The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Gladys leaned in to her daughter. “And what life is that, dear?” she asked. “This place is all I’ve known for years.”

“I just want you to get better,” Marilyn said.

“You want me to get better for you,” Gladys responded, “and I thank you for that.” Then, staring intensely into her daughter’s eyes, she added, “but, Norma Jeane, I want you to get better for you.” Mother and daughter just looked at each other for another long moment. Then Gladys suddenly changed the subject. She turned to the doctor and, touching the fur that was wrapped around her neck, told him that Norma Jeane had given it to her. When he said he thought it was beautiful, she looked pleased. She said that the hospital staff rarely let her have it. However, when the weather got cold, she’d ask for it, and usually the staff would give it to her. She suggested that he touch it. The doctor cautiously reached out and began to stroke the pelt, but when he did, Gladys winced and pulled back forcefully. “You have an evil touch,” she said, her face suddenly darkening. All of this was just too much for Marilyn. With that, her tears began to flow again, unchecked. “You’ve upset Norma Jeane,” Gladys told the doctor. “She can be very sensitive.”

Just then, according to the doctor’s memory of these events, an elderly woman walked up behind Gladys. Oddly, the woman reached toward Gladys’s hand and held it. Without saying a word, she just stood there.

“Who’s this?” Marilyn asked, forcing a smile.

“This is Ginger,” Gladys replied. “She’s my friend.”

“Hello, Ginger,” Marilyn said. “Would you like to join us?”

Gladys began to stand. “Ginger doesn’t like visitors,” she said, her voice now suddenly flat and devoid of expression. “We’ve got to go back inside.”

As Gladys began to pick up her purse, Marilyn said, “No. Wait a moment.” She reached into her own pocketbook and pulled out a small flask. Quickly, she slipped it inside her mother’s purse.

Gladys, after a pause, seemed to perk up again. She gave her daughter a childish grin. “You’re such a good girl, Norma Jeane,” she said finally. “A very good girl.” She smiled. Marilyn beamed back at her. Then Gladys turned and began to walk away.

Marilyn and the doctor watched as Gladys and Ginger made their way across the expansive lawn. Though they didn’t know it, it would be the last time mother and daughter would ever lay eyes on one another. “I don’t say goodbye,” Gladys announced loudly, her back still to her daughter.

“She never has,” Marilyn said quietly. “Maybe that’s why I have to say it so often.”

Pat: “My Friend Is Dying”

At about this same time—in mid-June 1962—Marilyn Monroe was scheduled to participate in a number of photo shoots for Vogue and Cosmopolitan magazines. She decided to keep those commitments. For one of the sessions, she wanted to use as a setting the beach behind Pat Kennedy Lawford’s home. Therefore, she and Pat met for lunch to discuss the shoot and also to catch up as friends. “At this point, Pat didn’t know what was going on with Marilyn and her brothers,” said a Kennedy relative. “And she was afraid to ask… she was actually afraid to know.”

As soon as Marilyn showed up at her home, Pat could see that she was in terrible condition. According to a later recollection, Marilyn told her friend that she was “humiliated” by what had happened at Fox. She said that she had never before had so much anxiety in her life, but that she was now trying to focus on the future. “What’s next?” she remarked. “That’s what I want to concentrate on from now on.” She indicated that she believed Something’s Got to Give would go back into production. In fact, she said that she had sent telegrams to many of the actors apologizing to them and asking them to return. “However, I would like it if the entire crew was new,” she told Pat, “because I don’t know that I can face them. I let them all down and I think they probably hate me by now.” She also told Pat that she felt that she was “on the brink of understanding what my problem is,” and that all she needed was “more time. I know I can overcome this,” she said cryptically. “I just need everyone to give me a little more time.”

