The Secret Life Of Marilyn Monroe Part 13

Berniece also took note of Marilyn's relationship with Joe DiMaggio. He was clearly still in love with her. However, Marilyn seemed unsure of her feelings for him. Perhaps the best indicator of how she felt was that she was planning a trip to California in less than a month and told Berniece that she was going to stay with Frank Sinatra. She made Berniece promise not to mention the trip to Joe. She intended to go, she said, and just not tell him. How she was going to manage that, considering that he was with her every single day, was a mystery to Berniece. According to Lena Pepitone, Sinatra would call Marilyn often and she would speak to him, not at all concerned that Joe might walk into the room at any moment. When it came to Sinatra, she was determined to do whatever she liked.

Also, Berniece couldn't help but notice how paranoid Marilyn had become. For instance, at one point in the visit, an Italian restaurant that had just opened in the neighborhood sent over a complimentary meal to Marilyn. Marilyn told Lena to throw the food away. She didn't even want it in the household. Berniece a.s.sumed that Marilyn didn't want the food because she was watching her weight, or maybe because she'd been told that she shouldn't eat spicy foods after her surgery. Either would have been an acceptable reason. However, Marilyn's reasoning was more troubling. "It could be poisoned," she told Berniece, very seriously. "I never eat anything that's been prepared by strangers."

Indeed, in about a month, when Marilyn was back in Los Angeles under the care of Dr. Greenson, he would write to a colleague that in her sessions with him she expressed a "feeling of mistreatment, which had paranoid undertones."

Other friends of Marilyn felt that her paranoia, especially about food, was out of control. "Once, during a late night at the office, we sent out for Chinese food," said Diane Stevens from John Springer's office. "Marilyn and Joe were there. When the food came, Marilyn refused to eat it. She and Joe got into a big fight about it. 'If it was poisoned, I'd be dead now because I just ate some,' Joe told her. 'So, what the h.e.l.l is going on with you?' Marilyn looked at him very seriously and said, 'I'm the one they want to poison, Joe. Not you.' We all sat there with our mouths open, trying to figure out how to respond. 'But it's all the same food,' John finally said. Marilyn was not going to bend, though. 'Enjoy it. See if I care,' she said. 'But I'm not taking a chance.' It made me think of Gladys, I have to admit. I mean, that's the first thing that came to my mind-Gladys believing that the doctors in her mental hospital were poisoning her food." * *

Greenson's Diagnosis.

Dr. Ralph Greenson is not a popular figure in Marilyn Monroe history. Born Romeo Samuel Greenschpoon in 1910 in Brooklyn, he was one of fraternal twins-his sister was named Juliet. He studied medicine in Switzerland before practicing as a psychiatrist and psychoa.n.a.lyst in Los Angeles. He was the president of the Los Angeles Psychoa.n.a.lytic Society and Inst.i.tute (LAPSI) from 1951 to 1953 and dean of education from 1957 to 1961. He was also clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA Medical School. In his paper "Unfree a.s.sociations: Inside Psychoa.n.a.lytical Inst.i.tutes," Douglas Kirsner writes of Greenson: "The author of a cla.s.sic clinical textbook, The Technique and Practice of Psychoa.n.a.lysis The Technique and Practice of Psychoa.n.a.lysis (1967), and over sixty papers and articles, Dr. Greenson was unusual in moving outside the ambit of his a.n.a.lytic colleagues to give many public lectures. His psychoa.n.a.lytic interests were wide-ranging. He was most concerned that a.n.a.lysts with different theoretical approaches seemed to talk at each other.... Upon graduating as an a.n.a.lyst, Greenson quickly became a major influence in the Los Angeles psychoa.n.a.lytic scene. He soon became an important figure nationally and later internationally... he wielded a good deal of power and influence within LAPSI. [Greenson] was nationally and internationally well known not only for his numerous psychoa.n.a.lytic writings but also for his real flair for lecturing and teaching. His inst.i.tute seminars were especially highly regarded at LAPSI. Hilda Rollman-Branch [a director of LAPSI] felt that although Greenson was 'a character' and 'narcissistic,' his tactlessness could be forgiven because of 'his enthusiasm and inspiration. He was without a doubt the best teacher of psychoa.n.a.lysis any of us have ever had.' Greenson was a pa.s.sionate man with strongly held views. Three a.n.a.lysts each reported to me that after a disagreement Greenson did not speak to them for years. He was given to irrational fits of anger. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Anna Freud's biographer, aptly described Greenson as 'a hard-living man of pa.s.sionate enthusiasm and even flamboyance, a man for whom psychoa.n.a.lysis was... a way of life.' " (1967), and over sixty papers and articles, Dr. Greenson was unusual in moving outside the ambit of his a.n.a.lytic colleagues to give many public lectures. His psychoa.n.a.lytic interests were wide-ranging. He was most concerned that a.n.a.lysts with different theoretical approaches seemed to talk at each other.... Upon graduating as an a.n.a.lyst, Greenson quickly became a major influence in the Los Angeles psychoa.n.a.lytic scene. He soon became an important figure nationally and later internationally... he wielded a good deal of power and influence within LAPSI. [Greenson] was nationally and internationally well known not only for his numerous psychoa.n.a.lytic writings but also for his real flair for lecturing and teaching. His inst.i.tute seminars were especially highly regarded at LAPSI. Hilda Rollman-Branch [a director of LAPSI] felt that although Greenson was 'a character' and 'narcissistic,' his tactlessness could be forgiven because of 'his enthusiasm and inspiration. He was without a doubt the best teacher of psychoa.n.a.lysis any of us have ever had.' Greenson was a pa.s.sionate man with strongly held views. Three a.n.a.lysts each reported to me that after a disagreement Greenson did not speak to them for years. He was given to irrational fits of anger. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Anna Freud's biographer, aptly described Greenson as 'a hard-living man of pa.s.sionate enthusiasm and even flamboyance, a man for whom psychoa.n.a.lysis was... a way of life.' "

Despite his credentials and reputation, Dr. Ralph Greenson has been much maligned in books about Marilyn over the years, and for many reasons, some of which are valid. Most of Marilyn's friends and a.s.sociates agree that Dr. Greenson exerted far too much control over her life and career. As these people began to give interviews for biographies of the star, Greenson's reputation as a psychological Svengali became set in stone. He has practically been blamed for his patient's mental disturbances, as if there was no chance she might have been genetically predisposed to such problems.

