On her return to Los Angeles from Mexico, Marilyn attended the Golden Globe Awards with José Bolaños, where she received an award for the World Film Favourite, then in early March 1962 she enrolled the help of Joe DiMaggio to help move into her new home. The house was still being heavily remodelled and there was virtually no furniture, but Marilyn didn’t care. ‘I just want to live in my own house,’ she told friends, as she busied herself with making the property into a home, ready for the arrival of the child from Mexico.
One or two items were lost in the relocation, among them some questions submitted to Marilyn from Paris Match, which were due to run alongside photos by photographer Willy Rizzo. These photos showed a very different side to Marilyn, in that her hair is rumpled, her clothes are plain and she looks thin and exhausted. Still, she loved them and on 9 March Pat Newcomb wrote to Rizzo to express that Marilyn thought the photos were sensational and she looked forward to working with him again.
Meanwhile, costume tests were looming for her next film, Something’s Got to Give, and she undertook fittings at Fifth Helena with designer Jean Louis, while hosting a champagne and caviar party for the seamstresses and fitters. She seemed happy to begin what was to be her last Fox film, even though the script was still undergoing rewrites. Indeed, from 1960 to 1961 there had been five writers assigned to the project: Edmund Hartman did at least three versions of the script, while Gene Allen, Nunnally Johnson and Arnold Schulman all tried their hands at it. Finally, Walter Bernstein was brought in to do final rewrites to a script that was shaky at best.
One Fox executive said in 1961 that the script was old-fashioned, full of hokum and just not funny, while adding that there was nothing to suggest a successful film could be made from it. He was perhaps right; the story was of a woman who has been stranded on a desert island for five years, only to return home to find herself legally dead and her husband remarried. Her young children do not remember her, so she instals herself in the home as a maid in order to get to know her family once again and win back her husband.
As late as February 1962, the leading man had yet to be cast, while quite disturbingly, Fox Studio Chief Peter Levathes got Greenson involved in production, in order to control Marilyn. This resulted in producer David Brown being ‘discreetly’ replaced by the psychiatrist’s friend Henry Weinstein, much to the dismay of the director, George Cukor.
Already the production was going over budget, which was not a good sign, as Fox was in dire financial straits over the disruption and delays on the set of the Elizabeth Taylor film, Cleopatra, being filmed in Rome. Fox employees had been told they had to water their own plants and bring their own lunch to the studio, since the gardeners and cafeteria staff had been laid off. ‘The place was like a ghost town,’ remembered one Fox employee.
Still, plans continued to ensure Something’s Got to Give would be ready to begin shooting as soon as possible, and actress Edith Evanson was brought in to help Marilyn with the Swedish accent she would need in order to play ‘Miss Tic’, the woman ‘Ellen’ pretends to be when she realizes her husband has remarried. Marilyn was in a philosophical mood during the time they spent together, asking on one occasion, ‘Isn’t it a terrible thing about life that there always must be something we have to live up to?’
One morning Marilyn came into the house with a magnolia, and when Evanson asked where she got it from, she explained that she picked it while out walking with her boyfriend the night before. Evanson did not ask who her boyfriend was, but assumed that it must have been José Bolaños. When it came time for Evanson to leave, Marilyn pleaded with the actress to accompany her to New York for the weekend, but it was not a possibility: ‘She was so pleading,’ recalled Evanson, ‘but I couldn’t leave my husband and my home. She understood.’
In spring Marilyn was happy to hear from an old friend, Norman Rosten, who had travelled to California for six weeks. He visited her often during his trip and she showed him around her new house, urging him to use her pool and laughing at things that had gone wrong in her life. She was optimistic about the future, but still Rosten couldn’t help worrying about her, sensing that she was ‘tired to her soul’. When it came time for him to travel back to New York, Marilyn seemed frightened to see him go and berated him for not using her pool. To help cheer her up, he took her to an art gallery where she bought a bronze copy of a Rodin statue for over $1,000, before finally bidding her old friend goodbye.
