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[haunting music playing]
[switch clicks]
[tape rewinding]
[switch clicks, tape plays]
[man speaks indistinctly]
[Marilyn Monroe] Oh, uh, I'd like to ask you,
how do you go about writing a life story?
Because… [sighs]
…the true things rarely get into circulation.
It's usually the false things.
If you ever get any of those things you want to ask, I'll tell you.
All of those things come from the truth, you know?
Because otherwise, it's hard to know where to start
if you don't start with the truth.
[whirring]
[distorted voices]
-[switch clicks] -[man] The truth
and Marilyn, it's like going into the lion's den.
-[tape rewinding] -[music builds]
I got into the case when I was contacted out of the blue
by a senior British newspaper editor,
who said that the District Attorney in Los Angeles
had reopened the case of her death.
After 20 years, it's time to clear up this case.
[reporter 1] Monroe died from an overdose of sleeping pills.
Speculation surrounding Monroe's death continues to this day.
Was it a matter of taking too many pills? Was it a suicide?
[reporter 1] The charge is Marilyn Monroe was murdered.
[Anthony] And crazy conspiracy theories.
[reporter 1] Someone in the CIA killed Monroe.
There's a mystery about the story.
Sex and politics.
The Kennedy brothers.
The Cuban Revolution.
Question mark. Question mark. Question mark.
And that's where I came in.
I'm trying to get a handle on what kind of creature she was.
[man 1] She was very frightened.
[Anthony] I interviewed a thousand people.
[woman] There's a great myth around her.
[Anthony] I wound up with 650 tape-recorded interviews.
I hope I've not got obsessed.
[man 2] I hope your phone is clean.
[Anthony laughs] I hope so too, yes.
The tapes I accumulated during the writing of the book
have never been heard by the public.
[tape rewinds, stops]
[woman] Nobody ever knew everything.
[Anthony] What I learned was information that changed completely
what we thought we knew about her mysterious death,
and it suggests that the circumstances of her dying was covered up.
[haunting music fades]
[Anthony] I worked in investigative journalism
all over the world.
My initial idea was to spend two or three weeks working on the case,
and it turned into more than three years.
Marilyn Monroe had been a part of my growing up.
But I had a very peripheral knowledge of her life.
[announcer 1] Marilyn Monroe, the Golden Girl of Hollywood.
[announcer 2] The dazzling fame of Marilyn Monroe
delights the critics and attracts the public in swarms.
[Anthony] I knew that there was an absolute national
and international fascination with Marilyn.
[announcer 3] Marilyn Monroe was this era's sex symbol.
[announcer 4] Marilyn Monroe trod the summit of her profession.
[announcer 5] Something remarkable happened
when she stepped before a camera.
[Anthony] She was also a remarkable actress.
♪ While tearing off a game of golf ♪
[Anthony] A global figure of show business.
[indistinct clamor]
[gasps] ♪ 'Cause my heart belongs to Daddy ♪
[announcer 6] A queen in her own realm of entertainment.
She was adored by millions.
[Anthony] Marilyn became the most famous woman in the world.
She still is.
[announcer 6] A self-illuminating body, a star.
[Anthony] I started work.
Finding people, knocking on doors.
Dig, dig, dig in that chatterbox of a place called Hollywood.
[phone line rings]
[Anthony] Glued to the phone…
[phone line rings]
…to get to people with information about the night Marilyn died.
[phone line rings, connects]
[man 1] Tony, I have often said that I could put together
a scenario that would absolutely blow the minds of anybody who read it,
but it would be terribly costly to government agencies,
friends of mine, to people I know.
-[Anthony] Yeah. -I don't think I want to do that.
[Anthony] It was difficult.
[man 2] But I never talk to the press ever, ever, ever.
But I can't say anything, and I knew it all.
[Anthony] It was like banging on a brick wall.
-[man 3] Except it's a waste of your time. -[Anthony] Why?
And I wonder if you could--
I don't want to be the one who sets the record straight.
-But, I mean, I don't know you. -[Anthony] Fine.
Let it be.
[ominous music playing]
[Anthony] I was getting nowhere.
So instead,
I did what you always have to do if you meet a dead end.
I went back to the beginning.
[quiet jazz music playing]
[announcer 7] Hollywood,
brilliant tinsel city of lights and fantasy.
Hollywood,
glorified, glittering, fascinating, fabulous mythical kingdom.
Hollywood, the glamour capital of the world.
[Marilyn] When I was a kid, and I remember at the movies on Saturday afternoon…
[actor 1] Let's take a spin down the Boulevard and see what we can find!
[Marilyn] …I'd never come out of the movie. They'd have to come get me.
[announcer 7] Ah, Garbo!
[Marilyn] Bad, good, didn't matter.
[announcer 7] Hollywood's playground!
[Marilyn] Anything that would move on the screen.
[announcer 7] And here inside the gates,
there's more stars than the Milky Way!
If you don't believe it, just follow us!
[Marilyn] My favorite was Jean Harlow.
-She had white hair. -[crowd cheering]
[announcer 7] The one and only Marlene Dietrich!
Cary Grant arrives with his best grin.
As usual, Cary has a genial greeting for everybody!
[Marilyn] And Clark Gable.
[announcer 7] Clark walked into the forecourt…
The crowd is still shouting for their favorite!
[Marilyn] Although I was a kid and I didn't know anything about acting,
I… [hesitates]
I wanted to know.
[phone line rings]
[phone line continues ringing]
[phone line connects]
[Anthony] Could I speak to Al Rosen, please?
[Al] Talking.
[Anthony] Hello, Mr. Rosen.
[Al] Yup.
-Marilyn Monroe. I knew her very well. -[Anthony] You did?
-[Al] I'm talking about in the beginning. -[Anthony] Yes.
-[Al] When she was a kid. -[Anthony] At that time--
[Al] Well, I was… Al Rosen Agency was one of the top agencies in the business.
