The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe (40 page)

He flew off to Paris, where Simone and the paparazzi were waiting. “The Montands have survived Hurricane Marilyn,” headlined
Paris-Match
. And Marilyn was left, how you say?
—on the lurch
.

B
y the time Joseph P. Kennedy turned sixty in September 1948, the man from the east docks of Boston had amassed a fortune in excess of $400 million. He decided to give himself a birthday present worthy of the occasion, and a bevy of Boston beauties were paraded through his suite at the Ritz-Carlton. He chose Janet Des Rosier, a twenty-four-year-old graduate of Leicester High School with a timeless hourglass figure. Des Rosier was bright, funny, and beautiful. In her photos she has a striking similarity to Rose in her bloom.

“He was very taken with me,” Des Rosier recalled. “He made up his mind right then and there that I would be his.” She became Joe Kennedy's mistress, secretary, and companion.

A decade later, when Kennedy became a septuagenarian and the flagging ambassador began hearing the echoing refrains of “September Song,” he arranged for his mistress to become an executive of General Dynamics Corporation. When it was decided that Jack Kennedy was going to run for president, Joe Kennedy discussed leasing a General Dynamics Convair twin-engine turbo prop for his company, and Janet Des Rosier arranged for a demo flight for the candidate and his entourage from Washington
to New York. Ten days later, Joe Kennedy called Des Rosier and exclaimed, “Hell, Janet, Jack isn't going to rent a plane from you. We're going to buy him one.”

Christened the
Caroline
after Jack Kennedy's daughter, the Convair was purchased for $385,000 and came with many custom-built luxury appointments and plush features—along with Janet Des Rosier, who became Jack Kennedy's stewardess, secretary, and masseuse. When Kennedy lost his voice during the campaign, he wrote notes on a legal pad instead of talking. Des Rosier kept the pad and later sold some of the more unusual notations from the rigors of the campaign. One of the notes read, “I got into the blonde.”

On February 7, 1960, the
Caroline
, with Kennedy and his brother Teddy on board, arrived in Las Vegas for a meeting with Frank Sinatra, the “chairman of the board,” and Sam Giancana, the “boss of bosses.” Kennedy was gambling on winning the nomination, and his plans for the primaries were being made at the Sands Hotel, where Sinatra and the “Rat Pack” were performing nightly.

While there was a credo that every young American had an opportunity to become president of the United States, Sam Giancana's credo was that every young mafioso had an opportunity to
own
the president of the United States. Giancana was well aware of the Kennedy
hamartia
, or fatal flaw. He had observed it in the father, and knew that Jack Kennedy too was a womanizer. If they could catch the presidential candidate in a compromising situation, the Mafia would be holding a Kennedy marker. Through Sinatra, Giancana believed he could not only enrich Mafia coffers by having access to some of Hollywood's biggest entertainers, but also add to his collection of Kennedy markers by utilizing Sinatra's association with the presidential candidate.

Perhaps only Sinatra's psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, could have explained Sinatra's aberration concerning power and the Mafia. Eddie Fisher once commented, “Frank wanted to be a hood. He once said, ‘I'd rather be a don of the Mafia than president of the United States.' I don't think he was fooling.” Sinatra and Giancana had a lot in common: both had a mercurial temperament, wild mood swings, and a giant ego; both loved to gamble and fornicate; both could be lavishly generous and lavishly cruel; both suffered from bottomless greed and had bottomless pockets—price was no object when it came to a flashy suit, a pretty girl, or a great toupee.

Shortly after it became apparent that Jack Kennedy was a viable can
didate, Sinatra began cultivating the friendship of “brother-in-Lawford,” and he became solicitous of Marilyn, whom he knew to be intimate with his new friend, Kennedy. Suddenly, Sinatra found himself with a pal who was headed for the White House, and a blonde acquaintance who occasionally slept in his pal's bed. It was a strategic position of subtle power and influence. In 1983, in an unguarded moment shortly before his death, Peter Lawford made the statement, “I'm not going to talk about Jack and his broads because I just can't…and, well, I'm not proud of this, but all I will say is that I was Frank's pimp, and Frank was Jack's. It sounds terrible now, but then it was really a lot of fun.”

