Leah and I were in Hollywood yesterday and came across a newsstand that had about 15 magazines with Jennifer Aniston on the cover. The headlines blared:
Jennifer Breaks Her Silence
Jen Reveals Secret Heartache
Jennifer’s Revenge
Jen Tells All
These stories stem from a recent interview Aniston did with Vanity Fair in which she spoke publicly about her divorce from Brad Pitt for the first time. A feeding frenzy then erupted with every celebrity rag trying to spin a story from her few comments. I haven’t read the original article but I’m sure that Jen did NOT “tell all” to the Vanity Fair reporter or anyone else. Just another example of our lust for details of the personal lives of the celebrities we inexplicably place on pedestals. Or am I being naïve? Was every cover piece vetted by Aniston’s publicist despite the actress’s pleas for privacy?
Even though I’m not particularly interested in Jennifer Aniston’s personal life, I don’t dare try to adopt a superior tone. You only have to read a few of the entries on this blog to see how captivated I am by the cult of celebrity. And while I’ve yet to run out to purchase the new Vanity Fair, I was riveted to the page one article in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times about another actress who is still the Ground Zero of celebrity obsession.
Marilyn Monroe died 43 years ago this weekend. The anniversary of her death rarely passes without all sorts of kooks coming out of the woodwork. First there’s the woman, now almost 60, who claims to be the daughter Marilyn gave birth to in 1947. Story has it that she was placed by the mob into an Italian family in Queens but the “pretty lady” used to visit the little girl regularly throughout the 1950s. I remember years ago when this woman was interviewed by Tom Snyder on the old NBC “Tomorrow” show and I was amazed she had climbed that high on the network food chain. She was in her 30s then and made the mistake of trying to look like Marilyn which only made her look a bit like a drag queen. You’d think that if it were true this poor woman would have found a distant relative of Marilyn's and had a DNA test done. But who knows? Loretta Young was able to keep the love child she had with Clark Gable a secret until her death.
Then there are the Marilyn impersonators who are swarming Hollywood Boulevard this weekend like peroxide locusts, posing with tourists for a small fee, their heavy makeup puddling on their faces in the intense heat. Most wear facsimiles of the famous “Seven Year Itch” dress, the one that blew upwards when Marilyn stood over the subway grate (a scene that so infuriated Joe DiMaggio that he stormed off the set and begged Marilyn to leave the film). Leah and I have our favorite Marilyn—she hangs out next to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and looks so much like the actress that we’ve been known to follow her for a full city block. I always try to talk to her just so I can hear her “Thank you ever so” in perfect Marilyn pitch (even though that voice itself was a fake that Marilyn put on as part of her image control). Kendall and I were at a screening of one of Monroe’s films recently and met Marilyn’s actual stand-in from the 50s. She looked very much like Marilyn back in the day so it was fascinating to get a glimpse of how Marilyn might look if she were still alive today (she’d be 79 years old if you can believe it).
Despite all the hoopla surrounding these anniversaries, I’ve rarely seen such a provocative front page article about Marilyn in a publication like the Los Angeles Times. Apparently a former Los Angeles County prosecutor named John Miner, now 86, believes that Marilyn Monroe did not commit suicide but was a victim of foul play. Miner was one of the principal investigators of Monroe’s death in 1962. He interviewed Marilyn’s psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, who had in his possession a series of stream-of-consciousness audiotapes Marilyn had recorded shortly before her death as part of her therapy. Greenson played the tapes for Miner only on the condition that he would never reveal their contents. The tapes were allegedly destroyed and no transcripts were thought to exist…until now.
Miner kept his promise to Greenson until the psychiatrist’s death. But when recent books about Monroe tried to implicate Greenson himself in the movie star’s demise, Miner got permission from Greenson’s widow to reveal his secret transcript of the tapes. These are the transcripts just published by the L.A. Times. Pretty amazing, but I haven’t seen such an abuse of privileged information since excerpts of Jackie Kennedy’s letters to her clergyman were released. In the wake of her husband’s assassination, Jackie said she was in so much pain that she contemplated ending her life. Marilyn, on the other hand, seemed anything but despondent on the tapes, and she was making lots of plans for her future including a commitment to study Shakespeare with Lee Strasberg:
I'll pay him to work only with me. He said I could do Shakespeare, I'll make him prove it…Then I'll produce and act in the Marilyn Monroe Shakespeare Film Festival which will put his major plays on film...I've read all of Shakespeare and practiced a lot of lines. I won't have to worry about the scripts. I'll have the greatest script writer who ever lived working for me and I don't have to pay him…I've some wonderful ideas for Lady Macbeth and Queen Gertrude. I feel certain I'll win an Oscar for one or more of my Shakespearean women.