What has not been clearly stated in the past is that Dr. Ralph Greenson had very specific opinions about Marilyn's mental problems. At first, he had described her in a letter to Anna Freud as a "borderline paranoid addictive personality." He wrote in his letter that Marilyn exhibited "cla.s.sic signs of the paranoid addict," including a fear of abandonment and also a tendency to rely on others too heavily (Natasha Lytess and Paula Strasberg) to the point where she refuses to allow these people to live their own lives. Also, those suffering from this disease are p.r.o.ne to wanting to commit suicide. It was very difficult to treat such problems in patients, let alone someone as famous as Marilyn. He also said he was working behind the scenes to get her off of some of the drugs she was taking, but that it was an uphill battle. "Short of searching her person every day, it is impossible to know what she is taking and when," he wrote in a different letter to Freud. "I'm not sure how to monitor someone like her. She's very crafty." Indeed, when a person would turn his back, she would pop a pill just that fast.

Dr. Hyman Engelberg added to Greenson's diagnosis in an interview in 1996. He stated that he and Greenson had also diagnosed Marilyn as having been manic-depressive. "It is now known as bipolar personality," he said, "but I think manic depressive is much more descriptive. Yes, she was definitely manic depressive. That's just one of the many things we were up against."

Apparently, there was more. After Dr. Greenson began to treat Marilyn more intensively, he started telling colleagues that she'd begun to exhibit strong and growing signs of borderline paranoid schizophrenia, just like her mother and, possibly, her grandmother before her. Three psychiatrists interviewed for this book, who requested anonymity since all are still treating patients in Los Angeles, say that when they were younger and studying in the city Greenson shared with them (on separate occasions) his concern about borderline paranoid schizophrenia in the case of Marilyn Monroe. "He was very specific," said one of the doctors. "He was concerned, very much so. He felt it would get worse as she got older unless it was treated in a specific way. He also said that Marilyn knew and that she was looking into ways to treat it herself, and that he was trying to discourage that. He didn't want her out there medicating herself, but he suspected that this is what was going on behind his back."

It's not known if Dr. Greenson shared his views of her different problems with Marilyn. In notes regarding her case, he is specific about being careful to give her information "only in small portions." He wrote that, in his view, telling her "too much, too soon" could only lead to "other more significant problems."

What also comes from fresh research for this book is Marilyn's determination to get the drug Thorazine, which was used to treat paranoid schizophrenia. "Dr. Greenson had prescribed it to her," said one of the psychiatrists. "I know for a fact that he did because he told me that he had. However, he wasn't sure he liked her reaction to it. For some reason, he changed his mind about Thorazine. He said, however, that she wanted more than he wanted to give her and that he was afraid she was going about the business of getting it from other doctors. A major frustration for him was that he knew he was not the only one giving her drugs. She was such an expert doctor shopper toward the last couple years of her life, there was no way to be sure what she was taking, what she was mixing."

According to what Dr. Greenson would later remember in his papers stored at UCLA, he had insisted that Marilyn "get rid of her unhealthy connection to the past." Her half sister, Berniece, her business manager, Inez Melson, and many others were convinced that therapy-not her mental state-was ruining Marilyn Monroe. In a letter to Greenson, Melson wrote that she was concerned about Marilyn spending "too much time thinking about her problems." She added that she didn't see how it was doing Marilyn any good and, in fact, "I think quite the contrary. It is not my place to tell you how to treat your patient," she wrote, "but, truly, I am concerned that she is languishing in her misery."

Part of Marilyn Monroe's sickness had to do with her paranoia. However, complicating things was that, in many ways, she had actually good reason to be paranoid. As we've seen, she was was being followed and she was well aware of it. Consider this story, from Diana Herbert, daughter of the man who wrote being followed and she was well aware of it. Consider this story, from Diana Herbert, daughter of the man who wrote Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay! Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay! She and Marilyn stayed in touch over the years, and she encountered Marilyn in New York during this period. "I was coming up out of the subway and there she was," recalled Herbert. "Dressed very casually, she was stunning, in a coral beige ensemble. She looked a little lost, but she perked up when she recognized it was me. We went to a little health food sidewalk cafe in Midtown. She spoke about how much she loved New York and the Actors Studio, but she told me something bizarre. She said, 'I'm so uncomfortable here in New York because I am being followed.' I said, 'Well, Marilyn, that's because you are a star, you are beautiful, of course people are following you.' She said, 'No, that's not it.' Her voice became lower, whispering, 'I'm being followed by the FBI.' I thought, 'Well, she's totally flipping out!' Marilyn said, 'I'm being followed because of my connections with the Communist Party.' She told me she was very proud of herself because she became adept at losing the FBI agents. She said she started figuring out how to evade them when she became a movie actress and learned how to 'become invisible.' " She and Marilyn stayed in touch over the years, and she encountered Marilyn in New York during this period. "I was coming up out of the subway and there she was," recalled Herbert. "Dressed very casually, she was stunning, in a coral beige ensemble. She looked a little lost, but she perked up when she recognized it was me. We went to a little health food sidewalk cafe in Midtown. She spoke about how much she loved New York and the Actors Studio, but she told me something bizarre. She said, 'I'm so uncomfortable here in New York because I am being followed.' I said, 'Well, Marilyn, that's because you are a star, you are beautiful, of course people are following you.' She said, 'No, that's not it.' Her voice became lower, whispering, 'I'm being followed by the FBI.' I thought, 'Well, she's totally flipping out!' Marilyn said, 'I'm being followed because of my connections with the Communist Party.' She told me she was very proud of herself because she became adept at losing the FBI agents. She said she started figuring out how to evade them when she became a movie actress and learned how to 'become invisible.' "

While the FBI's episodes of surveying Monroe did happen, there were also times when she was not under their watch yet still concerned about a plot to know her every move-and at times, she believed, her every thought thought. Maureen Stapleton was a contemporary of Marilyn's at the Actors Studio. In an interview in 1995, Stapleton recalled that while she was dining with Monroe one evening, an odd thing happened. "[Marilyn] thought the waiter was reading her mind. At first, she said he was a secret agent or something, she said, 'He's one of the bad guys,' and then she said, 'He knows what I'm thinking now, we have to leave.' Now, you have to keep in mind we were all all [New York actors] a little loopy back then-but that was particularly strange." [New York actors] a little loopy back then-but that was particularly strange."

