The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe (3 page)

Not long after Murray's car pulled out of the gates, Guy and Don Hockett drove out of the courtyard in the mortuary van with the film star's body. Though Billy Woodfield wasn't ordinarily a press photographer, his instinct grasped the moment. Recently recalling the incident, Woodfield reflected, “Hyams had pressed me into service as a newsy—not my bag—but when the mortician's van drove off I said to Joe, ‘C'mon, we've gotta follow the money!'” Woodfield grabbed Hyams and they ran to their car and followed Hockett's van. Not knowing where the van was headed, they followed it to the Westwood Village Mortuary, where Alan Abbott, the mortuary attendant who helped in preparing bodies for embalming, was waiting.

Leaving the body momentarily unattended, the Hocketts and Abbott entered the mortuary building. Woodfield took several photos of the shrouded body in the van, then he and Hyams entered the mortuary to question Hockett. Walking to the office, Woodfield recalled passing the embalming room, where an array of specimen jars had been neatly arranged on a cart beside the embalming table. Name and case number tags were on each jar, and Monroe's name had been written on the embalmer's tags.

Upon removing the body from the van, Alan Abbott became concerned when he discovered that the press had followed Hockett back to the mortuary. “I hid Miss Monroe's body in a broom closet,” he recalled. “One of them had offered me ten thousand dollars if they could take a picture of the corpse. I knew it wouldn't be long before they'd be descending on us like locusts, and I urged the Hocketts to call in some security. There
was just the three of us there and it was a bit frightening—the lull before a storm. Pinkerton's sent over twenty security guards to keep the press at a distance, and before the day was over we could have used more.”

Before leaving, Woodfield was able to get a photo of the shrouded body of one of the greatest motion picture stars of the twentieth century lying in a broom closet cluttered with mops, brushes, rags, and specimen bottles.

H
ollywood was shaken by the news that Marilyn Monroe had committed suicide. Her death was the biggest news story of 1962, ultimately consuming more type space than the Cuban missile crisis, which occurred several months later.
MARILYN MONROE A SUICIDE
, read the
London Times
headline. The
Los Angeles Times
put out extra editions and rushed them to the newsstands.
MARILYN DEAD
was the eighteen-point headline in the
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
.

Joe DiMaggio heard the news early Sunday morning in San Francisco. He took the first plane to Los Angeles. Checking into suite 1035 at the Miramar Hotel, not far from Marilyn's home, he refused to speak to the press and went into seclusion. His friend Harry Hall recalls that he took her death very hard and wept bitterly.

Robert Slatzer was awakened early Sunday morning by a phone call from his friend and neighbor Dr. Sanford Firestone. Dr. Firestone had been present on August 1, when Marilyn had called Slatzer at his home in Columbus, Ohio, from a pay phone in Los Angeles. In an interview with writer Anthony Summers on March 23, 1983, Dr. Firestone discussed his presence along with Slatzer's friend Ron Pataki when Marilyn had
called. Dr. Firestone stated, “I know there was some kind of problem. After the call, Bob said she was very nervous, and very afraid…as far as Bobby Kennedy, and the Kennedys….”

When Dr. Firestone called Slatzer about Marilyn's suicide, he said, “Bob, I've got some bad news—Marilyn's dead. Sleeping pills, they say.”

“She wouldn't do it!” Slatzer exclaimed, “She had too many plans.”

He hung up without saying good-bye and turned on the television: “
…and authorities report that Marilyn Monroe died at 3:40
A.M.
of an apparent overdose of barbiturates…
”

When Arthur Miller heard the news, he was quoted as saying, “It had to happen. I don't know when or how, but it was inevitable.” He added that he would not be going to the funeral. “She's not really there anymore.”

Marilyn's first husband, James Dougherty, was told of her death by Sergeant Clemmons, who called him after filing his report. Dougherty was a fellow police officer in Van Nuys and an acquaintance of Clemmons's. When Clemmons told him, Dougherty replied, “I was expecting it.”

Marilyn's friend and mentor, Lee Strasberg, made an unusual statement to the
New York Herald-Tribune
: “She did not commit suicide…. If it had been suicide, it would have happened in quite a different way. For one thing, she wouldn't have done it without leaving a note. There are other reasons, which cannot be discussed, which make us [Strasberg and his wife, Paula] certain she did not intend to take her life.” Strasberg's perplexing utterance may have been influenced by Marianne Kris, who was Marilyn's New York psychiatrist and a friend and neighbor of the Strasbergs. Kris was in frequent communication with her associate, Dr. Ralph Greenson, and it is likely that he told Kris about the circumstances of Marilyn's death.