I do feel a little sleazy reading Marilyn’s private comments to her shrink, not to mention reprinting them here. But they are mostly flattering to the film star, and do a lot to broaden our idea of what made her tick. Marilyn is obviously an intelligent, introspective person. In addition to Shakespeare, she talks about other authors she is reading including Joyce and Dolstoevsky. She is clearly someone who wants to be taken seriously despite her movie star image that she had a big hand in creating. At 36 years old, Marilyn surveyed the parts of her that the public seemed to be most interested in:
I stood naked in front of my full length mirrors for a long time yesterday. I was all made up with my hair done. What did I see? My breasts are beginning to sag a bit. My waist isn't bad. My ass is what it should be, the best there is. Legs, knees and ankles still shapely. And my feet are not too big. OK, Marilyn, you have it all there.
She mentions Clark Gable, with whom she had recently completed “The Misfits” with great fondness.
He was so nice to me and I didn't deserve it. I was having problems with Arthur and being sick and I held up the shooting a lot. Clark protected me from Huston who kept giving me a bad time… In the kissing scenes, I kissed him with real affection. I didn't want to go to bed with him, but I wanted him to know how much I liked and appreciated him. When I came back from a day off the set, he patted my ass and told me if I didn't behave myself, he would give me a good spanking. I looked him in the eye and said, “Don't tempt me!” He burst out laughing so hard he was tearing.
Because of his performance I've seen “Gone With the Wind” over and over again. He was perfect. It makes me so mad I could scream—those Academy fuckers didn't award him the Oscar. He should have won hands down.
Marilyn talked about her famous husbands in the tapes and confirmed that she and Joe DiMaggio still had feelings for each other:
Joe D. loves Marilyn Monroe and always will. I love him and always will. But Joe couldn't stay married to Marilyn Monroe, the famous movie star. Joe has an image in his stubborn Italian head of a traditional Italian wife. She would have to be faithful, do what he tells her, devote all of herself to him. Doctor, you know that's not me.
It's different with Arthur. Marrying him was my mistake, not his. He couldn't give me the attention, warmth and affection I need. It's not in his nature. Arthur never credited me with much intelligence. He couldn't share his intellectual life with me. As bed partners we were so-so. He was not that much interested. You know I think his little Jewish father had more genuine affection for me than Arthur did.
Am I getting too salacious here? But wait—you ain't heard nothin' yet! How have I lived on this planet for almost 46 years without ever hearing a word about the brief affair between Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe? Yikes!
We went to Joan's bedroom…Crawford had a gigantic orgasm and shrieked like a maniac…Next time I saw Crawford she wanted another round. I told her straight out I didn't much enjoy doing it with a woman. After I turned her down, she became spiteful. An English poet best describes it: hath no rage like love to hatred turned; and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned – most people wrongly credit that to Shakespeare. William Congreve is the author. That's me, Marilyn Monroe, the classical scholar.
Joan Crawford’s orgasm? Remember, folks, I’m getting this stuff from the L.A. Times, not the National Enquirer!
Of course, the main thing people will be interested in is what Marilyn said about the Kennedy brothers. She waxed on about JFK’s promise as President:
This man is going to change our country. No child will go hungry. No person will sleep in the street and get his meals from garbage cans. People who can't afford it will get good medical care. Industrial products will be the best in the world. No, I'm not talking Utopia — that's an illusion, but he will transform America today like FDR did in the 30's…I tell you, Doctor, when he has finished his achievements he will take his place with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR as one of our greatest Presidents.
But Marilyn was confused about how to deal with her personal relationship with Bobby Kennedy.
I guess I don't have the courage to face up to it and hurt him. I want someone else to tell him its over. I tried to get the President to do it, but I couldn't reach him. Now I'm glad I couldn't. He is too important to ask…Maybe I should stop being a coward and tell him myself. But because I know how much he'll be hurt I don't have the strength.
Pretty incendiary stuff if it’s true. Marilyn’s other comments about Bobby are so frank that I can’t bring myself to reprint them here. Several people place Bobby at Marilyn’s house on the day that she died. They apparently had an argument and Kennedy stormed out, not that I think he had any direct connection to her death. John Miner is the only person alive who heard Marilyn’s tapes and only he knows if these are accurate transcripts. In releasing them, Miner is hoping to get public support for exhuming poor Marilyn’s corpse to run further tests that may prove her death was not a suicide after all. Yikes, it seems rather grisly to even contemplate exhuming a body 43 years after death. Shouldn’t we just leave the woman alone?
