The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

by Donald H. Wolfe

  She never saw Jack Kennedy again.

  54

  Thanks for the Memory

  What fresh hell is this?

  —Dorothy Parker

  When Marilyn drove to the airport to fly back to Los Angeles, she decided to dispense with her disguise—her wig and sunglasses—and enjoy her new pinnacle of fame. If the public hadn’t seen her singing “Happy Birthday” to the president on the network news, they had undoubtedly seen photos of the gala on page one of the Sunday morning paper. Her arrival at the airport caused a near riot that had to be quelled by an emergency call for police assistance.

  Aided by amphetamines, Marilyn reported for work at 6:15 A.M. on Monday, May 21, thirty-three hours after the gala. She sent word to George Cukor that she was prepared to film the scenes scheduled for the day, but close-ups were ruled out. She was obviously ill, and makeup artist Whitey Snyder couldn’t hide the evidence of fatigue from her whirlwind weekend. To complicate matters, Dean Martin had reported for work despite a bad cold and a temperature, and studio doctor Lee Siegel advised Marilyn against working with Martin until his fever was gone.

  On Tuesday afternoon, Pat Newcomb called photographer Lawrence Schiller at his home. “I would plan to be on the set all day tomorrow if I were you, Larry, and bring plenty of film,” advised Newcomb, “Marilyn has the swimming scene tomorrow and, knowing Marilyn, she might slip out of her suit!” The scene was a midnight swimming sequence in which Marilyn, in the nude, would lure Dean Martin from Cyd Charrisse’s bed. No actual nudity was planned; normally, a body stocking was worn to create the illusion. But Newcomb knew the film needed a publicity boost and that this could be a photo opportunity not to be missed. That she did the scene des nuda took everybody by surprise. “She was aware that she still had a fabulous body,” recalled Robert Slatzer, “and this was a way to show the world that she wasn’t over the hill at the age of thirty-six.”

  As Schiller and photographer Billy Woodfield took their photos, Monroe swam to the edge of the pool and put one leg up on the rim. In another sequence she sat on the pool steps, looking over her shoulder in wide-eyed innocence. Word quickly spread on the Fox lot that Marilyn was doing a nude scene.

  “The reaction was incredible,” recalled Henry Weinstein. “Everyone wanted to get on that set. It became a stampede.” The producer called for emergency security guards to bar the stage entrance.

  With her fever quelled by amphetamines and her headaches eased by Demerol, Marilyn was in the water for four hours while the shutters clicked and Cukor rolled the cameras. Schiller and Billy Woodfield orchestrated an international bidding war for the photographs and they appeared on covers of seventy magazines in thirty-two countries. Schiller and Woodfield made over $150,000—more than Marilyn’s salary on the film.

  The next day Fox executives screened the dailies of Monroe’s “midnight swim,” and they were ecstatic. Marilyn had been on the set all week. On Sunday, Lee Siegel gave Dean Martin a clean bill of health and said he was well enough to work with Monroe. There was reason for optimism.

  On Monday, May 28, Cukor had scheduled an eight-minute scene with Marilyn, Dean Martin, Cyd Charisse, and Tom Tryon. But something was wrong with Marilyn that Monday morning. Tom Tryon was one of the first to sense that she was in trouble. “What’s the matter with Marilyn?” he whispered to the director. Cukor agreed that something was very wrong. “I’ve never seen her like this,” he said. “She looks like she’s falling apart.”

  “From the moment she came on the set, she looked like a piece of fine crystal about to shatter,” said Tom Tryon. “All of her moves were tentative and tenuous. In the first take she only had two words to say, which were ‘Nick, darling,’ but she couldn’t get the words correct no matter how many times we tried it. My heart went out to her.”

  News of the problems on the set quickly rippled through the Fox rumor mill. A switchboard operator recalled that “Marilyn tried to reach Frank Sinatra.” Unable to locate him, Marilyn learned through Mickey Rudin’s office that Frank was performing on a world tour.