-[Anthony] Right. -We handled Cary Grant, Fredric March.
-Jack Oakie, Judy Garland, you know. -[Anthony] Right.
[Al] But, you see, the history of this business is
you got one thing, I'll guarantee it, which you didn't know about.
-In this business, in the golden years… -[Anthony] Yeah.
…every casting director, every studio used to have a black book,
you know what I mean?
So, every girl, you know, I'm talking about kids that were breaking in,
like Marilyn Monroe, you know, when they get started,
all the casting directors,
they would write in their black book who could be laid.
[Anthony] Hmm. Yeah.
[Al] You see, the business has changed since then.
Today, it's the buck.
[Anthony] Right.
It used to be sex. Remember that.
[announcer 1] Calling all girls! Calling all girls!
And now, all those lovely hopefuls have their chance.
The process of selecting just the right girls is a careful one.
[announcer 2] My, my, what a smart looking crowd.
Isn't she a honey?
Isn't she sweet?
Neck, 12 and a half.
Bust, 34 and a half.
[announcer 3] Pride. Adventure. Ambition.
From the ends of the Earth they come, waiting for the magic call.
[discordant music playing]
-[phone line rings] -[Anthony] Hello?
[woman] Hello?
How can I help you?
[Anthony] You knew Monroe, um, at the beginning.
[Gloria] Well, my husband knew her first, early '40s.
[Anthony] Oh, as early as that?
[Gloria] Oh, yes.
You know, a generous girl, warm girl, really rather lovable.
She was very much on the restaurant scene and the club scene.
-[Anthony] But at Romanoff's. -[Gloria] Yeah. Enormous fun.
[Anthony] Uh-huh.
And it was quite exotic.
It had a real mélange of people,
and it was sort of the mecca for agents.
It had all of the film VIPs.
-All the pretty girls hung out there. -[Anthony] Right.
[Gloria] And Marilyn was among them, of course.
[announcer 3] So young is Hollywood
that many of its earliest pioneers are still active in the industry.
Men like Joseph Schenck, chairman of the board of 20th Century Fox.
Mr. Schenck brought about an era of epic, dramatic screen stories.
[Anthony] You know the stories about Schenck and her?
They were true, were they?
Oh, sure. Schenck was a human being.
-You know what I mean. -[Anthony] Yeah.
[Al] She had a bunch of 'em. He wasn't the only one.
[Gloria] There were a group who gathered at Schenck's.
-She was always very much at his house. -[Anthony] Yeah.
♪ Anyone can see I love you ♪
[Gloria] And she was beginning to make a few strides.
♪ And smile in your direction ♪
♪ Tells the world my heart is filled With nothing but affection… ♪
[Anthony] So where are we now?
[Gloria] In 1948.
[Anthony] With Ladies of the Chorus. Hmm.
[unsettling music playing]
[Anthony] Male-dominated, women in movies exploited.
But it soon became clear that Marilyn was no pushover.
She wanted to be taken seriously.
She wanted to be an actress.
She worked the system to her own advantage.
Johnny Hyde was one of the most influential agents in the country.
Johnny Hyde loved her.
He left his wife on her account.
He was 53, 30 years older than she was, and very wealthy.
Hyde had access to the most powerful people in Hollywood.
He was also seriously ill and had less than 18 months to live.
Hyde devoted those months totally to Marilyn.
Her sugar daddy.
♪ Every baby needs a da-da-daddy To keep her worry free ♪
[Anthony] By night, he escorted her to the top people in town.
♪ Da-da-daddy But where's the one for me? ♪
[Anthony] By day, he praised Marilyn's talents.
Having Hyde's patronage could make her a star.
♪ Every baby needs a da-da-daddy Could my da-daddy be you? ♪
[song instrumental continues]
-♪ Every baby needs a da-da-daddy… ♪ -[switch clicks]
[John Huston] Johnny Hyde,
who was a dear little man, wonderful little man…
-You know about him? -[Anthony] Yes.
-[Huston] Johnny was in love with her. -[Anthony] Yeah.
[Huston] Johnny Hyde spoke to me about her first
and then brought her over to Metro.
Just, uh, very fresh.
Very attractive.
Rather timid.
Shy.
And, um we talked to her and gave her a script.
She went away and came back a day or two later,
and, well, Marilyn read her lines,
and she read them very beautifully, very well.
And there was no question.
She was ideal for the part.
-[Anthony] In The Asphalt Jungle? -Yes, indeed.
That was that.
[announcer] Only once in a decade does the screen come up with
such absorbing characters.
Marilyn Monroe as Angela, the easy-living, green-eyed blonde.
[Huston] Marilyn went right down into her own personal experience.
For everything.
She would reach down and pull something out of herself
that was unique and extraordinary.
She found things about womankind in herself.
She had no technique.
It was all the truth.
It was only Marilyn, but she was Marilyn plus.
[presenter 1] An award to the popular new star.
And as best young box office personality, Miss Marilyn Monroe.
Thank you, Mr. Nichols.
[announcer] It's Marilyn Monroe, skyrocketing to new dramatic heights.
[presenter 2] Marilyn Monroe, all the moviegoers of America voted you
the most popular actress of the year. My congratulations.
Thank you, Mr. Sammis.
-Congratulations! -Thank you, Lauren.
And my thanks to Look magazine.
[announcer] A Hollywood incident that marks another salute
to Marilyn Monroe.
Thank you. I thank you very much.
[host] And now here comes a young lady who has
created a real sensation in the picture business,
having won all kinds of awards as the number one newcomer of the year.
And believe me, a swell gal with a…
Take it from me, I've known her a long time, Miss Marilyn Monroe!
Let's hear it! Come on out here, Marilyn!
[applause]
[cameras clicking]
[inaudible]
[narrator] With Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.
[dial tone]
[Anthony] Hello, Jane Russell?