Looking at the lengthy article about Marilyn in the Los Angeles Times, I notice on the opposite page a piece on the famine and genocide taking place in Darfur. Oh hell, that is the story I should be reading and commenting on. I feel sickened as I think of how many people devoured the Monroe article and bypassed the other story completely. What is the percentage of people in this country who even know where Darfur is? Oh wait, isn’t that where Angelina Jolie just got her new baby?
Not sordid, Danny, fascinating. Thanks for sharing Marilyn's "blog."
Posted by: Elaine Soloway | August 08, 2005 at 06:50 AM
Well, you can't help it if it's fascinating! Shame on me: I could've been sitting in the washroom with the Wall Street Journal -- or working! -- but I couldn't stop reading this great post!
Posted by: david | August 08, 2005 at 08:35 AM
Elaine, I liked your idea of "Marilyn's blog" so much that I changed the title of this post! Maybe she would have written a blog if she had lived and was now a hip 79-year-old who won a few of those Oscars she hoped to get for her Shakespearean women. I can see how she might have matured into some really great roles that could have continued to this day—look at the other actresses who started out as sex kittens and later moved on to amazing performaces (Catherine Deneuve, Sophia Loren, even Jane Fonda come to mind). Not that I'm implying that Marilyn's performances were all lightweight—I thought she was a wonderful actress!
Posted by: Danny | August 08, 2005 at 02:09 PM
Danny, most of the transcript of the tapes appears in the press over here (London) today, orgasms and all. I saw it in the Daily Express, a lousy paper that I never read but the others were all gone.
I agree that Marilyn was a great actress. And what gorgeous photos of her you've posted.
The "foul play" version of her death has been around for some time. Allegations that she was bumped off by the CIA or FBI (or both) because of her affairs with the Kennedys and the fear that she might become an embarassment. I think someone did a documentary on it - very convincing.
Posted by: Natalie | August 08, 2005 at 04:07 PM
Your pictures of Marilyn are gorgeous - I have to say, when I first read the article, the first few transcripts read just like a modern "blog." Made me think that's what many of us do: use cyberspace as our therapist. I know I do!
Posted by: adriana bliss | August 08, 2005 at 08:42 PM
Excellent Blog. I too was shocked to hear about Marilyn's short affair with Joan when I read it in the guardian. And you're right, I think it is too much to exhume her body. But then again, if it was me, and I was dead for over 43 years, I don't think I'd really care.
Posted by: Lauren | August 09, 2005 at 09:11 AM
I'm amazed the LAT printed such a huge piece, but then again I guess she still is just about the most famous actress that's dead.
Posted by: Pauly D | August 09, 2005 at 03:54 PM
The glamour of a Hollywood actress back then, especially one who died so young, was so different than it is today, that I can't think of any actress today that would still be in the news 50 years after her death. Only Princess Di is sort of comparable in more recent history. I'm not sure we consider actors and actresses our "royalty" any more, despite our obsession with celebrity. Maybe there's just too many movies, TV channels, etc, so the pool of "famous celebrities" has been debased. Hell, you're now a celebrity if you've been on "Survivor."
Posted by: Neil | August 09, 2005 at 03:55 PM
First of all, I doubt the veracity of the transcripts; as someone who has done transcript from tapes, I know how long it takes to get it even close to accurate. How much time did the doctor give the author with the material?
And secondly, I don't find anything inconsistent in the transcripts, assuming they are reasonably accurate, with suicide--or, more to the point, emotional illness. She doesn't sound like she's making serious plans; she's making grandiose, castles in the air; as someone wrote in a letter to the Times, it's the "manic" phase that precedes the "depressive" phase. I always thought she didn't mean to kill herself, but lost track of the number of pills she took to blunt her pain. Pain that came in part from the number of people who used her to their own devices, which, to be honest, I think includes this guy.
Posted by: Mary | August 12, 2005 at 10:08 AM
I can't see why this guy would lie about the transcripts (we'll never know) but I completely agree with you, Mary, about his conclusion that Marilyn's statements to her shrink support the notion that she didn't commit suicide. I bet if you examined the journal entries of many suicide victims in the weeks preceding their deaths you'd find all sorts of hopeful ramblings about their future as they desperately try to climb out of their inner torment. But we'll never know that either. I don't rule out foul play at all, but I think there's a strong likelihood that she accidentally lost track of the pills she was taking and stupidly mixing with alcohol.
