The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

The Wrong Door Raid

Marilyn’s time at Frank Sinatra’s did not last long. They could never really connect romantically, though they did love each other. She soon moved out of his apartment and was on her own again. At around this time, another gentleman came into her life as a potential suitor, but this too would not work out for her. He was Hal Schaeffer, the musical coach of her recent films. He actually arranged the highlight of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn’s stunning routine of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” The two had a flirtation going on for some time. Schaeffer, who sounds as if he had his own emotional issues, was so distraught that Marilyn did not want to take things any further with him, he reacted by trying to kill himself. Schaeffer may have been hoping Marilyn would rush to his side if he tried to do himself in, and of course she did. However, the time she spent at his bedside in the hospital was just more time for Joe to act out in a jealous rage. Now that he clearly no longer had a hold on Marilyn and Sinatra was also out of the picture for the time being, she was adrift emotionally, and she turned to Hal. It’s difficult to imagine that what the two of them shared was serious for her, though it was to him. It was brief and definitely a diversion for her. By this time she had become so dependent on sleeping pills—freely given to her by the studio’s physician—it’s likely her judgment was impaired. That said, Schaeffer was kind, gentle, and understanding, and he was also creative—about as opposite to DiMaggio as possible.

When Joe DiMaggio heard about Hal Schaeffer in Marilyn’s life, he simply could not accept it. How dare his estranged wife replace him so quickly? What right did she have to move on without him? For a couple of weeks, he and his best friend, Frank Sinatra, did what best friends often do when faced with love lost in their lives—they began to commiserate about it. “We dagos gotta stick together,” Frank told Joe. “So let me take care of this thing. Let me come up with something that’ll screw with the divorce. Then she’ll see the light and you’ll be in like Flynn.”

The next day, Frank made a few telephone calls and was eventually referred to a company called City Detective and Guard Services. Joe Dougherty (no relation to Jim Dougherty) was one of the detectives working for the company. He recalled, “The divorce hearing was set for October 27. Sinatra hired us about a week earlier. He said, ‘I want you to follow Marilyn and this bozo she’s screwing—Schaeffer somethin’ or others—and take pictures of them in the act. Then, Joe DiMaggio is gonna use it against her and get that broad back in his life.’ I was thinking, ‘If this doesn’t piss off his wife, I don’t know what will. So how’s he going to get her back doing this thing is beyond me.’ But a job is a job and so, fine, we signed a deal and got right to work.

“We did what we were paid to do. We followed Marilyn Monroe all over the goddamn city waiting for her to hook up with this guy. She knew we were on her tail, too, which must have rattled her because once she almost crashed her car into a tree trying to evade us. Another time, she ran a red light and almost hit an old woman walking across the street with a shopping cart. When she got out of the car and started apologizing to the woman, we started snapping away thinking, well, at least we got some good pictures of Marilyn Monroe maybe we can sell or something later on. Looking back on it now, it was a dirty business. We bugged her car. We bugged her apartment. We bugged his car. We bugged his apartment. I don’t know what they had going on but I can tell you that we didn’t get one goddamn thing to use against her. If they were hooking up, I don’t know where they were doing it.”

Hal Schaeffer confirms, “We were followed everywhere. It was sick and twisted. She was absolutely scared to death. How a man could do that to a woman, I don’t know. It just confirmed to her that she had made the right decision in letting him go.”

On October 27, Marilyn—again in all black except for white gloves and pearls—stood before a judge and detailed her reasons for her divorce petition. “Just the night before, Joe had shown up at her house to try to talk her out of it,” said Marybeth Cooke. “Jerry [Geisler, her attorney] couldn’t believe his nerve, and was especially surprised that Sidney Skolsky had arranged the meeting. That made no sense. Everyone who cared about Marilyn wanted it over—not extended. But, luckily, Marilyn stood her ground. She told Joe it was over. He left, angry as ever.”

In court, Marilyn said that DiMaggio was “cold and indifferent” to her and that days would go by when he wouldn’t speak to her. “Cold and indifferent”? That wasn’t DiMaggio. The problem was that he was just the opposite, a hothead who was furious because he couldn’t have her in his life the way he wanted her.

The stress of being married to him had made her sick on numerous occasions, Marilyn continued. She said she even offered to give up her career at one point, but that nothing would have satisfied him. She wasn’t even allowed visitors when he was around, she claimed. Inez Melson, Marilyn’s business manager, then took the stand and testified that she had witnessed DiMaggio “push her away and tell her not to bother him.” ^* Natasha Lytess had earlier stated that she had a few things on her mind and hoped to have her day in court, too, but Melson told her that it wasn’t the time or place for whatever she had to say about the Monroe-DiMaggio alliance. Joe DiMaggio didn’t make an appearance. The divorce was granted—final decree to be effective in a year’s time. End of story? Not quite.

“We figured our job was over when the divorce was granted,” said Joe Dougherty. “But Sinatra and DiMaggio still had plans for Marilyn. DiMaggio said that she probably hadn’t hooked up with Schaeffer because she was too smart to do it before the divorce was granted. Now that it was a done deal, he was sure that she and the guy would start having sex. And he still wanted to catch them in the act. ‘Why?’ I asked him. He said, ‘Who are you to ask me questions? I just want to screw with her, that’s why. Satisfied now?’ Well, that wasn’t a good enough reason for me, so I pulled out of it. The company I was working for, though, wanted the money so they just replaced me with another guy, and the surveillance of Marilyn Monroe continued.”

