The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe: The Shocking True Story (2 page)

Reporters who covered Marilyn back in her day: Walter Winchell, Dorothy Kilgallen, Louella O. Parsons, Sheilah Graham, Hedda Hopper, Maurice Zolotow, Aline Mosby, Ezra Goodman, Mike Connolly, Fenton Bresler, George Carpozi Jr, Donald Zec, William Woodfield, Joe Hyams, Florabel Muir, Allan Levy, Erskine Johnson, James Bacon, Martin Buckley, Ben Hecht, Dorothy Manners, James Gray-Gold, Earl Wilson, Bob Thomas, Scott Carson, Marie Torre, Patricia Clary.

The authors of the following books:
The Mysterious Death Of Marilyn Monroe
(James A. Hudson),
My Sister Marilyn
(Berniece Baker Miracle and Mona Rae Miracle),
Marilyn: The Last Months
(Eunice Murray and Rose Shade),
My Story
(Marilyn Monroe and Ben Hecht),
Mr S.: My Life With Frank Sinatra
(George Jacobs),
Goddess
(Anthony Summers),
Marilyn Monroe: The Biography
(Donald Spoto),
Marilyn Monroe
(Barbara Leaming),
Assassination Of Marilyn Monroe
(Donald H. Wolfe),
Marilyn: The Ultimate Look at the Legend
(James Haspiel),
Marilyn’s Addresses
(Michelle Finn),
Marilyn: The Tragic Venus
(Edwin P. Hoyt),
Marilyn: An Untold Story
(Norman Rosten),
Norma Jean: The Life of Marilyn Monroe
(Fred Lawrence Guiles),
The Last Sitting
(Bert Stern),
The DD Group: An Online Investigation Into the Death of Marilyn Monroe
(David Marshall),
Marilyn
(Norman Mailer),
Cursum Perficio: Marilyn Monroe’s Brentwood Hacienda
(Gary Vitacco-Robles),
The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe
(Frank A. Capell),
Marilyn Monroe: A Composite View
(Edward Wagenknecht),
Marilyn and Me
(Susan Strasberg),
Marilyn: The Last Take
(Peter Harry Brown and Patte Barham),
Cal-Neva Revealed
(Philip J. Weiss),
The Show Business Nobody Knows
(Earl Wilson),
Show Business Laid Bare
(Earl Wilson),
Bitch!
(Lady May Lawford),
Chief: My Life in the LAPD
(Daryl F. Gates),
Answered Prayers
(Truman Capote),
Memories Are Made of This
(Deanna Martin),
The Dark Side of Camelot
(Seymour H. Hersh),
Marilyn Monroe Confidential
(Lena Pepitone),
The Men Who Murdered Marilyn
(Matthew Smith),
The Marilyn Conspiracy
(Milo Speriglio),
The Marilyn Scandal
(Sandra Shevey),
Crypt 33: The Saga of Marilyn Monroe – The Final Word
(Adela Gregory and Milo Speriglio),
The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe
(Sarah Bartlett Churchwell),
Coroner
(Thomas T. Noguchi),
The Unabridged Marilyn
(Randall Riese and Neal Hitchens),
Violations of the Child: Marilyn Monroe
(by her psychiatrist friend),
The Fifty Year Decline and Fall of Hollywood
(Ezra Goodman),
Peter Lawford: The Man Who Kept the Secrets
(James Spada),
The Peter Lawford Story
(Patricia Seaton Lawford),
Grace And Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House
(Sally Smith),
Timebends: A Life
(Arthur Miller),
Confessions of a Hollywood Columnist
(Sheilah Graham),
Nothing But Regrets
(Arnold Schulman),
My Life With Cleopatra
(Walter Wanger & Joe Hyams), the itineraries, diaries and personal notes of both John and Bobby Kennedy and the files of the CIA, FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department.

