for film history: David Brown went on to produce or co-produce an impressive array of films: The Sting, Jaws, Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy, The Player and A Few Good Men, to name only a few.

  4. The 1940 script, by Sam and Bella Spewack, was itself inspired by the Tennyson poem “Enoch Arden,” about a seaman believed dead who returns after a long absence to find his wife remarried. Recognizing her happiness, he does not reveal his identity and subsequently dies of grief. The Spewacks and their successors slyly named the couple of their movie scenario Ellen and Nick (combined to allude to Enoch) Arden.

  Chapter Twenty

  JANUARY–MAY 1962

  IN LATE JANUARY 1962, Eunice Murray found a home for Marilyn Monroe. Ralph Greenson accompanied his patient on her first visit to approve the choice, and she purchased it from the owners, William and Doris Pagen, for $77,500. Marilyn had prudently deferred her income from Some Like It Hot and The Misfits, and that January she received checks totaling $225,000; most of this paid past taxes, and then Marilyn put down $42,500 and signed for a 6¼ percent, fifteen-year mortgage, with monthly payments of $320. She would take title and possession of her new home two months later.

  Contracts were drawn up without problems and with the assistance of her new attorney, Milton Rudin (Greenson’s brother-in-law). Rudin expedited the purchase of the house and subsequently managed the transfer of Marilyn’s representation from MCA to his own firm. With Greenson, Murray, Weinstein and Rudin in place, both the private and professional aspects of Marilyn Monroe’s life seemed safely assured. Only for a moment did she hesitate before signing the escrow papers: “I felt badly because I was buying a house all alone,” she said later. But encouraged by Greenson, buy it she did, although as Marilyn’s friend and stand-in Evelyn Moriarty recalled, “she was talked into this house—by Mrs. Murray and by Dr. Greenson, as she told us several times while we were filming Something’s Got to Give.”

  The house was remarkably like a modest version of the Murray-Greenson home. Near Santa Monica and the ocean, between Sunset and San Vicente boulevards, there is a run of short, dead-end streets off Carmelina Avenue known as the “numbered Helenas.” At 12305 Fifth Helena Drive was a Spanish hacienda behind a high white wall. Secluded and private, the small (twenty-three-hundred-square-foot), single-story house with attached garage and a tiny guest house needed considerable refurbishing, but it had a red-tiled roof, thick white stucco walls, casement windows, a beamed cathedral ceiling in the living room and arched doorways throughout. The property also featured lush plantings and a swimming pool—all nestled in a quiet cul-de-sac convenient to shopping, to Fox and a mere mile from the Greenson residence on Franklin Street, just around the golf course of the Brentwood Country Club.

  A visitor at the front door looked down to see a tile with the Latin motto CURSUM PERFICIO, a translation from the original Greek of a New Testament verse.1 The threshold gave, without foyer, onto a small living room; to the left were a kitchen, dining area and small solarium; to the right were three small bedrooms, one facing the front lawn, with a small private bath, and two smaller bedrooms connected by a second bath. As was the custom in many homes built during the Great Depression, there was little closet space—two small cupboards for three bedrooms, plus a linen closet—and none of these had operating locks, as Eunice pointed out. This was bad news to Marilyn’s new secretary, a woman in her late fifties named Cherie Redmond. From January 1962, Cherie worked at Doheny Drive; from March, she was at Fifth Helena; and when production on the new film began, she was in daily attendance at Fox.

  Cherie wished to secure Marilyn’s financial papers, checks and related private materials in a closet or in one of the small bedrooms—“but there isn’t one door in the place that locks,” as she wrote to her New York counterpart, Hedda Rosten (who was taking care of mail and minor secretarial duties at Fifty-seventh Street). As the next owners after Marilyn discovered, none of the inoperative interior locks were repaired while she was in residence. (Cherie finally had one installed for her small file cabinet, on March 15.)2

  Just as Marilyn was planning the partial renovation of the new house and the purchase of new, Mexican-style furnishings, she heard the first rumblings of Hollywood talk about an important new man in her life: nothing in the press, of course (that would have been unthinkable in 1962), simply party chatter. In time, the talk became a loud shout, then an avalanche.

  A passionate love affair between Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy has been assumed for so long that it has achieved as solid a place in public awareness as almost any other event in the man’s presidency.