Actor Peter Lawford stated to the press, “Pat [Patricia Kennedy Lawford] and I loved her dearly. She was probably one of the most marvelous and warm human beings I have ever met. Anything else I could say would be superfluous.”

The public learned little of Marilyn's last hours from the sketchy and often contradictory published statements by the key witnesses: actor Peter Lawford, housekeeper Eunice Murray, psychiatrist Ralph Greenson, publicist Pat Newcomb, attorney Milton Rudin, and physician Hyman Engelberg. There was no coroner's inquest or official investigation, so none of the key witnesses were ever obligated to testify under oath, and many
of them, as Murray admitted in 1986, “told what was good to tell at the time.”

In an exclusive interview with New York
Journal-American
correspondent Alfred Robbins, Pat Newcomb said, “I had arrived at Marilyn's house on Friday. I was fighting a bad case of bronchitis and had decided to enter a hospital for a complete rest, but Marilyn had called me and said, ‘Why don't you come out here?…You can sun in the back and have all the rest you want, and you won't have to go to the hospital.' It was typical of Marilyn,” she went on, “this concern for friends. So I accepted her invitation. I found her in wonderful spirits. Some furnishings had just arrived from Mexico. She was in a very good mood—a very happy mood. Friday night we had dinner at a quiet restaurant near her home. Saturday she was getting things done inside the house. She loved it. This was the first home she ever owned herself. She was as excited about it as a little girl with a new toy.”

Newcomb said that when she left on Saturday, nothing indicated the impending tragedy: “When I last saw her, nothing about her mood or manner had changed.” She recalled that Marilyn had waved at her with a smile from the doorway and said, “I'll see you tomorrow. Toodle-oo!” Pat Newcomb left Marilyn's at approximately 5:45
P.M.

Five hours later Marilyn Monroe was dead.

The narrative of events was picked up by Murray, who stated that she stayed at her own apartment in Santa Monica on Friday night and returned to Marilyn's Saturday morning. When she arrived, Norman Jefferies was already at work retiling the kitchen floor.

“I arrived there about eight-thirty Saturday morning,” said Murray. “Marilyn was up and dressed in a terry-cloth robe. Pat was asleep in the guest bedroom [the telephone room]. Marilyn and I had some juice; we were sitting in the breakfast nook. We talked for about an hour or so, discussing household things, then Marilyn went back to her bedroom.”

Newcomb had slept late, and according to Murray, Newcomb and Marilyn had a disagreement after Newcomb emerged from the telephone room. When asked about the disagreement, Newcomb stated that “the small argument that day was because I had been able to sleep all night and Marilyn hadn't. While I had my door closed and was sleeping, Marilyn had been up wandering around the house. And she just couldn't bear not being able to sleep. Then for her to see someone come out all refreshed, who had been sleeping the night before, you know, that made her furious.”

According to Murray, Marilyn didn't eat lunch or dinner that day and spent the afternoon in her bedroom. When Newcomb began walking out to her car at about 1
P.M.
, Murray stated, “I called to her asking if she wanted something to eat. She said she did, and I fixed her one of my omelets.” After lunch Newcomb decided to stay on. Sometime in the afternoon Murray went shopping for about an hour, but she returned before Greenson arrived at about 5 or 5:30
P.M.
It was unusual for Greenson to come to Marilyn's. Marilyn almost always met with her psychiatrist at his home, which was only minutes away. When asked if Marilyn had requested that Greenson visit her, Murray replied, “No, I called him late that morning when Marilyn had said something about oxygen. She asked, ‘Mrs. Murray, do we have any oxygen around?' I really didn't understand, but it was something that I thought was questionable. It wasn't my habit to call Dr. Greenson about every little thing, but I did call him and asked, ‘What's this about oxygen?' And he said, ‘Well, I'm not quite sure, but I'll be over later this afternoon.'”

Murray stated that she and Newcomb were talking in the living room when Greenson arrived. After briefly visiting Marilyn in her bedroom, Greenson walked to the living room and told Pat Newcomb she should leave. “When the doctor came, he spoke to Marilyn,” Murray said, “and then he asked Pat if she was leaving. She said, ‘Yes, I am.' It was part of his plan, evidently, that Pat not stay because Marilyn and she had some kind of disagreement.”

According to Murray, Newcomb left between 5:30 and 6
P.M.
, and the doctor then went back into Marilyn's bedroom. Approximately an hour later he emerged from the bedroom and asked Murray if she would spend the night.