[Jane Russell] Yes.
She was very bright, and she wanted to learn
and was interested in everything to help her control her career.
[Anthony] Right.
[Russell] And every night after work, she would go to the coach.
-[Anthony] Yes. -[Russell] We were going home exhausted.
She'd go to the coach.
But she wanted to be good.
Then when…
[dramatic note plays]
…the camera went on, it was like a whole electric light went on in the, you know…
[Anthony] Yeah.
[Russell] They just came to life.
♪ Diamonds ♪
♪ Are a girl's best… ♪
[dramatic trumpet instrumental plays]
♪ Best friend ♪
[trumpet flourish plays]
[applause]
[Marilyn] I just felt like I was on the outside of the world,
and suddenly everything opened up.
[applause continues]
[Marilyn] The world became friendly. It opened up to me.
[indistinct crowd chatter]
[excited chatter]
[Marilyn] I said, "Gee, what happened?"
-[Marilyn giggles] -[crowd cheering, clapping]
[Marilyn] If I am a star, the people made me a star.
But I do want to be wonderful, you know.
["Heat Wave" by Marilyn Monroe playing]
♪ We're having a heat wave A tropical heat wave ♪
♪ The temperature's rising It isn't surprising ♪
♪ She certainly can cancan ♪
[Marilyn] I want to do the best that I can do in that moment.
When the camera starts until it stops.
♪ We're havin' a heat wave ♪
♪ A tropical heat wave ♪
[Marilyn] That moment I want to be… perfect.
♪ Cancan ♪
[Marilyn giggles]
[applause]
[Marilyn] I'll tell you,
I'm terribly grateful
because I remember when…
things weren't like this at all.
[Huston] I saw her a time or two.
-Years had gone by. -[Anthony] Yeah.
So she by now presumably looked different.
By now she was dressed to the T's, and she'd become the…
the sex symbol of this country.
And it wasn't… It wasn't just a sex thing at all.
Women felt just the same as men.
There was something deeply moving about Marilyn, always.
We were close during the picture,
and then we were… we, you know, considered ourselves friends,
but Marilyn kind of went from one group to another.
She would take off, and it would be another.
That would become the shell for a time.
She didn't go back and seek out any of the people
that had become close to her.
[Huston] There was something so vulnerable, so…
Something you felt
could be easily destroyed.
[disquieting music playing]
[camera clicks]
[disquieting music continues]
[Anthony] When you tackle so-called mysteries,
it's difficult.
What happened? Was it suicide? Was it accident?
Was it something more sinister?
-[crows cawing] -[light switch clicks]
[Anthony] So, it was like tapping cement with your finger.
And then I came across
the family of
the last psychiatrist.
It was a breakthrough.
Dr. Ralph Greenson,
the Hollywood psychiatrist
who treated and befriended Marilyn in her final years,
just before her death in 1962.
Ralph was dead.
He had left a widow, Hildi,
and his daughter, Joan,
and his son, Danny.
They were really helpful interviews that gave me a real insight.
[whirring, clicks]
-[man] Hello? -[Anthony] Hi.
I know that your father took over the West Coast work with Marilyn in 1960,
just short of two years that he was involved with her till she died.
[Danny] Well, I hated Hollywood. My family knew enough Hollywood people.
You know, I had, at times, met movie stars at parties
and found the whole thing to be obnoxious.
My notion was these people were… were phoneys and narcissistic characters.
I hated 'em.
So when I heard that Dad was seeing Marilyn,
I was not jumping up and down and cheering.
He couldn't see her at the office. She was too goddamn famous.
He was seeing her at home. I thought, "What a bunch of bullshit."
[woman] I mean, here's the sex symbol of the world.
Here is, you know, what womanhood should be in a nutshell.
[Joan] I mean, there was something about Marilyn
that put her apart from everybody else.
But there were times, you know, that I would pick her up in my Hillman Minx.
-You know, and… -[Anthony] Yeah.
Marilyn without makeup and a scarf over her hair and just sitting there,
you know, you wouldn't think would attract any kind of attention,
and yet, you know, I would suddenly have five people washing my windows.
-But there was just something. -[Anthony] Yeah.
It happened to me too.
[Anthony] Because they knew she was Marilyn--
No! No!
[Joan] There was an at-homeness with her body
that very… I have never seen anybody else have.
To be sort of almost animal-like
in their feel and their movement and…
You know, beautiful and very, in a sense, poetic.
Hildi allowed me access to many of Dr. Greenson's papers, his letters,
which were gold dust.
He thought that Marilyn had a tendency to paranoid reactions.
However, she wasn't schizophrenic,
and her paranoid-like reactions are more masochistic.
Greenson thought that the tendency towards
acting out of the orphan girl rejections
seemed to him central.
She was a waif.
Marilyn's troubled childhood
was a time that the grown woman was never going to forget.
She spent time in ten foster homes,
two years in an orphanage,
another foster home,
four years with a guardian,
when her mother was packed off to a mental asylum.
[Marilyn] And I'm not calling myself an orphan.
I was brought up a waif.
Yeah, I was never used to being happy.
So that wasn't something I was sort of counting on.
[Anthony] In Marilyn,
Greenson saw a woman who was deprived of childhood,
and he thought that what she needed was a family.
[Danny] In all the years he'd been doing that,
my father had never had a patient commit suicide.
He never treated anybody as unorthodoxly as he was treating her.
His feeling was that because of who she was, she could never be hospitalized.
So given that he couldn't do that,
his feeling was the best shot he had
was to try to treat her in this highly unusual,
unorthodox kind of way that he did.
She starts hanging out with the family.
That's how a sort of more of a friendliness then came about.
Before dinner, they would have cocktails.
And that would be where the sort of pre-dinner conversation would go on.
She had a… a mind that searched
and an honest mind that tried to find whatever her truths were.
[Danny] It must have been somewhere along the line
that I began to talk to her.
