by Adam Braver
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Also by Adam Braver
July 27, 1962 - Marilyn Monroe’s House, Los Angeles
9:15 AM
1937–1954
1937: Ida Martin’s House, Compton, CA
1945: Metropolitan Airport, Van Nuys, CA
1951: Norwalk State Hospital, Norwalk, CA
March 8, 1952: Villa Nova Restaurant, Los Angeles
January 14, 1954: City Hall, San Francisco
September 1954: Los Angeles
November 5, 1954: West Hollywood, Los Angeles
July 27, 1962 - Cal Neva Lodge, Crystal Bay, NV
12:36 PM
2:00 PM
3:15 PM
1956
Spring 1956: The Actors Studio, New York City
Spring 1956: Central Park West, New York City
Spring 1956: The Actors Studio, New York City
Spring 1956: Los Angeles
Midsummer 1956: New York City & Washington, D.C.
Midsummer 1956: 2 Sutton Place, New York City
July 27, 1962 - Cal Neva Lodge, Crystal Bay, NV
3:50 PM
4:50 PM
1957–1960
Excerpts from the United Artists Pressbook for The Misfits
August 1957: 444 East Fifty-Seventh Street, New York City
October 1959: Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles
Late July 1960: The Misfits Set/Harrah’s Club, Reno
Late August 1960: Mapes Hotel, Reno
Mid-September 1960: The Misfits Set, Pyramid Lake, NV
Late September 1960: The Misfits Set, Pyramid Lake, NV
Late September 1960: The Misfits Set, Pyramid Lake, NV
Mid-October 1960: The Misfits Set, Pyramid Lake, NV
November 1960: Los Angeles
July 27, 1962 - Cal Neva Lodge, Crystal Bay, NV
6:25 PM
7:40 PM
9:45 PM
January–June 1962
January 1962: Henry Weinstein’s House, Hollywood
May 1962: Twentieth Century-Fox Studio Back Lot, Los Angeles
June 1, 1962: Twentieth Century-Fox Studio Back Lot, Los Angeles
June 1, 1962: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
Mid-June 1962: Twentieth Century-Fox Executive Offices, Los Angeles
July 27–July 28, 1962 - Cal Neva Lodge, Crystal Bay, NV
11:25 PM
11:50 PM
12:11 AM
12:25 AM
12:40 AM
12:48 AM
1:03 AM
1:20 AM
11:10 AM
12:00 PM
12:07 PM
Postscript - One Week Later
August 7, 1962: Westwood Village Mortuary, Los Angeles
Acknowledgments
Copyright Page
For Mel
1961–2010
Also by Adam Braver
Mr. Lincoln’s Wars
Divine Sarah
Crows Over the Wheatfield
November 22, 1963
July 27, 1962
Marilyn Monroe’s House, Los Angeles
9:15 AM
She’s going to Lake Tahoe to get away for the weekend. It’s that simple.
Sitting in the living room, one hand gripped around the handle of her suitcase and the other on her make-up case, she waits to be picked up and driven to the airfield. The room is sparse, with a small leather cocktail table, a long Italian bench that serves as a couch, and a hearth screen covering the never-used fireplace. The only other furnishings are two folding benches, which, in the dim room, look bony and ordinary, caged by the bars of sunlight streaking around the curtains. Nevertheless, the wood floors gleam—her housekeeper, Eunice, waxed them earlier, then moved on to the master bedroom, where she’s making the bed. When she’s finished, Eunice will gather the dirty glasses and dishes to wash in the kitchen; before leaving, she’ll crack open the bedroom window, enough to let in some fresh air.
She’s impatient for this weekend to get under way. When Frank invited her to the Cal Neva Lodge, his hotel on the lake, he said, Sometimes you need to get away, and there was no argument there. He promised to look out for her. Keep her protected from those industry clowns who are suing her and hassling her over her latest movie. Frank will watch out for her with no strings; he’s probably the only person on earth whom she can trust to provide her with such a sanctuary. No press. No studio. No concerns. Just her usual cabin. And the lake, which always brings her peace.
Quickly, for assurance, she inventories everything Eunice helped her pack—from her clothes to her cosmetics to her pills. But before she can get through her mental checklist, she considers what’s not being taken, what’s being left behind. Almost nothing. She’s hardly furnished the house; what little furniture she’s bought (mostly in Mexico) is stored on pallets, still wrapped in shipping plastic. And each room has been appointed with only the bare minimum, just enough to be functional. She imagines seeing the house from a field anthropologist’s perspective, moving among the few artifacts to understand how a life was lived, and finding nothing but shards that support vague assumptions of a shifting culture.
Checking her watch, she stands up and walks to the window. She parts the curtains and peers down the driveway. The bright green shrubs and the sun-soaked palms make the living room seem even darker. And that much more empty. She can’t wait to get out.
She calls down the hall to Eunice, asking if she knows when the car is scheduled to come. “Wasn’t it supposed to be here by now?”
Eunice answers, “It should be arriving any minute.” Her voice echoes, along with the rattling dishes she’s carrying into the kitchen. “We have to give the driver some breathing room at this hour.”