Posted by: Danny | August 12, 2005 at 10:22 AM
I think he could lie because there is no way to contradict him (only other source is dead, and the tapes themselves, assuming they existed, are destroyed) and would lie because he can and will make money off of it. I hate that I've gotten so cynical, but it's hard not to be. It's probably because I've never recovered from the discovery that Kenneth Anger made up most of Hollywood Babylon, one of the great formative books of my early years!
Love your blog, by the way, and your tender views on life.
Posted by: Mary | August 12, 2005 at 05:11 PM
wow!...thanks for all the info... i have loved this woman since i was 10 years old... i get an ache in my heart very time i see a photo of her... the greatest american crime ever committed in my opinion... whe know who and why... it doesnt need to be writen...
thanks...fabio
Posted by: fabio napoleoni | May 12, 2006 at 07:04 PM
Hey, I have to say Bravo!
Well done. I really appreciate what you have done. I adore Marilyn Monroe, and I will read anything I see written about her. I have to say this is by far one of the best.
Thanks,
Keri
Posted by: keri w | June 30, 2006 at 12:58 PM
I stumbled onto this site after looking at some of the more recent stuff about this issue. I guess I'm not sure why everyone still thinks this is so fascinating. Ralph Greenson was my great uncle. Passionate and original and witty... What is the "greatest american crime" here? Why is he still-why are WE still constantly being berated? He's dead, she's dead. People still won't leave this alone!
Posted by: S. Greenson | July 31, 2006 at 11:21 AM
If you always want to know what happened to Marilyn Monroe? I did and I found out, the prodcuers of Marilyn Monroe An Act of Murder shows you the timeline of what happened to Marilyn during her last 48 hours. You can see this at http://www.marilynmonroeanactofmurder.com
Posted by: Cheri | November 07, 2006 at 01:19 AM
Hello
mon hommage fait à Marilyn
http://lammquejaime.canalblog.com/
Yvon
Posted by: yvon | January 30, 2007 at 10:53 AM
This is in response to Ralph Greenson's niece.
Marilyn Monroe died while under your uncle's care. He is referenced on this website, Citizens Commission on Human Rights for Psychiatric Human Rights Abuse: http://www.cchr.org/index.cfm/5324 for alleged abuse to Marilyn Monroe while she was under his care. As wonderful as you say he was, he and his cohorts who were there that night were not honest with the police as they should have been. People won't leave this alone because we care about Marilyn and want to know what happened to her. Your uncle had a chance to be "passionate, original and witty" hopefully to a ripe old age...but poor Marilyn Monroe did not and she left this world in a cloud of premature mystery...and people who truly loved her and care about her want the truth...thanks to the lack of honesty and integrity in part to your great uncle, Eunice Murray and Dr. Engelberg on 8/5/62 we will never completely know the answers. Sorry, that's why we won't leave it alone. Maybe if those who were there were more upfront, the rest of us wouldn't be sitting wondering and you wouldn't be bent out of shape with us for questioning. And if you weren't so dog-gone curious about it, why are YOU looking up stuff on Marilyn Monroe? Hmmm....
BTW Danny, great blog!
Posted by: Jennifer J | February 26, 2007 at 02:57 PM
Dear Jen,
wow, I am impressed, you have been blogging for so long, and about Marilyn Monroe, wonderful images, too.
Thank you for your recent purchase from my eBay store. Yeah, those hair pins are the last from that particular lot. I sold out on the powder, the hair clips, the larger pins and they have been sold to Marilyn admirer from all over the world. Most of the items are in appreciative hands.
Did you follow the "CHARACTER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT," that has taken place over the last month?! Some crazy and super obsessed MM fan has threatened me physically, cause I exposed his friend Bebe Goddard and puclished her telling letters to mmdealer Guido Ortenzio as a total crooked criminal.
Weird but reality--these fansites, which were mostly started by Mark Roesler's CMG Worldwide in order to sell the plates, dolls and other MM products, they have started an anti Mark Bellinghaus campaign. But we expected such a move. The Roesler guy is literally done. He will never be believable after putting his name behind a trash collection of thrift store junk, claimed to be worth $8.75 million, when it wasn't worth more than $25K - $30K! That is mega fraud par excellence.
Anyhow, gotta run and it would be nice, if you would write down your thoughts on this, I like your pieces, and maybe you wanna publish something on and about it.
Friends Through Marilyn~Marilyn's Friends!