  But if the phrase “love affair” describes a protracted intimacy sustained by some degree of frequency, then such a connection between these two is impossible to establish with any of the rudimentary tools of historico-critical studies. In the absence of such evidence, no seriou
s biographer can identify Monroe and Kennedy as partners in a love affair. All that can be known for certain is that on four occasions between October 1961 and August 1962, the president and the actress met, and that during one of those meetings they telephoned one of Marilyn’s friends from a bedroom; soon after, Marilyn confided this one sexual encounter to her closest confidants, making clear that it was the extent of their involvement.

  In October 1961, after a photography session for a magazine story, Marilyn asked Allan Snyder to deliver her to a party at Patricia and Peter Lawford’s Santa Monica beach house. The occasion was a dinner party honoring Pat’s brother, President Kennedy, and among the other guests were several blond movie stars—Kim Novak, Janet Leigh and Angie Dickinson, for all of whom the president had a keen appreciation. All contrary allegations notwithstanding, this was the first meeting between Marilyn Monroe and John Kennedy; hearsay about any earlier introduction simply cannot be substantiated. Before this, the schedules of Monroe and Kennedy since his January 1961 inauguration reveal wide geographic distances between them. That October night, Marilyn was driven back to her apartment by one of the Lawfords’ staff.

  The second encounter occurred during February 1962, when Marilyn was again invited to a dinner party for the president, this time at the Manhattan home of Fifi Fell, the wealthy socialite widow of a famous industrialist. She was escorted from her New York apartment to the Fell residence by Milton Ebbins, who also saw her home.

  The third meeting occurred on Saturday, March 24, 1962, when both the president and Marilyn were houseguests of Bing Crosby in Palm Springs. On that occasion, she telephoned Ralph Roberts from the bedroom she was sharing with Kennedy.

  “She asked me about the solus muscle,” according to Ralph, “which she knew something about from the Mabel Ellsworth Todd book [The Thinking Body], and she had obviously been talking about this with the president, who was known to have all sorts of ailments, muscle and back trouble.” Ralph clearly recalled not only the origin and detail of Marilyn’s question but also the ease with which Kennedy himself then took the phone and thanked Roberts for his professional advice. “Later, once the rumor mill was grinding,” according to Ralph,

  Marilyn told me that this night in March was the only time of her “affair” with JFK. Of course she was titillated beyond belief, because for a year he had been trying, through Lawford, to have an evening with her. A great many people thought, after that weekend, that there was more to it. But Marilyn gave me the impression that it was not a major event for either of them: it happened once, that weekend, and that was that.

  The fourth and final meeting took place in May 1962, at the legendary birthday gala for Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, an event that included a party afterward at the home of movie executive Arthur Krim and his wife Mathilde, a scientist later renowned for her great work against AIDS. This May meeting was the briefest of them all, as the president, his brother and his family were mobbed by friends, admirers and the press all evening.

  Were Marilyn Monroe’s characteristic candor on such matters the only evidence—the fact that she never exaggerated nor minimized her romantic involvements—that would be weighty reason to accept her version of the one night of intimacy. There is, however, good external evidence to support her claim. Accounts of a more enduring affair with John Kennedy, stretching anywhere from a year to a decade, owe to fanciful supermarket journalists and tales told by those eager for quick cash or quicker notoriety: those who fail to check the facts of history and are thus easily dispatched as reliable sources.

  In fact, there were at least two other famous blond actresses whose affairs with President Kennedy are far more easily established. One, Angie Dickinson, almost completed her autobiography—all details of her affair with the president intact—but then she decided to omit the Kennedy affair. But with that excision, her story apparently lacked drama. On third thought, she withdrew the typescript, returned the money paid as an advance against royalties and, having once entered the publishing kingdom, abandoned all hope forever. A second blond actress, whose autobiography was in fact published, simply omitted any mention of her brief affair with the president.

  “Marilyn liked [President Kennedy] the man as well as the office,” according to Sidney Skolsky, among the first friends to be informed of the March tryst; he added that she also enjoyed the fantasy that this experience carried—“the little orphan waif indulging in free love with the leader of the free world.” And as she soon after told Earl Wilson, Rupert Allan and Ralph Roberts, she found John Kennedy amusing, pleasant, interesting and enjoyable company, not to say immensely flattering. As for Mrs. Kennedy, as Skolsky added, “Marilyn did not regard [her] with envy or animosity,” and was aware that her own role in Kennedy’s life (like that of other women she knew) was limited to a necessarily shallow transiency.