April had the beginnings of a busy month. On 6 April Marilyn heard news of someone who had meant so much to her years before – Milton Greene. She received a telegram from Kathleen Casey, the editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine, asking her to join other famous women and the famous hairdresser, Kenneth, for a portrait Greene was taking on 13 April. Although she could probably have gone if she wanted to, she asked Pat Newcomb to send her regrets, and busied herself with other things, such as giving her consent on 9 April to become a Founder Member of the Hollywood Museum, sending her (tax-deductible) fee of $1,000.
On 10 April she attended costume tests at Fox, then on the morning of 11 April Marilyn spoke with photographer Bert Stern about a session he wished to shoot for Vogue. She was delighted with his ideas for the shoot. She gave her suggestions as to which designers they should use, and then told him she’d be happy to dedicate an entire weekend to give him ‘all the time you need’. There were also plans afoot to film a Christmas Seal charity trailer, which Newcomb thought to be an important public service for Marilyn to take part in, and on 11 April urged Henry Weinstein to film it whenever possible.
Everything appeared to be looking up, but Henry Weinstein remembered a disturbing event on one particular day, when Marilyn was due to attend a production meeting with him. When she didn’t show up, he was worried enough to go to Fifth Helena Drive, where he claims to have discovered an unconscious Monroe, almost naked and sprawled across the bed. She had apparently taken an overdose, but Weinstein had arrived just in time, summoning Dr Greenson and Dr Engelberg for help. Both doctors had long-since been concerned with Marilyn’s sudden mood swings and her habit of mixing sleeping pills with champagne, to the extent that Engelberg had kept a key to Doheny Drive and both had access to keys at Fifth Helena. When Weinstein returned to Fox that day, he begged executives to postpone the production of Something’s Got to Give. They refused.
Picking herself up once again, Marilyn headed to New York where she studied with the Strasbergs and saw friends. Unfortunately, she also caught a cold and by 19 April, when she returned to Los Angeles with Paula in tow, she was in the grips of a bad case of sinusitis, which quickly turned into a bronchial infection.
On 23 April, the first official day of shooting, Marilyn did not show up and the schedule was quickly rearranged to shoot scenes between Dean Martin, Cyd Charisse and the child actors. They worked around her for a full week, until finally on 30 April Marilyn arrived on set, where she was greeted by a friendly telegram from Arthur P. Jacobs, wishing her luck for her new movie and signing it with love and kisses, ‘The Right Arthur’.
Despite running a 101°C temperature due to her persistent sinusitis, Marilyn worked a full day, shooting a scene in which she reacts to seeing her children for the first time in five years. The next day, 1 May, she arrived once again with a temperature, only this time the studio physician Lee Seigel examined her, decided it was extremely unwise to expose the children to her contagious virus infection, and sent her home.
Taking to bed on the advice of Dr Seigel, Marilyn was absent for the rest of the week, while shooting continued at Fox, up to the point where executives declared that no more could be done without her cooperation. Adding to her problems was the re-emergence of old teacher Natasha Lytess, who had been found by France-Dimanche magazine, and had been paid $10,000 for her cooperation with a tell-all story. Some of the memories she shared with the magazine were so intimate they could not be published, but although the Arthur P. Jacobs agency offered to buy the article from them, the publishers refused, convinced that they could make at least $200,000 if they ever decided to publish.
However, for now Natasha Lytess was the least of Marilyn’s worries. At the beginning of production, Marilyn had received permission to travel to New York to perform at President Kennedy’s birthday party on the 19 May. She was committed to the appearance, having been specially invited to perform, and in May (while she was absent from the set), newspapers reported that she was ‘knocking herself out’ to rehearse for her performance.
On 11 May Fox’s Peter Levathes spoke to lawyer Milton Rudin to inform him that he would not consent to Marilyn attending the celebration, since they were now so far behind schedule. However, when she returned to the set on 14 May, Marilyn either did not know of this withdrawn consent or did not care. Either way, on 17 May she left Los Angeles for New York, telling reporters, ‘I told the studio six weeks ago that I was going. I consider it an honour to appear before the President of the United States.’
Pat Newcomb threw in her two cents’ worth by saying, ‘It was a democratic fundraising affair and she didn’t want to break her promise to such an important organization.’ Back on the set, no one could believe she had gone: ‘It was like the roof caving in. It was awful,’ remembered Evelyn Moriarty.