Posted by: Mark Bellinghaus | March 01, 2007 at 06:11 PM
I like Marilyn Monroe very much!She is very attractive and lovely!
www.jromances.com
Posted by: chloe | March 27, 2007 at 07:24 AM
marilyn monroe had a daughter. her name, nancy miracle
she was never on the show mentioned above and get your facts straight before putting your idiocy in print.
the only truth about the screen star is on marilyn monroe foundation web page
Posted by: marilyn monroe foundation | April 21, 2007 at 04:28 PM
read the play here i am mother by the only woman or man for that matter who really knows the story and has been censored by the estate people who have fed ignorant lies to the general public who chose to believe them.
Posted by: marilyn monroe foundation | April 21, 2007 at 04:30 PM
the strasbergs have lied so much about marilyn monroe that even those who know better are starting to believe them
Posted by: ricky ray | April 21, 2007 at 04:33 PM
Wow! You've gotta see this. This is the coolest pop art of Marilyn Monroe I've ever seen. It's called Marilyn Monroe Tangerine. I think it's even better than Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe. The colors are better-- tangerine, deep purple and sky blue.
And here's the best part. I've also got a secret. I learned that there's a secret web page where you can get
this canvas print and save over $100! Here it is: http://www.marilynmonroepopart.com/secretpage.html.
Also I heard this is only one in a series of thirty-two. Hey I got mine and I'm so gald I did. I'm gonna collect all them. You gotta get yours now before this secret page goes away.
Posted by: Michael Morrison | May 02, 2007 at 12:28 PM
I just read the coolest book. In it, Marilyn comes back to life--in a manner of speaking. It's a futurist thriller called Better Than Chocolate (by Bruce Golden). In it, a "celebudroid" is created to look and act like MM, and then programmed with all her films, all known facts about her. It IS Marilyn, but she begins to grow as a person in this new identity, so she becomes more than just the MM known to history. This celebudroid ends up partnering with a San Francisco police inspector to save mankind from a vast conspiracy. It's fun, it's funny, and it's engaging. You should check it out.
Posted by: Darlene | June 04, 2007 at 03:35 PM
The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe. - book reviews
MARILYN & BOBBY & JACK
I CANNOT understand why Anthony Summers's book Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe - www.MarilynMonroe.name (Macmillan, 1985; NAL paperback, with important postscript added, 1986 --this is the edition I am quoting from) has not had a greater impact upon the informed political sensibility. And this in turn raises questions about the forming of our public perceptions --that is, about why some material is admitted into our sense of a famous man while some other information, no matter how persuasive, is excluded. Perhaps, in this case, the legends of John and Robert Kennedy, shaped by that wintry inauguration in January 1961, by the proclaimed "New Frontier," by notions of "Camelot," and by the assassinations, is so compelling as to resist modification. We prefer those images to disturbing realities. And as far as the Kennedy myth is concerned, Anthony Summers's book is disturbing indeed.
It presents the evidence that John Kennedy met Marilyn Monroe - www.MarilynMonroe.name as early as 1951 and had a long sexual relationship with her that lasted well into his Presidency; that Robert Kennedy, while Attorney General, commenced an affair that overlapped with his brother's; that both men left themselves open to blackmail by the numerous people who had bugged Monroe's residence (there was apparently at least one tape of Robert Kennedy in flagrante delicto); that while Marilyn Monroe - www.MarilynMonroe.name was intimate with the Kennedy brothers she was simultaneously intimate with members of a far-left group in Mexico City, with whom she discussed national-security matters, to the infinite alarm of J. Edgar Hoover; that Marilyn Monroe - www.MarilynMonroe.name believed Robert Kennedy to have promised to leave his wife and marry her, and dreamed of becoming First Lady; that she was threatening to reveal this to the public; that on the day of her death (August 5, 1962) she was visited clandestinely twice by Robert Kennedy, once in the company of Peter Lawford; that Kennedy knew by then that her house was bugged, and searched frantically for the devices; that there are serious reasons to believe that Monroe may not have committed suicide; and that FBI agents and probably members of the Los Angeles Police Department obstructed the official inquiry in order to cover up evidence of her liaisons with the Kennedys.
To say that Summers's thesis has not become entrenched in the national consciousness is not to say that his book has been ignored. It was a bestseller and received excellent reviews in Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, Newsday, the Los Angeles Weekly, and the New York Times. And yet I myself had paid no attention to this book; I suppose I wrote it off as just another biography of Marilyn Monroe - www.MarilynMonroe.name, unlikely to shed new light on the Kennedys. After all, the memoir by Judith Exner (whom Kennedy shared with mobster Sam Giancana), Garry Wills's The Kennedy Imprisonment, and The Kennedys, by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, had done much to bring out JFK's promiscuity and his mob connections. But those books cannot compare with this bombshell.