  Following ten agonizing takes, in which Marilyn began stuttering, Cukor began treating her with growing impatience and Marilyn ran from the set. “She almost knocked me over,” recalled Hazel Washington. “Cukor was acting like a bully—making a bad situation worse.” Running hysterically into her studio bungalow, she grabbed a scarlet lipstick and scrawled several times on the mirror, “Frank, help me! Frank, please help me!” before collapsing.

  Weinstein found her behavior quite puzzling. When Marilyn had finished filming on Friday, she was in excellent spirits. She had several glasses of Dom Pérignon with members of the cast and crew she invited to her bungalow. Later she met with Larry Schiller to approve selected stills from her nude scene. She was delighted over the angles caught by Schiller’s camera, and he found her “vibrant and excited.” As she waved good-bye that Friday night when she drove off to Brentwood in her limousine, the photographer admired her determination and effervescent spirit. She then vanished for seventy-two hours. Appointments were broken. Phone calls weren’t returned. Dinner dates were canceled.

  “This was perhaps the most mysterious weekend of Marilyn’s life,” said Weinstein. “It was even more puzzling than the day of her death. Something terrible happened to her that weekend. It was deeply personal, so personal that it shook Marilyn’s psyche. I saw it happen, and I blame myself for not immediately calling Dr. Greenson and asking him to return.” Weinstein dates the beginning of the events that led to Marilyn’s “slide to death” as something that happened to her after she left the studio on Friday, May 25.

  It wasn’t long before the Hollywood rumor mill started grinding out stories concerning what may have occurred on that fateful weekend. Some said she had an abortion, others said that she had been on a LSD trip with Timothy Leary, still others said she had an episode of the same madness that struck her mother. Every possible combination of tabloid trauma was rumored and even printed as fact.

  “I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure about what happened that weekend,” Weinstein said. “I mean, there are a few people who do know. Somebody who I think really knew what happened is Pat Newcomb.”

  What happened that mysterious weekend related to a chain of circumstances that occurred shortly after the presidential birthday gala. On May 22, the Oval Office received an urgent call from J. Edgar Hoover. He wanted to see the president on a matter of national security. It was to be another one of the rare meetings these powerful adversaries would have during the “Thousand Days.” Their battle of wills had skirmished in the subcellars of Pennsylvania Avenue for over two decades of public life, and a meeting was scheduled for Thursday, May 24, just five days after the gala. It is possible that the conversation between the two may be one of the 270 confidential Oval Office conversations secretly recorded by President Kennedy and now secured within the confines of the Kennedy Library. But it is doubtful that the public will ever hear the recording.

  Hoover was well aware that the clandestine relationships with Monroe and Judith Campbell Exner had continued despite warnings of the inherent danger. If Kennedy persisted in this pattern of behavior, which went back to the days of Inga Arvad, it could conceivably bring down the presidency in the midst of an escalating cold war crisis over Cuba.

  The vehemence of Hoover’s warning can be judged only by the effect.

  On the very day of JFK’s meeting with Hoover, May 24, 1962, word went out to the Oval Office switchboard that calls from Marilyn Monroe would no longer be accepted, and the private number the president had given her was disconnected. They never saw or spoke to each other again. Jack Kennedy called Judith Campbell Exner himself to tell her the relationship had to end, but he left the responsibility of telling Marilyn to his brother-in-law, Peter Lawford. Patricia Seaton Lawford confirmed that it was left to Peter to inform Marilyn of the president’s decision. On Saturday, May 27, Eunice Murray recalled, “Somebody had called long-distance—somebody close to the Kennedy
family.” That “somebody” was Peter Lawford calling from Hyannisport. It was a job he didn’t relish. He knew how much the liaison with the president meant to Marilyn.

  Lawford knew he had to be blunt. He decided to let Marilyn know in no uncertain terms that the relationship was over, according to Patricia Seaton Lawford. “There was no effort to let her down easily. She was told that she’d never be able to speak to the president again—that she was never going to be the First Lady. She was not even a serious affair.” When Marilyn broke down, Peter said, “Look, Marilyn, you’re just another one of Jack’s fucks.”