Rumours of an affair between Marilyn and both Jack and Robert Kennedy have been rife since the 1960s. The general feeling is that she was romanced by Jack, then later passed along to Bobby when the President had become bored. There is no concrete evidence to prove or disprove these rumours, but she certainly met them both on several occasions, including at a party at the home of Peter Lawford and his wife, Patricia Kennedy, in October 1961, when she bombarded Patricia’s brother, Bobby, the Attorney General, with questions supplied by Daniel Greenson. Then Whitey Snyder drove Marilyn to the Lawfords’ home in February 1962, where there was a party held for President Kennedy, while Ralph Roberts was said to have received a call from her on 24 March 1962 as she was spending time with the President at the home of Bing Crosby.
Meanwhile, Vanessa Steinberg, daughter of Marilyn’s gynaecologist Oscar Steinberg, remembered her father sharing thoughts on the Kennedy relationship with her: ‘By the time my father saw Marilyn at Cedars hospital in Los Angeles [c.1961] she was well and truly having an affair with Robert Kennedy. According to him it was Bobby Kennedy whom she was madly in love with and she had no intention of returning to a relationship with DiMaggio.’ Interestingly, Steinberg also told his daughter that Marilyn had fallen for Kennedy whilst she was still with Miller.
Press representative Michael Selsman firmly believes she was having an affair with both Kennedy brothers at different times: ‘Of course she was and everyone knew it, but in those days, the press had a different relationship with celebs, both in showbiz and in politics. I usually gave reporters inside stuff on other clients to assuage their desire to publish something about Marilyn and the Kennedys.’
In the 1980s Eunice Murray affirmed that both brothers were important in Marilyn’s life, and certainly we know that she was friends with Patricia Kennedy and Peter Lawford. But as for a romance, some people are doubtful. Certainly a friend of Bobby Kennedy’s later told reporters that there was not even the faintest romantic interest on either side, and that the relationship only consisted of Bobby providing a friendly ear for Marilyn’s numerous problems. Not everyone in Marilyn’s circle trusted the rumours either: ‘I never believed 90 per cent of what was written about the involvement with the Kennedys,’ remarked Whitey Snyder some thirty years later.
Regardless of that, Marilyn certainly caused a stir at President Kennedy’s birthday party, when she arrived with her ex-father-in-law Isidore Miller. Wearing a skin-tight, sparkling dress which was designed to make her look nude, Marilyn shimmered her way on to the stage, after being introduced by Peter Lawford as ‘The late Marilyn Monroe’, the running joke of the evening being that Marilyn was never on time. She stood for a moment, looking around her, before breathily reciting ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’, and a reworking of ‘Thanks for the Memory’.
In Nevada, old flame Bill Pursel was watching: ‘I saw this performance on TV and just shook my head in disgust. I don’t think I’m a prude, far from it actually . . . But there’s something about this type of public exhibition which lowers the respect for femininity. What in hell was she trying to prove?’
Marilyn was extremely nervous on the evening of the party, and certainly the grainy footage seems to show her a little ‘tipsy’, but she got through it all okay; prompting John F. Kennedy to announce: ‘I can now retire from politics after having had Happy Birthday sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.’
When Marilyn returned to Los Angeles, she spoke with reporters about her experience at Madison Square Garden: ‘I liked it. I like celebrating birthdays. I enjoy knowing that I’m alive; and you can underline alive.’ However, she was sad that she had lost a good luck charm – a pawn from her chess set – and felt extremely fatigued, which once again affected her work on the film, preventing close-ups and forcing filters to be used to hide her exhaustion.
On 22 May Marilyn refused to work with Dean Martin as he had a slight cold and she was afraid of catching it, but on the next day everyone’s spirits were raised when she filmed a nude swim scene, which was the first ever by a major American actress. Suffering from earache, Marilyn did not take the scene lightly: she banned most people from the set and demanded that Whitey Snyder look through the lens to make sure it was not too risqué. She was happy with the results, though, and delighted that the photos would ‘knock Liz Taylor off the front pages’.