Pat was worried. Marilyn seemed manic. A few of Pat’s friends were having lunch on the patio when Marilyn arrived. Pat suggested that the two of them go out and join the group. “Maybe some sun will do us all some good,” she offered. “Would you like a whiskey sour?” Marilyn, of course, said she would love a whiskey sour, but first she wanted Pat to do her a favor. “Please tell [the guests] that I am here and see their reaction. If it looks like they would hate it if I joined them, I won’t.” It seemed like such an odd request. However, there was little about Marilyn that made sense on this particular day. When she began mouthing words that Pat couldn’t even make out, she decided it would be best if Marilyn didn’t join the others, after all. Instead, as she later recalled it, she sat down with her friend at the bar and tried to have a serious discussion with her about the medication she was taking, and whether or not she was abusing it. It’s not known what specifically was said during this talk, only that Marilyn became very upset. “I thought I was getting better,” she told Pat as she rose to leave the house, “but now I see that I’m not. I’m worse, Pat. I’m worse than ever. Maybe I’m even worse than my mother, and she’s pretty bad, Pat!” She then left in tears.

“After that, Pat was shaking all over,” said the same Kennedy relative. “It was then, I think, that she decided that being forthright and honest with Marilyn was not a good idea. ‘I now think I need to be like everyone else in her life and just tell her that everything is fine,’ she said, ‘because I don’t think she can handle the truth.’ Pat said that if it had been any other woman who was that troubled, she would have immediately called that friend’s husband. But Marilyn had no one—just that creepy psychiatrist, and Pat didn’t trust him at all. So she picked up the phone and called Joe [DiMaggio]. I don’t know what she said to him, and I don’t know his response. I only know that Pat was left with a feeling of dread. ‘I felt that it was inevitable,’ she said. ‘I felt my friend is dying and that there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.’ ”

In mid-June, Bobby and Ethel Kennedy were hosting a party at Hickory Hill, their home in Virginia, for Peter and Pat Lawford. Knowing that Marilyn was very close to Pat, they decided to invite her. One wonders, if Ethel believed Marilyn was having an affair with her husband, would she have invited her into her home? It seems doubtful. If Bobby was having relations with Marilyn, it also seems doubtful he would host her at Hickory Hill. A Kennedy relative recalls that the only trepidation about that evening had to do with how many people were, by now, well aware that Marilyn and JFK had been intimate. What would happen if Jackie decided to show up at the party? She wasn’t invited, but what if? It was a risk. Maybe not one Marilyn was willing to take, though. She decided not to go, realizing that she would be seeing Bobby anyway at the end of the month at another party at Pete and Pat Lawford’s. She sent this telegram to Ethel and Bobby on June 13, 1962:

Dear Attorney General and Mrs. Robert Kennedy: I would have been delighted to have accepted your invitation honoring Pat and Peter Lawford. Unfortunately, I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. After all, all we demanded was our right to twinkle. Marilyn Monroe.

On Wednesday June 26, 1962, Bobby Kennedy was scheduled to return to Los Angeles—without Ethel—and Peter and Pat planned to return the favor and host another party for him at their home. “I want Bobby to see my new house,” Marilyn told Pat on the phone earlier that week. “Really?” Pat asked. “But why?” Marilyn didn’t really have an answer. She just wanted him to see it, she said. Pat tried to explain that, logistically, it would be complicated. After all, Bobby was coming straight to their house from the airport. She could think of no reason to bring him to her home. “Well, there would a reason if you had to come and pick me up,” Marilyn suggested. Of course, Marilyn could have driven to the Lawfords’ home herself. She wouldn’t let it go, though. So Pat gave in. On Monday, June 25, telephone records document that Marilyn called Bobby’s office in Washington to confirm that he would be at the Lawfords’ on Wednesday, and also to invite him to have a drink with her in her new home. She spoke to his secretary, Angie Novello, for one minute. And that’s how the very unlikely situation unfolded that saw Peter Lawford driving his wife, Pat, and Bobby Kennedy to Marilyn Monroe’s home on the twenty-eighth. Once there, Marilyn invited them in and showed Bobby around—Peter and Pat had previously been there.

How very curious that Marilyn had no pretense about her environment whatsoever. She was incredibly down-