The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Bobby: “The President Wants It and I Want It”

In May 1962, the relationship between Marilyn and the Kennedy brothers would take yet another strange twist. A celebration was being planned on May 19 for JFK’s forty-fifth birthday—a big, overblown, televised spectacle that was to take place at Madison Square Garden. (His actual birthday would be on May 29.) It had been Peter Lawford’s idea to have Marilyn Monroe sing “Happy Birthday” to the president. Of course, it was probably the height of arrogance that Peter felt he could get away with such a thing. It was almost as if everyone was so accustomed to getting away with so much where Marilyn was concerned, now they wanted to push the envelope and flaunt the relationship in front of the entire country—and on television!

One question that’s never asked in regard to Marilyn’s invitation to perform for the president is this: What in the world were Bobby and JFK thinking? “This manipulation of Marilyn, already so sick, was as low as it got,” said Jeanne Martin, wife of Dean Martin, who was costarring with Marilyn in the beleaguered Something’s Got to Give. Jeanne was not only still a very good friend of Marilyn’s but had also remained friendly with the Kennedys through the years. However, even she realized that the brothers had crossed a line. “This was shameful, it really was,” she said. “There was no excuse for it.”

Perhaps Marilyn needed the president in her life now more than ever. After all, she was rattled at this time by a series of events that had occurred just a month earlier.

In February, Marilyn had gone to Mexico to purchase furnishings for her new home. While she was there with Pat Newcomb and Eunice Murray, it again became clear that she was being followed by FBI agents. It couldn’t have been a more ludicrous pursuit. The agents had it in their heads that she was involved with someone named Fred Vanderbilt Field, who had apparently served nine months in prison for not naming Communist friends. He moved to Mexico in 1953. Now, all these years later, a friend of a friend introduced him and his wife to Marilyn and—voilà!—the FBI was tracking her every move in Mexico. For a woman who was already thought to be borderline paranoid schizophrenic by her doctor, such pursuit had to have been extremely frightening.

There are actually many allegations presented as fact in the FBI files concerning Monroe and Field, none of which appear to be true and none of which therefore are worth enumeration. In these same FBI files that detail her every move in Mexico, there is mention of her meeting with Bobby Kennedy in October 1961. She was definitely being watched—and she knew it.

At about this same time, Marilyn was in desperate trouble with 20th Century-Fox. In April and May 1962, as she continued to slip deeper into the darkest recesses of her mind, she placed the production of Something’s Got to Give in even greater jeopardy. It was impossible for her to begin rehearsals and camera tests for the film. She was constantly late, if she showed up at all. She always had an excuse, as she would for absences during the entire production, whether it was a cold, a sinus infection, or some other malady. All of it was true—she was a very sick woman. But she was also scared to death of George Cukor, and that didn’t help matters either. Moreover, it was thought by most observers that Paula Strasberg, Marilyn’s acting coach (who was being paid $5,000 a week), had become very intrusive. Sidney Guilaroff, who styled Marilyn’s hair for the film as he had for many others, put it this way: “Dressed all in black, including a black gypsy scarf and thick stockings, Paula haunted the set—sometimes directing Marilyn with hand signals behind Cukor’s back. Marilyn was so dependent upon her that she could barely read a line without Strasberg’s specific brand of coaching.”

Harvey Bernstein once recalled a meeting he had with Marilyn at her home to discuss the script. She answered the door in hair curlers. There was no furniture in her living room, just a chair on which he sat while she sat on the floor. “Many of her ideas [for the script] were good for her and not so good for the story,” he recalled. “But if I hinted at this, her face would go blank for a second, as though the current had been turned off, and when it was turned on again, she would continue as though I had said nothing.… Sometimes she would refer to herself in the third person, like Caesar. ‘Remember you’ve got Marilyn Monroe, you’ve got to use her,’ she told me.… I left feeling like a deckhand on a ship with no one at the helm and the water ahead full of rocks.” ^*