That weekend Henry Weinstein tried to contact her to no avail and on Monday she phoned in sick. When she turned up on Tuesday, 29 May she was unfocused and repeatedly forgot her lines. On the morning of 1 June, Marilyn’s thirty-sixth birthday, Evelyn Moriarty went to Farmer’s Market to pick up her birthday cake. Arriving back on set, she was shocked to be told that under no circumstances must she bring it on to the set until 5.30 p.m. ‘She’s got to do a full day’s work first,’ she was told.
By the end of the day, the sparkle-decorated cake was wheeled out, along with a personalized ‘Happy Birthday (suit)’ card, which everyone had signed. Marilyn loved the gesture and stayed for a while to enjoy a small celebration, before heading to Dodger Stadium to attend a charity baseball game. For once all seemed to be well, but again it was a misapprehension; on 2 June, the Greenson children were shocked to find Marilyn depressed and inconsolable at her home in Brentwood, so much so that they called Dr Leon Uhley who was standing in for their father while he was holidaying in Europe. Uhley was so shocked to see Marilyn in such a state that he promptly confiscated her pills. Then by Monday she was unable to work once again, reportedly causing everyone on the set to ‘tear our hair out’.
By this time it became apparent that Marilyn was in a terrible state, and as a result, Dr Greenson was forced to leave his wife in Rome and return to Los Angeles. He arrived at Marilyn’s house to find her heavily drugged but feeling much better, and immediately went into a meeting with Fox executives, assuring them that he could get her back on to the set, and declaring that although he did not want his relationship to be described as a Svengali one, he could persuade her to do ‘anything reasonable’ that he wanted. But unfortunately for both Marilyn and Greenson, Fox had had enough. Feeling the stresses and strains of delays on the set of Elizabeth Taylor’s film, Cleopatra, they just could not believe that Marilyn would complete the film without incident, and on 8 June, announced that she had been fired.
Almost straight away Fox took out a $500,000 lawsuit against their star, citing Marilyn’s failure and refusal to perform in Something’s Got to Give, and she even found herself lumbered with an invoice for $5,000 from the production photographer Don Ornitz, a situation that infuriated Pat Newcomb so much that she called in Marilyn’s lawyer, Milton Rudin. Meanwhile, people started to blame her for the loss of 104 jobs. ‘In my opinion, Marilyn cannot face reality,’ commented one crew member, while an extra was quick to tell the press that she took hours to get to the set, stumbled on her lines, then had lunch in her dressing room. Marilyn tried to counteract this backlash with telegrams hand-delivered to cast and crew on 11 June. In each one she explained that what happened was not her fault and that she had so looked forward to working on the picture.
She also confided to staff at the Arthur P. Jacobs Agency that she believed the studio was in a panic, choosing to blame her because it had overextended itself on Cleopatra, and pointing out that there were still scenes to be shot that didn’t involve her, and which had not even been written yet. In short, Marilyn was angry and for good reason; she had worked at the studio for sixteen years, was by far their biggest player and yet she had still been fired. ‘Remember, you’re not a star,’ they had told her in 1952, a philosophy still adhered to by various executives in the summer of 1962.
Marilyn’s representatives were keen to get the film back on track just as soon as possible, with 23 July being put forward as a possible start-date. They informed Fox of their wishes, and the studio replied with a stern letter, stating that if the film were to go back into production on that date, there would have to be a number of strict rules in place: there would be no consultation or approval over co-stars, other players, director, script, number of takes, photos, crew (including make-up, hairdresser or wardrobe); Marilyn would have to arrive at the studio on time and take lunch breaks only at times specified by Fox; Paula Strasberg would not be allowed on set and neither would her PR representatives, agents or associates of her lawyer. In short, Marilyn was to have no control over any aspect of the film but in return, Fox would drop their lawsuit against her.
This letter did nothing for relations between studio and star, but fortunately for Marilyn, she still had her allies on set, with one player declaring that he could not feel bitter towards her: ‘I can’t forget the sadness I saw in her eyes.’ Dean Martin also proved to be a true friend, when Fox told him they were replacing Marilyn with Lee Remick; he shook his head, handed in his resignation, and walked off set, much to Marilyn’s delight.
