The Secret Letters of Marilyn Monroe and Jacqueline Kennedy (17 page)

3307 N Street

Washington, D.C.

Martha Marshall

882 North Doheny Drive

Beverly Hills, California

November 20, 1960

Dearest Martha,

Thank you for your congratulatory telegram. I can’t believe it yet either. Jack is President of the United States of America and I am First Lady—which, in my view, sounds akin to being a racehorse or a brand of hair spray. Nonetheless, I guess I have to become accustomed to both the title and the office, and quickly.

However, as you know from my previous communications, I am terrified about my new role and what the future may bring.

I did, however, want to say that I am deeply saddened regarding the death of your great friend, and my hero, Mr. Gable. How fortunate, though, that you were able to have the opportunity of working with him at last. I am also grateful for my signed photograph of him, which, much to Jack’s amusement, now has pride of place in my boudoir. I owe you a great deal for having secured it for me.

I have not, of course, referred yet to the subject of your divorce from Arthur. Partially, I suppose, because I have always intuited that in your heart, from the first moment you made the fateful decision to maintain your relationship with Mr. G (is he still on the scene?), you had also resolved to divorce Arthur.

I know, too, that your decision is the right one. Marriage is difficult enough without being bound to a partner whom, no matter how high his status, one no longer respects.

Forgive me if this and my subsequent communications in the near future are somewhat truncated. I appear now to be living; in the eye of a storm and my time is no longer my own.

On another front entirely, have you seen
Butterfield 8?
Jack and I went to see it when it opened a few days ago. I know your feelings regarding Miss Taylor, and thought of you when I saw the movie. Yet despite my loyalty to you, I found myself admiring her portrayal. Long after we came home, the following question lingered in my mind and (in the same vein as your Freud question, which, you will gather, made a strong impression on me) I asked myself if whether or not, under the right circumstances, I should be able to sell myself to the highest bidder. Or, to set an example in terms of bluntness, could I ever be a call girl and have sex for money? I must confess that, after having mulled the matter over at great length, I concluded given the right circumstance and, of course, the right man (or men), I could imagine myself succumbing to that particular temptation.

In all honesty (and our mutual honesty is one of the factors which render our correspondence so refreshing and important to me), how do you feel? The debate is, I think, an interesting one—and one about which I know you will be truthful.

Do write as soon as you have time. Please know, as well, Martha, that you remain in my thoughts and that, as always, I wish you well.

Warmest regards,

Josephine

__________________________

After mailing this letter, Jackie wrote in her diary, “I feel a bit Lucretia Borgia in having done this, but I set the trap for MM at last, because I think the time is right. I seized the moment (or rather, the movie,
Butterfield 8,
which Jack and I saw right after it opened) and, in so many words, asked MM the question whether or not she has ever been a call girl. My guess is that she will reply, and in detail. I do feel a trifle guilty, though, for having thus entrapped her, but feel that given Jack and my respective positions, I feel justified, if only as a safeguard.”

882 North Doheny Drive

Beverly Hills, California

Josephine Kendall

3307 N Street

Washington, D.C.

December 15, 1960

Dear Josephine,

I wanted to write and congratulate you on the birth of John. I am so glad for you
—
and for Jack. Strange
that you gave him the same name as Kay gable gave Clark’s baby as well. I feel so bad about gable, and it was all my fault. I kept him waiting for me
—
kept him waiting for hours and hours on the set. After he died, I asked Dr.
Brandt if I had left Gable waiting because he reminded me of my father, and I wanted to punish my father, so I got even with him for all those years he kept me waiting. Dr.
Brandt said that my explanation was interesting, but not necessarily valid.

Before I forget, you asked me about
Butterfield. 8
. At first, I wasn’t going to tell you
—
and I am trusting you with my life and my career by telling you this
—
because although I did survive the calendar scandal, through following the advice of a good and dear friend, I don’t know whether I would survive if the following story was made public. But then, I know you would never do anything to hurt me, or I you.