Others in Marilyn Monroe's life at the time were more categorical. "I think Marilyn was a very sick woman, a cla.s.sic schizophrenic," said Johnny Strasberg, son of Lee and Paula. "She was dedicated to love. It's a thing schizophrenics talk about, love. They'll do anything for love and, additionally, they are totally infantile; they have no ego, no boundaries, as the rest of us have. The amazing thing about her is that she survived as long as she did. There was enough capacity for life that had she been lucky enough to find a therapist who could treat her problems, she might have... That's the tragedy. People loved her. But n.o.body could say no to her. No one would or could take responsibility for her. They had to cut her off or abandon her, which is the thing she expected. With Marilyn, you're dealing with an abandoned infant who's not an infant anymore."

A Second Opinion.

Fresh research now establishes that Dr. Ralph Greenson was not alone in his belief that Marilyn Monroe was probably suffering from borderline paranoid schizophrenia. Rather than work in a vacuum, Dr. Greenson obtained a second opinion by consulting psychologist Dr. Milton Wexler.

Born in San Francisco in 1908, Dr. Wexler trained as a lawyer before switching to psychology. After taking a doctorate at Columbia University, studying under Theodor Reik, a disciple of Freud, he became one of the country's first nonphysicians to set up in practice as a psychoa.n.a.lyst. Also a member of the Los Angeles Psychoa.n.a.lytic Society, Dr. Wexler would go on to become a pioneer in the study and treatment of Huntington's disease, forming the Hereditary Disease Foundation. Wexler also felt strongly that Marilyn Monroe suffered at least from borderline paranoid schizophrenia after sitting in on three sessions with her in Dr. Greenson's home. "Yes, I treated her," he said in 1999. "I won't discuss that treatment but will say that I agreed with Dr. Greenson that she presented borderline symptoms of the disease that had run in her family. I found her to be very proactive in wanting to treat those borderline symptoms, as well. One misconception about her treatment is that it was Dr. Greenson's idea that she move in with his family. She never moved in with the Greensons. Instead, it was my suggestion that she spend as much time there as possible in order to create the environment that she lacked as a child. That was my theory at the time and Dr. Greenson agreed. Also, I felt it would alleviate her separation anxiety if she knew she had a place to return to."

All of these many years later, to ignore the findings of these two doctors or act as if those findings did not exist makes no sense. It's certainly not what Marilyn Monroe did over the years. In the year and a half after Greenson's and Wexler's diagnosis, Marilyn did everything she could to perform beyond her illness. She always had. She'd always soldiered on, even knowing that something wasn't quite right with her.

Dr. Greenson's different opinions of what Marilyn was dealing with in her life have been, it would seem, purposely overlooked in Marilyn Monroe history for many years. Some biographers have written that his findings were egregiously misguided and couldn't possibly have been true. As one put it, "[Greenson] even spread lies about his patient to the professional community, including the unsubstantiated report that she was borderline paranoid schizophrenic." It would seem, though, that if a psychiatrist treats a patient-in Monroe's case, just about every day of the week-and comes to a conclusion about that person's state of mind, it is not an "unsubstantiated report." It's a diagnosis.

Unfortunately, Dr. Greenson would become so zealous in his treatment of Marilyn, and thus so overbearing in her life, that he would lose credibility, especially with the pa.s.sing of the years. Historically, he seems like a quack because he invited Marilyn into his home, had her sleep over, integrated her into his family. It was felt that he had lost all perspective where Marilyn was concerned. However, in the 1950s and 1960s, all sorts of vanguard treatments for mental illness were being tested. In fact, in Greenson's opinion, welcoming Marilyn into his home was the only alternative to putting her in a mental hospital. In his notes about the case, he is specific that he was trying to figure out any way he could to keep her from being "committed once again, for I know she will not survive it a second time." Douglas Kirsner confirms, "Greenson decided to offer his family as a subst.i.tute for the family Monroe never had because she would have killed herself sooner if he had committed her to a mental hospital."

Marilyn's Drugs of Choice.

By late August of 1961, Marilyn Monroe was back in Los Angeles permanently and living in her apartment on Doheny and Cynthia in West Hollywood. There was also word that she would be making a new film for Fox called Something's Got to Give Something's Got to Give. She wasn't thrilled with the script, felt it needed a lot of work, and wasn't even sure it could ever result in a decent movie. Still, she was contractually obligated to do one more film for Fox, and this would have to be it.

In September, Marilyn joined Frank Sinatra in entertaining guests on his yacht for a four-day cruise to Catalina Island. "They were definitely a couple," said one of the partygoers. "She was acting as if she was the hostess, not a guest. She seemed in good spirits, but definitely not quite right. I had heard that there'd been some trouble getting her there. Everyone knew she was not well, that she was under the care of doctors."

At this time, Marilyn's primary physician working with Dr. Greenson was Dr. Hyman Engelberg. However, Marilyn had become so adept at the art of "doctor shopping" that the two doctors were unable to keep track of the medications in her system. When she would demand confidentiality from another doctor, she would always get it because of her celebrity. She would then stock up on as much medication as she could from him before that doctor would refuse her any more. Then she would simply "shop" for a different doctor. Greenson and Engelberg did attempt to control Marilyn's doctor-shopping habit, though perhaps not in the best possible way. "The idea was that she was never to be said no to when she wanted a prescription," said Hildy Greenson, Dr. Ralph Greenson's wife, "because the only thing that would happen was she would procure medication elsewhere and not inform her primary physicians about it. So whenever she asked for a drug she would usually get it." That "idea" apparently did not work. The list of drugs she was taking by the end of 1961 was staggering.

After Greenson's and Wexler's diagnosis of Marilyn Monroe as suffering from BPS, she began taking the barbiturate Thorazine. At the time, Thorazine was a new drug, developed in the 1950s to treat the disease. When she would take it, however, she would gain weight, and therefore she didn't like it. As soon as she was off the medication, she would lose weight quickly. However, she would also lose her grip. Historically, whenever she looked her best-as in her last film, Something's Got to Give Something's Got to Give-it was because she was not on Thorazine. Certainly the problems she would later have on the set of that movie suggested that she was off her meds.