Eager to keep herself in the public eye, Marilyn embarked on a series of PR exercises, one of which was the long-awaited Vogue photo spread with photographer Bert Stern, on 23–5 June. Then shortly after she undertook a variety of sessions for Cosmopolitan, with friend and photographer George Barris, during which time he took hundreds of photos on the sand behind the Lawford house and in a privately owned home in the Hollywood Hills.
On the surface at least, it appeared that Marilyn was taking control of her life and career: she attended several meetings to get Something’s Got to Give back into production, she went to a party for Robert Kennedy at the Lawfords’ beach house, and enjoyed the numerous photo sessions. But not everything was rosy, as Michael Selsman remembered: ‘She was upset about various things – always. It was clear she was unhappy 24/7.’ Some of her friends worried about her mental health, too, with the threat of an overdose being high on their list of concerns: ‘It was a problem for her friends,’ confided one associate. Meanwhile, she was not in the best physical health, still addicted to pills and now receiving liver injections from Dr Engelberg in an effort to strengthen her system.
During interviews she did with George Barris, Marilyn spoke about the subject of adoption, declaring her belief that no single person should ever adopt a child, as ‘there’s no Ma or Pa there’. Considering her earlier plans to adopt the Mexican boy, these comments are intriguing and lead to questions about whether or not the adoption plans had fallen through.
Shortly after her death, it was reported in the Mexican press that Marilyn had become thoroughly depressed over a sudden coldness from José Bolaños, yet this seems an absurd notion, since the relationship never appeared to be anything but casual. What could be closer to the truth is that her depression was brought on by the realization that Bolaños was unable or unwilling to help with the adoption plans. In 1963, reporter Glenn Thomas Carter asked him why the adoption had fallen through, but he refused to answer, stating that it was between himself and Marilyn. If she had simply changed her mind, or if legal aspects had been the problem, surely there would be no reason to withhold his answer. But if Bolaños had decided not to help with the adoption, perhaps the fear that this had been what finally pushed her ‘over the edge’ was enough to stop him ever discussing his famous friend.
As for the child himself, reporter Glenn Thomas Carter found him in Mexico City a year after Marilyn’s death, where he was living with a couple and going to school. Describing her as a ‘beautiful friend’, the child told the reporter: ‘I was sad for many months because the beautiful blonde senorita did not come for me as she promised.’ He has never been found again.
Adding to the complications surrounding Marilyn’s life in 1962 is the rumour that, sometime during the summer, she either aborted a baby or suffered a miscarriage. There is no documented evidence to prove or disprove this, but press representative Michael Selsman insists that he heard the story at the time: ‘Marilyn didn’t directly tell me,’ he recalled; ‘Arthur [Jacobs] and I were told by Pat [Newcomb], in that we had to know to counter any rumours – since the two major Hollywood columnists, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, had paid spies in the hospitals and labs, so they knew pretty much what was happening.’ Selsman believes the pregnancy to be a product ‘of either Jack or Bobby, she didn’t know which, since the switch had taken place recently’.
Adding to the mystery is a $25 invoice, dated 7 June 1962, from the office of Dr Steinberg and Dr Conti, which states Marilyn underwent an ‘X-ray of nasal bones’ procedure. This is an intriguing document for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the fact that Dr Steinberg was one of Marilyn’s gynaecologists, not a nasal specialist, while Dr Conti was his anaesthetist. Daughter Vanessa Steinberg was asked to comment on the invoice and had the following to say: ‘The procedure would have been performed at Cedars hospital in Los Angeles. [My father] saw her many times in Los Angeles and I am certain that the procedures did not involve x-raying of nasal bones. My father was not a nasal surgeon and I have no idea what the actual procedures where – I assume follow-on routine dilate and curette procedures for her gynaecological ailments, or else perhaps a termination or dilate and curette after a miscarriage? Apparently she suffered from severe endometriosis and this may have been a procedure in relation to that, which was written down as x-ray of nasal bones. I can only speculate that the procedure you refer to was something that she wanted to remain a secret and this is not an uncommon practice in medicine, particularly if the patient was a celebrity. I know that in New York she was treated and admitted to Mount Sinai under a pseudonym. I can say, with some certainty, that the procedure most likely had nothing to do with x-raying of nasal bones.’
