The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Parties at Pat and Peter’s home at 625 Palisades Beach Road in Malibu (now Pacific Coast Highway) were practically legendary at this time. Originally built by Louis B. Mayer in 1926, it was quite a showplace, an enormous marble and stucco Mediterranean-Spanish structure. It was built on thirty-foot pilings to prevent it from being swept away in a tidal wave—not that there has ever been one in Santa Monica. The walls were a foot thick to ensure that the house remained cool in the summer. Its best feature was its large, curving living room with windows facing the ocean and wrought-iron balconies onto which French doors opened. There were thirteen onyx and marble bathrooms, but just four bedrooms. Of course, it also had the standard-issue fifty-foot pool, always heated and glistening. It was easily accessible from the street—with no gate or any kind of security entryway, it sat right off the highway.

  Behind the main house was Sorrento Beach, popular for its volleyball tournaments. The surf pounded this coastline day and night, the rising tides littering it with brown seaweed. The Lawford children often brought the slimy plants into the house and played with them in their bedrooms, much to the fastidious Pat’s dismay. The neighbors on one side of the Lawfords’ property were the actor Jeffrey Hunter and his family. On the other, there was a vacant lot. It was all that remained after the home that once stood there was demolished. Pat joked to Marilyn that she had the house blown to smithereens when she learned that a family of Republicans had purchased it. Or, at least Marilyn thought Pat was joking.

  Matthew Fox was a friend of Jeffrey Hunter’s son, Steele. The two boys were eight in 1961. “These parties, man, you’ve never seen anything like them,” recalled Fox. “The Kennedys had style. I mean, those people knew how to throw a party, let me tell you. Sometimes they would have afternoon barbecues, which I loved. If I had a sleepover with Steele, I would wander over there the next day just to snoop around. Once, I saw Angie Dickinson baking in the sun in a bikini that was so revealing I think it was the first time I ever got a boner. I’d always see Mrs. Lawford—Pat—tossing a football around with her brother, the president. Bobby would be there. Teddy. Judy Garland would be there, doing the twist on the sand in her bare feet, just about as drunk as she could be. And there’d be Frank Sinatra with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis with Peter, walking on the beach, chain-smoking like mad and tossing their cigarette butts into the ocean as if to say, ‘Screw Mother Nature. As far as we’re concerned, the whole world is our ashtray.’

  “And Marilyn. I think from 1961 on, she was there a lot. I remember I would just see this shock of blonde hair from a distance and I’d run over to stare at her up close.”

  Fox remembered Marilyn as “the most beautiful woman, no, goddess, I have ever seen,” as she stood on the beach, always shielding her eyes against the spray and the sand. He recalls her walking on the hot sand with Pat’s dogs and stopping to admire the deep blue ocean so flecked with whitecaps. Sometimes she would toss a ball into the water and then squeal with delight as one of the animals retrieved it and returned it to her.

  “Once, I walked out to the beach with my little Brownie camera and asked if I could take a picture of her,” continued Matthew Fox. “She said, ‘Oh no! Not today. I don’t have my makeup on and I don’t even look like Marilyn Monroe. Come back tomorrow and I’ll be all ready for you.’ So the next day I went back with my camera. She was made up as if getting ready to make a movie—heavy mascara, red lipstick, big hair teased out to there—the whole Marilyn bit. I said, ‘Wow, just look at you!’ And she said, ‘I did all of this just for you, Matty, so let’s take that picture now, shall we?’ And we did. I shot a few pictures and then Pat took a picture of the two of us together. Afterward, Marilyn kissed me on the forehead and said, ‘You come back in about twenty years and we’ll be better friends, okay?’ Then she winked at me and walked back into the house. And I thought, ‘Oh my God. I am in love with Marilyn Monroe.’ Even then, I knew that most people in the world didn’t have these kinds of experiences.”

  Marilyn and Bobby

  One of the biggest problems faced by Pat Kennedy Lawford in the early 1960s was her and Peter’s reputation. Peter and his Rat Pack friends had used her home so often for their sexual escapades with women that some wise guy renamed the place “High Anus Port.” Jeanne Martin, Pat’s good friend, said, “I truly don’t know what Peter was thinking. How could he put himself and Pat in that position? It was always a mystery to me. He was not a careless man, but to do that to his wife…” Indeed, when Pat heard about the nickname, she was embarrassed. However, there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. Her brother, Jack, was president of the United States, and if he wanted to meet girls at her home when he came into town, she felt she had no choice but to allow it. “Obviously, Pat was not clueless,” said George Jacobs. “She was just resigned. [But] Pat must have hated that her house was being used as a brothel for JFK.” * The only thing she believed she could do to keep her place of residence dignified was the occasional classy dinner party—which she usually had when Bobby and Ethel were in town. No one seems to remember an occasion when she had such a party for JFK and Jackie, the reason being that when JFK came to the West Coast, he preferred leaving Jackie behind since her presence at his side usually cramped his style. The latest Kennedy gathering organized by Pat was to take place on February 1, 1962. Again, Pat was hosting for Bobby and Ethel since they were in Los Angeles on the first leg of a fourteen-country goodwill tour.

