The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe: The Shocking True Story (22 page)

In between the quick-fire questions, Monroe continued to sip champagne, plugged her new movie, and innocently, though possibly not
unwittingly, gave credence to the rumour that she did not wear underwear. Unsurprisingly, the fact was not lost on some of the leering, eagle-eyed reporters, one of whom decided to unashamedly press the actress on the matter. ‘I cannot see the colour of your underclothes,’ the man declared. ‘Can you affirm that you do not use any?’ To which the actress took another sip of champagne and unapologetically confirmed that she did
not
.

Following a rapturous round of applause, the conference was over. Monroe returned to her hotel room where at 5pm, following a request by their mutual friend, Martha Josefy, she was welcomed to the country by American-born Frederick Vanderbilt Field and his wife, Nieves. The visit, arranged through New York friends and based on his friendship with Arthur Miller, lasted just an hour, during which time they arranged a furniture-buying trip to Toulca for the following day. As Field informed her, it was market day and would provide Marilyn with the perfect opportunity to purchase the items she desired for her new home.

Over the ensuing four days, in the company of Field and his wife, Marilyn toured Toulca and visited shops and markets in Cuernavaca and Taxco. Items of ethnic, hand-crafted furniture, namely a wooden coffee table, four wooden benches, a wood and leather handmade chair and a specially ordered silver-plated, blue-stone hinged box were among her first purchases. Many other items followed, including mirrors, chairs, maracas, throw blankets, pottery, baskets, a straw hat, an oval copper bowl and hand-painted ornamental clay doves, blue and clear glass platters, an assortment of specially produced soda glass tumblers, and four wire wall-hangings of Mexican musicians. Decorative, hand-painted wall tiles were also acquired: blue, green and gold ones for her kitchen and orange and gold flowered ones for her master bathroom.

Her spending was incessant. Other items acquired included a beautiful painting of a naked woman (known as a
desnudo
) entitled ‘Olga’, a rosewood silver and gold chess set, a specially ordered woven carpet, a wall-hanging tapestry entitled ‘Chac-Mool’, hand-carved living room chairs, a large bright-red sofa (which would not arrive at Marilyn’s home until late August), some copper candelabras acquired at William Sprattling’s famous silversmith factory in Taxco, and a large, highly valuable Mexican wardrobe. (Unfortunately, due to the limit on exports set by the Mexican government to prevent priceless antiques such as this from leaving the country, the wardrobe would not reach the Cheli Air Force Base in Los Angeles for another two years.) Besides the acquisitions for her new home, one purchase was decidedly less decorative. As her personal physician Dr Hyman Engelberg testified, due to Mexico’s extremely lax law regarding tranquillisers at the time,
Marilyn was available to obtain, without prescription, a small consignment of Nembutal tablets.

Lunch each day was usually taken at the popular Sanborns Restaurant on the Paseo de la Reforma boulevard. Seated near her through most of her visits was the 37-year-old, New York-born artist Nick Scire. A veteran of the Second World War, he had attended art school at the Brooklyn Museum and later at the Esmeralda Art School in Mexico City. In 1952, he was introduced to Carlos Tornel, a member of a prominent Mexican family and the grandson of the Major General of the Mexican Army in the war of 1945.

‘Being Tornel’s close friend,’ Scire recalled, ‘I was privileged to meet and visit people and places the ordinary American would not have access to, and it was during the summer of 1962 that I was fortunate enough to meet Marilyn Monroe because Carlos and I were staying at his grandfather’s home in Mexico City.

‘She was staying in a hotel on Paseo de la Reforma, which was the main street in Mexico City and when she came out there was always a large group of photographers waiting to take pictures of her because she was front-page news. Just about every day that Marilyn was in Mexico City, she had lunch at Sanborns, which was a short walk from her hotel. She usually arrived between 1.30 and 2pm. To get a table in the VIP section there, in those days, you either had to have a standing reserved table and/or be a VIP. She was always seated at the table next to my friend Carlos, who had a reservation there. Marilyn always sat in the same seat with her back to the wall. When entering Sanborns, hers was on the right side of the restaurant, near the wall, away from the window. She was always accompanied by at least two or three people. No professional photographers were allowed in when Marilyn was dining although, if you had a reserved table in the VIP area, you were able to take a quick photo of her . . . Marilyn wore light coloured clothes and was always very well dressed.

