Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love

by C. David Heymann

  Born Romeo Samuel Greenschpoon on September 20, 1911, in Brooklyn, the psychoanalyst’s family was Russian in origin. He and Juliet, his twin sister—the pair was known by name as “Romeo and Juliet”—were the eldest of the family’s four children. Elizabeth, his younger sister, a talented cellist, had married Mickey Rudin. Ralph Greenson (Romy to his friends after he legally changed his name) had completed his undergraduate studies at Columbia University and attended medical school at the University of Bern in Switzerland, where he met his future wife, Hildegard (Hildi). The Greensons were married in 1935 and had two children, Daniel and Joan.

  After completing an internship in psychiatry at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, Greenson established his practice and simultaneously held the position of professor of clinical psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. He would later become the subject of a feature film, Captain Newman, M.D., starring Gregory Peck as Greenson. The film was largely based on Greenson’s work with American soldiers during and after World War II.

  In late 1959 Greenson visited London and there met Anna Freud and Anna’s good friend Marianne Kris. One of the topics they discussed was the case of Marilyn Monroe. Hence, Greenson knew about Marilyn before he even met her.

  The intial encounter between Greenson and Monroe took place in her bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel shortly after he’d been contacted by Mickey Rudin. He quickly noticed her slurred speech and unfocused gaze, both of which he attributed to her drug habit, particularly her dependence on medication to combat her insomnia. She was taking enough medication, he told her, to sedate a basketball team and put all five players to sleep. She confessed to her drug regimen, placing the blame on compliant doctors who plied her with whatever pharmaceuticals she requested.

  According to Greenson’s patient notes, Monroe claimed that when she did sleep, she had nightmares. She would see the shapes of monsters gyrating against a pitch-black screen. She complained about Arthur Miller’s “failure to respond” to her, his domination by “a Jewish mother,” and his contempt for commercial filmmaking, as opposed to the intellectual rigors of “serious theater work.” Greenson insisted that despite Marilyn’s problems and complaints—real or imagined—she would have to cut back on her use of barbiturates and other drugs.

  Impressed by Greenson’s directness, Marilyn telephoned Lena Pepitone in New York and reported that she’d found her “Jesus”—a man who would save her from herself. Seven years earlier, he’d done the same for Frank Sinatra, who’d also been a patient. Not surprisingly, Sinatra’s attorney was Mickey Rudin. Besides Sinatra, Greenson’s celebrity-dominated patient roster included such familiar names as Peter Lorre, Tony Curtis, Vivien Leigh, Celeste Holm, Mario Lanza, Vincente Minnelli, Kim Stanley, and Oscar Levant.

  By June 1960, Marilyn had begun psychoanalysis with Greenson, undergoing daily sessions at $50 per hour, usually at his five-bedroom, Spanish-style house on Franklin Street in Santa Monica, less often at the Beverly Hills offices he shared with fellow psychiatrist Dr. Milton Wexler, who on occasion, when Greenson wasn’t available, substituted for him. At times Marilyn’s sessions with Dr. Greenson lasted far longer than an hour, not infrequently running an entire morning or afternoon.

  Like Anna Freud, Greenson diagnosed Marilyn as a paranoid schizophrenic. In a letter to Dr. Kris, he wrote that as “Marilyn becomes more anxious, she begins to act like an orphan, a waif, and she masochistically provokes people to mistreat her and to take advantage of her.” Although Dr. Milton Wexler saw Marilyn only now and again, he perceived a similar pattern. “As fragments of her past history tumbled out,” he said, “she started talking increasingly about the traumatic extremes of growing up an orphan. She saw herself as a victim, destined to die at an early age.”

  When he first met Arthur Miller, Greenson found the playwright quite different from the person Marilyn had described. He appeared to be deeply concerned with his wife’s well-being and profoundly disappointed that the marriage seemed to be failing. On the other hand, Miller appeared to have reached an end point, telling Greenson that he and Marilyn had spent a long weekend together in New York that summer, and she had again attempted to harm herself. This time she opened a window at the East Fifty-Seventh Street apartment and tried to climb out onto the ledge. He’d pulled her back into the room.

