Marilyn Monroe (48 page)

In the afternoon she telephoned her old friend Norman Rosten who found her ‘rambling but pleasant’. She talked of the future and was very excited about visiting New York in the autumn, reminding him once again that he had not yet used her pool and urging him to come visit her. ‘Let’s all start to live before we get old,’ she told him; words that stuck with him for the rest of his life.

Several workmen came and went, among them Norman Jeffries and local mechanic Henry D’Antonio, who had been working on Mrs Murray’s car and returned it sometime during the day of 4 August. He had been to the Fifth Helena property many times to undertake work for Mrs Murray and Marilyn, and would sometimes take along his eight-year-old son, Tony. On such occasions, remembered Tony, ‘they would discuss the work that was done and Marilyn would thank him and of course pay for the repairs. Sometimes Marilyn would ask dad to do some handiwork which he did and would never accept any payment for his time. He liked her and enjoyed doing little things for her. I remember one time she asked him to replace some outdoor light bulbs and while he was doing that, she played catch with me in the backyard, asking all sorts of questions. As
I recall she was a very unassuming person, always had a smile; generous, athletic, and would slip some loose change into my pocket, holding her finger to her lips as this was our secret. Dad would not have approved.’ These were happy memories, but on 4 August when Tony’s father returned to Fifth Helena, he found Marilyn ‘looking tired, not well groomed and as though she might have been crying’.

Dr Greenson was called to the house at 4.30 p.m., arriving at 5.15 p.m. to find Marilyn in a ‘somewhat drugged’ and depressed state. He telephoned Dr Engelberg to ask him to come over, but he refused; he was in the midst of separating from his wife and understandably had other things on his mind. Concerned for her welfare, Greenson suggested to Marilyn that Mrs Murray should drive her to the beach then stay at the house that night. Mrs Murray later told reporters that she had stayed at the house several times in the past week, because Greenson did not want Marilyn to be on her own.

At around 7 p.m., Peter Lawford telephoned to ask if she’d like to attend a dinner party with several friends; this wasn’t the first time they had spoken that day – Marilyn had earlier phoned to ask him for Pat Lawford’s telephone number in Hyannis Port. ‘She picked up the phone herself on the second ring,’ he remembered, ‘which leads me to believe that she was fine. She did sound sleepy, but I’ve talked to her a hundred times and she sounded no different.’

While Marilyn was in session with Greenson, her old friend Ralph Roberts tried to call but had been unable to speak with her; then shortly after the doctor’s departure, her stepson Joe DiMaggio Jr telephoned to say he had called off his engagement to a girl she did not approve of. ‘If anything was amiss, I wasn’t aware of it,’ he later recalled. Mrs Murray later told reporters that Marilyn was in bed at the time of the phone call, and she had woken her up to ask if she wanted to talk with him. She then listened in to the conversation, remembering that Marilyn was so pleased by DiMaggio’s news that she called Greenson to tell him.

For the rest of the evening, Marilyn stayed in her bedroom while Mrs Murray settled herself in front of the television. According to her, during this time Marilyn received another phone call that seemed to disturb her, although Murray was unable to say who the call was from or what it was about. Marilyn then spoke with Peter Lawford once again, who became concerned when her voice started to ‘fade out’, and when he called back the phone was busy. At 8.30 p.m. a call was placed to Milton Rudin’s exchange from showbiz manager Milton Ebbins, who was concerned by what Peter Lawford had just told him. Rudin later rang Marilyn’s home but was assured by Eunice Murray that Marilyn was fine.

According to Murray, at approximately 9 p.m. Marilyn appeared at her bedroom door and called out: ‘I think we’ll not go to the beach Mrs Murray. I think I’ll turn in now,’ and she closed the door for the very last time.

At 4.25 a.m. the emergency services received the following call from 12305 Fifth Helena Drive: ‘Marilyn Monroe has died. She’s committed suicide. I’m Dr Engelberg, Marilyn Monroe’s physician. I’m at her residence. She’s committed suicide.’

When Sergeant Jack Clemmons arrived at the scene, he discovered Eunice Murray operating the washing machine, and Dr Greenson and Dr Engelberg in the bedroom with Marilyn’s body, along with a bed-stand covered in pill bottles. Some were empty, but it would appear not all of them were, however, as Marilyn’s former business manager Inez Melson bizarrely told interviewer Barry Norman that she flushed some pills down the toilet so that paparazzi wouldn’t find out about them. Since the bottles had already been photographed, however, this was a pointless exercise and also interfered with what was supposed to be a secured area.