The FBI's files reveal information regarding several of the women Sinatra brought to Kennedy's attention in Palm Springs, Las Vegas, and New York. One FBI file contains the statement, “It is a known fact that the Sands Hotel is owned by hoodlums, and that while the Senator, Sinatra and Lawford were there, showgirls from all over the town were running in and out of the Senator's suite.”

It was at the Sands that Sinatra introduced Jack Kennedy to Judith Campbell Exner, an attractive divorcée with dark hair and sparkling blue eyes. Exner frequented the nightclubs in Los Angeles and Las Vegas and was frequently seen on the arm of West Coast Mafia boss Johnny Rosselli. According to her friend Patricia Breen, “Judith was absolutely the most gorgeous thing you've ever laid eyes on and had a subtle resemblance to Jackie Kennedy.”

Describing the visit, Judith Exner recalled that Sinatra invited her, along with a group of friends, to be his guest. The entourage included Dean Martin's wife Jeanne, agent Mort Viner, Gloria Romanoff, and publicist Pat Newcomb, who was a friend of Sinatra, the Lawfords, and the Kennedys.

Sinatra's guests flew to Las Vegas on Friday afternoon, February 5, 1960, and it was on Sunday afternoon at Sinatra's table in the Sands' lounge that Judith Exner was introduced to Senator Jack Kennedy and his brother Teddy. That evening Judith Exner, Pat Newcomb, and Gloria Romanoff were guests at Sinatra's table in the Copa Room for the late show starring Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis, Jr. “I sat next to Teddy, and Jack sat across from me,” Judith Exner noted. “Jack looked so handsome in his pinstripe suit. Those strong white teeth and smiling Irish eyes…. I must say I was tremendously impressed by his poise and wit and charm.”

Many years later, Judith Campbell Exner wrote about her affair with Jack Kennedy in her autobiography,
My Story
. She described dozens of trysts in hotel rooms around the country and in the White House. Though her revelations were initially met with skepticism, the subsequent release of FBI files and White House telephone logs confirmed over seventy phone conversations, some of extended duration, between Judith Campbell Exner and the president between February 1961 and April 1962. An additional call to JFK was logged on August 5, 1962, when Marilyn Monroe's death hit the news.

Judith Exner became the liaison for meetings between Giancana and JFK, and she told of arranging a meeting between the “boss of bosses” and the senator at the Fountainebleu Hotel in Miami, where plans were finalized to “get out the vote” in the West Virginia primaries. While Kennedy had beaten Hubert Humphrey in the New Hampshire and Wisconsin primaries, West Virginia was ninety-five percent Protestant. In order to become the presidential candidate, Kennedy would have to prove to the Democratic Party that he could win the Protestant vote despite his Catholicism. The Kennedy forces entered the West Virginia primary with all the energy, determination, and cash at their disposal. FBI wiretaps later revealed that Giancana contributed a war chest of $150,000, which was distributed by Sinatra and Giancana's friend Paul Emilio “Skinny” D'Amato. More than $50,000 was disbursed to convince the West Virginia sheriffs, who controlled the political machine, how important it was for Kennedy to win.

Kennedy swept West Virginia by a three-to-two margin, amassing 219,246 votes to Humphrey's 141,941. The
New York Times
termed the victory a “smashing upset,” and Democrats all over the nation were impressed. Hubert Humphrey tearfully dropped out of the presidential race and confided to a colleague, “The way Jack Kennedy and his old man threw money around, the people of West Virginia won't need any public relief for the next fifteen years.”

According to Kennedy's friend Senator George Smathers, Kennedy was concerned about the “Marilyn Monroe problem.” With the nomination looming ahead, he was worried that she might talk about their relationship, and other private matters that could damage his candidacy. But Marilyn joined the Kennedy bandwagon and was at the top of the list of celebrities endorsing JFK's nomination—celebrities that Sinatra organized to support the Democratic candidate, with the help of his friends Henry
Rogers and Pat Newcomb. And while Marilyn was on the East Coast during the Hollywood strike, she become the Democratic Party's alternate delegate to the Fifth Congressional District of Connecticut.

The selection of Los Angeles as the site for the 1960 Democratic National Convention was propitious for JFK. It put Kennedy's show-business supporters in close proximity to the action. On July 10, the eve of the convention's opening, the Democratic Party gave a one-hundred-dollar-a-plate fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Sinatra rounded up a host of celebrities, including Milton Berle, Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis, Judy Garland, Mort Sahl, and the entire “Jack Pack” to mingle with the crowd of twenty-eight hundred supporters. Jacqueline Kennedy, who was six months pregnant, did not attend.