And it was in that particular setting that I slowly but surely got to know her,
because I certainly know that my opinion changes.
Within that family, I was the new arrived left-winger.
So, but we'd get into these conversations,
and lo and behold, you know, Marilyn would end up on my side.
-[Anthony] Right. -[Danny] So a friendship developed.
I began to like her and to recognize that there was more to this person
than, uh… than met the eye.
[Joan] Well, Marilyn told me that there was a new man in her life.
[Anthony] And what did she have to say?
No, that he was just, you know… you know, really terrific.
-Neat. [laughs] -And he was really neat.
And, you know, cute and…
I mean, it was that kind of… I mean, I remember--
-It was girly talk. -[Joan] It was girly talk.
I mean, the…
She said that this person was so important that she wouldn't tell me who it was.
Calling him "the general."
[tape clicks, rewinds]
[Joan] She was calling him "the general."
[tape rewinding]
-The general. -[tape clicks]
"The general."
The general was the way insiders at the Justice Department
referred to Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
[Joan] And I remember feeling that it was real…
You know, it was real peculiar that here I'm sitting with Marilyn Monroe.
We're talking about boyfriends, and I'm meeting some schlub at art school.
I know that she's talking about somebody that's very big in the government.
And… and it sort of struck me as…
-[laughs] Somehow this is bizarre. -[Anthony] You mean, you knew already--
[Joan] So I didn't know whether it was Bobby or the president.
-[Anthony] Yeah. -[Hildi] It was simply titillating.
[Joan] I mean, I don't even remember the guy I had a crush on back then,
but it was certainly somebody that wasn't gonna hold a candle to that.
[Anthony] '61, in her last year and months.
Yeah.
[Anthony] The rumors about John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe are, of course, legion.
Robert Kennedy was another matter.
That was beginning to interest me more.
[Danny] There was more to this person than met the eye.
[whirring]
[Hildi] Family.
[Anthony] "Orphan girl rejections."
[Joan] The general.
This person was so important.
[Anthony] Question marks.
Mysteries.
Robert F. Kennedy maybe would fit into the pattern of the end of Marilyn's life.
After all,
from her mid-twenties, her romantic involvements
were with famous men.
[pulsating music builds]
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] Joe DiMaggio! Smacked one out of the park!
What a hit! Into the upper deck in left center field!
[Marilyn] He was a wonderful athlete.
[commentator] DiMaggio connects.
[crowd cheering]
[Marilyn] I met him… he had already retired.
[music continues]
[Marilyn] I had very few friends.
It's just that
I like people,
but for friends, I like few people.
[chuckling]
But I think she was quite taken with DiMaggio.
[Marilyn] I saw him for around a year and a half, two years, and we married.
[announcer] Romance that thrills the world!
The marriage of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio.
The girl who starred in How to Marry a Millionaire,
giving another starring performance in How to Marry a Baseball Hero,
and now the pair are off for their happy honeymoon.
[indistinct shouts, cheers]
[Marilyn] He understood some things about me, and…
I understood some things about him.
[indistinct shouts]
[Marilyn] We based our marriage on it.
And I say some things.
[reporter] How have you and Mrs. DiMaggio enjoyed your trip to Japan?
Everything has been fine. We've enjoyed our trip.
The only thing that I have to complain about is I haven't seen much of Marilyn.
She is making a trip to Korea,
touring through the camps and so,
maybe after that we'll be able to spend a little time together.
-♪ With my baby by and by, and by ♪ -[soldiers cheering]
[Gloria] I mean, I really don't think they had a lot in common.
I think she was very touched by his genuine concern for her.
But then quite soon bored…
with his over-possessiveness.
[Marilyn] Well, we're here to make The Seven Year Itch.
-[reporter] That's your latest picture? -Yes.
I'm looking forward to working in it very much.
I hear that you're getting to be quite a cook too.
Joe says you can really broil a mean steak.
Well, I'm learning.
A little slow, but… [chuckles]
Okay.
[quiet jazz music playing]
[Anthony] Joe DiMaggio couldn't deal with being married to the nation's pin-up.
[Billy Wilder] We were shooting Seven Year Itch with Marilyn Monroe.
And do you remember that famous shot?
Do you remember the wind that is lifting her skirt?
Do you feel the breeze from the subway?
Isn't it delicious?
[train rumbling]
[Marilyn] Oh! Here comes another one!
[Wilder] Well, we were all set up to shoot that scene, you know.
There were five and ultimately 10,000 people.
They were like, uh… and look up Marilyn's skirt.
And…
people were heckling from the sidelines,
and people were running up for autographs.
[Anthony] You did Marilyn's hair on several of her films.
[woman] I did Seven Year Itch.
[Anthony] So you were around during that business
that caused the fuss with the skirt blowing up--
[Gladys] Yeah. Joe got very upset about it.
-[Anthony] Did he really or was that-- -[Gladys] Really!
[Wilder] Joe DiMaggio, you know, he was watching it,
and he didn't like it very much,
his wife making a spectacle of herself.
[Gladys] They had a suite in a real old, beautiful hotel.
-And he… beat her up a little bit. -[Anthony] Huh.
[Gladys] Marilyn said that she screamed and yelled for us.
But we couldn't hear her through those thick walls, you know.
[Anthony] She emerged a bit bruised and black eyes and things?
-[Gladys] It was more on her shoulders. -[Anthony] Yeah.
But with a little makeup and everything, she went ahead and worked.
[Marilyn] Our marriage wasn't a happy one. It ended in,
uh, nine months,
unfortunately.
I don't know what else to say.
[indistinct shouts]
All I can say as her attorney is that
this is what we would say was a conflict of careers.
Has Joe moved out finally?
[indistinct clamor]
-[reporter] Okay, Jerry! -I'm sorry. I have to go.
[poignant music playing]
[Danny] My dad had told me…
that she got depressed at times.