  The posthumous revelations of Kennedy’s philandering revealed the impossibility, for obvious reasons, of pursuing any serious romance with one woman. The exaggeration of his “affair” with Marilyn is part of the myth of King Arthur’s Camelot, an image subsequently grafted onto his brief term. There was a need to believe in the tradition of courtly intrigues and infidelities—Lancelot and Guinevere, Charles II and Nell Gwynn, Edward VII and Lily Langtry; Nell and Lily were actresses in the bargain. John F. Kennedy was, he might have thought, exercising a benevolent droit du seigneur.

  But in this case there was but one rendezvous between the attractive, princely president and the reigning movie queen; to follow the Arthurian simile: the mists of Avalon are easily dispersed by shining reality’s clear light onto the scene.

  It is important to establish definitively the truth of this matter not only for the sake of historical accuracy but also because of a far more damaging rumor that began after Marilyn Monroe’s death. The unfounded and scurrilous accounts of a concomitant or subsequent sexual affair with Robert F. Kennedy, the president’s younger brother and attorney general, has been even more persistent than that of the presidential liaison. It has also led to the completely groundless assertion of a link between Robert Kennedy and Marilyn’s death—a connection so outrageous as to be hilarious were it not also injurious to the man’s reputation.3

  The rumors of an affair with Robert Kennedy are based on the simple fact that he met Marilyn Monroe four times, as their schedules during 1961 and 1962 reveal, complementing the testimony of (among others close to Kennedy) Edwin Guthman, Kennedy’s closest associate during this time. But Robert Kennedy never shared a bed with Marilyn Monroe.

  Guthman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter and journalist, was Special Assistant for Public Information in the Kennedy administration as well as senior press officer for the Justice Department. The travel logs of the attorney general’s schedule for 1961–62 (preserved in the John F. Kennedy Library and in the National Archives) support the detailed accounts provided by Guthman. These, collectively, attest to the fact that Robert Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe enjoyed a socially polite relationship—four meetings and several phone calls over a period of less than ten months. But their respective whereabouts during this time made anything else impossible—even had they both been inclined to a dalliance, which is itself far from the truth on both counts.

  Marilyn’s first meeting with Robert Kennedy occurred several weeks before her introduction to the president. “On either October 2 or 3, 1961,” said Guthman,

  Kennedy and I were attending a series of meetings with United States attorneys and members of the FBI in Albuquerque, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. The attorney general and I attended a dinner party at the Lawfords, and around midnight Marilyn decided to go home. But she had drunk too much champagne, and we were worried for her. Bobby and I would not let her drive her car, and we did so together, delivering her safely to her door.

  The second meeting between the attorney general and Marilyn occurred on Wednesday evening, February 1, 1962, when he and his entourage dined at the Lawfords en route from Wa
shington to the Far East on a month-long diplomatic journey. “That evening,” according to Guthman, “Marilyn was quite sober—a terrifically nice person, really—fun to talk with, warm and interested in serious issues.”

  Pat Newcomb, also present at the dinner, remembered that Marilyn

  really cared about learning. The day before [the dinner party], Marilyn told me, “I want to be in touch, Pat—I want to really know what’s going on in the country.” She was especially concerned about civil rights—she really cared about that. She had a list of questions prepared. When the press reported that Bobby was talking to her more than anyone else, that’s what they meant. I saw the questions and I knew what they were talking about. She identified with all the people who were denied civil rights.

  The next day, February 2, Marilyn wrote two letters. To Isadore Miller, Marilyn sent a two-page letter in which she wrote to her “Dear Dad,”

  Last night I attended a dinner in honor of the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. He seems rather mature and brilliant for his thirty-six years, but what I liked best about him, besides his Civil Rights program, is he’s got such a wonderful sense of humor.

  That same day, she wrote to Arthur Miller’s son Bobby:

  I had dinner last night with the Attorney General of the United States, Robert Kennedy, and I asked him what his department was going to do about Civil Rights and some other issues. He is very intelligent and besides all that, he’s got a terrific sense of humor. I think you would like him. I was mostly impressed with how serious he is about Civil Rights. He answered all of my questions and then he said he would write me a letter and put it on paper. So, I’ll send you a copy of the letter when I get it because there will be some very interesting things in it because I really asked many questions that I said the youth of America want answers to and want things done about.