Please forgive my language, but it is the only way in which I can tell what happened, and I know you once said it was OK for me to use that type of language and that you wouldn’t mind.

It was a long time ago, before I was a star, or even an actress. I can’t remember the date and I don’t remember the hotel
—
just that it was in Vegas. I was broke then. Broker than you can imagine. Lived on air, really, and hope, and dreams. A Cuban girl called Treasure Malone told me about Vegas, said that I could clean up in just a week, with no hassle, no one would know. So I made up a name—Sheba Langtry—bought a long black wig, changed my makeup, and pretended I wasn’t me. Although, in my heart, I knew I was.

At the flamingo
—
I
guess I’ve remembered the name now
—
I
did what Treasure said and introduced myself to the bell captain. Otto, his name was, and he came from Bulgaria or Bavaria or some place starting with B and ending in A. Treasure told me about the split. 60% to me and 40% to Otto. All I had to do was check into a motel and just wait for the call to come in from Otto, telling me the time and the room number. I liked it that way, because it meant I didn’t have to deal with any bitchy girls. Otto and I got kinda friendly and he told me a bit about how the whole thing worked.

The men would call him up, you see, and say they needed a pillow. In my case, Otto said
—
because he was hoping, I think … he tried real hard and used to say, “Sheba is young, beautiful, busty, brunette, and aims to please, you’ll love her. So, because of Otto
—
and I guess I was nice to him, for a few minutes, in a way
—
I
got lots of calls. The men paid me cash up front
—
or threw a chip my way. I didn’t like that much, because it made me feel cheap
—
although I don’t really understand how a girl can be called cheap if she works out of an expensive hotel and makes as much as I did.

You learn a lot, you know, Jackie, being that kind of a girl, if only for a week, and I don’t regret it, because it helped me with my acting. Not that I acted in bed. Far from it. I was probably more real with those men than I have ever been with any other man, except perhaps Mr. G
—
a lot of good it
did me. … You see, because of being Marilyn, most men these days are scared of me and treat me like a princess or a fragile piece of china. I want that out of bed, and the respect, too, and the kindness. But not in bed. In bed I want them to be themselves.

They all wanted the same things from me
—
and all of them, the clever ones, picked up on what I wanted as well. You would never think it, at least I didn’t, but even if they are paying, men really want to please you. So the men I had in Vegas pleased me by being a bit rough with me and not phony. If they had pretended to love me or given me compliments or kissed me, I would have felt dirty. This way, when it was over, I always felt clean.

I am embarrassed to tell you this, but the ones who made me feel the cleanest were the ones who slapped my ass. Not real hard, but as if I was a bad girl. That felt right, because I knew that what I was doing was wrong and that I needed to be punished, and I was. So when they slapped me
—
and most of them said things like bad bad bad little girl in time with the slaps
—
it felt like I deserved it and I felt good afterwards. Like I got justice or something. Funny, though, the men felt real bad afterwards
—
one kept his wedding ring on when he spanked me, and the next day I looked as if a tiger had scratched over every inch of my ass
—
and then they tipped me extra. I used to take it, but I’d always tell them not to feel bad, that they didn’t hurt me
—
I even told the tiger man that, because he felt so guilty, like a kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar
—
and that I liked it. Which I guess I did. In a way, though, I felt sorry for some of the men because they were: real cute, and it seemed sad that their wives didn’t care about them and that they were far from home and needed that little bit of affection.

When I left Vegas
—
a week later, and it really was only a week
—
I did make enough dough to eat for a while
—
even some to send my mother and some to save.

So it all worked out in the end: no one got hurt and I got some money and survived. I don’t regret it, not one bit, although I don’t want anyone to know. Not now. Also
—
and this is real important, if there is only one thing in my life I am proud of, it is that I have never been a kept woman, never, and I never will be.