  Lena Pepitone and the Strasbergs were present and had witnessed the latest suicide attempt and, like Miller, heard Marilyn scream, “Let me go, I deserve to die! What have I got to live for?” Lena Pepitone ran around removing every sharp object she could find in the apartment. As for Miller, he felt he had given Marilyn all he had to give, but his strength and patience had finally begun to run out. Marilyn’s growing dependence on drugs and doctors took precedence over everything. Miller told Greenson that she’d never so much as acknowledged his help, never once thanked him. All his energy had gone into trying to sustain Marilyn’s career, while his own had gone into hibernation. He’d accomplished little during their years together.

  While they were still on their brief visit to New York, Miller overheard a conversation between his wife and Lena Pepitone in which the actress asked Pepitone to call the Monette Company and find out how she could reach Joe DiMaggio. Lena complied and learned that Joe was visiting army bases in the South as well as going to minor-league ballparks, where he’d talk to the young players and take batting practice as a way to draw attention to the games and fill the stands. He was in transit and couldn’t be reached.

  Marilyn departed New York for Los Angeles in July 1960 to “prepare” for her role in The Misfits, the film for which Arthur Miller had written the script. To be directed by John Huston (who’d directed her in Ladies of the Chorus, one of her first ventures) and produced by Frank Taylor, the film was scheduled to begin shooting on July 18; also in the cast were Clark Gable, Monroe’s longtime (father figure) idol, and her Actors Studio friends Montgomery Clift and Eli Wallach.

  Marilyn arrived in California without Arthur Miller and checked into a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel, not into the bungalow she’d occupied while involved with Yves Montand. A footnote to the assignation with Montand was that she did see him one last time in New York in November, after completing work on The Misfits. They rendezvoused at Idlewild Airport in the backseat of a Cadillac limousine and said their farewells over a bottle of champagne. Montand was on his way back to Paris and the open arms of his wife.

  Besides prepping for her role in The Misfits, Marilyn had other reasons to be in town: she had arrived in Los Angeles in early July in order to attend the Democratic National Convention, which was being held that summer in LA. The actress had already contributed $3,000 to John F. Kennedy’s campaign fund.

  She’d first crossed paths with the Massachusetts senator three years earlier at a party given by British-born actor Peter Lawford and his wife, Patricia Kennedy, Jack Kennedy’s sister, at their Santa Monica beach house, where they entertained Jack whenever he found himself marooned on the West Coast. Nothing happened at the first meeting between Kennedy and Monroe. They met and took a long walk along the beach. They talked politics, and Jack asked a lot of questions about the film business.

  They met again in 1959, this time for what amounted to a furtive sixty-minute tryst in the Kennedy-leased penthouse suite atop the Hotel Carlyle in New York. It was a delicate point in both their lives. Marilyn’s marriage to Arthur Miller was in deep trouble. And Jack’s marriage to Jackie had never really been good, or at least had never prevented him from seeking extramarital romance.

  No stranger to Hollywood or Hollywood starlets, JFK had always been captivated by Monroe. In October 1954, while undergoing spinal surgery in a New York hospital, visitors to his room were treated to a poster of Marilyn hung over his bed. The poster featured Marilyn in a tight white blouse and blue shorts, her legs spread wide apart. Senator George Smathers of Florida, a close associate of Kennedy’s, recalled that Jack had turned the poster upside down “so it looked as if her legs were in the air.” The sc
ene in JFK’s hospital room reminded Smathers of “a college boy’s frat house bedroom, the college kid working away on himself as he peered over his shoulder at the golden goddess with the voluptuous, slam-bang bod.”

  Smathers was more than a little familiar with JFK’s extramarital antics. Following the 1956 Democratic Convention, he’d been aboard a yacht in the Mediterranean with JFK, his brother Teddy Kennedy, and a “boatload of broads,” while Jackie Kennedy, waiting for her husband in the States, suffered a miscarriage. “If you ever want to be president,” Smathers warned JFK, “you’d better haul ass back to your wife.”

