by Donald Spoto
570
happy, gay, alert: Murray, p. 130.
570
quite pleasant: Greenson to Kris, Aug. 20, 1962; Greenson to Zolotow, art. cit., Sept. 16, 1973.
571
The time of Lawford’s call can be precisely fixed because Milton Ebbins recalled that Lawford called him at exactly 7:40 P.M.—a time Lawford later confirmed with William Asher and Joe Naar, among others. Ebbins, Asher and Naar interviews with DS dated, respectively, Aug. 6, 1992; Sept. 25, 1992; July 22, 1992.
571
Lawford’s account as herein related was his consistent account as told in a police interview in 1975, and as reported in the Los Angeles Times on Sept. 29, 1985. Lawford was also interviewed by district attorney investigators in 1982, but at that time he changed his story, saying simply that he could not get through to MM’s line at eight o’clock. However, Milton Ebbins reported to DS that Lawford told him the night of MM’s death of his last conversation with the actress at seven-forty. Lawford told the same story, in somewhat less detail, to Bill Asher and Joe Naar. It would have been natural for him to alter the account somewhat in 1982, by which time the unjustly believed rumors of the Kennedy involvement in MM’s death would have led Lawford to remove himself as far as possible from direct contact with her that night. Lawford later reported that he ended his string of fearful phone calls at one-thirty in the morning, after yet another call from Ebbins. Lawford told investigators from the district attorney’s office in 1982 that “Ebbins advised that he had just received a telephone call from Rudin, who stated that he and Dr. Greenson had found Monroe dead in her residence at midnight.” Lawford added that he was sure of the time of the call because he remembered looking at his bedside clock.
Again, Ebbins denied making the one-thirty call. By his account, following his (roughly) nine o’clock conversation with Rudin, he did not speak with the attorney again until four in the morning, at which time Rudin informed him of the death. “I said, ‘Mickey, what are you doing up at this hour?’ He said, ‘I got problems.’ I asked, ‘How’s Marilyn?’ and he said, ‘Not good.’ He said, ‘Her doctors and I just broke into the bedroom. They’ve been working on her, and they just pronounced her dead.’” This timing (Ebbins to DS, Aug. 6, 1992) seems unlikely, for it contradicts the collective witness of Asher, Naar and Rudin and supports the claims of Greenson and Eunice Murray themselves—namely, that the doctor had to break into MM’s bedroom to gain access to it.
571
Say goodbye: Lawford to Los Angeles Police Department, Oct. 16, 1975; also Lawford to Earl Wilson, Show Business Laid Bare, p. 88.
571
Regarding Lawford’s second telephone call: see Harrison Carroll, “Lawford Tells of Phoning Marilyn,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Aug. 6, 1962: “Lawford may have been the last person to talk to the blonde star before she was found dead in her bed . . . Eunice Murray earlier reported that Marilyn received such a call.”
571
Peter was obviously: Milton Ebbins to DS, Aug. 6, 1992.
571
Monroe was laughing: Thomas T. Noguchi with Joseph DiMona, Coroner (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 65.
572
That Ebbins reached Rudin’s office at 8:25 P.M. is confirmed by Rudin’s report to the police, based on his office records for that evening. Attorneys’ offices (especially in Hollywood) routinely have round-the-clock answering services for emergencies.
572
I did not call: Milton Rudin to DS, Oct. 31, 1992.
572
Rudin’s account is from this same interview with DS. Also, see Rudin’s account in the police interview dated Aug. 10, 1962.
572
If only: Murray, p. 132.
573
Joseph Naar’s account: to DS, July 22, 1992. George Durgom, who died in 1992, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease the last several years of his life, while this book was being researched, and could not be interviewed.
573
Ebbins denied (to DS, July 22 and Oct 6, 1992) calling Naar that evening. “He must be mistaken,” he said of Naar, who was and remains a friend of Ebbins. Naar, however, was emphatic (to DS, July 22, 1992): “I could swear it was Ebbins who called.” The information Naar received in that call is consistent with what Ebbins affirmed he later learned.
573
had found Marilyn: The entire episode was recounted by Lawford in InvRep (Lawford), p. 2.
574
At about ten: Natalie Trundy Jacobs to DS, Feb. 28, 1992.
574ff
Murray’s and Greenson’s reports are here represented as given to the Los Angeles police in 1962: report # 62-509 463.
574
for reasons I still: Murray, on Wolper, Legend.
575
We’ve lost her: Quoted in Robert Welkos and Ted Rohrlich, “Marilyn Monroe Mystery Persists,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 29, 1985, part 2, p. 1.
575
Murray’s altered account from a “light beneath the door” to a “telephone cord” was made on Wolper, Legend, 1964.
575
Murray’s written answer to Roy Turner’s typewritten letter dated Feb. 9, 1987; also Newcomb to DS, Aug. 3, 1992; Ralph Roberts to DS, March 2, 1992; Rupert Allan to DS, June 19, 1992.
Chapter Twenty-three: August 5, 1962
578ff
Clemmons’s account is derived from an extended lecture and presentation he gave in Los Angeles on March 22, 1991, before an audience of those devoted to MM called “Marilyn Remembered.” His report is also contained in DA 1982, pp. 7–8, 26–28.
579
It is officer’s opinion: Los Angeles Police Department Report: Re-Interview of Persons Known to MM, dated Aug. 10, 1962.