John Kennedy met Marilyn Monroe - www.MarilynMonroe.name early in her career and began with her one of his many casual affairs, meeting her at hotels in New York and Los Angeles and at Peter Lawford's beach house in Santa Monica. He slept with her after his 1960 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, and on into his Presidency, despite her close connection with various gangsters, until he was warned by J. Edgar Hoover. Then the John Kennedy-Marilyn Monroe - www.MarilynMonroe.name relationship ended.
The Bobby-Marilyn Monroe - www.MarilynMonroe.name affair seems to have begun in February 1962 after they met at a dinner party at the Lawford home. Bobby was at first amused by her attempts at political conversation, then outraged at her pro-Castro, anti-nuclear criticisms of the Kennedy Administration. There were arguments (taped) at her home in which Bobby yelled that she was "going Communist." She called him on a special number at the Justice Department to arrange trysts, while at the same time frequenting the left-wing circle of the expatriate "silver-spoon Communist," Fred Vanderbilt Field, in Mexico City.
Let us go to Summers's painstaking investigation of this whole sordid mess. Summers spent over three years on the book, with the help of several assistants, including a lawyer specializing in Freedom of Information Act requests. His 62 pages of bibliography, notes, and index are reasonably scholarly for a book of this type. The evidence for the Kennedy connection is overpowering, confirmed by Peter Lawford's wives, Marilyn Monroe - www.MarilynMonroe.name 's maid, psychiatrists from the Suicide Prevention Team who counseled Monroe's psychoanalyst after her death, various detectives involved in wiretapping and bugging her home, and many others.
This book abounds with circumstantial detail. Take, for example, Summers's account of an evening in July 1960. The Lawfords were throwing a party; it was the week of JFK's nomination in San Francisco, and the atmostphere is right out of Norman Mailer's The Deer Park. Two officers from the Los Angeles District Attorney's office approached the beach house and were blocked by armed guards. "There had been enough time to observe a wild party going on around the Lawfords' pool, one that included a bevy of women, some familiar to the officer as call girls supplied by a known madam.... Also present was John Kennedy."
This Article From http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n16_v40/ai_6563438
Posted by: Tigran Baroyan | June 15, 2007 at 11:31 PM
In my view John Miner's supposed tape revelations of Marilyn are not believable. I can't believe that people actually believe this kind of stuff. I guess that people receive these as her words simply because they want something new from Marilyn. If you will read some of the interviews that she gave (that are provable)
you will see that the "Miner" material is totally out of character with the way that she thought and spoke. She had many affairs during her life but she was not a total pervert and was not tactless (as this material makes her out to be). I don't know if Miner is lying or if possibly Greenson supplied him with some phoney tapes and I don't know what their motives might have been but If you will study the transcript there are several things that give cause to doubt their credibility. There are many things that contradict the known facts of the time. For instance - Mae West never even knew Marilyn personally. It was of one of her regrets.
These supposed revelations by Miner appear to me to be totally bogus and to be a dishonor to the memory of Marylin. Just because she was a public figure (and cannot defend herself now) should not mean that people should be able to pounce on her and memory. I wish I could see someone stand up for Marilyn by performing a very thourough study of the miner transcripts and publicly prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the material is fraudulous.
Posted by: Dale Reed | July 18, 2007 at 12:22 PM
i think this is amazing. its unclear to me what you believe her death was, but i KNOW she was murdered. i believe the tapes are real, she was a beautiful, very sexual person. this is an incredible "blog" and marilyn lives on through everyone who still remembers!!
Posted by: nikki | August 27, 2007 at 01:35 PM
It appears to me that Marilyn did not commit suicide but was killed with a poisoned enema. She had a lot of plans for the future. She had just recently purchased the home that she lived in and was in the process of furnishing it. She also was in the process of reconciling with Joe DiMaggio. It's strange that although Marilyn spoke with many people on the phone on the night that she died only Peter Lawford's supposed conversation (which I think never happened) is usually recalled - and it is used in support of the theory of suicide. Most if not all of the other people that she spoke with that night said she did not sound drugged and that she revealed to them some secret information regarding her relationship to Robert Kennedy. She also conveyed that she feared for her safety. It seems clear to me that after her first visit with Robert on the afternoon of the day of her death she had decided that she was going to begin exposing some things regarding her relationship to him. In fact, she was in the beginning stages of the process of doing it with several phone calls before she was stopped by someone. I believe Robert did not want his (and his brother's) careers to be ruined. He probably justified his actions by telling himself that it was in the country's best interest. Some people believe that the mob did it in order to try to expose Marilyn and Robert's relationship to the public (which would have ruined the Kennedys). This doesn't make sense because with that motivation it would have been better to let Marilyn expose it herself - which would have been more effective.