To fully understand just how jealous Joe DiMaggio was, consider the details of what has, over the years, become known as “The Wrong Door Raid.” It happened on the night of November 5, 1954. Frank, Joe, and Frank’s friend Hank Sanicola were eating at a favorite Italian restaurant called Villa Capri when the maître d’, Billy Karen, came to the table and said that there was a phone call for Sinatra. Sinatra went to take the call and, according to Hank Sanicola, returned saying, “Let’s go, fellas. They found Marilyn and that little jerk at some dame’s apartment in Hollywood.” The fellows, who’d had a few too many drinks by this time, took off without paying their bill. As they walked out of the restaurant, the maître d’ came running after them. “We’ll pay it later. Christ almighty,” Sinatra exclaimed. “The hell with that,” said Billy Karen, “I’m comin’ with you guys. I want in on this thing.”

Five minutes later, Sinatra, DiMaggio, Sanicola, and Karen met two detectives in front of the building in question. The bunch of them then walked up to the apartment and, with a good kick from slugger DiMaggio and a hearty shove from crooner Sinatra, broke the door right off its hinges. All of them then rushed into the apartment, one person shouting out, “Get your paws off Marilyn Monroe!” and another hollering, “We caught you red-handed. The jig is up!” But guess what? Wrong apartment. Thus “The Wrong Door Raid.” The poor woman who actually lived in the unit had been snugly tucked away and probably counting sheep by this time. Suddenly awakened by the sound of a crashing door and a bunch of goons screaming at her while shining flashlights in her face, she sat up in bed, gathered her bedclothes at her chest, and then screamed so loud that people three blocks away would complain about the ruckus the next morning. ^*

Today, more than fifty years later, Hal Schaeffer says that he and Marilyn actually were in the apartment building together—just obviously not in the apartment that was raided. “I think I’d be dead today if they had found me in there with Marilyn,” he says. “They came in there and started destroying things, I mean, these guys were thugs. We heard the whole thing from the apartment we were in—which belonged to a student of mine. Marilyn was scared to death. She said, ‘Jesus Christ, Hal. We gotta get out of here. If Joe finds us here, he’ll kill us both.’ We managed to get out through a back door when all attention was focused elsewhere. I can’t say I have good memories of that night.”

Frank Sinatra was terribly embarrassed by this chain of events. After all, he was the one who had hired the detective company that botched the job. “He came down to our office the next day and was so pissed, honest to God, I was afraid for my life,” said Joe Dougherty. “He had three henchmen with him and said, ‘You guys are lucky we don’t tear this goddamn building apart brick by brick.’ ”

A controversy exploded years later over this raid as a result of a retrospective report about it in Confidential magazine. In February 1957 the sensational magazine would publish a story entitled “The Real Reason for Marilyn Monroe’s Divorce from Joe DiMaggio.” As a result, the California State Senate Investigating Committee would begin a probe to determine just how those kinds of stories about celebrities were leaked to scandal publications, and what the practices of certain unethical private detectives had to do with any of it. As part of the investigation, Sinatra would be called to testify about his participation in the raid. Of course, he was furious about being dragged into any investigation by the media. He despised publications like Confidential and could not have cared any less how its reporters gathered their information. Though he wanted nothing to do with any of it, he was still compelled to testify.

Under oath, Sinatra swore that he had only driven Joe DiMaggio to the scene of the break-in, where they then met two private detectives who had been hired by DiMaggio to keep Marilyn under surveillance. Frank lied and claimed that while he stood by his car having a smoke, DiMaggio, Sanicola, Karen, and the two private investigators broke into the wrong apartment. DiMaggio, though, insisted that he didn’t break into the apartment either. In fact, eventually all of the principal players began denying involvement in the raid, as if none of it had ever occurred and it was all a figment of someone’s wild imagination. Because of so much conflicting testimony, a grand jury convened and compelled Frank to testify again. He had his story, though, and he was sticking to it. He didn’t change a word, except to add that, yes, he did pay the $800 for the surveillance. He had to admit this much, because the detective agency presented his check as evidence. However, he said he had only advanced the money for DiMaggio, and was paid back by him. Everyone was lying about this event, though, it would seem—even Sheila Stewart Renour, whose apartment Hal Schaeffer and Monroe were using for their assignation. She claimed that it was she, not Hal, who was in the apartment with Marilyn. Unless she was watching TV while the other two were in the bedroom, then she was lying under oath, too. The notion of perjury didn’t seem to mean much to any of these witnesses.

One more postscript to “The Wrong Door Raid”: This ridiculous bit of business marked the end of Frank Sinatra’s friendship with Joe DiMaggio. It rankled Sinatra that since he was a Los Angeles resident he was forced to spend hours testifying in a Los Angeles courtroom while DiMaggio, a Florida resident, was not compelled to testify. Sinatra had to bear the brunt of the investigation, whereas DiMaggio was able to walk away from it with nary a problem—especially galling to Sinatra since he had orchestrated the whole matter as a favor to DiMaggio.