Marilyn was also taking the narcotic a.n.a.lgesic Demerol as well as the barbiturates phen.o.barbital HMC and Amytal, along with large quant.i.ties of Nembutal. Of course, she had been taking Nembutal to sleep for many years, and truly it had become an addiction. Dr. Engelberg insists that the most he and Dr. Greenson gave her was twenty-four Nembutal at a time. However, Marilyn went through the drug like candy, so she must have been getting it elsewhere.

Marilyn was also taking Seconal, and no one knew where she got that drug from either. Moreover, she was taking chloral hydrate to sleep, and Dr. Engelberg emphatically states that he never prescribed it to her, nor did Dr. Greenson. In fact, Engelberg would say that he was amazed at the number of drugs found in her system when she died-including the aforementioned chloral hydrate, which he now presumes she bought when she was in Mexico just before her death. There were fifteen bottles of pills on Marilyn's night table when she died.

Though Engelberg consulted Greenson on all of the sleep medications he prescribed to Marilyn, he didn't on other drugs. If she got an infection, for instance, and needed an antibiotic, Engelberg would not pa.s.s it by Greenson for approval. Also, Marilyn very often received injections of vitamins to boost her resistance to colds and sinus infections-a recurring problem for her. Often she would receive such injections a few times a week. By the end of 1961, though, Marilyn had developed the alarming habit of giving herself injections. Many people witnessed that she had syringes with her and bottles that had been premixed-by whom, no one knows. A source who was very close to the actress recalls that the concoction was of phen.o.barbital, Nembutal, and Seconal. "Marilyn referred to it as 'a vitamin shot,' " said the source. "I think I know who gave her this combination of drugs, but I'd rather not say because I am not one hundred percent certain. I can tell you that after she would give herself this injection, she would be gone-no longer able to function."

Indeed, Jeanne Martin recalled that prior to their leaving Frank's home for the cruise that August 1961, Frank asked her to help get Marilyn dressed. She was too disoriented from all of the medication she was taking to do so herself. "I had to pick out each item of clothing and practically dress her," Jeanne recalled. "I kept asking her, 'Marilyn, are you all right? Because you don't look good to me.' She would just sort of look at me with her eyes half-closed and say, 'Oh, I am just fine. I couldn't be better.' I was worried. I remember thinking, who is giving her all of these drugs? What kind of doctor would keep her in this kind of state? She was really, shall we say, glazed."

During the weekend, Marilyn drank plenty of champagne every night, as always. The more she drank, the more disoriented and even boisterous she became. "It was such a sad sight," Jeanne Martin recalled. "I didn't take my eyes off her for a second because I was afraid she would slip and fall. You can't know how difficult this was unless you knew Marilyn and what a lovely woman she was, how nice she was to everyone. You wanted her to be all right, but on this day during this party, it struck me that she was not all right. Not at all."

Gloria Romanoff, also a guest for the weekend, recalled, "She was very unwell that weekend. Sleeping pills were her downfall, I'm afraid. The poor girl simply couldn't even take a nap without them, she was so addicted. She didn't even need water or anything to wash them down. She could just take a handful of pills and swallow them, dry. Then, of course, all of the alcohol just made things worse."

As the afternoon wore on, Frank became frustrated and embarra.s.sed by Marilyn's behavior. One of his former a.s.sociates recalled, "To tell you the truth, Frank couldn't wait to get her off that boat. She was embarra.s.sing him. He told me, 'I swear to Christ, I am ready to throw her right off this G.o.dd.a.m.n boat.' Instead, he called one of his a.s.sistants at the end of the trip, when they were ash.o.r.e, and had her taken back to his place. He told me later that when he got home, she was sound asleep on the couch. He picked her up, he said, and moved her to the bedroom. He undressed her and put her under the covers where she slept soundly through the night. He was worried about her."

When that same a.s.sociate asked Frank Sinatra if he was going to stop seeing Marilyn Monroe, he said, "By now I would have cut any other dame loose. But this one-I just can't do it." * *

What's most interesting-and telling-about this time is that despite the unhappiness she felt, the photos Marilyn took during this period for publicity purposes, especially those by Douglas Kirkland, are perhaps the best of her career. Kirkland, who shot her in November 1961, described her as "amazingly pleasant and playful, like a sister, and not at all intimidating as I had imagined her to be. She sat beside me, laughed easily and made small talk, putting me at ease. I was young and did not know how to ask her to pose for the s.e.xy images I hoped to get, but she simplified it all by suggesting, 'I should get into bed with nothing on but white silk.' We discussed the details and Marilyn said she wanted Frank Sinatra music and chilled Dom Perignon." She never looked lovelier than she does in Kirkland's photographs. (It should be stated, though, that based on how Kirkland later described the session, with Marilyn saying, "I think I should be alone with this boy," and then asking everyone else to leave-and then even inviting him into bed with her-it doesn't sound like a very platonic situation. However, he insists that nothing happened between them-except for the amazing photos that resulted from the session.) How Marilyn was able to turn on Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe when she needed to for professional purposes at the same time that she was so terribly troubled remained a true mystery to her friends and a.s.sociates. It was as if she only found her true bliss in front of the camera as the perfect vision of herself. Everything else-her real life, the one she led in private-paled in comparison. The truth, of course, is that one quick way for her to feel like Marilyn Monroe was to stop taking her Thorazine, as she had during this period. In her mind, as long as she was slim and s.e.xy... she was Marilyn Monroe. In just a few months, when asked by reporter Alan Levy if she was happy, her response would be, "Let's put it this way. I'm slim. And I can always get very gay. It depends on the occasion or the company." when she needed to for professional purposes at the same time that she was so terribly troubled remained a true mystery to her friends and a.s.sociates. It was as if she only found her true bliss in front of the camera as the perfect vision of herself. Everything else-her real life, the one she led in private-paled in comparison. The truth, of course, is that one quick way for her to feel like Marilyn Monroe was to stop taking her Thorazine, as she had during this period. In her mind, as long as she was slim and s.e.xy... she was Marilyn Monroe. In just a few months, when asked by reporter Alan Levy if she was happy, her response would be, "Let's put it this way. I'm slim. And I can always get very gay. It depends on the occasion or the company."

