The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Notorious Players

Wasn’t it remarkable enough that Marilyn Monroe had made plans for a romantic getaway with the president of the United States? Did fate also have to decree that their assignation would occur in the center of a big melodrama involving both Kennedy brothers, Frank Sinatra, and Peter Lawford, the husband of Marilyn’s friend Pat?

Everyone who knew Bobby Kennedy knew one thing about him: He was determined to bring down the underworld. Not only that but, as he had earlier indicated to Marilyn, he felt that J. Edgar Hoover was involved in certain illegal activities, too, and that he was using mob informants to beef up his scurrilous files on the Kennedy family. The scrappiest and most volatile of the brothers, Bobby spent most of 1960 and 1961 looking into these kinds of hunches. The irony was that pretty much everyone knew that his father, Joseph, had all sorts of underworld connections—and is there any doubt that a man as shrewd and savvy as Bobby knew about them, too? Still, in February 1962, his investigation of the underworld was completed and a report compiled by the Justice Department. Basically, it claimed that Sinatra was in so deep with the mob, he was practically running his own little syndicate.

Matters became even darker for Sinatra when, on February 27, 1962, FBI agents reported to J. Edgar Hoover that a woman named Judith Campbell Exner was sleeping with President Kennedy. Exner was one of the many girlfriends of leading Mafia kingpin Sam Giancana. It didn’t take long for Hoover to figure out that Sinatra was the one who had introduced all these notorious players to one another. Finally, the FBI got it right!

As JFK had mentioned to Marilyn, he was scheduled to stay with Sinatra at his Palm Springs home. As it happened, Sinatra idolized JFK (whom he referred to as TP—The President) just about as much as he did any mobster he knew. Sinatra had spanking new cottages built on the property for JFK’s visit. He also hung pictures of the Kennedys all over the main house, and even put up a gold plaque in the president’s bedroom that said, “John F. Kennedy Slept Here.” He had new phone lines installed for the Secret Service as well as a new helipad.

However, Sinatra was in for a rude awakening. Bobby told his brother Jack that due to the circumstances of Frank’s mob ties, there was no way the president of the United States could stay in his home. JFK concurred. Of course, this sanctimonious reasoning was the height of hypocrisy, since one of the reasons Bobby and JFK agreed that Sinatra should be ostracized was because he was friends with Sam Giancana and his girlfriend, Judith Exner—a woman with whom JFK was having sex! “President Kennedy liked to live on the edge and he liked to take chances,” observed retired Secret Service agent Lawrence Newman, “and I think he was walking on the edge of issues that were dark and dangerous.”

Poor Peter Lawford was the guy chosen by Bobby to break the news to Sinatra. Peter never had a chance, especially when he told Frank where JFK would be sleeping in Palm Springs. As expected, Sinatra hung up on him. Then Sinatra dropped the phone to the floor. Staring out at the hot desert, he said to his valet, George Jacobs, “You want to know where he’s staying? Bing Crosby’s house, that’s where—and he’s a Republican!” After that, Frank dropped Peter from two upcoming Rat Pack films, Robin and the 7 Hoods and 4 for Texas. As far as he was concerned, Peter Lawford was history.

Pat Kennedy Lawford was angry about this turn of events. Lately, Frank hadn’t been on her list of favorite people anyway. That hadn’t always been the case, though. In fact, it had been due to Pat that Sinatra and Peter Lawford reconciled after a spat in the 1950s over (Sinatra’s) ex-wife, Ava Gardner. That argument marked the first time Sinatra gave Lawford the heave-ho and didn’t speak to him for a couple of years. But then he met Pat one night at a dinner party at actor Gary Cooper’s home in Holmby Hills. Even though she was pregnant, she and Frank flirted a bit. Apparently, it then occurred to Sinatra that his former friend, Lawford, was actually married to one of the daughters of a family that had the potential to become one of the most powerful in the world. Sinatra always had his sights set on getting into politics and began to hope that the Kennedy family might assist him in that regard. The next thing everyone in his circle knew—voilà!—he and Peter Lawford were best pals again. When Pat had the baby, sure enough, she and Peter named the girl Victoria Francis—after Francis Sinatra. Pat even put up her own Kennedy dollars to option the script of Ocean’s 11, thinking it would star Peter with Frank. But guess who ended up starring in it? Frank. With Dean, Sammy, oh, and… Peter. “But after what Sinatra did to Peter where JFK was concerned, she was done with him for good,” concluded her friend Pat Brennan.