The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

“I’m Locked Up with These Poor Nutty People”

The rest of Marilyn Monroe’s experience at Payne Whitney was more of the same—a story characterized by one indignity after another, all heaped upon a woman used to being treated with much more reverence. It felt to her as if she’d been locked away simply because no one knew quite what to do with her. Doctors and nurses would stop by her door and peer into the little square window as if she were a caged animal at the zoo. Some seemed astonished, as if they simply couldn’t believe their eyes. At one point, out of frustration, Marilyn ripped off her hospital gown and stood before them naked, just to give the sightseers “something to really look at.”

Marilyn spent most of Wednesday begging anyone who would listen to her for a piece of paper and a pen so that she could write a note to someone, and so that her plea for release could be heard. It must have struck her that she was now in a situation eerily similar to one in which her mother, Gladys, often found herself. How many rambling manifestos had Gladys written over the years explaining why she shouldn’t have been institutionalized, pleading with the disinterested to intervene on her behalf and obtain release? Finally, a young nurse agreed to allow Marilyn to make contact with someone by mail. But who? Marilyn would later recall thinking that Berniece would be too stunned to know what to do, and besides, she was out of state. She also didn’t feel close enough to any of her ex-husbands to ask for help, and besides, it would have been too humiliating. Certainly, Natasha Lytess would have come to her aid, but that bond was long broken, and besides, she was in California, too. Who? Finally, she decided to appeal to her friends Lee and Paula Strasberg. She sat down and wrote this letter to them:

Dear Lee and Paula,

Dr. Kris has put me in the hospital under the care of two idiot doctors. They both should not be my doctors. You haven’t heard from me because I’m locked up with these poor nutty people. I’m sure to end up a nut too if I stay in this nightmare. Please help me. This is the last place I should be. I love you both.

Marilyn

P.S. I’m on the dangerous floor. It’s like a cell. They had my bathroom door locked and I couldn’t get their key into it, so I broke the glass. But outside of that I haven’t done anything uncooperative.

The note was delivered that same day. Lee Strasberg, when he received it, immediately called Dr. Kris. He was told that Marilyn had been suicidal and that this was the reason for her hospitalization. That was all he needed to hear to make the decision that his star student was exactly where she needed to be. Neither of the two Strasbergs would interfere with her doctor’s orders.

On Thursday morning, once Marilyn at least acted as if she was calm, she was allowed to make one phone call. At a loss as to whom to call, she knew she would have to contact someone who would move heaven and earth to get her out of that place. Who was the most obstinate man she knew? Who would not take no for an answer? The answer was clear to her: Joe DiMaggio. Their marriage hadn’t ended well, that was true. However, based on the kind of man he was and the way he reacted when faced with defiance, she knew she would be able to count on him. So she placed the call to him in Florida.

His friend Stacy Edwards recalled, “I believe Joe was in Florida because he used to coach the Yankees down there during training. He told me, he’s sitting in his motel room having a cold beer and watching TV when the phone rings. It’s Marilyn, sobbing that she’s in a nut house in New York and she needs him to get her out of there. He thought it was a joke. He said she was making no sense, at all, and he thought, surely, it was a prank, or she was high on pills and delusional. But then, after he calmed her down, she told him the whole story. She needed him. How she ever tracked him down in a fleabag motel in Fort Lauderdale, I’ll never know, but she needed him. That was all he needed to hear. He jumped on the next plane.”

Joe DiMaggio showed up at Payne Whitney that very night and demanded that Marilyn Monroe be released in his custody the next morning. He said that he didn’t care who had to authorize the matter, he just expected it to be done. He was told that only Dr. Kris would be able to obtain her patient’s release. “I don’t care who does it,” Joe said brusquely, “but if someone doesn’t get her released from this place, I swear to Christ, I’ll take this hospital apart brick by brick.” He was then put on the phone with Dr. Kris, who had locked away her patient four days earlier and hadn’t come by to say hello or ask how it was going. The doctor said that if Marilyn was unhappy at the facility, perhaps she would feel more comfortable in another hospital. Joe would later say that he couldn’t believe his ears, or as he told Stacy Edwards, “I got to thinking the doctor was the one who shoulda been locked up. She was acting like Marilyn had her choice of resorts. To get what I wanted from her, I said, yeah, fine, we’ll do that. But let’s just get her out of here, first. Please.” The release was hastily arranged for the following day.