It is also my view (as stated in my previous blog) that Miner's supposed revelations are fabrications. There are some people who believe that he came up with this stuff in order to get himself out of the debt that he was in. Miner says that his motivation for coming forth with this info was to prove that Marilyn was not suicidal. But to me, these fake transcripts make her seem suicidal. In them she claims that she wanted to learn to act out Shakespearean plays on film. Which character did she most want to play? It was Juliet - who killed herself. Also the transcript reads like an autobiography of someone trying to set the record straight for future readers (or listeners) - kind of like a suicide note. Miner most likely had help with his attempt to change history. He curiously waited over 40 years to reveal what he supposedly knew (after most of the the people who would have known the facts and might have exposed his lies had died). I suppose he had some perverted-minded people (probably employed by Playboy) to help him.
Don't worry though, the truth will come out one day.
Posted by: Dale Reed | September 20, 2007 at 10:15 PM
I am one of Marilyn's old coach. I am 73 years old. I miss her to death. She was a great actress! I know how she died! She wrote me a suicide not 52 years ago. And she tryed several times and yet failed. But one day she finally succeeded! She went to a better place. The Heavens above.
Posted by: Hollie | September 25, 2007 at 05:07 PM
I found a script or screenplay from the movie Some Like It Hot. The date marked on the script is 7/18/58. Most information i find of this script have a later date.
There are blue, red and black pencil underline marks. Some pages have multiple color underline marks and some have none.
The initials of S.D. are marked at random. I am thinking these are the initials of Set Decoration (Edward G. Boyle). Written on page 117 is " SD Flowers for Osgood".
Can anyone please tell me if this is a original script or not. I am located in San Diego, can anyone recommend a local expert.
Thank you for your time,
DJ APR
Posted by: DJ APR | December 03, 2007 at 09:22 PM
The biography of Marilyn Monroe is available through her daughter Nancy Maniscalco Miracle at the marilyn monroe foundation
Posted by: georgia o'reilly | April 11, 2008 at 01:13 PM
The new sex film of MM was stolen from her! It was also a part of her estate to Lee Strasberg Institute in NYC, if the FBI were ever to return it.
You see, the 16mm film was stolen after a break-in at the MM bungalow. That is a matter of record and was reported because MM had insurance and claimed on it.
The tape was well known to exist because a fellow actor and MM made it together. Phil Silvers was, among other things, an avid collector and maker of porno of the chesse cake kind. Because Silvers and JFK had the same type of back surgery, the otherwise unrecognizable Silvers was claimed to be JFK among circles in Pasedena where the original color version was processed.
The processing was done by a Pasadena color lab, Crane's, who also did much work for the small studio jobbers.
The recent film is a copy, B&W, and has no sound. The original did not have sound but was in color and is actually a whole 19 minutes because it was 24 fps with a Bolex and a 12mm wide angle lens.
So, this new movie is not the original, the technician at Crane's Lab made six copies, and only two were returned to Silvers. It is believed he gave one to MM and another for himself.
The other four copies were retrieved later on by Silvers and have had a long history. After Silvers' death, it came to light that a copy went missing and MM's husband, Joe DiMaggio was offered a b&w of the "original" which would cost $25,000 but Silvers found out about it and the sale never took place after he intervened.
After the death of J. Edgar Hoover, the copy that was stolen from MM was destroyed along with many other files, tapes, and films because Hoover had left instructions. He did not want his "legacy" to be tarnished with hard evidence of an archive which had only been an unverifiable rumor.
And so, eventually all four remaining color originals were eventually purchased from private collectors by the Strasbergs finally, in 1977 and are most likely destroyed.
If anyone offers any film that is less than 19 minutes long, and is not in color, then it is a copy. The Silvers' original that went missing is believed to be in a vault somewhere and unknown. Since the deal with DiMaggio fell through, there were never any more rumors. In fact, the FBI may have broken up the con-artists and added the original and any prints to its archive.
The FBI had a well established laboratory to convert 16MM color to a very fine grained b&w print for analysis. This is perhaps why the current film in the news is said to be from a deceased FBI agent. If you allow for editing and technical considerations, even a gap due to damage, you would end up with a 15 minute version in b&w.
Or, there are 4 minutes out there, somewhere, which could have been cut from the original by Silvers or MM after the processing.
For whatever it is worth, there are several electronic copies in Great Britain which were recently digitized for a businessman who purchased the latest film. These were downloaded during a network breach and will be sure to surface on the world-wide web in due course.
History is such a buzz, isn't it?