About how terrible she felt about herself.
[Anthony] Right.
"Nothing would ever turn out right."
"Nothing would go my way."
[Anthony] Right.
[reporter 1] How do you feel about coming back to Hollywood?
A happy time for you--
Yes, it is. It's a very happy time. I'm happy to be back.
-In my hometown. -[reporter 1] Yes.
[reporter 2] Well, you're a happy girl now?
[hesitates] Uh…
And she talked about this whole litany of depressive thought.
"Nobody likes me."
"Everything I do turns to shit."
"I don't have anybody."
"I'm a waif."
[reporter 2] Marilyn, all we know in New York
is that you and Joe DiMaggio are friends at a distance.
How great a distance?
Well, we haven't seen each other.
[reporter 2] Do you hear from each other? Do you write or talk?
-Um, I'd rather not answer. -[reporter 2] All right, fine.
[emotive music playing]
[Marilyn] Well, when I was put in the orphans' home,
they pulled me, and I kept crying and screaming, "I'm not an orphan."
I called every woman I would see, I'd say, "There's a mama."
If I would see a man, I'd say, "There's a daddy."
[woman] I don't think I have really too much to say about it except
I… I liked her, and…
and we'd talk a lot.
[Anthony] Right.
[Feury] I was at the Strasbergs' parties with her a lot.
[Anthony] Did you see her in the time of her deterioration,
which was the last year or so. Did you--
[Feury] She… she seemed a little bit, um…
She seemed concerned about, uh,
you know, like childhood memories of…
of being molested as a child, things like that.
[Anthony] Talked about it as late as that?
[Feury] She talked about that, I remember.
She felt that she had avoided…
That she knew people who were psychotic from such episodes,
and she felt that at least she'd survived that.
[Anthony] Hmm.
Marilyn said, "It did happen."
"I knew it was wrong."
"But to tell you the truth, I think I was more curious than anything else."
"Nobody ever told me about sex."
"And frankly, I never did think it was all that important."
-[tape clicks] -[man] I was a very, very close friend.
And was friends to the end.
[soft haunting music playing]
[Henry] She wanted to know her father so badly.
I remember a party and this game we'd play.
Everybody said what they'd want most in the world.
[Anthony] Yes.
[Henry] And she said she'd want to put on a black wig,
pick up her father at a bar,
have him make love to her,
and then she'd say, "Well, how does it feel now to have a daughter
that you've made love to?"
[Anthony] Yes.
[Danny] We all need to get out of childhood in one piece,
but if nowhere along the line do you get that sort of reinforcement
that you are worth love, you're lovable, that there's something in you,
that we're a good person,
what you end up with is a sort of emptiness.
[Anthony] Men, eminent men,
again,
powerful and important,
again and again,
if there's any mystery about Monroe's death,
seemed to me to be central.
[tape clicks]
[Anthony] Before jumping in at the deep end, I wanted to know,
did you see her just after the DiMaggio marriage?
We were friends prior to the marriage.
[Anthony] Yes.
Many years before that.
[Arthur] See, my father owned half of Republic Studios at one time.
-So I grew up with these people. -[Anthony] Uh-huh.
But, uh, I think the greatest effect of all was Arthur Miller.
[Anthony] Yes.
[Arthur] The Arthur Miller situation.
[Anthony] Arthur Miller was the nation's most famous playwright.
He was distinguished for his plays, like All My Sons and Death of a Salesman.
[reporter 1] How long have you known Miss Monroe, Mr. Miller?
I met her a long time ago, but I hadn't seen her in years.
But I think I've got the woman who is going to be my wife.
-[reporter 1] You mean Marilyn Monroe? -That's correct.
[reporter 2] When are you planning to have children?
Well, I'm not married yet, dear.
[all laugh]
[reporter 3] This is a personal question.
Is there anything in particular about Mr. Miller that attracted you?
-Have you seen him? -[reporter 3] Yes.
-Yes! -[all laugh]
[Anthony] In 1955, Marilyn was 29,
and he was 40.
Their romance really took off.
[pulsating music playing]
I think she was quite intrigued by people she thought to be bright.
[Anthony] She was bright and trying to further herself
in that sense all the time. Is that right?
[Feury] That would have been my impression.
[Anthony] Marilyn had come to crave artistic credibility and independence.
[Marilyn] What I'd like to accomplish, I would like to be a good actress.
A true actress. An artist, with integrity.
[Anthony] She'd moved to the East Coast,
studied at the famed Actors Studio and started her own production company,
Marilyn Monroe Productions.
[Feury] She had very strong goals for herself.
She was so bright about acting.
[Anthony] You saw her doing things out in the Studio?
[Feury] She'd come over, sit with me at the Studio and things like that.
She'd figure out what she wanted to do with the scene.
[Anthony] She really seems to have worked at things.
[Feury] She really… she really cared.
[Marilyn] I think love and work are the only things that really happen to us.
[Arthur] Arthur Miller thought she was intelligent
and had a brain that was never cultivated.
And that's where he courted her.
[Anthony hesitates] You mean that it was a Svengali situation?
-[Arthur] That's correct. -[Anthony inhales]
[indistinct chatter]
[Anthony] It was the coming celebrity wedding of the year,
and it got enormous attention.
It all amounted to a new beginning.
[reporter] Ms. Monroe, could you tell us what kind of a wedding you're gonna have?
Very quiet, I hope.
[poignant piano instrumental playing]
[Anthony] The couple married in a quiet ceremony.
He gave her a ring inscribed,
"Now is forever."
Marilyn wrote on the back of one of the wedding photographs…
"Hope, hope, hope."
[music continues]
[Anthony] The couple traveled to London to make a film
for Marilyn Monroe Productions,
The Prince and the Showgirl.
After a party,
she happened upon some notes that Arthur Miller had left lying around.
Marilyn told her acting coach,
"It was something about how disappointed he was in me."