  In the fifty years since JFK’s 1963 assassination, a multitude of articles, films, and books have attested to Kennedy’s numerous affairs both before and during his marriage and presidency. “The Kennedy boys—Jack, Bobby, and Ted—were like dogs,” said Truman Capote. “There wasn’t a fire hydrant in the city at which they wouldn’t stop to take a piss.” John White, a companion of Jackie’s prior to her marriage, recalled that Jack Kennedy “had a little black book full of names, and he plowed through them like a wartime tank.” Nancy Dickerson, an attractive Washington journalist who dated JFK when he first served in Congress, said, “You couldn’t help but be swept over by Jack. I was, but I somehow managed to avoid giving in to his charms. I realized that sex for Jack Kennedy was like another cup of coffee, or maybe dessert. For Jack, sex wasn’t to be confused with love, and I’m not certain he was capable of the latter.”

  Peter Lawford, a pal of Monroe’s since the late 1940s when he started out as an MGM contract player, had been aware from the beginning of the possible dangers, as well as the potential benefits, that a relationship between JFK and Monroe might bring for both of them. Since products are (and were often) sold by star endorsements, Marilyn’s closeness could be a boon to Jack’s presidential aspirations. Similarly, his friendship could bring Marilyn a degree of happiness presently lacking in her life. The other possibility, of course, was the peril of exposure. Nobody would elect for president a man known to be cheating on his wife. There was concern among the candidate’s aides, particularly when they learned that Marilyn Monroe planned on being with Kennedy during part of the Democratic Convention, while Jackie, pregnant with John Jr., remained behind at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

  During the convention, oblivious to the possibility of public exposure, the future president asked Peter Lawford to invite Marilyn to a small dinner party at Puccini’s, a local restaurant owned by Frank Sinatra and a handful of silent partners. “There were only four of us,” recalled JFK’s brother-in-law. “It was Jack, Marilyn, Ken O’Donnell [a top Kennedy aide] and myself. We had a private room off the main dining salon. I soon realized that Marilyn had probably spent the previous night with Jack because, before he arrived, she described him as ‘a most democratic and penetrating man.’

  “That evening was very likely the only time in her life that Marilyn arrived anywhere on time. After Jack showed up, they became very cozy. I noticed he liked to pat and squeeze her. He was touching her here and there under the table when a bemused expression suddenly crossed his face. Marilyn told me later he’d put his hand up under her dress only to discover she wore no panties.”

  Monroe was part of the crowd of one hundred thousand that jammed the Los Angeles Coliseum on July 15 to hear Kennedy, who’d won a first-ballot victory as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, give a rousing acceptance speech. Hildi Greenson, Dr. Greenson’s wife, a loyal JFK supporter, sat next to her. Marilyn attended a skinny-dipping party at the Lawfords that night, and a day later turned up at the victory bash that Joe Kennedy, JFK’s father, gave for his son at Romanoff’s. At some point in the evening, Marilyn asked Peter Lawford why Jack had selected Lyndon Johnson as his running mate, and Lawford responded, “Because he wants to be president and knows that LBJ can deliver the vote. On a personal level, they can’t stand each other.”

  John F. Kennedy remained in Los Angeles for a day after the convention and spent it with Marilyn. He then flew back to Boston. Monroe made a second contribution to his campaign fund, this one for $5,000. She rallied friends and asked them to donate to JFK’s war chest as well.

  “As usual,” said Kurt Lamprecht, “Marilyn telephoned about two in the morning. If it had been anyone else, I’d have hung up. She said, ‘Kurt, you’ve got to send a donation to John Kennedy. For the good of the nation, we’ve got to defeat Richard Nixon.’ I told her I normally voted Republican, but if she thought Kennedy a better bet, I’d vote for him—and of course I’d contribute. Naturally, I didn’t know that Marilyn and Kennedy had shared the same bed.”