“That’s what worries me. It might take forever to get to the airport. I don’t trust the traffic on Sepulveda this time of day.”
Eunice steps out of the kitchen, staying at the end of the hallway. She has her cat-eye glasses off and wipes the lenses with her apron. “It’s a private plane,” she says. “Mr. Sinatra won’t let it leave without you.”
“I know,” she says, her voice sounding tinny. “I know. It’s just that . . .”
Eunice tells her it will be okay. There is no need to worry. She puts her glasses back on; they gleam brightly in the dark corridor. Then Eunice heads back to the kitchen, repeating that there is no need to worry. Her tone is oddly definitive.
She’s anxious to get to Lake Tahoe, away from all the dramas and the systems that reinforce her being Marilyn Monroe. Anxious to get into the cabin and let her troubles evaporate over the lake. She knows how to disappear for a while. She’s been doing it her whole life. But the timing has to be right. There are certain forces that will line up, waiting to collide. And when you sense they’re coming, and you’re ready to jump, it’s critical that you’re in that exact space the moment just before the collision, like being present for your own private big bang theory.
But it’s not that complicated. In fact, it’s kind of simple.
1937–1954
As a little girl in church, she had to pin her hands under her thighs to keep from taking off her clothes. It was an urge she consciously had to fight. It even came to her in dreams. Atonement? Vengeance? Vulnerability? Or maybe the need to be seen as she really was.
In an FBI report about Marilyn Monroe, dated March 6, 1962, it’s noted that the subject “feels like a ‘negated sex symbol.’”
1937: Ida Martin’s House, Compton, CA
And the best place for it is just above your bed, but the walls are bare, and there are no marks on them, not even pinholes, and you don’t want to ask because you don’t want to bring anything up, this being your first day here and all, although you
do get the feeling that you’ll never want to bring anything up, no matter how many days pass. So you take the copy of Time with Clark Gable on the cover and stick it under the lining in your suitcase, where it always will be whenever you want to see it. You’ve had the issue for nearly a year already, carrying it between addresses. It was a gift from the Goddards’ neighbors after they said they’d read it and too many newer issues were piling up by the week. You couldn’t imagine how anybody would part with something so special. It makes you feel safe to know he’s always there. Head cocked and looking right at you with a slightly concerned smile.
You’ve been back and forth between your mother’s house and the Bolender foster home since you were born, and then the Goddards in Van Nuys, and then to the Los Angeles Orphans Home, and back to the Goddards, and now here. And you’re only eleven! But this should be a better situation. In Compton. Not far from Hawthorne, where you lived longest. But a little far from Norwalk, and your mother’s hospital, which might have its plusses, as she won’t be able to just show up and maybe do something to humiliate you. And at least you’re with family: Mrs. Martin, her daughter, Olive, and Olive’s children. When you were first informed you’d be going to live with Mrs. Martin and her family, everybody referred to your great-aunt as Aunt Ida. But when you walked into the bungalow, and she was standing there, firm in stance, with the crucifix on the wall looking like it could ghost forward all on its own to hang right over her head in thin air, you realized she would never be Aunt Ida but always Mrs. Martin. And though she’ll insist on you addressing her as Aunt Ida, and you’ll force it out of your mouth, your head will always keep saying Mrs. Martin.
At the orphans’ home you lived under a set of rules. Here you feel as though you live under a single rule: the Bible. As with all the other homes, being in your bedroom with your few belongings is manageable, the one place you have a sense of solitude. But the moment you step out into the house, you turn light-headed and forgetful and must appear to be feebleminded. The goal is always to get through the chores and meals and duties, and then scamper back to your room, where you can dig out that Time cover. Stare into it, believing it’s a portal into something better.
You’re on the edge of his bed. Your cousin Buddy invited you to hang out in his room, as though it were some kind of honor. You’ve been trying to avoid him since you got here. Maybe because he seemed too welcoming, and one thing you’ve learned after so much shuffling around is not to trust the people who are too welcoming. Especially the boys. But his invitation is presented as something special: he can now trust you being in his home. His talk is clever, and after a sentence or two he makes you feel you’ve earned his attention, and you get a sudden swell of pride. For just a moment you forget that you never wanted to be around him in the first place. Even though he’s a teenager, Buddy’s dressed in the clothes his grandmother lays out for him—khaki pants and a button-down white shirt. Always ironed. You’re in a dress, one that reaches past your ankles. Mrs. Martin says the only use for any other hemline is to tempt the devil. Although you’re not convinced the devil wouldn’t, Buddy will never go in your room. It’s for a child. Too spare and unworldly. His is for a young man. Still, it smells of boy, a stale, salty stink, so thick that even an open window can’t clear it out. Initially, his room looks clean. Mrs. Martin wouldn’t have it any other way. And several times a day she passes by, looking in through the cracked door, commenting that cleanliness is next to godliness. But from your vantage point on the bed, the little messes begin to reveal themselves. A pile of dirty socks. Balls of dust. Crumpled pages. They’re in the corners, where no one ever looks.