  Pat Newcomb was the logical person to look after Marilyn. Alarmed at Marilyn’s state of mind and afraid that in her hysteria the film star might call one of her press friends and reveal her relationship with the president, Newcomb literally moved in that weekend, bringing her own bottle of sedatives to be sure that Marilyn was well supplied. According to Eunice Murray, “Pat Newcomb moved in for a couple of days to take over Marilyn’s care. Pat said she knew just what to do. Presumably, bringing her own sedatives along to let Marilyn use until her doctor returned.” Murray observed, “The door to her bedroom was closed for two days while Pat kept her sedated.” The publicist slept at the foot of Marilyn’s bed and seldom left the room. Norman Jefferies, who was working at the home that weekend, stated, “Marilyn seemed to be a prisoner in her own bedroom.”

  On Monday morning, the studio limousine was at her door at six to drive Marilyn to the studio. “She could hardly stand up,” said Hazel Washington, “but she insisted on working.” What had happened to Marilyn that weekend remained a mystery to the cast and crew. “We just knew she was shattered and needed help,” said Tom Tryon. But Marilyn was an amazingly resilient person. Her whole life had been a question of overcoming obstacles. There was a remarkable spirit within her that would not accept defeat. She returned to the set of Something’s Got to Give on Tuesday afternoon with a renewed dedication. With the exception of the debacle on Monday, May 28, Marilyn worked nine straight days—May 21 through June 1. If she had lost everything else, she still had her career and her fans and her most constant secret admirer—the camera.

  On Friday morning, June 1, 1962, the lights were burning in Marilyn’s windows as early as four o’clock. Mrs. Murray was busy brewing coffee in the kitchen. She had already run Marilyn’s bath and poured in the ritual one ounce of Chanel No. 5. Outside, her driver, Rudy, stood by the waiting limousine; he could hear a Frank Sinatra album playing on Marilyn’s record player. He was to wait over an hour and a half while she bathed and put on her makeup. Murray noted, “she seemed to need all this, the perfume baths, the makeup, the background music, to woo that sensual persona into existence.”

  Once more, Norma Jeane would conjure up her magic trick for the one-eyed black box that produced the illusion millions would come to know as “Marilyn Monroe.” Norma Jeane had no idea that this day, June 1, 1962, would prove to be the last day Marilyn Monroe would ever appear before the motion-picture cameras—the culmination of an astonishing career that had spanned sixteen years.

  Ironically, this day was also her birthday. She became thirty-six, a worrisome time for a film star. The mid-thirties had been the turning point in the careers of many Hollywood actresses who were dependent on their looks. But Marilyn never looked better. She had lost some weight for the film and her beauty had acquired a delicacy that was enthralling. “To me, she looked marvelous during Something’s Got to Give—better than she had in years,” said Whitey Snyder.

  The scene being shot on June 1 was more complicated than most. Marilyn was to pass off anemic Wally Cox as the man she had shared a desert island with for seven years. She was unhappy with the poorly scripted, wooden quips she was supposed to make, but managed to turn them into something that sounded ingeniously clever on film.

  During a break in filming that day, Cukor spied Pat Newcomb crossing the stage with two crystal glasses and a bottle of Dom Pérignon. “He was furious about those few sips of champagne,” said stand-in Evelyn Moriarity. “And he was angry that a birthday party was being planned for her later in the day.”

  “Not on this set. Not now!” stormed Cukor.

  Fox spent more than five thousand dollars on Elizabeth Taylor’s birthday bash on the set of Cleopatra in Rome. But Fox executives, angry about the many delays in production, weren’t about to spring for Marilyn’s birthday party, especially one that could cause further delay. The crew had collected five dollars for a small cake, Dean Martin supplied the champagne, and the Fox commissary sent over a large urn of coffee, which it later billed to the Monroe estate. With the tawdry celebration awaiting, Marilyn, Dean Martin, and Wally Cox completed the last scene Marilyn Monroe was ever to do before a motion-picture camera. “She was wonderful in those last scenes,” recalled editor David Bretherton. “She had never been better, or displayed more perfect timing.”

