The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe: The Shocking True Story (40 page)

Eunice Murray greeted Bobby at the door and recalled him as being ‘casually dressed, looking almost boyish in slacks and open shirt’. When Marilyn came to the entrance, she formally introduced the pair. ‘She did not seem bubbly or excited by his visit as she might have at a romantic interest, just posed and gracious,’ Murray recalled in
Marilyn: The Final Months
. Instead of her usual Capri slacks and blouse, Monroe greeted Kennedy in a long, flowing hostess gown. While the actress continued with her tour of the house, Murray returned to her sewing. ‘Marilyn loved showing off the house,’ Eunice Murray once remarked. ‘It was like it was her baby. She was so proud of it. But she didn’t go sneaking around with Mr. Kennedy . . .’

By 6pm, Bobby was gone. However, before leaving, he left a message thanking the housekeeper for being so kind in opening the door and for ‘greeting him with a warm hello and a smile’. He returned to his base at the Beverly Hills Hotel and checked out the following morning, Thursday 28 June. At 10.30am, he was boarding his plane, American Airlines flight 126, en route to his next destination, Oklahoma City. As he drove away on that hot, sunny afternoon of Wednesday 27 June, he would not see Marilyn again until the afternoon of Saturday 4 August.

Patricia Seaton Lawford informed us in her book that the visit was to ‘tell her once and for all to stop contacting his brother, Jack’. But that is chronologically incorrect. As we can see, the chief reason for Bobby’s visit that day was to look over the actress’s new home, in particular her kitchen. That afternoon’s rendezvous between Marilyn and Bobby was, as he saw it, just a meet-up between two new friends. Furthermore, if he had wished to keep his visit to Marilyn’s home a secret, he most certainly would not have arrived, as the neighbours recalled seeing him, in an open-topped car.

With this in mind, therefore, we can safely dismiss the numerous other erroneous tales told about the couple. According to past conjecture,
Marilyn’s whirlwind, albeit exceedingly fleeting romance with the Attorney General came to a grinding halt on the Fourth of July weekend 1962, while they were attending a party at Peter Lawford’s beach house. Bobby and the actress were reportedly seen strolling along the water’s edge, hand in hand, like two young, starry-eyed lovers. And, somewhere during that walk, so the story goes, thanks to fears of entrapment by American gangland, Bobby told Marilyn their relationship must cease with immediate effect. As legend would have it, the announcement that she had been ditched by the Attorney General apparently ended her deluded dreams of marrying into the highly revered Kennedy family and aspirations of becoming America’s First Lady. Marilyn supposedly retaliated by telling Bobby that she was pregnant with his child.

But, once again, I must take issue with this long-believed scenario. Research shows that whenever the actress had a rendezvous with one or more of the Kennedys, be it a dinner party or special engagement, she always booked an appointment with Agnes M. Flanagan, her personal hairdresser, and the
only
bookings around this period she had with the actress occurred on Saturday 30 June and Friday 6 July. These could only pertain to two events, Marilyn’s photographic sessions with George Barris and
Life
magazine respectively. Furthermore, as irrefutable evidence clearly shows, both the actress and the Attorney General were preoccupied elsewhere on Wednesday 4 July: Marilyn with her
Life
magazine interview (which we will focus on shortly); Bobby with the 11th birthday party of his and Ethel’s first child, Kathleen Hartington, at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port.

So, despite the picture previous Monroe scholars have painted, the best way to describe the liaison between Marilyn and Bobby Kennedy is that they were infrequent dinner party friends and occasional phone buddies but
never
sexually active. As Guthman remarked, ‘They never had any dates alone. There was
always
a group around when Marilyn was present.’ Washington reporter Andrew Glass, a man who grew to know Bobby very well over the years, echoed these sentiments: ‘He really believed in absolute right and wrong and this strict code guided his moral life. In truth, just like any other red-blooded male, RFK just noticed and watched the pretty girls. But he never went beyond that.’

And the most conclusive proof came from Marilyn’s friend, Hollywood gossip columnist James Bacon. During a conversation with Bacon, she once remarked, ‘I like him [Bobby], but
not
physically.’ In truth, it was his mind that appealed to her.