"How he thought I was some kind of angel
but now he guessed he was wrong."
"He'd married a woman as flawed as his previous wife had been."
Miller also wrote in the note that she was a whore.
An incident that Marilyn would refer to time and again.
What does it mean?
She thought he wanted to love her, but…
how could she be protected against love's tenderness or brutality?
[microphone crackles]
[phone line ringing]
[man] Studio.
-[Anthony] Can I speak to Milton Greene? -[Milton] Speaking.
Good morning. It's Tony Summers.
The business with you,
I had gathered that you were her close friend and associate.
Close friend and associate. We loved each other, period.
[Anthony] Was it your impression that when she was actually married,
that she was pretty much of a good, faithful wife?
[Milton] She was. She really was. She wanted a baby.
In fact, during Prince and the Showgirl,
she said, when it's over, she's gonna go home and have a baby.
And I said, "Well, great."
"Get the white picket fence, and I think it's a good idea."
[Anthony] Yes.
Did she ever talk to you about her desire for children?
[Milton] If you gave her a choice between children and stardom,
it would have been children…
without question.
[Danny] There were some photographs,
I think it was a picture of her and Miller's father.
And she said to me,
"This is my happiest period."
And I asked her why.
She showed me the picture and said, "I was pregnant then."
[Henry] Yes, she was pregnant by Miller during Some Like It Hot.
♪ Running wild, lost control ♪
♪ Running wild, mighty bold ♪
♪ Feeling gay, reckless too ♪
♪ Carefree mind, all the time Never blue ♪
♪ Always goin', don't know where… ♪
[phone line connects]
[man] If you watched her
in the picture that I worked with her on called Some Like It Hot…
-[Anthony] Right. One of my favorites. -[man] She was so wonderful.
[Anthony] How much of her career did you know her through?
All the way through.
-[Anthony] From the start? Gosh. -Yes.
♪ And nobody else but you ♪
[Sydney] She had a very naive quality about her, very soft, gentle quality.
-[Anthony] Yeah. -♪ Boop boop be doo ♪
♪ I wanna be kissed by you, just you ♪
♪ And nobody else but you… ♪
[Sydney] That's the way she could be, you see.
♪ …kissed by you alone ♪
[Sydney] That's the way she was, not could be. She was evanescent.
-♪ To anything higher… ♪ -And I…
Well, uh, she wasn't happy many times, Mr. Summers.
I… I remember…
♪ Deedly-deedly-dum, boop-boop-a-doop ♪
[Anthony] I wonder if you're about to tell me
about her problems with childbearing,
and she did lose the baby.
Uh, it seemed to me that the crises that are supposed to have occurred,
seem to have occurred because of her miscarriages.
Am I on the wrong track with that?
Everything connects in a person's life, particularly hers, you know?
And it's sad.
[Wilder] She was slightly discombobulated at all times.
But by God, when you suffered through that scene,
through the 30, 40, 50 takes sometimes,
you had something there, you know.
Something absolutely unique that cannot be duplicated.
I had no problem with Monroe. Monroe had problems with Monroe.
She had problems with herself.
[Sydney] I can give you the reason for that one.
But I can't say anything. And I knew it all.
I'm awfully sorry.
You sound very nice, but I really… It makes me unhappy to talk about it.
It really does.
-[Anthony] You know you-- -[Sydney] She's been gone 20 years…
-[Anthony] Oh yes. -…Mr. Summers.
[Anthony] I know.
[Sydney] I can't bring myself to talk about it.
[somber music playing]
[Marilyn] Just being able to be
another human being,
to be someplace…
Having certain kinds of secrets for yourself.
There is a need for aloneness, you know?
[haunting music playing]
[Anthony] Presumably you were very abruptly aware of the decline
when you started The Misfits.
I was aware from the-- Yes, I was aware from the beginning.
And I saw there was something that she was…
She was not the fresh little girl that I'd known originally.
Very soon we were aware that she was a problem.
She'd be late on the set always.
Sometimes the whole morning would go by.
Sometimes she'd be all right.
Occasionally, she'd be practically non compos mentis.
[Anthony] Obviously the cause was the pills.
[Huston] The narcotics were the problem.
[Anthony] Many people abuse prescription drugs in Hollywood.
And Marilyn was no exception.
She used uppers, amphetamines, and downers, barbiturates for years.
And most dangerously, sleeping pills.
Did you account for it because her marriage was breaking up?
Was this upsetting her so deeply or…
[Huston hesitates] I discovered this in the course of the picture.
I remember saying to Miller one day…
I said, you know, that if she went on at the rate that she was going,
why, she'd be in an institution in two or three years, or dead!
And I said anyone who allows her to take a drug ought to be shot.
It was almost an accusation against him.
An indictment against Miller.
[Anthony] When did you last see her alive?
[Huston] At the end of the shooting of Misfits.
[Marilyn inhales]
[Marilyn] Happiness…
Does one ever know that?
[haunting music]
[Anthony] 1961…
That looks like any movie star being mobbed by reporters.
In fact, Marilyn spent four days at Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic
for treatment of her abuse of sleeping pills,
but the press had got wind of it.
[reporter] Marilyn!
[Anthony] And she came out of there through the mob of newsmen
and switches herself on
and looks fairly composed.
[reporter] Marilyn!
[Anthony] Marilyn was quoted as saying she felt wonderful.
I feel wonderful. Thank you.
[Anthony] The truth, though,
this was a woman who'd been deeply emotionally distressed.
Just months later, she'd be dead.
Why?
[crowd cheering wildly]
[indistinct clamor]
[Anthony] She got divorced from Miller in January '61,
on the same day that the president was inaugurated.
[Hildi] Here she was now, again divorced and terribly lonely.
[Arthur] That's when the Kennedys came back in there.
[Anthony] After the collapse of her marriage to Miller?