Wishing you and Jack and John and Caroline and everyone a Merry Christmas and 1961.

Love,

M

__________________________

According to Dr. Brandts transcript of Marilyn’s session held the next day, she began: “I know I should have asked you first before I did it, Joseph, but the letter came and I just went with it—the way you just go with a scene when you act, playing the moment like Mr. Strasberg always taught me. When she asked about whether I have ever been a call girl, I spun her a story that I was. I did it hoping she would tell Jack. He loves call girls, and he isn’t shy about letting me know it. ‘The greatest women in the world,’ he calls them. ‘No frills. They just give you what you want and leave. Please you without asking for anything back. Every man’s dream.’ Well, I always thought I was like that anyway, or at least I try to be, but perhaps I haven’t done it right, at least as far as Jack is concerned, so I thought I would try this—so he would see it in me, you know, and give up Judy Campbell. So I told Jackie, hoping she would tell him. Let’s see who comes crawling now … Even if he is President …”

Did Marilyn make up the Vegas call girl story or not? We may never know. Moreover, when she was approached by Billy Wilder to play the streetwalker with the heart of gold in
Irma La Douce,
Marilyn instantly turned him down, citing her unwillingness to play that type of a role.

As for Marilyn’s sexuality, Peter Lawford, who knew her well, alluded to her “masochism” (see Heymann), as did her psychoanalyst Dr. Ralph Greenson. As to her sexual submissiveness, according to her friend Harry Rosenfeld, “Marilyn told me she hardly ever had an orgasm. She tried above all to please the opposite sex.”

3307 N Street

Washington, D.C.

882 North Doheny Drive

Beverly Hills, California

December 20, 1960

Dearest Martha,

I felt compelled to write at once to tell you that I was stunned and impressed that you were so open and honest in your last letter to me. Please know that I respect and admire you for your capacity to trust and be so frank.

On some level, too, I think I envy you. For although I would die were a man to even contemplate raising a hand to me, there is, indeed, something fundamentally honest (or is it primeval?) about a man paying, and paying well, for sex. Looking back on my father’s life, I think he might have led a less tangled romantic existence had he restricted his extramarital straying to liaisons with women who catered to his needs without expectations of any emotional involvement. Then again, I guess my father’s ego craved the knowledge that, to the end of his life, he was capable of winning the chase and seducing any (and every) woman who aroused his lust. So that if he paid for it, I think he might have missed the triumph of conquest.

In a way, perhaps, a woman who charges for sex (and I know we are discussing the highest class of woman—latter-day Madame de Pompadours—not streetwalkers) is the ultimate conqueror, for she knows her price, takes it, and then moves on. Something one can hardly do vis à vis a marriage, no matter how unsatisfactory that marriage may be.

Forgive me for ending abruptly, but Maud Shaw, John and Caroline’s nanny, has just arrived and needs briefing.

Wishing you happy holidays, dear Martha, and a wonderful 1961.

Love,

Josephine

__________________________

Jackie wrote in her diary, “I know I planned this after I’d been indiscreet about Rose and wanted to inveigle Marilyn into being indiscreet as well, but now that it is done and she has fallen into the trap, I feel deeply guilty and wish so much that I hadn’t set it. Of course, Jack must never set eyes on her letter (or any others she has sent me), for I know it would arouse him beyond belief. To that end, I shall sequester it in the safety-deposit box at once and never use it against her.”

Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center

Room 719

622 West 168th Street

New York

Jacqueline Kennedy

The White House

February 12, 1961

Dear
Jackie,

You are in the White House and I am in the Nuthouse. … I just hope you don’t think badly of me. I wanted you to know that I haven’t really lost my mind, or whatever they call it. I’m not here because I am crazy
—
like my mother. I was always haunted by the fear that I was like her and that I was doomed to end up in a place like this, and that because I was her daughter, I was exactly like her. I felt so scared, till I started analysis and Dr.
Brandt said to me, “Purple shouldn’t feel scared because it has blue in it.” Which explained everything.