From the start, the story of Marilyn’s discovery was patchy to say the least. Mrs Murray told police officers that she had awakened at around 3 a.m. and noticed a light and the telephone cord under Marilyn’s locked door. (Bizarrely, years later she was to change her mind and claim that the door was not locked after all.) Murray phoned Dr Greenson, who instructed her to pound on the door and look through the window. She did as she was asked and discovered Marilyn lying on the bed with the phone in her hand, and she ‘looked strange’. Greenson dressed and readied himself for the journey to Fifth Helena, and Mrs Murray telephoned Dr Engelberg, who did the same. When
Greenson arrived at 3.40 a.m., he broke the window, entered the room and removed the phone from her hand, discovering that rigor mortis had already set in. Engelberg arrived at 3.50 a.m. and declared his patient dead.

By 4.30 a.m., employees at the Arthur P. Jacobs Agency had been told of her death and summoned to an emergency meeting at Marilyn’s home. Michael Selsman remembered: ‘It was panic of course. Events were already out of control, and now she was dead the press didn’t feel constrained to hide what they knew – except of course, for the Kennedy stuff – which came later. I fended off the media by saying we didn’t know what the cause of death was, because we didn’t.’

By the time Marilyn’s body had been picked up by the coroner, the news was flying around the world with tragic results: in Britain, twenty-eight-year-old actress Patricia Marlowe told friends that she understood why Marilyn had died and promptly took her own life with a concoction of sleeping pills; thirty-eight-year-old dancer Gerdi Marie Havious repeatedly asked her husband, ‘Why did she do it? Why did she do it?,’ then leapt to her death from their third-floor window. In Mexico three teenage girls gathered together their photos of Marilyn, then tried to take their own lives, thankfully being saved just in time.

Closer to home, Marilyn’s three husbands were told of the news: Jim Dougherty received a message from his colleague Jack Clemmons and turned to his wife: ‘Say a prayer for Norma Jeane,’ he said. ‘She’s dead.’ Arthur Miller refused to comment to reporters, but later revealed his feelings in a letter to friend Joe Rauh, confessing that he was stunned at the news; had always worried she’d step over the edge; but didn’t believe she meant to do it. His father, Isidore Miller, was heartbroken and told reporters, ‘She was like my own. She was a kind, good girl. I’m so sorry I was not out there to be with her. She must have been very lonely and afraid.’

Meanwhile, Joe DiMaggio flew into Los Angeles from San Francisco and, together with Berniece Baker Miracle and former
business manager Inez Melson, proceeded to arrange Marilyn’s funeral for 8 August. They were all very concerned that they should avoid a Hollywood spectacle and released a statement which said that the funeral would be a private affair, ‘so that she can go to her final resting place in the quiet she has always sought’. It went on to explain that they could not invite one personality without offending many others, and urged everyone to ‘remember the gay, sweet Marilyn and say a prayer of farewell within the confines of your home or church’.

But not everyone was pleased with the reasons for exclusion and several show-business friends tried to trick guards at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery gates by replacing them with their own ‘security’. The plan backfired however, and Frank Sinatra was just one of the friends turned away from the cemetery. Peter Lawford told reporters, ‘I am shocked. Pat flew in Monday night from Hyannis Port, where she had been vacationing with the kids, to just attend Marilyn’s funeral. But we were not invited. I don’t know who’s responsible but the whole thing was badly handled.’ Even Arthur P. Jacobs got in on the act when he declared that if Marilyn had been in charge of the invitations, half the people on the guest list would not have been invited, and more of her friends would have been included.

But it wasn’t just celebrities that were faced with a ban. Foster family Enid, Sam and Diane Knebelkamp were excluded until Berniece Miracle insisted to DiMaggio that they be allowed to attend. Friend Catherine Larson telephoned Enid after Marilyn passed away. ‘Enid felt terrible about the death,’ remembered Carson’s friend James Glaeg. ‘But it made her feel better to be able to attend the funeral and provided immeasurable help in their process of mourning. Afterwards Enid said that Marilyn looked as beautiful in her coffin as she had in life. “Like a beautiful doll of a child,” she said.’