The Douglas Kirkland sessions provide an excellent opportunity to contrast experiences with Marilyn. Her publicist Michael Selsman tells the story of what happened when he and his wife, the actress Carol Lynley, were to meet Kirkland at Monroe's Doheney apartment to go over the proofs of the session. "Carol was nine months pregnant, due any moment," he says. "I couldn't and didn't want to leave her at home by herself, so I took her along to Monroe's apartment," he recalls. "I knocked on her door, as Carol stood shivering beside me. MM opened the door and looked at Carol, whom she knew, since they had adjacent dressing rooms at the studio, and said, 'You come in,' motioning to me, 'but she she can wait in your car.' This was unexpected and I was momentarily stunned. Carol and I exchanged glances, and I a.s.sured her I'd be out in fifteen minutes." can wait in your car.' This was unexpected and I was momentarily stunned. Carol and I exchanged glances, and I a.s.sured her I'd be out in fifteen minutes."

At some point, the two were joined by Douglas Kirkland. Selsman continues, "Every other actor I worked with would use a red grease pencil to put an X through the negatives they didn't like, but not Marilyn on that day. She took a scissors and cut out every one she did not like, then cut those into tiny splinters and threw them in the wastebasket. This laborious process took three hours, during which I repeatedly got up to leave, but Marilyn kept ordering me to sit down. It was my first evidentiary of Marilyn Monroe's capacity for cruelty. Doug told her that the negatives and proofs were his property-that he could be trusted to keep them locked up if that was her wish. That didn't deter her. Poor Doug. She just mopped up the floor with him. He would say, 'But I like this one.' She would say, 'No! I don't. I don't want to be seen like that. That's dead.' " dead.' "

Douglas Kirkland's memory of that night is totally different. "Yes, she cut the proofs and negatives into little pieces-and that was disturbing," he says. "It was shocking, actually, the way she went through them, cutting them up. However, she was extremely clear about what she thought was best for her and the ones she killed, for the most part, were not good. She was thorough and professional. She wanted photos that the Everyman could enjoy. Or, as she put it to me when she saw one shot she really loved, 'I like this one because [Marilyn] looks like the kind of girl a truck driver would like to be in there [the bed] with. That's who this girl appeals to-the regular guy.'

"I absolutely agree, though, that she was a darker personality than the one I had shot the day before," says Kirkland. "The day before, she had been s.e.xy, vibrant, and exciting, but twenty-four hours later, she was drawn, tired, and disturbed. She answered the door with a scarf on her head and dark gla.s.ses on. I don't know what could have happened in such a short period of time to change her personality but it was totally, totally different. However, was I horrified? Did I think she was awful? Oh my gosh, no. Absolutely not. No, no, no. She was Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe, after all." * *

Dr. Greenson in Control.

At the end of 1961, Marilyn Monroe purchased a house for about $77,000. She had wanted a house that looked as much like Dr. Greenson's as possible, and she found one. She had been searching for some time. Once, she and Pat Newcomb found a home that Marilyn liked very much. The two were standing outside near the pool talking it over when the owner, a woman, came out, stared at Marilyn for a long time, and finally said, "I know who you are! Get off my property immediately!" There seemed no justification at all for such an outburst, but it suggested that Marilyn's reputation was by now a mixed one among her public. There were people who loved her, but also definitely people who had a judgment on her. Choked with tears, Marilyn and Pat quickly left the premises.

With three bedrooms and two baths, Marilyn's new house was a surprisingly small-by show business standards-hacienda-type, one-story home on Fifth Helena Drive outside of Brentwood, California. The living room was so small, just three pieces of furniture would fit. The bathrooms were extremely small, as was the kitchen. Basically, it looked like a small, very modest apartment. It did feature a swimming pool and a lush garden area, and the entire property was walled from the street at the end of a cul-de-sac. It seemed very private. Below the front door was a tile with the engraving CURSUM PERFICIO CURSUM PERFICIO. Over the years, some have translated this Latin motto to mean, "My journey ends here"-suggesting that Marilyn had a death wish of some kind and may have had this tile installed to send a message. However, the literal translation is "I complete the course," and it has been used in the doorways of European homes for many years as a way of welcoming guests. It was installed when the house was built, some thirty years before Marilyn took ownership. Marilyn said she was looking forward to furnishing the house with Mexican-style furnishings that she hoped to purchase during her trips to that part of the world. Despite the important purchase, though, by the end of the year Marilyn was in terrible shape. Her spirits had plummeted and there seemed no way for her to rebound. She was scheduled to go before cameras in 1962 with a new movie, Something's Got to Give Something's Got to Give, but she was far from interested in it.

Whereas she had been more or less fine-at the very least her emotional illness seemed to have been stabilized-when she was with her half sister Berniece in New York, in Los Angeles she was not well at all. Those in her circle who did not know about her diagnosis attributed this change in her demeanor to the constant therapy she was receiving from Dr. Greenson. She was with him almost every day. Then, at night, she would often have dinner with the Greenson family. Sometimes she would stay overnight. Doubtless, the biggest problem Dr. Greenson faced was the damage he did to his image with certain aspects of his advice and behavior. Some of what he did was was strange, was suspicious, and did not put him in a very good light. For instance, consider this story: strange, was suspicious, and did not put him in a very good light. For instance, consider this story: One of Marilyn's best friends was Ralph Roberts, an actor and her personal ma.s.seur, who had the nickname "Rafe." Because he was a constant companion of Marilyn's, she had sent for him to be in Los Angeles with her. She thought of him as a brother. One day, Dr. Greenson announced that Roberts had to go. "There are one too many Ralphs in the picture," he told Marilyn. She couldn't believe her ears. "But he's one of my best friends," she said in protest. "I don't care, he's got to go, Marilyn," Greenson said. "But I call him Rafe, not Ralph," she said, now becoming hysterical. It would appear that she actually thought the problem was in her friend's name-not in his presence. "Rafe! Rafe!" she said over and over again. Greenson concluded, "I don't care what you call him. You are much too dependent on him." That night, Marilyn told Ralph that he had to go back to New York. According to people who knew her best at that time, she sobbed all night long. Still, she felt she was powerless to do anything about it; that's how reliant she had become on Dr. Greenson.

Another example of Greenson's seemingly territorial nature where Marilyn was concerned can be found in a letter he wrote to a colleague (in May 1961): "Above all, I try to help her not to be so lonely, and therefore to escape into the drugs or get involved with very destructive people who will engage in some sort of sadom.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic relationship with her. This is the kind of planning you do with an adolescent girl who needs guidance, friendliness and firmness, and she seems to take it very well. She said for the first time, she looked forward to coming to Los Angeles, because she could speak to me. Of course, this does not prevent her from canceling several hours to go to Palm Springs with Mr. F.S. [doubtless, Frank Sinatra]. She is as unfaithful to me as one is to a parent."