‘The first time I spoke to Marilyn, I was seated within three feet of her table. Being one of the few people in Sanborns that spoke both English and Spanish, I waved to Marilyn and said, “Hello” in English. She waved and said, “Hello” back. She asked me what I was doing in Mexico City and I replied I was an artist and sculptor. Marilyn was interested in art and invited Carlos and I to join her for lunch. We joined our two tables together. The times I met her, even though I was so close to her, we never were able to have a long conversation. However, Marilyn did say she was planning to visit Frank Sinatra in Acapulco where he had a house. I told Marilyn I was going to do a sculpture of her and she gave a little laugh. I also told her that I hoped she had a very nice time in Mexico City. Marilyn
ordered Cuba Libre [rum and coke with lime] with her lunch and Carlos and I left.’

Her lasting impression on Scire was one of desolation. ‘Her face was sad,’ he recalled. ‘You could see that the events in the past few weeks were not very nice for her. When I met Marilyn, you could see by her face and manners that she was like a defeated person. She looked tired and she was not the real image of her character. There was a great sadness to Marilyn when you spoke to her.’

As Marilyn’s time in the city rolled on, her day in Cuernavaca was punctuated by visits to the home of actress Merle Oberon and, later, the 30-acre Japanese-style house belonging to the world-famous New York-born socialite Barbara Hutton. Monroe used the invites as the perfect opportunity for tips on how to furnish and decorate a Mexican-style home. She also attended a party thrown by Murray’s brother-in-law, Churchill, and paid a visit to the Byrna Art Gallery where she purchased three paintings. She naturally couldn’t escape work. During her stay in the city, she was interviewed by the local reporter, Eva Samano, and played host to the current
Something’s Got To Give
scriptwriter Nunnally Johnson, who had brought with him the very latest version of the script for her to approve. During their short time together, the actress curiously asked Johnson, ‘Have you been trapped into this too?’

On Saturday 24 February, Marilyn was the guest of honour at the Coyoagan home of Mexican actor, writer and director Emilio Fernández Romo and his actress wife, Colunga. His invitation had come on Thursday, just moments after the actress had checked into the Hilton Hotel. She accepted on the precondition that it was a private, low-key affair, with just a select few in attendance. When news leaked out that the great Hollywood actress would be visiting his home, however, the number of attendees at the party that night suddenly quadrupled. It seemed that every individual from the Mexican film and newspaper industry had been invited.

The plethora of cameramen that night excitedly hovered around Monroe and joyously snapped images of the actress being taught by Emilio how to sip her first tequila, the country’s famed drink. To an accompaniment of cheers and applause, she successfully downed it Mexican style, with salt and lemon. Music at the gathering was provided by the Mariachis, a six-piece group of Mexican guitar-strumming, violin-playing street buskers. After just an hour, however, she and Eunice Murray bid the hosts a good night and headed back to their hotel rooms.

The gathering did nonetheless produce a new acquaintance in the actress’s life. Earlier, as the party stumbled on, Marilyn was introduced to José Bolaños. The slim, dark-haired, sharp-dressed 26-year-old Mexican
impressed Monroe when he informed her he was a noted director and screenwriter in Mexican and American cinema. (He had in fact considerably embellished his curriculum vitae. Jose’s only notable movie credit up to this point was as the writer on the 1959 film
La Cucaracha
.) He won Monroe’s affections further by telling her he was a huge admirer. With the actress no doubt touched by his adulation, as well as his knowledge of Mexican furniture, handicrafts and curios, Bolaños suddenly became Marilyn’s self-appointed escort for the remaining three days of the trip.

The following day, Sunday 25 February, with Frederick Vanderbilt Field once more on her arm, Marilyn attended a reception in honour of Princess Antonia De Braganza of Portugal at the home of Mexican actor Dennis Bourke. She had enjoyed her time in Mexico so much that, on Monday 26 February, she cancelled her planned shopping excursion to Acapulco just so she could remain where she was. She spent the days shopping and sightseeing, inadvertently causing traffic jams when she stopped to sign her signature and chat to her adoring fans in the street.