When Jack, Bobby, and Teddy Kennedy arrived in Los Angeles, they checked into the Biltmore Hotel. The Kennedy suite, which was down the hall from Chief Bill Parker's private apartment, was Bobby's boiler room for the convention. The Kennedy security team included Captain James Hamilton, Lieutenant Daryl Gates, Officers Frank Hronek and Marvin Ianonne, and the two intelligence officers Archie Case and James Ahearn.

Though Joe Kennedy never set foot on the convention floor, he remained in the wings of the Marion Davies mansion behind the Beverly Hills Hotel, where “he was the mastermind of everything,” according to Kennedy aide Joe Timilty.

Officially a resident at the Biltmore, Jack Kennedy stayed at an apartment belonging to entertainer Jack Haley on Rossmore Boulevard, near the Wilshire Country Club. This hideaway was discovered by an alert member of the fourth estate, and Kennedy was observed by an apartment resident climbing down the fire escape to avoid being caught in a compromising situation. The press caught up with him as he was spotted climbing over a fence and getting into a car. He shouted to the perplexed reporters, “I'm going to meet my father!” as he hurriedly drove off. The compromising situation may have been with Marilyn Monroe, who was visiting Kennedy on her way to the Reno location of
The Misfits
, which was to begin filming on July 21.

On the second night of the Los Angeles convention, Jack Kennedy and Marilyn had dinner at the Jack Pack's favorite restaurant, Pucini's, along with Peter Lawford and Kennedy's media campaign manager, Peter Summers. Pucini's was owned by Sinatra, Lawford, and Mickey Rudin. Ac
cording to Detective John St. John of the Los Angeles Police Department, Pucini's was frequented by the Mafia, and there was a private room upstairs designated for VIP assignations. Peter Summers recalled seeing Kennedy and Marilyn together the next morning emerging from a shower at the Lawford beach house. “Jack was really very, very fond of Marilyn,” Summers stated. “She was delightful…. I did feel she was so impressed by Kennedy's charm and charisma that she was almost starry-eyed.”

During the final days of the convention, it was still uncertain whether Kennedy would prevail over Adlai Stevenson. By the time the roll call had reached Wyoming, Kennedy was within a few votes of a first-ballot victory. Joe Kennedy instructed Teddy to sew up the Wyoming delegation. Pushing his way through the crowded floor to the Wyoming chairman, Teddy Kennedy shouted above the roar, “You have in your grasp the opportunity to nominate the next president of the United States. Such support can never be forgotten by a president.” A short time later, Wyoming cast all fifteen votes for John F. Kennedy, and the convention hall erupted into a frenzy of acclamation for the Democratic nominee. Frank Sinatra and the Jack Pack patted each other on the back and were totally ecstatic. “Brother-in-Lawford” had never seen Sinatra so jubilant. It was almost as if he were the one going to the White House. Indeed, he had one alligator shoe in the back door.

Two days later at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Jack Kennedy, who had learned so well from his father the importance of winning, declared to a jubilant crowd, “We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier—the frontier of the 1960s—a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils…. I am asking each of you to be new pioneers on this New Frontier!”

After the Coliseum victory speech, Peter Lawford threw a party for Jack Kennedy at the beach house, and borrowed the head bartender from Romanoff's, Ross Acuna. Acuna recalled seeing Sammy Davis arrive at the party with Marilyn Monroe. “I couldn't get the drift, but I was a bartender—you see a lot of things, you keep your mouth shut. But pretty soon here comes the Kennedy boy, from making that speech at the Coliseum…. Soon I saw that Monroe and the Kennedy boy were pretty close together. Sammy Davis? I think they just asked him to bring Monroe in, you know what I mean? He was a black beard.”

Peter Summers confirmed that Marilyn and Jack Kennedy were together that evening at the Lawfords'. The celebration went on into the early hours of the morning, while Case and Ahearn and Parker's security officers
stood watch. Frank Hronek was the senior officer, and he recalled that in the course of the evening the party became raucous. From the beach they observed a bevy of nude party girls, supplied by a well-known Hollywood madam, cavorting around the pool. As one of the officers put it, “several of the girls were stark ass naked.” Indeed, the frontier of the 1960s was to be “a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils.”