It seems true that Marilyn felt inclined to explain her romantic experiences to Greenson as if he had a right to sanction them. For instance, in March 1961, she wrote a letter to him in which she described "a fling on a wing" with someone she did not name. She said he was unselfish in bed but that she knew Greenson would not approve of the relationship. Many reporters over the years have suggested that she was referring to one of the Kennedy brothers. She may also have been referring to Frank Sinatra.

Making the situation all the more uncomfortable to observers at the time was that Marilyn's new attorney was Mickey Rudin-Ralph Greenson's brother-in-law. Rudin was also Frank Sinatra's lawyer and, moreover, Greenson was Sinatra's therapist. "Why in the world Sinatra would have Greenson as his shrink fully knowing the condition of his other famous patient, Marilyn, was a mystery to everyone," said one of Marilyn's friends at that time. "It was all just a little creepy. There was just too much Greenson everywhere you looked."

Pat Kennedy Lawford was one of those who did not support Marilyn's relationship with Dr. Greenson, and she made that clear during a luncheon with Marilyn. Her father, Joseph, suffered a stroke in the fall of 1961, and she was having a difficult time coping with the fact that it had left such a vibrant man paralyzed. Marilyn and Pat arranged to have a drink and catch up at the Beachcomber restaurant in Malibu, a favorite haunt of Pat's. When she had her son Christopher in 1955, she and Peter stopped there to celebrate on the way home from the hospital. They just plopped the infant right down on the bar in his little ba.s.sinet, ordered a couple of dirty martinis, and drank up. That was a happy, if not also crazy, day. However, on this later day, Pat was feeling melancholy and sad. According to Pat Brennan, who joined the two for drinks, Pat cried about her father while Marilyn watched, almost distantly.

"Do you love your father?" Marilyn asked Pat, who was shocked by the question.

"Of course I do," Pat replied.

"Dr. Greenson says I don't need a father," Marilyn said. "They're optional-not everyone has one."

If Marilyn had been trying to console Pat, it certainly wasn't working. More likely, however, Monroe was simply free-a.s.sociating her conversation, without much of an agenda. This wasn't one of Marilyn's good days.

"You are seeing too much of that guy," Pat replied coolly, "he's got you under a spell or something."

"But he's like a father to me," Marilyn confided, "and I can trust him not to tell anyone."

"Tell anyone what?" asked Pat.

Marilyn had been confiding in Pat about her need to "quiet her mind" for quite some time, and she believed Pat had to know what she was talking about.

"That I'm like my mother," Marilyn said.

Pat's face hardened. Later she would say that it dawned on her that Greenson had convinced Marilyn her condition was serious enough that she needed him-indefinitely. "Now you listen to me," she said, according to Brennan's memory of the conversation. "That man doesn't know what he's talking about. Your mother is a very sick woman."

"So am I," Marilyn said quite plainly.

There was silence between the two. Pat Brennan watched the scene play out without saying a word. Everyone just looked at each other for a long moment, until Marilyn finally began to cry.

"Don't be angry with me," she said, as she stood and started to collect her belongings.

"Why would I be angry? Sit down, where are you going?"

"Just don't be angry with me. I couldn't take that."

Marilyn headed for the door, and the two Pats-Lawford and Brennan-followed. They caught up with Marilyn in front of the restaurant, still visibly upset. Pat Kennedy Lawford hugged her.

"This is all that d.a.m.n doctor's fault."

"No it's not," Marilyn said. "But it's not my fault either."

"Let's just talk about this," Pat insisted.

"No. I've upset you both," Marilyn said. She gave Lawford a quick peck on the cheek and Brennan the same. Then she looked the former in the eye and said, "I swear, this isn't my fault."

Marilyn, again on the verge of breaking down, walked off toward her car while both women were left to try to make sense of what had just happened.

Eunice Murray.

Dr. Ralph Greenson replaced the other Ralph in Marilyn's life-Roberts-with perhaps the strangest character who had ever come into the picture-another reason he is so maligned by historians. She was fifty-nine-year-old Eunice Murray, a dowdy, bespectacled woman with not much personality who called herself a "nurse," but who had no medical training whatsoever. She had a very stern face and hard features. In fact, Marilyn hadn't had anyone in her life like this since Ida Bolender. The difference between the two, though, was that Ida had great warmth beneath the cold exterior whereas Eunice didn't, or at least not that anyone was ever able to discern. Because she had "homemaking skills," she was installed as Marilyn's companion-sometimes she spent the night, sometimes not-much to the dismay of almost every person who knew Marilyn, it's safe to say. It seemed to Marilyn's friends and a.s.sociates that there was nothing Marilyn could do during her private time at home that wasn't immediately brought to Dr. Greenson's attention by Murray. Indeed, in their view, he had a new spy in the household. Even Marilyn's publicist and friend Pat Newcomb, not usually one to make waves and who went along with practically every decision made on Marilyn's behalf, was suspicious of Eunice Murray. Saying she was frightened of her, she didn't even want to be around the woman. "She keeps giving me that fishy stare," Pat told John Springer, "and I don't like it one bit." * * In Greenson's defense, however, he believed strongly that Marilyn needed to be monitored as much as possible. He didn't care if people thought he was spying on her via Eunice Murray, as long as he knew what his patient was up to every moment of every day. In Greenson's defense, however, he believed strongly that Marilyn needed to be monitored as much as possible. He didn't care if people thought he was spying on her via Eunice Murray, as long as he knew what his patient was up to every moment of every day.