During the morning of Thursday 28 June, the day that Bobby flew to Oklahoma and just hours before she attended another meeting at Fox,
Marilyn once again met up with José Bolaños. He was a visitor to her home on Fifth Helena. However, their time together was brief. After a heated exchange, he soon left and was seen drowning his sorrows over breakfast at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. With language barriers between the pair clearly a problem, Marilyn’s interest in the well-mannered Mexican had completely faded. It would be their last physical encounter, although they would speak on the phone once more, in early July, and on Monday 13 August he would visit her grave. Coincidentally, sitting near Bolaños at the Beverly Wilshire that morning, in a booth quietly drinking a cup of coffee, was Joe DiMaggio.

It has been reported by several Monroe scholars that on Friday 29 June, she accepted Frank Sinatra’s invitation to travel up to his Cal-Neva Lodge for the weekend on the pretence of discussing further their upcoming film projects. But, once again, that is untrue. On that day, Monroe actually began her second lengthy, three-day photo session, this time with freelance snapper George Barris, the plans for which had been drawn up the previous Sunday, 24 June, during a face-to-face encounter at the actress’s home.

The two had first crossed paths in New York in the autumn of 1954, when Barris was assigned to take photographs of the actress on the set of
The Seven Year Itch
. On Tuesday 9 November that year, alongside 4,000 thousand other star-struck onlookers, he stood outside the Trans-Lux Theater, situated at 52nd Street and Lexington Avenue, and watched as Marilyn repeatedly shot the sequence in which her white skirt was blown high above her ears. Monroe and Barris’s friendship was cemented several days later at a thank-you party for those employed on the movie. He sat with her as she desperately tried to contact her husband, Joe DiMaggio, who had flown back to California in disgust following the shooting of the skirt-blowing scene. Marilyn tearfully confided in Barris how lonely she was. ‘We became friends instantly,’ he recalled. She enjoyed his company immensely and was captivated by him further when he promised to introduce her to reclusive actress Greta Garbo. ‘She became speechless and wide-eyed with excitement,’ he recalled.

The session also provided an opportunity for Monroe and Barris to resume work on her autobiography. Following ten weeks of intermittent discussions, beginning on Friday 1 June, when he dropped by the set of
Something’s Got To Give
to wish her a happy birthday, she had finally decided to set the record straight about her colourful life. In the 1987 book
Marilyn
by Barris and Gloria Steinem, the actress is recorded as remarking to the photographer, ‘Lies, lies, lies, everything they’ve been saying about me are lies . . . This is
the
first true story; you’re the first one I’ve told it to.’ She intended to tell Barris everything: her childhood, career, marriages
and divorces. No stone would be left unturned. She also spoke optimistically about resuming work on
Something’s Got To Give
. ‘I hope we can continue . . . It can be a great picture. I know it can and so does everyone else. But all I can do is wait until they let me know.’

Intended for
Cosmopolitan
magazine, the first two days of the shoot took place at 1506 Blue Jay Way, in the Bird Streets area of Los Angeles. The spacious, four-bedroom, 3,891-square-foot home had been completed by San Francisco-born property magnate Walter H. ‘Tim’ Leimert just weeks before the session took place and, despite its furnishings, was actually still uninhabited. During the stint, Marilyn paraded in front of a mirror, lounged on a settee and sprawled across a bed. The future owner’s housekeeper, Louise, who allowed them access to the property, was pleased to meet the actress. ‘Are you really Marilyn Monroe?’ she asked. ‘I can’t believe it.’ ‘Well, I can’t believe it too,’ the film star replied. ‘I guess I am. Everybody says I am.’ At the tail end of the day, location moved to the quiet street outside, where Marilyn posed behind the wheel of a car.

On Sunday 1 July, the third day of the shoot, the location shifted to Peter Lawford’s beachside home in Santa Monica. The image of Marilyn standing on a balcony at the house, champagne glass in hand, toasting the ocean, would become one of the shoot’s most memorable. As Barris recalled for the
Daily Mirror
in August 1962, ‘Champagne was a symbol to her. Every time she had a glass she was saying to herself, “Here’s to the future.” The champagne girl drank nothing else. Zest for living. That is what Marilyn had in the last nine weeks that led to her death.’ Her optimism was a recurring theme throughout the session. ‘The happiest time of my life is now,’ she excitedly declared. ‘As far as I’m concerned, there’s a future and I can’t wait to get to it.’