“I said yes,” Murray recalled, “There wasn't any feeling of urgency in his request. There wasn't anything that gave me any idea that it was important that I stay.” Greenson then left at approximately 7
P.M.

Four hours later Marilyn Monroe was dead.

Not long after Greenson left, one of the phones rang in the telephone room. “I answered the phone and summoned Marilyn, who sat on the floor and talked to Joe DiMaggio, Jr.” Murray recalled, “She was in a very gay mood while she spoke with him. He had given her some good news—he had broken off with a girlfriend of whom Marilyn did not approve. She was very pleased about that. I didn't hear what she was saying, but I heard her laughing. After the call, she phoned Dr. Greenson to tell him about it. Then she walked toward her room. I was in the living room facing her
bedroom. She turned and said, ‘We won't go for that ride after all, Mrs. Murray.' I didn't know what she meant, but the doctor told me later that he had suggested that if she felt restless she should go for a ride. I would take her because I was also her chauffeur.”

Murray recalled that Marilyn then took one of the phones into her bedroom and closed the door at approximately 8
P.M.
According to Murray, it was the last time she was to see Marilyn alive.

Three hours later Marilyn Monroe was dead.

Though Peter Lawford's story varied in minor details over the years, he held steadfast to the essential elements until his own death in 1984. Lawford said he was having a dinner party at his beach house Saturday night with television producer Joe Naar; Naar's wife, Dolores; and Hollywood agent George “Bullets” Durgom. Lawford said he first telephoned Marilyn at approximately 5
P.M.
Saturday, urging her to join them. He recalled that she “sounded despondent over her dismissal from the film
Something's Got to Give
and some other personal matters.” She told him she wasn't sure she'd be there and would think about it.

When Marilyn hadn't shown up by seven-thirty, and Lawford called again, he said she sounded depressed and “her manner of speech was slurred.” She said she was tired and would not be coming. Her voice became less and less audible, and Lawford began to yell in order to revive her, describing his shouts as “verbal slaps in the face.” Then Marilyn stated, “Say good-bye to the president and say good-bye to yourself, because you're a nice guy.”

According to Lawford, the telephone then became silent, as if Marilyn had put the receiver down or perhaps dropped it. He called back, but got a busy signal. Deeply concerned, Lawford considered rushing over to Marilyn's, which was only ten minutes away; however, he claimed, he spoke to his manager, Milt Ebbins, who warned, “For God's sake, Peter, you're the president's brother-in-law. You can't go over there. Your wife's out of town. The press will have a field day. Let me get in touch with Mickey Rudin. It's better to let someone in authority handle this!”

Marilyn's attorney, Milton “Mickey” Rudin, resolutely avoided the press, but he summarized his knowledge of what occurred in an interview conducted by Lieutenant Grover Armstrong on August 6:

Two hours later Marilyn Monroe was dead.

The narrative of the events in Marilyn Monroe's last hours by the key witnesses painted a picture of a rather normal day in which she was in “a very good mood—a very happy mood,” save for the “small argument” with Pat Newcomb and the sudden despondency during Lawford's call shortly after 7:30
P.M.
However, the narrative was fraught with contradictions and implausible cause-and-effect relations.

If Marilyn had invited Newcomb over “to sun in the back and have all the rest you want,” instead of going to the hospital, it seems unlikely that Marilyn would be “furious” about her sleeping late. Both Newcomb and Murray, and at a later date Greenson, confirmed that an argument took place. However, the subject of the argument remains questionable.

Another question arises from Dr. Greenson's visit. Marilyn's inquiry, “Mrs. Murray, do we have any oxygen around?” was allegedly the reason Murray called Greenson. Yet Murray stated that Marilyn was “in very good spirits” that morning; nevertheless, she found the question about oxygen alarming enough to call the psychiatrist. Murray may not have known that oxygen was a well-known Hollywood cure for a hangover, but certainly Dr. Greenson knew this. Yet a call was made that did indeed prompt Greenson's unusual visit. It is the reason given by Murray for the call that remains implausible.

According to Murray, after Marilyn and Newcomb had their disagreement, Marilyn spent most of the afternoon in her bedroom. Murray was specific in stating that Marilyn was in her room when Newcomb left and never said good-bye. That Newcomb stayed on until Greenson arrived and told her to leave seems as inexplicable as Newcomb's recollection of her last view of Marilyn alive—smiling as she waved her last good-bye and saying, “I'll see you tomorrow. Toodle-oo!”