"I heard that she [Murray] was constantly on the telephone, whispering information to him," said Diane Stevens, who came to Los Angeles with John Springer for business meetings at that time. "Marilyn couldn't have guests over without Greenson knowing who they were, how long they stayed, and what they wanted. This woman was always peering around corners, taking mental notes, and then reporting back to the doctor. I met her once. I had to drop some paperwork at Marilyn's house and when I did, this woman came to the door. 'Who are you?' she demanded to know. 'Why haven't I seen you around here before? What business do you have here?' Oh my G.o.d, I was horrified by her att.i.tude. I thought to myself, she's a housekeeper. What right does she have to talk to anyone like this? So I said, 'Who are you you? Why haven't I seen you you around here before? What business do around here before? What business do you you have here?' She looked at me with an angry face and then slammed the door in my face. I told John about it and he said, 'Oh no. What has Marilyn gotten herself into now?' " have here?' She looked at me with an angry face and then slammed the door in my face. I told John about it and he said, 'Oh no. What has Marilyn gotten herself into now?' "

At the end of 1961, Dr. Greenson wrote in his notes of what he called "a severe depressive reaction" to something that had happened in Marilyn's life. He wasn't clear as to what had transpired. "She had talked about retiring from the movie industry, killing herself, etc." Certainly it's not good news when a psychiatrist becomes so used to hearing a patient's threats to commit suicide that he adds "etc." to his notes about it, suggesting that he's heard it all before. "I had to place nurses in her apartment day and night," he wrote, "and keep strict control over the medication since I felt she was potentially suicidal. Marilyn fought with these nurses, so that after a few weeks it was impossible to keep any of them."

After hearing her voice on the telephone, Joe DiMaggio decided that he'd better fly to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with Marilyn. She was happy to see him. As difficult as he was at times, she knew he loved her and she felt safe in his arms. "Joe was there maybe thirty minutes when he figured out that things had gotten much worse with her," said his friend the sportswriter Stacy Edwards. "Let me put it to you this way. He took one look at that Mrs. Murray and knew she was trouble. From what he told me, he said to her, 'I don't want you knowing anything about me or my business. You work for Marilyn, but you are not her friend. And you are not my friend. If it were up to me, you wouldn't even exist.' He was very direct with her. I'm sure she had a lot to tell Greenson about him."

Joe wanted to make certain that Christmas Day would be happy for Marilyn. To that end, he had purchased a large tree and had decorated it for her. He was as solicitous and as romantic as he could be, doing whatever he could think of to make the day festive. He purchased gifts and even had them wrapped at the store. "He told me it was a great day," recalled Stacy Edwards. "He said she seemed okay, not too manic. I'm pretty sure the housekeeper wasn't there, though I don't know where she was-or where he sent her, I should say. Everything was going well... until that night, anyway."

Earlier in the day, Marilyn announced that they were having dinner with... the Greensons. Joe hadn't met the doctor, but already he wasn't a fan. However, he was anxious to spend time with him and come to his own conclusions. It didn't take long for him to make a determination, though. Joe had always thought that Natasha Lytess had too much influence on Marilyn, and he certainly felt the same way about Lee and Paula Strasberg. However, that night-after just thirty minutes of watching his ex-wife act as if Ralph Greenson was her long-lost father and Greenson's family was the one she'd never known-Joe DiMaggio would say that he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "You know what it's like when you're in a car with someone and they run a red light and you know you're gonna crash but you're not driving so there's nothing you can do about it?" he asked Stacy Edwards. "That's how I felt that night. I felt like Marilyn was about to crash, but I was no longer in the driver's seat anymore... and there was nothing I could do about it."

Joe wasn't the only one worried about Marilyn. Others who were not aware of her disease had no frame of reference for her strange behavior. " 'She's not well.' 'She's acting strangely.' 'What's wrong with her?' That's all I kept hearing by the beginning of 1962," said Diane Stevens from John Springer's office.

"Pat Newcomb and a young publicist named Michael Selsman were mostly handling her from the Arthur P. Jacobs Company by this time. She was paying them $250 a week, I think, which was $50 more than she'd been paying John Springer's firm. Every now and then we still had to field a press request, and it wasn't easy. She had become difficult and argumentative. Once you got her there, she was okay. But getting her there was h.e.l.l. She'd have an appointment to do an interview and just not show up. It had been her custom to be late, but to not show up was not her. Then, she was saying the strangest things. For instance, she said that the reason she bought her new house was because it reminded her of the orphanages in which she was raised. After spending the better part of the last decade bemoaning the orphanages she was sent to-and I believe it was just one, by the way-to now suddenly start making that statement seemed more than odd. The word was out that she was sick, a drug addict. I was scared."

PART EIGHT.

The Kennedys

Kennedy Style.

It was late January 1962. "You have just got to meet him," Pat Kennedy Lawford told Marilyn Monroe. "You'll never know anyone quite like my brother." She was taking about her brother, Bobby, now attorney general of the United States.

One thing is certain, anytime Marilyn had the opportunity to be around the Kennedys, she took advantage of it. She was much more politically minded than people knew. What follows is a remarkable letter she wrote to journalist Lester Markel, a New York Times New York Times editor she had met and with whom she enjoyed lively discussions about politics. It was written before JFK won his party's nomination for president: editor she had met and with whom she enjoyed lively discussions about politics. It was written before JFK won his party's nomination for president: Lester dear, Lester dear,Here I am still in bed. I've been lying here-thinking even of you. About our political conversation the other day: I take it all back that there isn't anybody. What about Rockefeller? First of all, he is a Republican, like the New York Times and secondly, and most interesting, he's more liberal than many of the Democrats. Maybe he could be developed? At this time, however, Humphrey might be the only one. But who knows since it's rather hard to find out anything about him. (I have no particular paper in mind!) Of course, Stevenson might have made it if he had been able to talk to people other than professors. Of course, there hasn't been anyone like Nixon before because the rest of them at least had souls. Ideally, Justice William Douglas would be the best President, but he has been divorced so he couldn't make it-but I've got an idea-how about Douglas for President and Kennedy for Vice-president, then the Catholics who wouldn't have voted would vote because of Kennedy so it wouldn't matter if he [Douglas] is so divorced! Then Stevenson could be secretary of state.It's true I am in your building quite frequently to see my wonderful doctor [here she is referring to her psychiatrist, Dr. Marianne Kris] as your spies have already reported. I didn't want you to get a glimpse of me though until I was wearing my Somali leopard. I want you to think of me as a predatory animal.Love and kisses,MarilynPS Slogan for late '60"Nix on Nixon""Over the hump with Humphrey" (?)"Stymied with Symington""Back to Boston by Xmas-Kennedy"

Back to Boston by Christmas? It doesn't sound as if Marilyn-a registered Democrat-had much confidence that JFK could win the election. She was well-read and knowledgeable enough to have an opinion, though, and could definitely hold her own in any political conversation. As they got to know one another, she and Pat also had lengthy discussions about civil rights, a subject about which Marilyn had become quite pa.s.sionate. She identified with the underdog, and began to realize that Pat and her dynastic family shared those ideals. When the two would discuss coverage of world events in the press, Marilyn always took the position that important stories that made the country look bad-such as certain riots taking place in urban areas-were not given enough prominent s.p.a.ce. "Sometimes I think the government is running the media," she told Pat in front of friends. "I don't trust anything I read these days." Pat was certainly not ashamed to have Marilyn Monroe mixing with her peers because she viewed her as a woman of substance. Pat especially enjoyed having her visit when her siblings were present because she also knew that Marilyn never really had a family. Therefore, it gave her pleasure and satisfaction to share hers with her new friend.