This document not only adds fuel to the abortion/miscarriage rumour but also to a persistent story of Marilyn visiting plastic surgeon, Dr Gurdin, after what was described by Dr Greenson as a ‘fall in the shower’. Dr Gurdin had performed the slight plastic surgery on Marilyn’s chin all those years ago, and examined her in the summer of 1962, to determine if she had broken her nose. She hadn’t, but the appointment has been tied in with the ‘x-ray of nasal bones’ procedure over the years, although in reality it is extremely unlikely that they were in any way related.
During the upheavals and obvious health problems, both Marilyn and her representatives continued their quest to get Something’s Got to Give back into production, with pressure being put on Fox by the White House itself and Robert Kennedy in particular. Meanwhile, Pat Newcomb tried to keep her friend upbeat by sending a letter on 11 July which listed nineteen magazine and newspaper articles that had appeared over the past few weeks, along with a variety of others to look forward to in the future. She also sent a copy of Redbook magazine on 19 July, for which Marilyn had done an interview. Both star and representative were disappointed that the article did not contain the human insight they had wanted to see, but Newcomb herself felt it was the first positive story she’d read in quite some time.
Newcomb was trying very hard to cheer her client and friend but it came at a price, as by now unfair and absurd rumours were beginning to spread that their friendship was more than platonic. ‘They were very close friends,’ remembered Michael Selsman. ‘I never saw them do anything of an intimate nature together, but there were rumours.’ Disturbingly, Selsman remembered the rumours coming principally from some of the main players in Marilyn’s circle – people who she trusted and should have known better than to gossip about their friend and employer.
On 19 July Marilyn hosted a dinner party for Greenson’s children at Fifth Helena, then on 21 July, according to some sources, she underwent a gynaecological procedure at Cedars and was picked up afterwards by Joe DiMaggio. She rested for several days afterwards, and then resumed her summer of interviews and photos, while her lawyers continued their negotiations with Fox. One of the interviews Marilyn gave during that time was with Life’s Richard Meryman. It was the last one she ever gave, and in it she complained magnificently about the studio and the treatment of their stars, declaring for the first time in her career that fame was a burden. By the time the interview ended, Marilyn was beginning to worry about her comments and asked Meryman not to make her look like a joke. He promised he wouldn’t, and kept his word; when the article was published on 3 August 1962 it showed her as a mature, sensible woman, who was obviously learning much from the hand she’d been dealt.
On the weekend of 28–9 July, Marilyn travelled to Cal-Neva Lodge & Casino, in Lake Tahoe, where she visited with Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford and his wife Patricia. Much has been said about this weekend, from the depressing – Joe DiMaggio followed Marilyn but was not allowed on the premises, leaving her to watch him sadly from afar – to the truly disturbing – she was drugged and photographed in various states of undress in order to ensure her silence regarding her relationship with the Kennedys.
There is virtually no factual information available about the weekend at all, but there are several photos that appear to show Marilyn at the resort, and give us some insight into the mood surrounding her at the time. Much has been said about Frank Sinatra not being happy with his former girlfriend, and the photos show that to be most probably true. Singer Buddy Greco was performing at the resort at the time, and is seen in one photo sharing a friendly embrace with Marilyn, with both smiling broadly. However, Sinatra is also in the photo, sitting on a deck chair, holding a newspaper and looking up at the couple in a disapproving manner. Another photo shows Sinatra still sitting in the chair, continuing to look unhappy, while an unknown gentleman views Marilyn’s derrière as she walks away from the camera.
Regardless of the source, the general feeling is that the ‘Cal-Neva weekend’, as it has come to be called, was not a particularly happy one. Marilyn was said to be depressed and according to some sources almost overdosed in one of the bungalows, saved only by the fact that she had kept a telephone line open to the casino operator. There is also talk of Frank Sinatra being so wound up by her drugged and drunken behaviour that he eventually asked both Marilyn and the Lawfords to leave the premises; Peter and Marilyn flew back to Los Angeles, while Patricia travelled to the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port.