579
take a look: Don Marshall (Los Angeles Police Department, Retired) to DS, Sept. 2, 1992.
579
a very good: Quoted by Marshall.
580
burning a pile: Peter Brown and Patte Barham, The Last Take (New York: Dutton, 1992), p. 322.
580
the locks: Ibid.
580
Nobody was destroying: Don Marshall to DS, Sept. 14, 1992.
582
It was obvious: Robert Litman, M.D. to DS, April 23, 1992.
582
Since our studies: Robert Litman, M.D., quoted in Howard Hertel and Frank Laro, “Marilyn Monroe’s Death Listed by Coroner as Probably Suicide,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 18, 1962.
582
an addict among: Norman Farberow, M.D., quoted in the Hollywood Citizen-News, Aug. 20, 1962.
583
I did not think: John Miner to DS, June 11, 1992. All further citations of Miner are derived from this interview.
583
not a large: DA 1982, p. 4.
584ff
Citations from Arnold Abrams, M.D., to DS: Nov. 2, 1992.
584
On the impossibility of an injection, see also DA 1982, p. 4.
584
This leads: Ibid.
584
marked congestion: Coroner’s Report, File #81128: autopsy performed on August 5, 1962, signed by T. Noguchi, M.D., Deputy Medical Examiner. See also Noguchi, p. 78.
585
cutting down: To Zolotow, in the Chicago Tribune, Sept. 14, 1973, sec. 2, p. 4.
587
Eunice did only: Philip LaClair to DS, July 22, 1992.
588–589
Weinstein’s recollections concerning Engelberg’s gastric lavage (stomach-pumping) of MM at Doheny Drive were reported in an interview to DS, Dec. 10, 1992.
589
Regarding Eunice’s statement about the ambulance, so she said in a taped telephone conversation with Roy Turner, Feb. 9, 1987.
590
Well, I’ve made: Quoted by William Woodfield to DS, Sept. 20, 1991.
590
I don’t recall: Eunice Murray to Roy Turner, taped telephone conversation, Feb. 9, 1987.
590
I wouldn’t s
wear: Ibid.
591
tried to help: Quoted in McCann, p. 176.
591
Marilyn wasn’t killed: John Huston to Reuters News Service, Aug. 22, 1962.
591
Oh, why do I: Murray, during the filming of the BBC-TV documentary, Marilyn: Say Goodbye to the President, as heard by the producer, Ted Landreth and reported to DS.
593
Dear Joe: This note was found in MM’s personal address book, removed Sunday by Inez Melson, her business manager. It was included in a box of personal materials later purchased by a private collector—a cache then passed on to DS in 1991.
Chapter Twenty-four: August 6–8, 1962
594–595
The dialogue between MM and Allan Snyder was recalled for DS by Snyder on May 2, 1992.
596
I love you: Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Aug. 8, 1962, p. 1.
Afterword
600
vastly alluring: Lee Israel, Kilgallen (New York: Delacorte, 1979), pp. 338–340.
600
one of the President’s appointees: “The Midnight World of Walter Winchell,” Photoplay, Dec. 1962, p. 91.
600ff
On Frank A. Capell, see the profile in The New York Times, Feb. 18, 1965.
600
subversive activities which threaten: William Turner, Power on the Right (Berkeley: Ramparts Press, 1971), p. 224.
601
I’ll tell you a story: This dialogue and the account of the meeting were reported by Clemmons himself in an address in Los Angeles on March 22, 1991, to the group known as Marilyn Remembered.
601
the closeness of their friendship: Frank A. Capell, The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe (Zarephath, N.J.: The Herald of Freedom, 1964), pp. 62, 69–70.
601ff
On Winchell and Hoover, see Natalie Robins, Alien Ink (New York: Morrow, 1992).
602
[Capell’s] book: FBI File #77-51387.
602
On Capell, Clemmons, Fergus and the Kuchel case, see, e.g., Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1965.
603
a married man: Fred Lawrence Guiles, Norma Jean: The Life of Marilyn Monroe (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969), p. 315.
603
the [RFK] liaison: Guiles, Legend, p. 16; like Norma Jean, this book also lacks documentation.
603
Guiles’s version: Norman Mailer, Marilyn (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1973), p. 237.
603
See Anthony Scaduto, “Who Killed Marilyn Monroe?” Oui, Oct. 1975, pp. 35ff.
604
The evidence is as thin: Report of the Los Angeles Police Department Organized Crime Investigation Division, dated Oct. 22, 1975.
605ff
On the results of the District Attorney’s threshold investigation, see the Los Angeles County District Attorney Bureau of Investigation, Investigator’s Report, File #82-G-2236: this report is treated extensively in the notes to chapter 22.
606
a known boaster: Ibid.
607
Capell’s role as: Anthony Summers, Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe, 2nd ed. (New York: Signet/Onyx, 1986), p. 453.
607
On Parker and Hoover: Ibid., p. 374.
607
On Kennedy’s order to Hoover: Ibid., p. 405.
607
the most cogent account: Ibid., p. 390.
609
I don’t know why: Michael Gurdin, M.D., to DS, Sept. 21, 1992.
610
tangled, disastrous affairs: Brown and Barham, p. 386.
610
Geraldo, Sally Jessy: Ibid.
611
evidence: Ibid., p. 387.
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