So I am not here because I’m crazy. I’m here because of Mr. G, only he doesn’t know it
—
and also because
The Misfits
turned out to be just that
—
a misfit for my career and I feel like a failure, a bad actress and useless.

But back to Mr. G. It isn’t really his fault, but recently I have been feeling so lost and lonely, what with him being so occupied—in
Africa
—
and not able to see me much anymore. One night, when I’d had too much champagne and the bad reviews were pouring in, I was all alone in the apartment, thinking of G and wishing I were with him, close to him, even
married to him. For a moment, I thought back to my marriage to Arthur and, in particular, the wedding. The Jewish wedding ceremony, you know, includes the groom breaking a glass. So
—
although I wasn’t a groom, and there wasn’t a wedding
—
I started smashing glasses, as if there was
—
a wedding and it was me and Mr. G
getting married. When I’d finished
—
I must have smashed at least thirty Baccarat crystal glasses
—
I was covered in blood and there was glass everywhere. I forgot to say as well that I was playing Frank all through it. Just one song, “All the Way,” and I kept playing it over and over
and over
.

Anyway, when they found me, they called my analyst and I ended up at Payne Whitney. First thing they did was wash away all the blood. They thought I was trying to slash my wrists
—
but that wasn’t true. If I wanted to slash them, they would have been slashed, but I didn’t. I just wanted to feel married to G, if only for one night. It oughtn’t have been too much to ask
—
but it obviously was. Funny thing, though, when I was all cleaned up, I had just one deep cut
—
on my wedding ring finger. I hope I’ll have the scar for the rest of my life and if I do, I’ll be glad. At least that way I’ll feel married to G.

As soon as I was cleaned up and was put in a kind of cell, the door opened and a man who looked like W. C. Fields
—
you know, a big red nose and a fat face
—
came in and introduced himself as Dr.
Woolfmann. The first thing he did was ask me how old he was. “Around 47
,”
I said, trying to be polite. He shook his head and said, “No, Marilyn, I am 102.” I didn’t know what the hell he was playing at, so I didn’t say a thing, He didn’t say anything either for a while
—
you know, the silence trick that interrogators in movies play
—
then asked me if I knew what was wrong with me. I decided that as he was really stupid, I would give him a really stupid answer and said, “No, that’s your job.” He was standing real close to me and I felt like he was about to touch me. “So what are you going to
do with me now,” I asked. He gave me a long slow look. “What am I going to do with you, Marilyn? I am still thinking about it.” Then he paused, the way men do when they have just said something like “I don’t want you to get hurt”
—
then, after the pause, tell you they don’t want to see you anymore
—
although I doubt that has ever happened to you.

In the end, when the pause was over
—
and it was a long one
—
he said, “I think I’ll put you in a locked ward in manacles.” I knew he wanted to scare me, but I didn’t want to give him that satisfaction, so I said I had to go to the bathroom. Once I’d got away from him, I got someone to call Joe. He came and rescued me and now I am in a better place.

But it still isn’t great here. All night long, there is screaming from everywhere. The worst thing about it is that one of the screamers is a man from Tunisia
or
Algeria
or
somewhere ending in A who keeps screaming things in a deep voice in some kind of an Arabic language. So you get to hear the noise, the yelling, but don’t know what he is saying. Then there is an old lady called Betsy who has got yellow gray hair and who has this fear that the floor is crawling with maggots, so she carries sheets of newspaper
—
the
Van Nuys Sentinel
—
around with her every day, and puts them on the floor in front of her before she takes each step. Then there is a girl here called Gail Volman, very tiny, with long blonde curly hair and pretty. This morning, she showed me her arms and they were all scarred up. I didn’t know what to say, but she did and said, “Because of a lover.” I nodded sympathetically. “It’s always the man, isn’t it?” I said, Gail looked surprised. “No, it was the woman,” she said. Then she told me all about having met this cabaret singer who enslaved her and then kicked her out. No different, really, than any man might treat you, I suppose, and I felt sad for her.