  “I thought Marilyn was by far the most interesting ‘other’ woman in Jack Kennedy’s life,” said Peter Lawford. “They were a fascinating couple. They were both charismatic and complex. Marilyn was particularly complicated. I never understood how such a creature could be filled with so much warmth and joy and at the same time such misery and pain. Someone once said that Marilyn spent her entire life looking for a missing person: herself. The thing about her relationship with JFK is that at some point—I don’t exactly know when—she convinced herself she could marry him, replace Jackie Kennedy, and move into the White House as First Lady. It was pure fantasy, but unfortunately she believed it, though I repeatedly cautioned her that her friendship with JFK would have to remain very much under the radar.”

  News of JFK and Marilyn Monroe eventually filtered back to Jackie Kennedy. She brooded about her husband’s latest affair and reportedly told close friends that she hadn’t been certain if Jack’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention “signaled a beginning or an end.”

  • • •

  Ralph Roberts was Marilyn Monroe’s masseur, friend, and confidant. He’d met her at the Actors Studio in New York. During the production of The Misfits, Roberts served as the company masseur, though he’d been hired primarily because Marilyn insisted on it. He’d likewise been offered a small role in the film, that of an ambulance attendant.

  Roberts had first started giving Marilyn therapeutic massage treatments when she stayed over at the Strasbergs’ in their Central Park West apartment, the theory being that the treatments would help her relax before bedtime. Too often, however, they seemed to stimulate Marilyn, making it more difficult for her to fall asleep. Yet she grew dependent on the treatments and on Roberts as well. She considered him a brother. They were psychic siblings.

  “I like to think she was as candid with me as she was with anyone,” he said. “From the moment I met her, she appeared to be down on Arthur Miller. The reason she stayed with him was that she wanted to have a baby, and when that didn’t happen, she withdrew. I met him on several occasions, mostly on the set of The Misfits. He struck me as coldhearted, dispassionate, intellectually pretentious, cheap, and afraid to give of himself. He had no sense of humor. Marilyn told me that early in their marriage they were at a party, and someone said, ‘I hope your children have Arthur’s looks and Marilyn’s brains.’ Well, she laughed, and he became infuriated. Moreover, Miller couldn’t handle Marilyn psychologically. He claimed her addictions and mood swings kept him away from his sacred typewriter, but the sad fact is he was incapable of dealing with anyone who showed emotion of any kind. The most constant male figure in Marilyn’s life had always been Joe DiMaggio. Because he possessed a strong center and because he loved her, DiMaggio could better cope with Marilyn’s frailties. He just couldn’t cope with the movie racket or the Hollywood celebrity scene, which meant that while they could be friends and lovers, they couldn’t be husband and wife.”

  Ralph Roberts joined Marilyn on location in Reno, Nevada, on July 18, the day production began on The Misfits, another aptly titled cinematic endeavor, considering the chaotic events that would shortly ensue. The title, in fact, actually alluded to the film’s plot: a plan on the part of several modern-day Nevada cowboys to rope mustangs—known as misfits, because they’re too small to ride—and sell them to a company that wou
ld process them into dog food.

  Arthur Miller had arrived on location a few days before, while Marilyn was still at the Democratic National Convention in LA, spending time with Jack Kennedy. Miller and Monroe shared a two-bedroom suite at the Mapes Hotel and Casino in Reno; their marriage in tatters, they occupied separate rooms and were rarely seen together. When they were seen together, the spectacle wasn’t always pretty. Monroe delighted in humiliating and embarassing her husband before cast and crew alike, as when she climbed into a car and then slammed the door in his face before he could climb in behind her. Marilyn spent the majority of her spare time with her entourage, of which Ralph Roberts was the newest member; others in the group included Paula Strasberg, May Reis, Agnes Flanagan, and Whitey Snyder.

  Whitey remembered the tension between Monroe and Miller. “She felt,” he said, “that Arthur had written dialogue for her that was totally insignificant and extraneous to the film. She complained that the movie had to do with cowboys and their horses, and had nothing to do with her character in the film. ‘I don’t believe he ever wanted me in it,’ she said. She remarked that Arthur often complained about her to John Huston, and that’s why Huston treated her like a jerk. One day in her dressing room, she exploded at Arthur, accusing him of having forced her to get rid of Milton Greene. ‘You’re an evil bastard!’ she yelled. ‘I should’ve stayed with Joe.’ ”