What is interesting to note, however, is that if the Cal-Neva weekend was as bad as rumoured, Marilyn felt stable enough not to call out either Dr Greenson or Dr Engelberg when she returned home on Sunday. Instead, she was driven to Greenson’s office the next day for a routine appointment, and did not see Engelberg again until two days later, on 1 August.
According to some sources, 1 August was a big day for Marilyn – Peter Levathes had visited the actress at home and, as a result, Twentieth Century Fox had renewed her contract, giving her a large pay rise and a promise that Something’s Got to Give would be resumed. However, there is some question as to whether or not the contract had actually been drawn up by the time Marilyn died. There is no trace of it in either the Fox or Arthur P. Jacobs archives, and no copies have ever been made public.
However, on 1 August she did speak on the telephone to Evelyn Moriarty, who remembered she was happy because negotiations were going well with Fox and she was sure they would be back in production soon: ‘that’s how close they were to settling their differences,’ said Moriarty. George Barris remembers speaking with Marilyn on 3 August and discovered her to be very excited as the studio were going to give her an increase and start the film again in a month. So certainly negotiations did seem to have been progressing, but it must be noted that Twentieth Century Fox never confirmed the contract renewal when she died, and the film continued to be described as ‘shelved’ in the newspapers.
Meanwhile, Joe DiMaggio was becoming deeply worried about the health and wellbeing of his former wife, and on 1 August he resigned his $100,000 a year job as a representative for military goods supply company V.H. Monette, and travelled back to San Francisco. According to Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio? by Maury Allen, DiMaggio told his colleague, Sid Luckman, that he was leaving because he had decided to ask Marilyn to marry him once again. Unfortunately, his decision was in vain, as by the time he arrived in Los Angeles on 5 August, Marilyn was already dead.
Some authors have claimed that the couple were due to be remarried on 8 August – the date of Marilyn’s funeral – and that she even had a dress made for the occasion, but this seems highly unlikely, judging by Sid Luckman’s comments. It is more likely that DiMaggio planned to propose when he returned to Los Angeles, and the dress she had ordered was for the opening night of the Irving Berlin musical, Mr President, in the autumn of 1962.
It is also unlikely that Marilyn would have agreed to such a proposal as she preferred to think of herself and DiMaggio as just good friends. Speaking to Alan Levy during the summer of 1962, she explained, ‘Believe me there is no spark to be kindled; I just like being with him.’ She also repeated the statement almost word-for-word to reporter Helen Hendricks: ‘I’ve always been able to count on Joe as a friend but there is no spark rekindled. Now I like being with him and we have a better understanding than we’ve ever had.’
On 3 August Marilyn received an injection from Dr Engelberg and then filled a prescription for twenty-five Nembutal capsules, issued by the doctor. Then in the evening she went to La Scala with Pat Newcomb, who was suffering from bronchitis. Concerned when Newcomb told her she was planning to book into hospital for a rest, Marilyn invited her friend to stay at Fifth Helena to ‘bake it out’ next to the pool; Pat agreed and the two returned to Marilyn’s home.
On 4 August, Pat Newcomb slept late, while Marilyn pottered around her home and lounged in bed in her white towelling robe. ‘She wasn’t ill,’ said Eunice Murray, ‘she was just resting.’ She drank fruit juice and spoke to Mrs Murray about household matters, such as the three shipments of furnishings expected from Mexico, and a carpet which was being specially woven there. ‘The development of the house was so important to her,’ said Murray. ‘In the past few weeks Marilyn had everything to live for. The plans we made were so wonderful.’
It has been claimed that when Newcomb eventually rose, an argument broke out between the two, a result, it is said, of an insomniac and depressed Marilyn being angry that her friend had been able to sleep for so long. However, peace must surely have been restored, since Newcomb stayed for hours afterwards, leaving around 6 p.m. that evening.
During the course of the day, Marilyn received several phone calls and visitors. One guest, photographer Larry Schiller, came to talk about the possibility of shooting a cover for the December issue of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine. She had been aware of Hefner’s request since July, but had still not decided whether to do it, and told Schiller that she would give him an answer later.
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.