“Don’t be scared,” he says. “I told you you’re welcome here.”
“I’m not scared.” What else could you possibly say?
“Oh, I bet you have a touch of your mama’s nerves in you.”
“I’m not scared,” you repeat with a whisper, staring straight at the crack in the door. Maybe Mrs. Martin will come by for one more look.
“Don’t you worry,” he says. “This is a normal house. My grandmother makes sure we’re protected by God.” He reaches over and squeezes your shoulder. For a moment, you have the feeling he has the strength to lift the bone straight out.
“We’re normal too,” you say.
“You’re going to have to speak up. I can barely hear you.”
“We’ve just hit a streak is all, me and my mother. A streak.” You shrug your shoulder with a little jolt, but his hand doesn’t move.
He says, “A streak,” and laughs in a kind of annoying way. Slightly pious. And mostly mean. “Well there’s no streaks here,” he says. “We’re all even-steven.”
“I’ll be going home soon enough. Once my mother’s able to return to work.” You scoot a little closer to the edge of the bed. Part of you hopes you’ll just tumble off. “She works in Hollywood, you know. On the pictures.”
He moves in closer.
“She cuts films. Edits them. But she knows lots of movie stars. Been right in the thick of it. So we’re going to be fine.”
His hand moves from your shoulder and slopes down your front; only the cotton of your dress separates his palm from your skin. Your chest has just begun to form, and you’ve barely put your hands there yourself. It hasn’t yet seemed like your body. But his hands are there. Without thought. And at first it’s as though you’re watching it, like you’re floating up above, but then you start to feel forced, locked down, and you get real cold, like a sheet of ice is making a glacier over your skin, yet you’re burning up so much inside that before it can form, the ice melts into a thick stream of cool sweat; and your stomach is tumbling and churning and you’re afraid you might throw up at any second. But creepiest of all, and what makes this have almost no sense whatsoever, is how sincere Buddy looks, as though there’s not a creepy bone in his body, only charity. And when his hands slide down over your belly, all you can think about is how you just want to be home, but you can’t picture any one place as home, and so you try to inch yourself away, just bit by bit, until there’s no more bed, and you could just tumble off.
On Sunday Mrs. Martin dresses you, and you no longer look eleven, but instead like a smaller version of an old churchwoman, with no shape or form or sex. Stockings up to your thighs. Black shoes too heavy to walk in. The outfit is appropriate because church is where she’s taking you. She says you need it. She doesn’t like how withdrawn you’ve been the past couple of days. (You suspect that’s a veiled remark about your mother more than any inkling that something horrible has happened under her roof.) Then she amends her statement to say we all need it. It’s our only path to goodness. (So maybe she does have an inkling.) You ask if Buddy is going, and she mutters he’s not, he’s had a conflict with his mother’s schedule, and you don’t ask what, and she doesn’t bother to explain, and you’re relieved because you know that if he came you’d be forced to sit next to him in the pews.
You know you ought to tell her. Tell her the truth about what Buddy did. But you don’t know how. And you wonder if she knows by the way she acts as though she doesn’t.
Sitting beside you in the pew, she leans over and barks in a sharp whisper that you should cross your legs. “Send the invitation,” she says, “and you’ll get the RSVPs.” And she directs you to lower your head when you smile. And when walking through a crowded area keep your gaze focused on either the ground at your feet or an object in front of you. Eye contact can send the improper message. She says not to be fooled just because this is a church. Temptation is everywhere, and it thrives on testing, and what better place to test temptation than in a house of worship. When you look up at her and nod, indicating you understand, she slaps the back of her hand against your knee. Her jaw is clenched. “Didn’t I just tell you to keep your head down?”
The preacher stands before the congregation, and he howls out the word salvation. He lets it just hang there; he won’t talk again until the word has faded from the sanctuary. He is small, and he is slight
, but he looks a million feet tall, rising through his tan coat into the rafters, high above, while his blue tie points down at the floor. “Salvation,” he finally says, “is the only chance we’ve got.” He’s got a bellowing voice. And he paces back and forth, floating side to side. But no matter where he is, his voice seems aimed right at you. And you take it all inside you. “We all need to think about how we can correct for the missteps we take. And how do you know when you misstep? Because your feet get weary. Tired. And they start to burn, and we all know that burning that you’re feeling is coming from below. That’s right. Every misstep you take is a step closer to the devil. And the only thing that can pull you back? Salvation. It’s right there in Psalms 24: 4–5: He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Or as our friends in Acts tell us, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” And you feel your body tingling. He knows just what you’re thinking, but also how you can be freed. And you have the strange compulsion to slip out of the costume Mrs. Martin has dressed you in and just sit there naked, letting all this possibility wash over you, and, in a way, kind of love you. “There’s only but one place for you to go for eternal salvation, and you’re all going to have to walk right through those gates on your own. But you will not be able to do it with the devil burning at your feet, and so you all are going to have to trust me on this—there is no one who can wash your feet but yourself. And that’s a fact.”