  With the telling of events leading up to this party, one can also begin to understand one of the reasons behind all of the rumors about Marilyn and Bobby. Prior to this evening, Marilyn—always one to embellish an already interesting story—spent at least two weeks calling people such as Danny Greenson (the doctor’s son), Jeanne Martin, Henry Weinstein (producer of Something’s Got to Give), among others to tell them exciting news: “I have a date with Bobby Kennedy.”

  Henry Weinstein recalled, “I get a call one day from her and she says, I have a very important date with a very important man. And I want to know from you what kinds of things I can say to him, what kinds of questions I may be able to ask him, that will be impressive. So I said, ‘Fine, but who’s the man, so I can think of topics for you.’ She said, ‘It’s Bobby Kennedy.’ I was a little floored. ‘Seriously?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I have a date with Bobby Kennedy.’ So, I said, ‘Okay, well, we’re right in the middle of the civil rights business, so ask him what he’s doing to calm down the riots, how he feels about Martin Luther King, that sort of thing.’ ”

  In subsequent years, sources who have said Marilyn told them she was “dating” Bobby Kennedy weren’t fibbing. Apparently, she was fibbing. In this case, it most certainly wasn’t a date. It was a dinner party at Pat’s, and she was just one of the guests. However, people heard from her that it was “a date,” and then passed that information on to reporters many decades later. Each person has told the same story: She wrote down all of the questions she was given on a napkin, so that she could remember them. They were inquiries about civil rights, about the country’s support of the Diem regime in Vietnam, and also about the House Un-American Activities Committee.

  Marilyn showed up at Pat’s that night dressed to kill. Years later, Joan Braden, who was present that night, recalled, “Bobby turned and I turned and there she was—blonde, beautiful, red lips at the ready, clad in a black-lace dress which barely concealed the tips of her perfectly formed breasts and tightly fitted every curve of the body unparalleled.” Joan whispered in Bobby’s ear, “Bobby, this is the Marilyn Monroe, the genuine article.” Then Pat came over and said, “Bobby, I’d like you to meet Marilyn.”

  While Bobby was mildly interested in meeting the screen star, his wife, Ethel, was much more starstruck. Unlike many of the Kennedys, Ethel was down-to-earth, not at all pretentious. She enjoyed a good time, loved playing football with the men in the family, and was considered something of a tomboy. She was also the life of any party, pretty much like her sister-in-law Pat. She’d wanted to be a nun
before meeting Bobby, but then of course went on to marry Kennedy and give birth to eleven children by him. She was well-liked within the family, though she and Jackie often butted heads. Ethel, always one to speak her mind, was devoted to the Kennedy family and was Bobby’s biggest supporter when it came to his political ambitions. Whereas the other women who’d married into the family—Jackie and Joan—had to apply themselves in order to be invested in their husband’s careers, Ethel absolutely loved politics and hoped to one day be First Lady.

  Ethel had wanted to meet Marilyn ever since deciding a year earlier that the actress should play her in a screen version of Bobby’s book The Enemy Within, which was about his investigation into the illegal activities of Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters union. It was presently being developed into a movie by Marilyn’s studio, 20th Century-Fox. Budd Schulberg, who had written the screenplay for On the Waterfront, was adapting the Kennedy work. In the end, it would not see completion, but Ethel’s choice to have Marilyn play her in the movie is interesting just the same. On its face, it seems odd. The two were not at all alike, after all. Whereas Marilyn was a sex kitten, Ethel was earthy and a more motherly figure. However, Ethel had seen many of Marilyn’s films and was interested in her not for her looks but rather because she saw what a lot of people saw in Marilyn, a very good actress. “I think she’s underrated,” she told Joan Braden, a friend of the Kennedy family’s. “I think she’s done some very good work and I’d be honored to have her play me in the movie.” Ethel’s appreciation of Marilyn didn’t last long after she actually had a chance to meet her—and see her interact with Bobby.

  Joan Braden recalled, “Bobby ended up sitting right next to her at dinner, with Kim Novak, Angie Dickinson and me at the table. Who the men between us were, I can’t remember. I can only remember the women and the dresses, which showed off their bosoms.”

  Of Marilyn and Bobby, Braden continues, “They had an instant rapport, not surprising in that they were both charismatic, smart people. Bobby enjoyed talking to intelligent, beautiful women, and Marilyn certainly fit the bill. She was also inquisitive in a childlike way, which I think he found refreshing. I found her to be delightful, and everyone at the party was completely enthralled by her and rather dazzled by her presence.”

  After dinner, Marilyn pulled out her little napkin of questions and started asking them to Bobby. She really didn’t need the crib sheet, though. She certainly knew how to engage in an intellectual conversation with someone like Bobby Kennedy. Soon, the two retired to the bar to discuss J. Edgar Hoover. Marilyn said she felt he was out of control. “Spying on this one and that one. He even spies on me, and what do I ever do?” she asked, according to Jeanne Martin, who was also at the party and overheard the conversation. “All I ever do is shop and make movies, yet he has his goons following me!” Marilyn had long felt she was being stalked. There was the incident where she called her pseudo-manager Lucille Carrol to tell her that someone was peeping in on her in her bedroom, even though no available ladder would have reached the third floor. There were many other times, as well. In fact, there’s a very good adage that applies here: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not following you. The fact that Marilyn actually was being followed, and by Hoover’s “goons,” had to have fed into her sense of paranoia. Bobby said that he and his brother Jack felt the same way about Hoover—and they should have because he had agents tailing their every move as well!—but there was nothing they could do about it yet.