On Thursday 1 March, in the company of Mexico’s First Lady, Mrs Eva Samano de Lopez Mateos, Marilyn began her penultimate day in the country by visiting a Mexican food plant. This was swiftly followed by a tour of the nearby orphanage for Indian children, the Catholic National Institute for the Protection of Children. At the end of her hour-long visit, the actress walked into Lopez Mateos’ office, sat down at the desk, opened her small purse, took out her cheque book and, in keeping with a ritual performed by previous visiting Americans, made out a $1,000 payment to the Institution’s programme, which provided free daily breakfasts for the country’s thousands of needy schoolchildren. Pictures of Marilyn happily handing over the donation to the First Lady were taken. The actress was clearly moved by the kids’ plight. ‘I know what it means to go without breakfasts,’ she touchingly remarked to Lopez Mateos, the Institute’s executives and the gathered reporters.

But once the reporters had left the room, she once more reached into her purse, extracted her cheque book and wrote out another draft, this time for $10,000. The expressions on the faces of those in charge at the orphanage had made it clear to her they had anticipated a donation far in excess of the $1,000 the actress had originally offered. So with guilt getting the better of her, she increased her gift, even though she was herself severely strapped for cash. ‘This tour was the highlight of my stay in Mexico,’ Marilyn commented to the reporters as she left the building. Her pleasant ten-day visit was almost at an end. Away from Los Angeles and free from pressures of work, she had been able to sleep each night without the aid of her recently purchased tranquillisers, the first time in almost 15 years that she had been capable of doing so.

Her final two evenings in the country were spent with Bolaños at the Garibaldi Plaza night club. Famed for its roving troubadours, the aforementioned Mariachis, it was a venue haunted by many of the city’s budding artists and writers. Marilyn and Bolaños spent their time there drinking and watching performances by local musicians. On the evening of Thursday 1 March, the club hosted a special farewell party for Marilyn. Cameras clicked away incessantly at the sight of the actress as she smooched passionately with her new companion. At the conclusion of the evening, she thanked everyone personally and promised she would return on Saturday 15 September, the eve of the country’s Independence Day festivities. Before checking out of the Hilton, she reserved a room for that weekend too.

Monroe flew out of Mexico early on the morning of Friday 2 March and arrived back in Los Angeles at the city’s International Airport approximately one hour behind schedule. Despite her joyous demeanour as she posed and waved to the waiting crowd from the doorway of her Mexicana Airline plane, she was not happy. She did not relish the thought of being back in California. This became evident when, as she rushed through the airport, the actress grumpily remarked to a
Fresno Bee
newspaper reporter, ‘I no longer consider Los Angeles my home . . . My home is in New York.’ In stark contrast to her pleasant and friendly demeanour in Mexico, she resolutely refused to answer any questions. Queries about her possible remarriage to Joe DiMaggio were met with a stony silence, and when asked about
Something’s Got To Give
, she curtly declared, ‘The filming is
not
definite because of legal complications.’ Marilyn’s loneliness was evident once again. Not one friend, acquaintance or associate was there to greet her at the airport.

The official word on the actress’s visit to Mexico was that it had been for ‘a vacation’ and to pick up items, mostly ‘furniture and ornaments for her newly acquired home’. This was indeed the case: she had purchased a Mexican-style home and wanted to furnish it with items produced in that country. It made perfect sense. But not to the FBI’s paranoiac J. Edgar Hoover, whose monitoring of the star seemed to be increasing almost on a daily basis. He took a far more sinister approach to her visit to the country, reporting that Monroe ‘was seen mingling with certain members of the ACGM [the American Communist Group of Mexico]’, an organisation that comprised past and present members of the Communist Party USA, and shared a common sympathy for communism and the Soviet Union. As is verified by the letters ‘SM-C’, standing for ‘Security Matter – Communist’, under Monroe’s name on the FBI files pertaining to her visit to Mexico, the FBI had now labelled the actress as a communist sympathiser.

This categorisation was not entirely surprising. Marilyn had married Arthur Miller, a man with a strong communist background, in June 1956 and, in a secret memo dated Tuesday 16 August 1955, the FBI had reported (and later confirmed as true) rumours that she had applied for a visa to visit the Soviet Union. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, those who knew the actress were united in the opinion that her political ideology was decidedly ‘leftist’. She would passionately express her concerns over matters of civil rights, feminism, poverty and the burgeoning youth culture. And in 1962 – a period when hostilities between America, Soviet Russia and the rest of the world were reaching perilous new heights – an individual even flirting with communist, ‘left-wing’ tendencies was classified by the FBI as ‘dangerous’. Although such sympathies were not classified as a crime in the USA, the bureau often treated them as such. Yet without doubt, Marilyn was an innocent pawn in the thorny predicament she was getting herself into.