Almost immediately, the Abbott and Hast company were brought in to provide help with the arrangements, including hearses, flowers and other services. Both owners, Allan Abbott and Ron Hast, were used as pallbearers and Abbott assisted the
embalmer to dress Marilyn in a green Pucci dress and blonde wig before carefully placing her in the velvet-lined coffin.

According to Hast, Joe DiMaggio was ‘noticeably heartbroken,’ during arrangements, while Abbott remembered that on the night before the funeral, DiMaggio spent four or five hours with Marilyn’s body, although what he said will forever remain private.

On the day itself, fans and the curious queued at the gates of Westwood Memorial Park to try and gain access. Inside, around thirty friends and associates said goodbye to Marilyn’s open casket, while Lee Strasberg read a heartfelt eulogy. Joe DiMaggio bent down to kiss the forehead of the woman he had never stopped loving, and whispered, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ before finally the coffin was sealed.

Marilyn’s body was entombed in the ‘Corridor of Memories’ section of Westwood Memorial Park, where Joe DiMaggio sat for several moments, after other mourners had left. Disturbingly, after he had said his final goodbye, hundreds of curious onlookers stormed in, knocking bouquets to the floor, crushing flowers, taking ribbons and stealing roses from the giant heart DiMaggio had bought himself. Two guards had to prevent the mob from attacking the tomb itself, and by the time they had left, they had taken most of the blooms with them.

Quite bizarrely, the spectators said they did it because of their love for the movie star, completely oblivious to the fact that it was not Marilyn Monroe buried in the crypt that day, but Norma Jeane Baker, the little girl who’s only desire in life was to be loved, respected and cared for, and who in the words of close friend Bill Pursel, ‘really blossomed into a legend, and along the way she met many men who could have – would have – given her the lasting fulfilment of womanhood. But, like the beautiful flower she was, she bloomed and died . . . and so the cycle of life goes on. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’

Given the innumerable theories over the years about how and why Marilyn Monroe died, it’s quite possible that among them the truth of her death has already been told. But the manner of her passing still attracts myriad questions and answers, though some people, including her many fans, would rather an open ending to her life than yet another theory presented as fact about her death.

The official verdict on Marilyn’s death was probable suicide, although many people dispute this: why would someone take their own life when they had so many plans for the future?

Ralph Greenson never believed Marilyn purposely took her own life, while Milton Wexler, a psychoanalyst who looked in on Marilyn when Greenson was out of town, never believed it either. His daughter Alice recalls: ‘My father admired and respected Marilyn Monroe. He thought she was very intelligent and that she had a great sense of humour. He also firmly believed that her death resulted from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills and that she did not intend to commit suicide.’

The future looked bright for Marilyn: Eunice Murray was about to leave on a six-week vacation and she was looking forward to the arrival of a former housekeeper. The Arthur P. Jacobs agency had advised her that Billy Wilder wanted her for his next movie, and Arthur Jacobs had himself bought the rights to the movie
I Love Louisa
and scheduled a meeting about it for 6 August with Marilyn and director J. Lee Thompson. Added to that, there was also a Jean Harlow biopic with Sidney Skolsky in
the offing, an appearance in a hour-long TV special and she was still keen to bring
Rain
to the small screen. She also had meetings to attend, including one on 9 August to discuss a musical version of
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
with Jules Styne, and renewed negotiations over
Something’s Got to Give.

Summer 1962 had been busy, and it looked as if autumn was going to be, too, certainly when it came to Marilyn’s career: it all looked hopeful. On a personal level, however, there are pointers to the possibility that Marilyn may have been struggling emotionally and was possibly unhappy enough to consider suicide. Friendship was always an issue, and Marilyn had few people in whom to confide: she had virtually no friends who were not employed by her in some way.

For reasons known only to herself, she refused to rely on the Knebelkamps, despite her former foster family’s desire to love and protect her. She certainly couldn’t turn to her parents, with whom she was never going to enjoy a close and supportive relationship. There were various bumps in the road that year, including the cooling of her allegedly close friendship with the Kennedy brothers and her dismissal by Fox being spun to depict her as a has-been, with her career in free fall. To cap it all, Arthur Miller had recently remarried, and his wife was expecting a baby – news of which might have served bleakly to highlight Marilyn’s own childlessness. Furthermore there was the apparent collapse of any plans Marilyn may have had to adopt. Was this somehow linked to the mysterious phone call Marilyn had received shortly before she died?