The producers of the following film and television programmes/reports:
Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days
(20th Century-Fox),
Something’s Got To Give
(20th Century-Fox),
Marilyn Monroe: Mortal Goddess
(20th Century-Fox),
Say Goodbye to the President
(BBC),
The Body of Marilyn Monroe
(BBC),
48 Hours Mystery
(CBS),
CBS 60 Minutes, Larry King Live
(CNN),
Eyewitness News
(ABC),
Inside Edition
(ABC),
Marilyn: The Last Interview
(HBO),
Legend of Marilyn Monroe
(Wolper Productions),
Marilyn in Manhattan
(Parco International),
Who Killed Marilyn Monroe?
(Channel 5),
Dead Men Talking
(Biography Channel),
The Marilyn Files
(KVC Entertainment),
Marilyn: The Last Word
(Paramount),
Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend
(Wombat Productions),
Marilyn: The Last Sessions
(Les Films/Patrick Jeudy),
Sinatra: Good Guy, Bad Guy
(Meridian),
Conspiracy Theories
(Discovery Channel).

This book would not have been possible without two very important individuals. The first is Jeremy Robson of JR Books, who saw instantly what I had in mind and knew instinctively why it was so very different to the rest. The other is my diligent agent, Robert Kirby at United Agents. He was instrumental in shaping the project towards the version you have now. I thank you both.

Last but by no means least, immense thanks must also go to my wonderful Dell laptop, my family, Sheila, Pauline, Michael, mother Kathleen (a true rock and a superb proof-reader), dear friend Marion, and Charlotte Knee at United Agents. I thank you all . . .

Introduction

M
arilyn Monroe is surely the most written about, talked about movie star of all time. Every moment of her short, tempestuous life has been the subject of countless books, magazine articles and television programmes. Not surprisingly, even the most non-fanatical fans of the actress feel that they can recite the key moments of that life without even trying. ‘Born 1926, died 1962. Probable suicide. Starred in movies such as
Bus Stop, The Misfits and Some Like It Hot
. Married (and divorced from) Jim Dougherty, playwright Arthur Miller and baseball star Joe DiMaggio. John F. Kennedy and his brother, Bobby, were among those who supposedly shared her bed.’ And so it goes on . . .

These, as well as many other supposed facts, are now etched deep in her folklore; details that are as much a part of her story as the famous dress-blowing sequence in her smash-hit film,
The Seven Year Itch
. Why then do we need yet another book on the actress? The simple truth is that, due to the ineptitude of many researchers, the lies told by people she never encountered, the errors of scandal-hungry gossip columnists and the inaccuracies of various money-hungry acquaintances, who were forced to embellish their mundane or fabricated stories in order to secure a lucrative five-figure publishing deal, much of what we now believe about Marilyn is sheer and utter nonsense.

Her history is sadly awash with these deceptions; especially between 1960 and her death in 1962, a time when she was rubbing shoulders with the likes of Frank Sinatra, the Kennedys and the Rat Pack, and a period when she was mixing with nasty, mean, rotten little people and nasty, mean, rotten
big
people too. Mistakes regarding her naturally circulated while she was alive. When she was confronted about them in 1962, she replied simply, ‘Consider the source.’

So, with this in mind, in the middle of 2005, with the aid of numerous original, highly reliable notes, interviews, photographs, cuttings, files, receipts, invoices and eyewitness accounts – many of them long thought lost – and a mountain of genuine, diehard facts, I forensically set about my task of separating the fact from the fiction, the myths from the reality and the veracity from the bullshit about this phase of her life. My intention was simple: to deliver, in book form, the most honest and accurate account of this period ever published.

Well, five years later, here it is. The result? A wealth of stories and facts that, I hope, even some of the most ardent fans of the actress will be unaware of. Among many other tales, you’ll learn the unequivocal truth about her finances, her incredible spending habits, her abandoned television play,
Rain
, her final movie,
Something’s Got To Give
, her jealousy of film legend Elizabeth Taylor, her romance with Sinatra, her infamous July 1962 trip to his Cal-Neva lodge, her father (I will personally name him and end forever the conjecture about it), how appallingly she was treated by her so-called best friends (in both life and death), Joe DiMaggio’s love for her and their apparent plan to remarry, the night she sang for the President (and how much exactly she paid for that renowned dress), her rumoured, tell-all August 1962 press conference, her legendary farewell message, ‘Say goodbye to the President,’ the dithering by her associates on the night she passed away and the Hollywood-style cover-up that ensued.