LATER Just had a real bad experience. I’ve been trying to make some calls, but each time I do, there is a woman called Linda Duggan-Chapman
in the call box. She is an ox of a woman, one of the hefty ones, with greasy black hair, wears glasses, and has a voice like one of those plum-in-the-mouth British actresses. Sort of like Sir Olivier, only female. I hung around for the longest time, waiting for her to finish her calls, but she never did, and I couldn’t help hearing her tell the operator, “I want to make a collect call to Lima, Peru, to my cousin, Dido Percival,” and, “I want to make a collect call to Delhi, India, to my uncle Nigel Northwick.” She never got through, ever, or else they didn’t accept her calls, but I still had to wait while she made them. Now and again, she caught my eye, so I smiled at her because I don’t bear anyone in here any bad will. After all, they are poor, suffering human beings who deserve respect and probably don’t belong here in the first place.

So I felt warm toward Linda and, when she finally did come out of the call box, gave her a friendly smile and said hi. She took a step toward me, as if she was going to hit me, and said, “Don’t you hi me, bitch. I know just how ugly I am. I’ve got an ugly pig mind, an ugly pig face, ugly pig feet, and an ugly pig body.” “You re not ugly,” I said quickly, even though she was
—
but I was trying to make her feel better. “Just fuck off, you Jew whore,” she said. I didn’t say anything back, although what I did want to say was “I might be Jewish
—
[I am through conversion]
—
but
you’ll
never make any money as a whore,” only I didn’t. I went back into my room, but I can’t stop thinking about Linda.

LATER STILL I just couldn’t keep quiet, so I went over
to Linda and asked if I could talk to her. She seemed in a better state and said yes. So I sat down next to her, took her hand, looked deep into her eyes, and said this to her: Linda, I want you to know that I understand how you feel and how you hate everybody. I do too, sometimes, as well. But you shouldn’t say anything bad about Jews. My three-year-old little brother was thrown into
the oven alive and burned to death, and if you say anything bad about Jews, you are acting like the Nazis who did that to him.” She didn’t say a word, so I just came back here. They’ve just brought dinner. Dinner? A piece of green-looking fish and some potatoes that taste like sugarless cotton candy.

THE
NEXT AFTERNOON When I woke up this morning, there was someone banging on my door. Linda. I let her in, and before I could stop her, she threw her arms around my neck. “Marilyn,” she said, “I couldn’t sleep all night. I am so sorry I called you a whore, and I’m sorry about your little brother. Please forgive me.” I said I did, she went off to breakfast, and I thought that was the end of it, but it wasn’t. She came over to me again and said, “Marilyn, I want you to know that I am getting to love you.” I said, “Thank you.” Then she came closer. “I have to make a call, and I need some cigarettes, but they won’t give me any money. …” I went into my room and got her some. Next thing I knew, about two hours later, she came over to me again, grabbed me by the arm, and said, “I’ve got to have your number, please, please, please. I asked her why. “Shhh,” she said. “When I get out of here, I’ve got nowhere to stay … please, Marilyn, please.”

I felt dreadful for her, but I knew I couldn’t give her my number. So I just mumbled something and slunk back in here. But I know it is just a matter of time before she comes after me again.

THE NEXT DAY They had to smuggle me out the back way because of Linda, and now I am back home. But I can’t stop thinking about her and all the other sad and lonely, frightened people back there.

I have to end now
—
appointment with my analyst. I wanted also to say that I understand if, now that you are First Lady, you
—
and Jack as well
—
want to forget all about me. I don’t expect to ever hear from you
again, although I would love to, and to hear what life is like for you inside the White House. If you don’t have time to write, or don’t want to, of course I will understand.

But if you ever can, please think good thoughts for me.

Love,

Martha