-[Arthur] Right. -[applause]
-[Anthony] Were you aware of that? -[Arthur] Oh, yes.
But Jack, that started in the early and mid '50s.
[Anthony] It started way back in the '50s?
-Yes! -[Anthony] Uh-huh.
[Arthur] Oh, of course it did.
[Anthony] How early do you think you started hearing
any information at all about Marilyn and the Kennedys?
He'd been out here on and off all through the '50s.
'Cause he had lots of friends here, you know,
spending lots of time, you know.
-[Arthur] He used the Malibu Inn. -[Anthony] Yes.
-[Arthur] And drank at the Malibu Cottage. -[Anthony] Uh-huh.
The raunchiest looking thing you've ever seen in your life.
[Anthony] They actually got away with staying out there together
and walking on the pier?
-Oh yeah, because Jack wasn't known… -[Anthony] Yeah.
…here at all.
He was a senator. He was totally unknown here.
I, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, do solemnly swear…
[Arthur] No one ever expected Jack to become the president or the nominee.
…and I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.
[judge] And will to the best of your ability…
[Arthur] He's just some smart-ass rich kid's son that became senator.
Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
So help you God.
So help me God.
[crowd cheering]
[Anthony] So, when did the Bobby thing start?
[Arthur] After Jack.
[Anthony] But you did have the impression there had been,
in phase, relationships with both of them, did you?
Ah, yes.
[Anthony] Right.
[Arthur] Yes.
♪ Whose broad stripes And bright stars… ♪
[Arthur] But, in '61,
the meeting headquarters was at Pete Lawford's house.
In Malibu.
[Anthony] The palatial home of Peter Lawford and his wife Pat,
one of JFK's many sisters.
Peter Lawford was a member of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack.
In 1961, Marilyn stayed the night here,
on occasion, with the Lawfords as their friend,
but also they threw famous parties here.
["The Last Letter" by The Blossoms playing]
[Anthony] And at various points, the Kennedy brothers both came here.
♪ Open your mailbox, baby… ♪
[woman] Just the things that were going on in that beach house.
Not discreet at all.
Of course, there was nothing discreet about any of the Kennedys either.
[Anthony] Was Marilyn there when you were there with either of them?
[Jeanne Martin] Mm-hmm. I mean, it was just mind-boggling.
Peter would obviously be, you know, sort of pimping for both Kennedys.
They would do it just as soon in front of anybody.
Yeah, their wives could be in the other room,
and many times were, you know.
[Anthony] While jumping about with a lady in another room?
Yeah. I mean, I found a hand up my breast.
The president owned it. [scoffs]
[Anthony] Was Bobby a grabber?
Yeah.
Not in the terms that Jack was.
They were tacky, they were corny, they were… you know, the father was.
[Anthony] Oh yeah.
[Martin] They were chips off the old block.
[Anthony] And live up to Dad?
Ol' Joe Kennedy is well known for telling the boys,
"Get laid as often as you can with as many women as you want."
He actually told his boys that.
[Al] You know, his father was a bigger wolf than he was!
[Anthony] Oh, Joe. Yes.
He came out here, and he had an office here,
which later became RKO.
See, before, any con artist could come into the motion picture industry
and make a buck.
[Anthony] Right.
And he used to fuck up in his office.
I used to have to wait outside the door, for chrissakes,
while he was getting laid.
I mean, I'm talking about Joe.
[Anthony laughs] Right.
So he still had power in Hollywood for years afterwards, did he?
[Al] Yeah.
Remember that.
[Anthony] But was it your impression there was a Bobby thing then
or that there was a Jack thing then?
Both.
[Anthony] I mean, you would think the brothers sharing a lady…
I do.
[Danny] It was in the dining room one day,
and she was talking about going over to Lawford's house.
"I want something to talk to him about."
-[Anthony] Robert Kennedy? -Right.
We talked about some political questions. She actually ended up writing them down
and putting them in her purse, and then she went there.
[Gloria] She was seated with Bobby
and had made some little notes,
feeling that she really wasn't quite bright enough for the crowd.
And, um, at one point,
he got up and called his father long-distance
to say that he was seated with Marilyn Monroe,
and would his father like to say hello to Marilyn.
-[Anthony] Who? -This is Bobby.
And I think he asked her to dance.
They did that.
[Anthony] And Bobby lasts well into the presidency, right?
[Arthur] Yes, that's what she said on numerous occasions.
Again, she just didn't lie. She just spoke quite openly.
[Anthony] What picture did she paint
of the state of the Kennedy thing at that point?
[Arthur] Oh, nothing but love.
Nothing but admiration.
[Anthony] Yeah.
Whatever the exact nature of the Kennedy brothers' relationship with Marilyn,
they were playing with fire.
There were bitter enemies.
Those who wanted to get the dirt on Jack and Bobby Kennedy.
[interviewer] Tonight, we go after the story of a private detective,
who helps Confidential magazine pry into the lives of Hollywood stars.
An ex-cop, now one of the highest-paid private detectives in the United States.
He's Fred Otash.
Now then, Fred Otash, you take any case that pays you money, is that not so?
-Correct? -That's correct.
Any case at all?
I won't take a case for a member of the Communist Party or a communist.
I sort of draw the line there.
[interviewer] How do you justify invading people's privacy like that?
Well, I feel this way, if you can see it or hear it,
you're not invading any privacy.
Being a private detective is a dirty job. There's no two ways about it.
But I do a certain job,
and I try to determine if the facts and the items are true.
-[interviewer] You just want the facts? -That's right. The true facts.
[phone line beeping]
-[Anthony] Fred Otash? -[Fred] Yeah.
It's Tony Summers here.
[Fred] I worked for and against the Mafia. I worked for and against law enforcement.
I worked for and against the White House.
And I worked for Hoffa.
[Anthony] Jimmy Hoffa.
Jimmy Hoffa was the leader of the Teamsters Union.