With a chill filling the air and dark clouds beginning to punctuate the skies, the session concluded on the deserted beach. Sporting a tangerine-coloured bikini, and with Pat Newcomb watching on, the actress bravely cavorted in the cold sea and even fooled around with some dead seaweed. While she laughed, Barris excitedly clicked away. Marilyn even suggested some of the shots and angles. ‘It was as if Marilyn Monroe was directing Marilyn Monroe,’ he said. He handed her a beach towel and instructed her to do something with it. At once, she wrapped it around her, snuggled her chin into it and pulled a face at him. She kept running into the water until Barris protested she was going out too far. ‘Oh, take your shoes off,’ she shouted. At once he followed her command, rolled up his trousers and waded into the water to continue taking pictures.

Satisfied with the images he had captured, Barris and Monroe slowly paddled their way back up to the beach. When they reached it, he discovered that one of his shoes was missing. It had been carried away by
the tide. ‘What can you do with only one shoe?’ she humorously asked. In response, he picked up his remaining shoe and threw it into the sea. Catching sight of this, Marilyn laughed, held aloft a glass of champagne and remarked, ‘Well, you can’t take it with you.’ With the temperature now icy, the actress put on a short, light blue terry-cloth hooded bath robe. Observing the events from her own beachside property was Hollywood legend Mae West. Although keen to meet Marilyn, she failed to walk over and introduce herself to the actress.

As the sun went down, an increasingly chilly wind began to permeate the air and Marilyn reached for her thick, hand-knitted Mexican jumper. She also draped a blanket over her knees. The session had reached its conclusion. ‘She stayed out there posing and working for hours,’ Barris recalled in 1962. ‘She was so cold that she was actually shivering. That was a pro.’ He finished by asking Marilyn what she wanted out of life more than anything. ‘I want to have children,’ she responded. ‘I used to feel that for every child I had, I would adopt another . . . But I don’t think a single person should adopt children. There’s no Ma or Pas there and I know what that can be like.’

Although the actress was tired and her teeth were beginning to chatter, she still posed for him one last time. It was now 8.30pm. ‘Just one more shot,’ he pleaded. ‘I have got one left. It will be the last one.’ With a smirk, she replied, ‘I have heard that before.’ She pursed her lips and blew a kiss at the photographer. ‘OK, George,’ she said, ‘and it’s just for you.’

Shortly after the session, on Wednesday 18 July, Barris dropped by Marilyn’s home in Fifth Helena to show her the fruits of their labour. Sitting barefoot on the floor, for five straight hours she scrutinised each and every one of his images under a magnifying glass. To the ones she endorsed, she was heard to say, ‘Yes, that’s me,’ affirming this by scribbling the word ‘Good’ over the top. The ones she didn’t, she defaced with a large ‘X’, again made with a thick red marker pen. After perusing closely every one of the pictures, Marilyn looked at Barris and told him, ‘I’m in your hands now, I trust you.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ he reassuringly replied. ‘I’ll never hurt you.’

Before exiting the bungalow, Monroe curiously admitted she had no regrets with her life. ‘If I’ve made any mistakes,’ she declared, ‘I was responsible.’ She added, ‘There is now and there is the future. What’s happened is behind . . . As far as I am concerned, there
is
a future and I cannot wait to get to it. It should be very interesting.’ Barris bid his farewell and departed to the strains of the Judy Garland song ‘Who Cares’, which was blaring out of Marilyn’s record player.

By the opening week of July, the actress’s newfound optimism was running freely through her body and, for the first time in a long while, she was
genuinely excited about her future. This became evident when, early in the month, following seven weeks of discussions with Pat Newcomb, she finally arranged a date to be interviewed by
Life
magazine’s associate editor, Richard Meryman.

The notion of being taken seriously in such a highly regarded magazine appealed to her immensely. She warmed further to the piece when she was informed that it was not to be one of their regular Hollywood glamour-type assignments. Set to be called ‘Marilyn Lets Her Hair Down About Being Famous’, the objective of Meryman’s expansive, down-to-earth piece was to capture and embed Monroe’s personality deep in the pages of the magazine. As the publication’s photographer, Allan Grant, recalled,
Life
wanted ‘Marilyn
without
the Monroe attached’. It was a superb idea but, as usual in publishing, time was of the essence. Since actor Cary Grant, the original choice of subject for the magazine, had declined their request, Marilyn’s spread was already being earmarked for the Friday 3 August edition.