The last thing executives at 20th Century-Fox would approve of was Marilyn taking more time off to fly to New York City to sing for the president. Even though she had earlier been given permission, Peter Levathes reversed his position based on her poor attendance on the set of the film. He didn’t want her to be distracted. In fact, the studio threatened to sue her if she took off for New York (and actually would file suit against her). When Bobby Kennedy heard of the possibility of a lawsuit against Marilyn, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He called Levathes to appeal to him that Marilyn’s appearance for the president was very im portant and would mean a lot to JFK. Levathes stood firm that he would not approve it. Annoyed, Bobby went over Levathes’s head to his boss, Milton Gould. Gould has recalled that Bobby told him, “ ‘The president wants it, and I want it.’ He was very abusive. I was surprised at his total lack of class. I told him we were very much behind in our schedule and would not release her. He called me a ‘no-good Jew bastard,’ which I didn’t appreciate. Then he slammed down the phone. I have to say I was surprised that they wanted her so badly that he was willing to humiliate himself like that.”

As it would happen, it didn’t matter to Marilyn whether or not the studio approved of her going to New York. She’d made up her mind that she was going, and that was the end of it. Her priority was to be in New York with the Kennedy brothers. Twentieth Century-Fox could wait. At some point during this time, she apparently became melancholy about President Kennedy, because she painted a single red rose in watercolor on a sheet of paper. Then, in blue ink, she signed at the bottom left, “Happy Birthday Pres. Kennedy from Marilyn Monroe.” She additionally signed and inscribed below the first signature, in black ink, this time mysteriously signing her name twice, reading in full: “Happy Birthday June 1, 1962/My Best Wishes/Marilyn/Marilyn.” Of course, June 1, 1962, would be her last birthday, her thirty-sixth. (Decades later in 2005, this artwork would sell for $78,000 in a Julien’s auction of Marilyn’s possessions.)

Marilyn left Los Angeles for New York on May 17, telling the media, “I told the studio six weeks ago that I was going. I consider it an honor to appear before the President of the United States.” The cast and crew of Something’s Got to Give were stunned by her decision. “It was very surprising,” recalled her stand-in, Evelyn Moriarty. “We all just felt like things couldn’t get much worse. It was all so unpredictable and awful. But she did have permission, even if they took it away from her.”

Dean Martin’s manager, Mort Viner, said, “That was poor form on her part. It showed where her priorities were, anyway, didn’t it? But Dean told me, ‘Hey, you can’t blame her, Mort. Look, if Jackie Kennedy had asked me to fly cross country and sing Happy Birthday to her, I woulda gone.’ ”

New research now establishes, however, that perhaps the decision wasn’t as easy for Marilyn as previously believed. She was conflicted, and she turned to her friend Pat Lawford for advice. According to people who knew Pat well, Pat told her that she now believed her brothers were being unfair to Marilyn, and maybe even trying to make a fool of her. This was likely not easy for Pat to admit. After all, she was a loyal Kennedy and almost always supported her brothers. However, as Marilyn’s friend, she may have felt compelled to tell her how she truly felt about the matter. It’s a testament to her, actually, that she was able to put aside her feelings of betrayal by Marilyn in order to help her friend achieve some clarity over the situation.

“She was worried about her,” said a Kennedy family member. “She knew her brothers. She loved them, but she knew them well. She didn’t think Marilyn could handle them. However, Marilyn thought that maybe if she went to New York, it would show the family that she was being supportive. She was putting her career on the line to do it, too. I mean, she was risking everything. There wasn’t much Pat could say to that, I guess. It was a tough situation for everyone.”

It also should be noted here that Marilyn no longer felt compelled to confide in her half sister, Berniece. Marilyn loved Berniece but had always felt that she had her own life and problems and was not necessarily a person she could turn to in times of trouble. What was Berniece to do on the other side of the country when Marilyn was in crisis mode? As a demonstration of the superficial nature of their relationship at this time, when the two talked about the upcoming Madison Square Garden appearance, Marilyn told her that her only apprehension was that she didn’t feel she was up to the task of singing in public. She said that she felt her voice was not up to her standards. She didn’t invite Berniece to the show, and apparently Berniece didn’t ask to go.