Of course, no book on the actress will be complete without a mention (or two) of both John and Bobby Kennedy and her untimely death. This publication is no different. With regard to the former, using private, previously unpublished itineraries, I will reveal in precise detail just how deeply involved she was with them and end for ever the speculation about it. Pertaining to the latter, hypothesis upon hypothesis has been piled up in the history surrounding the actress’s demise. Did she commit suicide, we wondered. Was it an accident? Was she murdered by her housekeeper? Her doctor? The CIA? The FBI? Or the Kennedys, perchance?

The debates rage to this day. However, in the way I have clarified it, as you will see, this is the
only
conceivable way she could have died. How did I reach this conclusion? Besides the assistance of some of the world’s greatest medics, in the wise words of Sherlock Holmes, ‘When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable,
must
be the truth.’

Strange as it may seem, we’ve now had almost 700 books on Marilyn Monroe, yet, with regard to her final months, not one has been truly definitive. I believe this one is. I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

As an act of kindness, I also hope, for Marilyn’s sake, it goes a long way towards setting her most cherished memory straight.

Keith Badman

London, England

Chapter One

Prelude – Childhood/Adulthood

Birth to June 1961

A
t 9.30 on the morning of Tuesday 1 June 1926, in the fortress-like confines of the charity ward of the Los Angeles General Hospital, Dr Herman M. Beerman unwittingly delivered his most famous baby. Originally called Norma Jeane Mortenson, the illegitimate child would later become known as Marilyn Monroe, the world’s most celebrated movie star.

Her mother was a 24-year-old motion-picture negative film cutter, Gladys Pearl Monroe Mortenson. Described by her work colleagues as a ‘talkative, short, cute blonde’ and ‘a lot of fun when she wanted to be’, at the time of the birth, Gladys was so broke that, to help pay her hospital costs, colleagues at the Consolidated Film Industries, where she worked, were obliged to share her medical expenses. The problems did not end there. According to those who would treat her, Gladys soon developed schizophrenia.

Her family had a history of mental instability. Both of her parents, Otis Elmer Monroe and Della Monroe Grainger, lived out their twilight years in mental institutions, and her brother, Marion, had suffered from a problem best described at the time as paranoid schizophrenia. Though Gladys herself was most likely a manic-depressive, it was not uncommon during the 1930s and 1940s for those suffering from manic depression to be diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenics. Whatever the exact nature of her mother’s disorder, Marilyn Monroe naturally came to possess a morbid fear of genetic insanity.

Marilyn’s paternity remains a subject of debate to this day. Although the name of Norwegian immigrant Edward Mortenson, Gladys’s second husband (her first being a man named Jasper Baker) was listed as the father on the certificates pertaining to Norma Jeane’s birth and Marilyn’s marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, it was never the case. Other men have been suggested as candidates. As Donald Spoto pointed out in his 1993 book,
Marilyn Monroe: The Biography
, these included ‘Harry Rooney, a co-worker who was besotted with her; the adoring Clayton MacNamara or, perhaps most likely of all, Raymond Guthrie, a film developer who ardently courted her [Gladys] for months . . . ’ Marilyn, however, perhaps wistfully, believed Mortenson to be her father, having been shown a picture of the man as a child and primed ‘
this
is your father’. In fact, however, he was Charles Stanley Gifford, born on Sunday 18 September 1898 in Newport County, Rhode Island.

In her posthumously published 1974 memoir,
My Story
, Marilyn recalled of the man in the picture that ‘There was a lively smile in his eyes and he had a thin moustache like Clark Gable’, while her mother told her he had been ‘killed in an auto accident in New York’. As surviving images prove, however, the man in the picture was evidently not Edward Mortenson, but Gifford, who did bear a strong resemblance to Gable. And her mother was wrong that the man had been killed in a motor accident. Gifford was
not
killed in a motor accident,

Mortenson, however, was. The fateful collision occurred on Tuesday 18 June 1929, at approximately 5pm, and in Ohio rather than New York; Mortenson was riding his motorcycle along the road from Youngstown to Akron and when he tried to overtake a car in front of him, he smashed into a sedan, breaking both of his legs. He fell to the ground unconscious and paralysed. Mortenson passed away just as the ambulance he was travelling in reached the nearby hospital. (To add to the confusion, a second man bearing the name, Martin Edward Mortenson, also entered the scene claiming to be Marilyn’s true biological father. When he died of a heart attack on Tuesday 10 February 1981, aged 83, in Riverside, California, a copy of Norma Jeane’s birth certificate was found among his possessions.)