Page 83 of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

“I think I made his back feel better,” Marilyn laughs.

CHAPTER 58

AFTER THE WEEKEND in Palm Springs, the Secret Service becomes watchful of Marilyn’s interest in the president.

“She was calling him a lot. She wanted to see him. Everyone knew it,” one agent says.

Kennedy tells his friend George Smathers, Democratic senator from Florida, that he had dismissed Marilyn with an offhand remark. “You’re not really First Lady material, anyway, Marilyn.”

Yet her infatuation continues.

In April, Marilyn places a call to the Kennedy Compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. When she reaches First Lady Jackie Kennedy, she doesn’t identify herself but says only that she’s “looking for Jack.”

Alone in her bedroom, Jackie recognizes the voice of the woman who’s looking to take her place. Jackie has heard that Marilyn’s a bit troubled, so she keeps it light.

“Marilyn, you’ll marry Jack, that’s great,” she says. “Andyou’ll move into the White House, and you’ll assume the responsibilities of the First Lady. And I’ll move out, and you’ll have all the problems.”

Fred Otash makes his living as a “fact verifier” for gossip magazines. Three years ago, the former LAPD vice detective lost his license to run the Fred Otash Detective Bureau due to a conviction in a Santa Anita racetrack conspiracy.

Now he keeps tabs on celebrities as well as Democratic politicians. Former vice president Richard Nixon and Howard Hughes, the reclusive industrialist who once controlled RKO Pictures, want to know what the Kennedys are up to.

Otash is the one who installed the bugs, first in Peter and Pat Kennedy Lawford’s place, and more recently in Marilyn’s house. He parks his van down the road and listens in.

Rewrites on the script forSomething’s Got to Givepush back the start date for shooting to April 23.

Marilyn decides to visit the Strasbergs in New York. She offers Paula $5,000 a week to be her acting coach on the new picture. But Marilyn has caught Lee Strasberg’s cold, making the return trip to Los Angeles disastrous. She is shivering and feverish, and, by the time the plane touches down, seriously unwell.

On Fox Stage 14, the cast and crew ofSomething’s Got to Giveare waiting for their star. Director George Cukor flashes backtoLet’s Make Loveand Marilyn’s chronic lateness to set. He should never have agreed to work with her again.

Three days later, Marilyn’s cold has developed into chronic sinusitis. Studio doctors are dispatched to 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, where Mrs. Murray eyes them suspiciously before escorting them to the door of the blacked-out bedroom. Marilyn has a temperature of 101, a severe cough, and a throat infection. She is barely able to open her eyes, such is the pain in her head.

Every day without Marilyn sends the production costs spiraling. The insurers are called in. More doctors are sent, reporting to Fox that it will take a good “two weeks to cure this infection.” But it’s easier to believe that she’s once again suffering the ill effects of alcohol and pills rather than her actual diagnosis.

She is still too ill to work, but she does try. She books limousines to drive her to set, then leaves the chauffeurs waiting for hours until she finally fails to appear. One day she passes out in the bath. An hour and a half of filming proves so exhausting that she faints in her dressing room.

“Dearest Marilyn,” Joe DiMaggio writes a postcard on May 6 from Denmark on his way to Moscow. “Have a short stop here in Copenhagen en route to ‘long underwear country.’”

The retired New York Yankee is earning a $100,000 annual salary as executive vice president of V. H. Monette & Co., supplier to US military bases worldwide. Company founder Val Monette has sent DiMaggio, his top field representative, on a European goodwill tour.

DiMaggio drops the postcard in the mailbox.

Monette, who’s often on the road with DiMaggio, notices his dedication to his ex-wife. “He was never a man to write letters to anyone, not even to his family. But wherever he goes, he always finds time to drop her a note or a card or send her flowers.”

On Monday, May 14, 1962, Marilyn returns to Stage 14.

The gossip begins immediately. Is Marilyn leaving on the seventeenth to fly to New York? Is she really abandoning the shoot before the week is out?

This Saturday night in New York City, the Democratic Party will host a fundraising dinner and birthday salute to President John F. Kennedy. After a four-course dinner at the Four Seasons, America’s top entertainers will perform at Madison Square Garden. The red-white-and-blue event program is already printed with “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” on the front cover—and Marilyn is among the list of performers.

Envisioning a gown “only Marilyn Monroe would wear,” she’s worked with Jean Louis, her costume designer onThe MisfitsandSomething’s Got to Give,on a creation of sheer souffle fabric the same color as her skin and hand-sewn with thousands of rhinestones. Standing up on the stage under the spotlights, she’ll appear to be covered in shimmering stars. The gown is said to be worth $12,000.

When it’s delivered to her house, the material is so light and delicate that Marilyn can lift it in the palm of one hand—and so thin she won’t be able to wear any undergarments.

On May 16, a certified letter on 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation letterhead is sent to Marilyn Monroe Productions, Inc.According to Fox, her planned absence from the set “for the purpose of attending a social function being held outside the State of California … will constitute a willful failure to render services … will result in serious loss and material damage to the undersigned corporation.”

The following day, the letter is refused receipt, and it is returned to the studio.

CHAPTER 59

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