  It should be noted that there have been many different accounts of Marilyn’s first meeting with Bobby, going all the way back to dates in 1960. However, on the basis of information assembled for this book, February 1, 1962, marked the first meeting. Immediately afterward, on February 2, Marilyn wrote a letter to Isadore Miller, Arthur’s father. She began it, “Dear Dad,” and wrote of meeting 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.” She also wrote to Arthur’s son, Bobby, to whom she was close. “When they asked him who he wanted to meet, he wanted to meet me,” she wrote. “So I went to the dinner and sat next to him, and he isn’t a bad dancer either.” Based on Marilyn’s words (“he wanted to meet me”), the two had not met before this evening. She wrote that she’d asked Bobby questions about the civil rights movement and that she was impressed with his answers. She further stated that Bobby had promised to send her a letter that would summarize their conversation. She promised to send Miller a copy of 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.”

  “Afterwards, we all started dancing and I remember Marilyn teaching Bobby how to do the twist,” recalled Joan Braden. “The two were laughing and having a very good time together. That, I think, was really pushing it as far as Ethel was concerned. I remember wondering how Bobby could be so blatantly flirtatious with another woman knowing that Ethel was watching, and I was also worried about Ethel’s feelings. People always thought Ethel Kennedy could take care of herself, more so than the other Kennedy women. But I always thought that underneath Ethel’s bravado was a very sensitive, and often very hurt, woman.”

  It’s been reported countless times over the years that Marilyn Monroe became so inebriated on this night that she could not drive herself home. Therefore, Bobby and his press aide Ed Guthman supposedly did so. Guthman has even been quoted as saying that this was true. Perhaps that happened on some other night—it’s never been proven, though—but definitely it did not occur on this night.

  Fresh research now establishes that Marilyn did not drive to the Lawford home. She was picked up at 8 p.m. by the Carey Cadillac Renting Company of California from her apartment on Doheny Drive and then taken to the Lawfords’. She stayed until three in the morning and then was driven back to her home. A receipt exists from the Carey Cadillac Renting Company proving as much.

  Edward Barnes, who now owns his own valet service, was a young parking attendant at the Lawfords’ that evening. He says that while Marilyn was waiting for her driver, there was a bit of chaos in front of the Lawford home. “One of the other valets broke a cardinal rule and asked Miss Monroe if he could take a picture of her,” says Barnes. “She said, ‘Of course.’ And that very second, a Secret Service agent appeared from nowhere and grabbed the guy’s camera. It stunned everyone. Marilyn was surprised, too, and she said, ‘Wait a second. Who the hell are you?’ He said, ‘Secret Service, ma’am.’ Just then, a Kennedy aide who I later learned was Ed Guthman said, ‘We have agents here, Marilyn. It’s okay.’ And she said, ‘Well, it is not okay to steal someone’s camera.’ She then turned to the agent and said, ‘You give back that camera right now.’ And he did! Then she posed for the picture. Everyone stood there with their mouths open, it was such a moment. I will never forget it. I thought to myself, Holy Christ, I can’t believe that Marilyn Monroe just went up against the Secret Service… and won!”

  “The next day, I asked her how the date with Bobby Kennedy went,” recalled Henry Weinstein, “and she said it went great, and ‘Guess what? I have another date with him.’ So I thought, wow, that’s very nice. A few days went by and I didn’t hear from her. I called her and said, ‘So? How is it going with Bobby Kennedy?’ She said, ‘Well… let’s put it this way. I don’t need any more questions.’ ”

  JFK: “Finally! You’re Here!”

  At the end of February 1962, Peter Lawford invited Marilyn to a dinner party in New York that was being held to honor President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy loved the Hollywood culture and was enamored of celebrities, especially beautiful actresses, or, more specifically, especially beautiful blonde actresses—though, as was well known about him, he never tossed a brunette or redhead out of his bed either. Though Marilyn had met Kennedy back in the 1950s when he was a senator, she never had a chance to speak to him in depth. After having
had the opportunity to meet Bobby, she was eager to know his brother Jack. She had no romantic designs on JFK. Not yet, anyway.

  The party was to take place at the home of Fifi Fell, the widow of a wealthy industrialist. Milt Ebbins, who was Peter Lawford’s partner in his production company, recalled:

  “Dave Powers [a presidential aide] and I were supposed to escort Marilyn to the party. Dinner was at eight. We showed up at her place at 7:30. Of course she was nowhere near ready. Her maid came out of the bedroom and said something about her not being able to make up her mind about what to wear. Also, she had this hairdresser [Kenneth Battelle, her hairstylist] combing and teasing and combing and teasing. Finally, Dave said, ‘I’m not going to sit here when I could be with the president.’ So he took the car back to the party and then sent a limousine for us.