Posted by: Banks Armstrong | April 15, 2008 at 11:28 AM
To see and read the real biography of Marilyn Monroe go to the web page www.marilynmonroefoundation.com and read and see her daughter Nancy Maniscalco Miracle. The rest untrue stories by opportunists.
Posted by: uri thompson | April 18, 2008 at 05:13 PM
Wow,
This is an awesome post. So much great information, you can bet I'll be following up on a lot of it including reading as much of the transcripts as I can find.
Oh yeah, and I'll be adding a link to your post on on my websites resource page.
Thanks.
Posted by: Marilyn Monroe Murdered | July 17, 2008 at 02:21 PM
The most beautiful woman to be photographed. All natural and beautiful.
Benigna Marko
Posted by: Benigna Marko | July 29, 2008 at 08:30 PM
Hollywood Mega is going to auction nude pictures of Norma Jean, a.k.a. Marilyn Monroe, at a private auction!!! I am totally against this as I believe they should be put in a museum for everyone to look at. After all, Norma Jean is part of American history and she is an American icon. It's not fair to her fans!!!!! I'm sure that everyone would agree with me about wanting to see those photos. I think they should post them on the internet on a special site commemorating her when she was Norma Jean, that is, before she became Marilyn Monroe.
Posted by: litokitty | August 19, 2008 at 07:58 PM
Theory of a life not lived – Marilyn Monroe’s other story?
Marilyn Monroe – who doesn’t love her? I’ve been fascinated by her since I first saw her in “Some Like it Hot” on TCM. Who could be that sexy? She was amazing. Every girl would want to be her – I know I did.
How tragically young she died and with so many unanswered questions. That’s why I decided to do some research with my good pal T.L. Horton to decide what might have happened if she had lived. I’d like to think she did if only through the pages of a novel.
We looked into all aspects of her life including her psychologist and one time friend Dr. Greenson. We looked at Hollywood stars, the Rat Pack and even the president, John F Kennedy.
Who wanted her killed and why?
I think that is a question that deserves to be answered but we go beyond that to her deep affection for JFK. Did she know who wanted to kill him? Is that why they got rid of her?
T. L. and I wanted to know but we also wanted to fantasize about what might have happened if she had lived. Would history have been changed if she had?
With so many questions floating out there we decided to invent an alternate ending for Marilyn’s life and give it back to her.
If you want to find out how and what may have happened to her visit us at www.whatsheknew.com.
Posted by: kim | December 03, 2008 at 01:16 PM
Marilyn Monroe is an extremely beautiful and amazing women. It makes me so sad to hear that you are dead. I will ♥ you forever!♥♥♥
Posted by: Emma Liversage | December 20, 2008 at 05:01 AM
I think its horrible that people say that Marilyn Monroe is still alive. We all just have to accept that she is dead. No matter how hard it is. We will always love her, but we aren't letting her go by pretending that she is alive. Marilyn will always be in our hearts and lets just hope that she is looking down on us up from heaven and smiling.And I am sure she is. She is gone everyone and we must know that, but one thing that isn't gone is our love for her. And do you know what? We will never ever forget her!
Posted by: Emma Liversage | December 20, 2008 at 05:08 AM
Interesting Blog. I just heard that there is a doculmentary soon to be out called HILDI about Ralph Greenson's wife... and it has an captivating MARILYN chapter in it...
Posted by: Michael | September 06, 2009 at 09:57 PM
Thought you might like to check out this video:
http://carlsbadcrawl.com/?p=2825
Posted by: carlsbadcrawl | October 14, 2009 at 07:59 PM
This is an incredible blog post. I never knew half of these tales.
Posted by: Rebecca Machalek | June 16, 2010 at 10:29 PM
Marilyn Monroe's daughter is around 60 and she is president of the Marilyn Monroe Foundation and in Who's Who in the World, for her work with the foundation, of which she has been the administrator since 1985. She has never been on the Tom Snieder show, whoever he is. And is very beautiful and talented as was her mother. This kind of thing makes me ill. What garbage. Nancy, has been in the courts all before 2005. How disuesting it is to lie about not only Marilyn Monroe, but now about her wonderful daughter, makes me ill to know I am part of a country that has done this to two such beautiful and talented women.
Posted by: Romy Norburg | March 03, 2011 at 02:25 PM
Marilyn Monroe was a wonderful person and unfortunately there isn't that many people like her around anymore. She looked at life in a different way and that's why I think of her as a role model. She is an inspiration to me and hopefully to many others. She will never be forgotten. Love you Marilyn!
Posted by: Cassie | October 19, 2011 at 07:24 PM