up at the chapel in Westwood only to be turned away at the door. Even Eunice Murray, who wasn’t fond of most people in Marilyn’s circle, insisted to Berniece Miracle that Pat should be invited to the services. However, Berniece really didn’t have much input in that decision, it was all in Joe DiMaggio’s purview. This had to have been especially trying for Pat in that the last conversation she had with her friend had been an angry one. It was the one during which Marilyn said she feared Pat might be jealous of her friendship with Peter Lawford.
Pat’s friend Pat Brennan says, “It doesn’t overstate it to say that Pat was never the same woman. After Marilyn’s last weekend at Cal-Neva was when she really began to change. I think she saw firsthand the destruction her husband’s lifestyle could wreak on a person. Even though she had enjoyed some of the parties herself, and was also a drinker from time to time, she had never seen anything like Marilyn at Cal-Neva. That weekend marked the beginning of the end of her marriage to Peter. After Marilyn’s death, she decided that she wanted out of the marriage. Indeed, the good times in Santa Monica ended with Marilyn’s death.”
In fact, the Lawfords decided to stay together until after JFK’s reelection bid in 1964, but, of course, he was assassinated in 1963. Shortly after her brother’s murder, Pat filed for a legal separation. The couple would divorce in 1966. She would never marry again. Peter died in 1984.
Pat, who battled alcoholism for many years after Marilyn’s death, worked with the National Center on Addiction. She was also a founder of the National Committee for the Literary Arts. She died at age eighty-two in New York from complications of pneumonia. She is survived by four children and ten grandchildren.
It’s impossible to know what President John F. Kennedy thought about Marilyn Monroe’s death. It would seem she didn’t mean that much to him after all. In his mind, she was likely not much more than a one-night stand. In fact, according to the Secret Service gate logs of the White House, the night after Marilyn’s death—August 6, 1962—another of his mistresses, Mary Meyer, paid him a visit at the White House while Jackie and the children were on their way to Ravello, Italy, for a vacation. Meyer showed up at 7:32 p.m. At 11:28, Kennedy called for a car to meet Mary Meyer at the White House’s South Gate to take her home.
Robert Kennedy also went on with his life and political career, never mentioning Marilyn publicly. He was assassinated in 1968.
Ida and Wayne Bolender heard the terrible news of Marilyn’s passing on television, like most of America. “Ida went straight to church to pray for the soul of Norma Jeane,” said one of her relatives. “She never stopped loving her. In her mind, she would always be that little girl she raised. Wayne was sad for many months. It was like losing a daughter for the both of them, it really was.” Ida Bolender survived Marilyn Monroe by ten years. She died in 1972. Wayne lived two more years, until 1974.
Respected Marilyn Monroe historian and author Charles Casillo should have the last word on Marilyn here:
“Many decades after her death, Marilyn Monroe is still able to reach from the grave and entice, enthrall and inspire. The living Monroe had inspired a love affair with the world, through death she has inspired a sort of mass necrophilia. Yes, she had and maintains the astonishing fame that many still crave—but beyond that she had an incredible sweetness that touched us and a genuine soul that blazed. Now that she’s gone, we’re still reaching for that glow… willing to grab what light we can.”
GLADYS’S LIFE AFTER MARILYN
Shortly after Marilyn’s death, Inez Melson received a two-page handwritten letter on personalized stationery from Gladys Baker Eley, sent from the Rock Haven Sanitarium. Published here for the first time, it said:
When Gladys refers to giving Marilyn Christian Science treatments, she’s likely not suggesting that she was praying
When Gladys’s other daughter, Berniece Miracle, went to visit her mother at Rock Haven Sanitarium in La Crescenta, California, in August 1962, after Marilyn’s funeral, she was distressed to find that Gladys’s biggest concern was as it had always been: She wanted her freedom. During that visit, Gladys was dressed in her nurse’s uniform, all white—including stockings and shoes. At this point, she was sixty-two years old. She was still attractive with her aquamarine blue eyes and snow white hair, which she wore tied into a tight knot on the top of her head. She had Marilyn’s fine bone structure and would have been an absolutely striking older woman if she had taken care of herself, or had any interest in doing so. It’s not known what her private reaction was to Marilyn’s death, but with Berniece and others who came to visit, she seemed to not be upset.
Mira Bradford’s mother was Gladys’s friend Ginger—whom Marilyn met the last time she saw her mother at Rock Haven. “I went to visit my mother after Marilyn’s death and I saw Gladys,” said Mira Bradford. “She was watching television. I remember that she was wearing her nurse’s uniform—all in white from head to toe. I went to her and said, ‘Gladys, I am so sorry about your daughter.’ She looked at me with cold eyes and said, ‘She shouldn’t have been taking sleeping pills. I told her many times that I could help her sleep with prayer, but she wouldn’t listen to me.’
“I was very upset. I had never met Marilyn Monroe, but I thought she deserved more from her own mother than that. Of course, I understood Gladys’s illness because my mother was just as disturbed. But, still, I thought I might be able to get through to her. So I sat in front of her and held her hands in mine. I remember they were very cold, very bony. I said, ‘Gladys, you know that Marilyn loved you very much, don’t you?’ She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think Marilyn loved me at all.’ I wasn’t prepared for that. I couldn’t hide my surprise. I instinctively let go of her hands. But then I saw a flash of humanity. Suddenly looking very sad, she said, ‘Marilyn didn’t love me. Norma Jeane loved me, and I loved her. She was a good girl.’ Then she just went back to her television. I got up and walked away so that I could cry. It broke my heart.”
Marilyn provided $5,000 a month in her will for her mother’s care for the rest of her life. Unfortunately, Marilyn did not die a wealthy woman. It’s difficult to imagine where all of her money went, but it certainly wasn’t in any of her bank accounts. Eventually, the estate would accumulate enough money to care for Gladys, but in 1962 there was only about $4,000, not even enough to continue to care for Gladys at Rock Haven. Berniece left Los Angeles at the end of August to return to Florida and begin the process of having Gladys’s conservatorship transferred from Inez Melson to herself. It would be some time, though, before Gladys would be moved to Florida. Then, shortly after her sixty-third birthday, she did the unthinkable.
“It was shocking,” recalled Mira Bradford. “I went to visit my mother and there was chaos at Rock Haven. Police were everywhere. Gladys had tied bedsheets together, nailed them to a windowsill on the third floor, and climbed out the window to the ground floor. Then she somehow managed to scale the high fence around Rock Haven. They didn’t know she was gone until the next day. I was astounded at her will to be free. The police searched all of Los Angeles for her. She was gone a couple of days. They found her about fifteen miles away, sound asleep in the basement of a church. It was so sad. She was then returned to Rock Haven. I saw her there about a month later. Her eyes were cold as steel. I thought she was worse. Much worse. After that, she was transferred to Camarillo State Hospital, which was far, far worse than Rock Haven in terms of its conditions. It was very sad, how this woman suffered.”
In 1967, Gladys was finally released into Berniece’s care in Florida.
In 1970, she was considered sane enough to live in a retirement home not far from Berniece.
In April of 1971, Marilyn Monroe historian James Haspiel spent time with Gladys. He explained, “My wife and I were traveling through Gainesville, Florida. I found Gladys’s number in the telephone book and just called her. She picked up the phone. Obviously, I wanted to meet her. She asked me if I was a Christian Scientist. I said, ‘No, but I’d be interested in exploring that.’ I eventually persuaded her to let me come to visit her if she could give me literature on Christian Science. I took my wife and two little sons with me to the apartment building. She wasn’t