  For those few who have seen the entire collection of printed takes from Something’s Got to Give, Marilyn Monroe’s work is astonishing. In over six hours of dailies and edited footage that constitute all of Marilyn’s completed scenes, the viewer witnesses the performance of a consummate professional. One is struck by the fact that she never blew a line, never missed a cue, never missed her marks—despite how she may have felt either emotionally or physically. As Gable once said, “When she’s there, she’s really there.”

  After the last take on Marilyn’s last day before the cameras, Henry Weinstein escorted Marilyn to the dark edges of the soundstage where the cast, with sparklers sputtering in their hands, waited around the pitiable birthday cake. Marilyn displayed an artificial gaiety, and for the camera, she gamely fed a piece of cake to a petulant Cukor. “It was only a pretend celebration,” said Weinstein. “There was a real pall over it. I don’t know why.”

  That day, the weather had become unseasonably cold for Southern California, blanketing Los Angeles in clouds and fog. The evening air was damp and chilly. As the birthday party wound down, Marilyn turned to Weinstein and asked if she could borrow the Jean-Louis suit and hat that she wore in the film. “I’ve got an appearance this evening at Dodger Stadium. I won’t have time to go home now, and the suit is the only thing I’ve got that’s warm enough.”

  Henry Weinstein was immediately concerned. He stated, “I knew if she went out in that weather, she could turn sick.” He tried to persuade her to cancel her appearance, but Marilyn insisted, “I have to go. I promised the people from Muscular Dystrophy, and they sold thousands of tickets. Besides, I promised to take Dean Martin’s son.”

  Ignoring the cold descending mist, Marilyn spent an hour on the field that evening at Dodger Stadium while chatting with several children in wheelchairs. A chill wind caught her mink hat and blew it from her head, and the last photograph taken in public of Marilyn shows her waving to the children as she holds her hat in her hand.

  As she drove home in her limousine later that night, she began feeling the blinding pain behind her eyes. The insidious sinusitis infection had returned with a vengeance.

  55

  Hell Hath No Fury Like…

  Marilyn’s lifelong problem was basically a problem of rejection.

  —Ralph R. Greenson

  On the weekend of June 2 and 3, Marilyn telephoned both Jeanne Carmen and Terry Moore from her sickbed and discussed the difficulties she was having in reaching Jack Kennedy. “She was very proud that she was given the president’s private number and was devastated when he cut it off,” said her friend Terry Moore. Having known Jack Kennedy all her adult life, Marilyn felt he owed her an explanation.

  Dr. Greenson’s absence contributed to Marilyn’s sense of abandonment. Eunice Murray recalled, “Marilyn didn’t want to interrupt the doctor’s trip with her problems.” Greenson’s son, Danny, had made a point of requesting that Marilyn let him get through “the speaking engagement in Switzerland” without calling him home.

  If Marilyn hoped for help from Peter Lawford, it wasn’t forthcoming. He too be
gan avoiding her. “Where the hell is Peter?” she asked Jeanne Carmen. “I haven’t been able to reach him for days.” Carmen noted that “Peter had a way of making himself scarce when he didn’t want to talk to you.”

  Lawford had informed Jack Kennedy that Marilyn reacted very badly to being cut off from contact with the president. She wrote the president a number of unanswered letters that became increasingly angry and belligerent in tone. Peter Lawford termed them “rather pathetic letters.” With both Hoover and Monroe to contend with, Kennedy was constrained to heed the warning of the FBI chief, and at the same time found it expedient to mollify the movie star. While Pat Newcomb could be relied upon to keep Peter Lawford and the Kennedys apprised of Marilyn’s state of mind on a day-to-day basis, Bobby Kennedy was the logical one to solve the “Marilyn problem,” which had now become an imminent danger. Bobby Kennedy was the ameliorator for the family. Only he was privy to the complex personal matters relating to Jack Kennedy and Marilyn.

  On Sunday, June 3, Marilyn succumbed to her feelings of rejection in a haze of Nembutal somnambulence. The Aztec calendar, purchased in Taxco during happier days, would count the deleterious days and hours. The chess board sat on the game table, the white knight missing. The Rodin, which stood on her living room table, silently answered her indefinable question, “What does it mean? Does he love her? Or is he just screwing her? Is it a fake? What do you think, Doctor? What does it mean?”