The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

statements to a doctor she had been seeing almost every day?

Miner says, “I kept my promise to Dr. Greenson to respect the confidentiality of his interview with me and the contents of Miss Monroe’s tapes, I kept that promise in spite of incredible pressures from reporters, authors, and official investigators to relate this information. It is only after [authors] Donald Spoto, Marvin Bergman, and others accused Dr. Greenson of being responsible in some way for causing Marilyn Monroe’s death that I approached Dr. Greenson’s widow to ask for a release from my promise to her husband. She wishes to do whatever is possible to clear his name and granted my request.”

Miner’s explanation that he reconstructed his copious notes from memory is troubling. It takes a leap of faith to believe his verbatim recollection of so many quotes. Here, he provides a synopsis of what he says he heard on these tapes:

“She explains that she has recorded her free associating (saying whatever comes into her mind; a necessary technique used in psychoanalytic therapy) at home because she could not do it in office sessions. She hoped this would assist in her treatment. And she believes that she has discovered a means of overcoming the resistance which patients have in being unable to comply with the psychiatrist’s request to free associate because the mind becomes a blank.

“She tells how she plans to become the highest paid actress in Hollywood so that she can finance everything that she wants to do.

“She says that she aspires to do Shakespeare and that she will pay Lee [Strasberg] to coach her in Shakespeare as his only student for one year.

“Laurence Olivier, she says, had agreed to polish her Shakespearean training after Strasberg finished, and she would pay him whatever he asked.

“She says she would pay Dr. Greenson to be his only patient while she was undergoing the instruction in Shakespeare.

“She says that when she is ready she would produce and act in all of the Shakespeare plays that she would put in film under the rubric Marilyn Monroe Shakespeare Festival.

“For those many writers who maintain that she was going to blow the whistle on JFK about their sexual relationship, she shoots down such speculation when she expresses utmost admiration for the President and explicitly says she would never embarrass him.

“Her remarks disprove those who claim that she killed herself because Robert Kennedy broke off their relationship because it was she who broke it off.

“She strongly asserted that she wanted to rid herself of Eunice Murray, her housekeeper, and requested Dr. Greenson’s assistance in so doing.

“She says that she never had an orgasm before becoming Dr. Green-son’s patient but that he had cured her of that infirmity for which was she was forever grateful.”

John Miner maintains that Marilyn was murdered with a lethal enema of Nembutal, which he believes was administered by housekeeper Eunice Murray—who, oddly, was doing the laundry when the police arrived in the middle of the night. It’s been maintained by many people that Eunice Murray customarily gave Marilyn Monroe enemas. (Why? Isn’t this something a woman would want to do for herself? Is a housekeeper really necessary for this kind of duty?)

The bigger question, perhaps, is: Why would Marilyn Monroe have had to explain the background and history of each person mentioned in her long narrative, editorializing as if she and Dr. Greenson had never met? She had been seeing him almost every day.

It would seem that John Miner, a very nice, congenial man, would have no reason to lie. It therefore comes down to a simple matter of choice as to whether or not a reporter feels he can rely on his notes. In fact, no one has ever heard these tapes, other than John Miner—not even Ralph Greenson’s wife or children. John Miner believes that Greenson, who died in 1979, destroyed all of the tapes. In other words, there is one and only one source for all of this information… and, believe him or not, that’s John Miner.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE AUTHOR’S SUPPORT TEAM

During the course of years of production on a book such as The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, many people become invested in the project, from researchers and investigators to copy editors and fact checkers to designers, publicists, and, yes, even attorneys. My colleagues at Grand Central Publishing have always made it possible for me to utilize all of the resources available to me—no matter how complex the working situation or how many people necessary to complete the task at hand. In fact, an author could not ask for a better and more nurturing environment than the one I have been so fortunate to have at Grand Central for the last ten years of my career. In short, it’s been terrific. As with all of my books, this one is a collaborative effort. None of it would be possible, though, without my publisher at Grand Central, Jamie Raab. As a publisher— and an editor—she is without peer. I want to thank her for her patience and trust in me as she shepherded this project along for the last couple of years. She had to make more than a few concessions for me along the way with this work, and she always did so happily. What more can an author ask for? Thanks also to Jamie’s wonderful assistants, Sharon Krassney and Sara Weiss. I would also like to thank Frances Jalet-Miller for her conscientious work on this book and for helping me to shape its story. I really appreciate her help so much and look forward to working with her again. Interior production of this book was handled by Tom Whatley; the amazing jacket was designed by Flamur Tonuzi, with print coordination handled by Antoinette Marotta. I thank them all, and thanks also to Anne Twomey. Special thanks also to Bob Castillo for his work in managing editorial, to my able copy editor, Roland Ottewell, and proofreaders Richard Willett and Lisa Nicholas.

The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe—my fifteenth book—was, without a doubt, my most challenging, primarily because its development took so many years. I first began to work on it in 1995 at the time I was writing Sinatra: A Complete Life, my biography of Frank Sinatra. Then, in 1998 and 1999, as I wrote Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot, I continued to keep the Monroe project on the back burner. I always knew that many of the interviews I would conduct for books about Sinatra and the Kennedys could and should be utilized in a book about Marilyn Monroe. I was very fortunate to draw from these interviews because, in the intervening years, many of those valuable sources would pass away. However, I believe that each is well served on these pages.

Also, I am very fortunate to have been associated with the same private investigator and chief researcher, Cathy Griffin, for the last twenty years. Much to my great advantage, Cathy has also worked on a number of books about Marilyn Monroe in the past. Therefore, I was able to rely on her many years of research, including invaluable interviews she conducted in the past, again with people no longer with us.

I must acknowledge my domestic agent, Mitch Douglas. He has been a very important person in my life and career for more than ten years, and I thank him for his constant and enthusiastic encouragement. He went the extra mile for me, especially with this book.

Dorie Simmonds of the Dorie Simmonds Agency in London has not only been an amazing agent for me in Europe for the last ten years, but a loyal and trusted friend. I so appreciate her dedication to me and to my work. Dorie manages to perform miracles for me on a daily basis, and I don’t know how she puts up with me. However, I do know that an author could not ask for better representation, or a better friend.

My capable fact checker and editor, James Pinkston, has worked for me on my last five books. He reviews everything I write long before anyone at Grand Central ever sees it—thank goodness! I can’t imagine what kind of book we would be publishing if not for Jim’s tireless quest for accuracy. Working with him on The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe has been a true honor and joy.

THE TRUE EXPERTS

Whenever I write a new book, I am fortunate to meet people who have devoted their lives to better understanding my present subject. If an author such as me is lucky enough to be able to call upon true experts in the field in which he’s working, it just makes for a better and more comprehensive book. Happily, I had the good fortune of being able to call upon one of the greatest, I think, experts in all things Marilyn, and that’s James Haspiel.