Of course, as is well known, the Kennedys were a raucous bunch totally devoted to each other. It seems that when they weren't running the country, they were having a good time at Peter and Pat's. One writer once opined, "The problem with the Kennedys is that they have no problems." Of course, history has shown us that this wasn't the case-but it certainly seemed like it to the outside world back in 1961. "You're a Kennedy now," Pat told Marilyn shortly after having met her. Pat didn't throw around the designation easily, either. For instance, when JFK won the Democratic nomination, all of the Kennedys were to join him onstage at the convention in Los Angeles at the Coliseum. When Peter Lawford started to walk out with the rest of them, his wife, Pat, stopped him. "You're not actually a Kennedy," she told him, "so I think it's not right." JFK overheard what was going on and stopped his sister. "He's married to you so that makes him a Kennedy, don't you think?" he asked her. She shrugged. "Besides, he's a good-looking movie star," he added with a wink at Peter. "So we can certainly use him up there." Poor Peter had even taken the citizenship test just to become an American so he could cast his vote for JFK. If Pat still didn't think of him-her own husband-as a Kennedy, she must have really taken to Marilyn to have awarded her with the appellation. Of course, Marilyn loved being around the Kennedys-the joyous laughter, the intense rivalry, the crazy drama that informed everything they ever did... the many children, more than she could count... and all of the dogs. The Lawfords always had at least a half dozen dogs running around the property, chasing and yapping at whichever team of Kennedys was playing touch football on the beach. Because Pat was deathly allergic to the animals, she kept her distance. Peter pretty much ignored them. In his view, they were just part of the grand scenery that surrounded him. However, Marilyn took to the pets and made sure they were bathed and well fed whenever she was around. "Why, they're just like little people," she would tell Pat. "Oh yeah?" Pat would shoot back. "Well, little people don't s.h.i.t on my white carpets, now do they?"

Parties at Pat and Peter's home at 625 Palisades Beach Road in Malibu (now Pacific Coast Highway) were practically legendary at this time. Originally built by Louis B. Mayer in 1926, it was quite a showplace, an enormous marble and stucco Mediterranean-Spanish structure. It was built on thirty-foot pilings to prevent it from being swept away in a tidal wave-not that there has ever been one in Santa Monica. The walls were a foot thick to ensure that the house remained cool in the summer. Its best feature was its large, curving living room with windows facing the ocean and wrought-iron balconies onto which French doors opened. There were thirteen onyx and marble bathrooms, but just four bedrooms. Of course, it also had the standard-issue fifty-foot pool, always heated and glistening. It was easily accessible from the street-with no gate or any kind of security entryway, it sat right off the highway.

Behind the main house was Sorrento Beach, popular for its volleyball tournaments. The surf pounded this coastline day and night, the rising tides littering it with brown seaweed. The Lawford children often brought the slimy plants into the house and played with them in their bedrooms, much to the fastidious Pat's dismay. The neighbors on one side of the Lawfords' property were the actor Jeffrey Hunter and his family. On the other, there was a vacant lot. It was all that remained after the home that once stood there was demolished. Pat joked to Marilyn that she had the house blown to smithereens when she learned that a family of Republicans had purchased it. Or, at least Marilyn thought thought Pat was joking. Pat was joking.

Matthew Fox was a friend of Jeffrey Hunter's son, Steele. The two boys were eight in 1961. "These parties, man, you've never seen anything like them," recalled Fox. "The Kennedys had style. I mean, those people knew how to throw a party, let me tell you. Sometimes they would have afternoon barbecues, which I loved. If I had a sleepover with Steele, I would wander over there the next day just to snoop around. Once, I saw Angie d.i.c.kinson baking in the sun in a bikini that was so revealing I think it was the first time I ever got a b.o.n.e.r. I'd always see Mrs. Lawford-Pat-tossing a football around with her brother, the president. Bobby would be there. Teddy. Judy Garland would be there, doing the twist on the sand in her bare feet, just about as drunk as she could be. And there'd be Frank Sinatra with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis with Peter, walking on the beach, chain-smoking like mad and tossing their cigarette b.u.t.ts into the ocean as if to say, 'Screw Mother Nature. As far as we're concerned, the whole world is our ashtray.'

"And Marilyn. I think from 1961 on, she was there a lot. I remember I would just see this shock of blonde hair from a distance and I'd run over to stare at her up close."

Fox remembered Marilyn as "the most beautiful woman, no, G.o.ddess, I have ever seen," as she stood on the beach, always shielding her eyes against the spray and the sand. He recalls her walking on the hot sand with Pat's dogs and stopping to admire the deep blue ocean so flecked with whitecaps. Sometimes she would toss a ball into the water and then squeal with delight as one of the animals retrieved it and returned it to her.

"Once, I walked out to the beach with my little Brownie camera and asked if I could take a picture of her," continued Matthew Fox. "She said, 'Oh no! Not today. I don't have my makeup on and I don't even look like Marilyn Monroe. Come back tomorrow and I'll be all ready for you.' So the next day I went back with my camera. She was made up as if getting ready to make a movie-heavy mascara, red lipstick, big hair teased out to there-the whole Marilyn bit. I said, 'Wow, just look at you!' And she said, 'I did all of this just for you, Matty, so let's take that picture now, shall we?' And we did. I shot a few pictures and then Pat took a picture of the two of us together. Afterward, Marilyn kissed me on the forehead and said, 'You come back in about twenty years and we'll be better friends, okay?' Then she winked at me and walked back into the house. And I thought, 'Oh my G.o.d. I am in love with Marilyn Monroe. I am in love with Marilyn Monroe.' Even then, I knew that most people in the world didn't have these kinds of experiences."