It's a truckers' union of the United States.
Famously corrupt, enormously powerful.
Very much connected with the Mafia.
[Fred] You can't be head of the Teamsters unless you're approved by the Mob.
Hoffa was the Mob.
[Anthony] Hoffa had been targeted by Robert Kennedy.
[suspenseful music playing]
-[Robert] Where'd you get the money? -[Hoffa] What'd you say?
[Robert] Do you have any evidence of the $20,000 in cash?
-[Hoffa] No. -Did you receive any of this money?
I don't believe that I did.
[Robert] Suggest anything to you?
[lawyer] It doesn't suggest anything except the fact that you're trying again
to embarrass Hoffa. That's all.
[Fred] Hoffa, he had a vendetta for Bobby. Kennedy had a vendetta for Hoffa.
Mr. Hoffa, did you say, "That SOB. I'll break his back."
Figure of speech. I don't know who I was talking about.
I don't know what you're talking about.
[Fred] Hoffa wanted to neutralize Kennedy.
[Anthony] They wanted to get Bobby.
He was the hated target because he was the attorney general.
What Hoffa wanted
was for me to develop a derogatory profile on Jack and Bobby Kennedy
and their relationships with Marilyn Monroe.
And the strategy that was agreed upon was to use electronic devices,
and the most logical place to set those devices
was Peter Lawford's home in Malibu.
That was the Kennedy playground.
And wire up Marilyn's home…
in Brentwood.
[Joan] The house on the Helenas was the first piece of property that she
ever had owned in her whole life.
And my father encouraged the whole idea that
she alone as a person could own and put down roots and have her own place.
It was something that hadn't occurred to her.
And she was, you know, very excited about establishing her own sort of family.
What Pop wanted to do was to have her stand on her own two feet.
[Marilyn] But there is something in people, they want solitude for a while.
That I'm quiet and to myself more.
[Danny] Somewhere in there, my dad went away.
-[Anthony] Yeah. -[Danny] To Europe.
And he left with her in fairly decent shape.
But I think she was starting that movie.
[Anthony] That's right.
[Joan] In a sense, the less important we became in her life, the better off.
That meant that she had her own life.
-[man 1] All right, camera! -[man 2] It's 11.
It takes me two seconds. It's taken…
You've… you've had two days. Sorry, George, but we can do it.
[George Cukor] Good, good, good.
All right, cameras!
-[footsteps fading] -[Cukor indistinct]
Yeah, one more. That was good though, right?
[man] He thought very highly of her, George Cukor did.
And she would become even more of a star.
[Robin] I'd have to look into my journal and see what he said.
-If I wrote it down as a quote. -[Anthony] I'd be interested in that.
[Robin] This is a quote. "Marilyn will turn out to be
the most popular actress of her generation, probably of this century."
[man 1] 502. Speed.
[Marilyn] Mr. Cukor, on this film, has been
very wonderful to me.
Trying to be happy is almost as difficult as trying to be a good actress.
You have to work at both of them. [laughs]
[Robin] "Her best films would have come late in her career."
"She had a great untapped dramatic talent."
But anyway, she was making that movie, and… my dad, when he left said,
"You guys should try to pitch in."
He wanted to make sure that she wasn't running into some trouble.
There was always great danger that she might…
get involved with somebody or something.
[Anthony] Yes.
[Fred] The bugs were installed in the bedrooms and on the phones.
And there were four bugs altogether installed out there.
They were placed under carpets,
in the chandeliers, and in ceiling fixtures.
You could wire a telephone five miles from the location.
I had sent Danoff out there.
John Danoff.
[Anthony] 1961 being the year
John Danoff was listening to Marilyn Monroe with JFK.
[Fred] Yes.
[Anthony] Testing, testing. Danoff, Danoff, Danoff.
[John Danoff] The conversation that came across the receiver,
it would fade in and fade out.
[beeping over phone line fades]
[John Danoff] Music, people talking,
and I'm then beginning to recognize the voices,
the Bostonian accent and Marilyn Monroe.
I heard the president call Marilyn "Marilyn,"
or Marilyn calling the president "Prez."
Any conversations on the phone,
some with Jack Kennedy, some with Bobby Kennedy,
some with Monroe, some with other people.
Arrangements for meetings, there were gonna be rendezvous
with Jack Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Monroe.
So there were numerous tapes made on Marilyn and Jack at the beach house
in the act of lovemaking.
[John Danoff] They went into the bedroom where there was another transmitter,
which picked up cuddly talk and taking off her clothes,
the sex act in the bed.
[Fred] And someone wired up Marilyn's house
on behalf of Hoffa.
Bobby Kennedy was there many times.
There were more tapes made out of Robert Kennedy and Monroe,
as opposed to Jack Kennedy and Monroe.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Anthony] I managed to get to Bobby Kennedy's
personal secretary at the Justice Department.
[woman] This is in '62, shortly before her death.
It must have been that summer.
Whenever she called,
and I would always answer the attorney general's personal calls,
she would talk to me.
It was as though she were reaching out.
[Anthony] Right.
[Angie] And Bob would call her back, and they'd talk.
[Anthony] Oh, yes. Here it is.
An FBI file on Marilyn
that dealt with security matters,
national intelligence,
and the subject line, Marilyn Monroe SM-C,
for security matter, communist.
The FBI had long watched Marilyn,
especially at the time she was married to Arthur Miller,
who was supposed to be a communist and had joined up for a little while.
It was the middle of the Cold War.
[newscaster] The entire globe,
yesterday, the site of a momentous conflict.
The conflict which has become known as the Cold War.
The long, dangerous standoff between the United States
and the communist Soviet Union.
[reporter 1] The Communist Bloc would like to see the world
under communist domination.
[reporter 2] Recently, we've seen it extend into turbulent Cuba.
Does that disturb you? It should.
[Anthony] Nuclear war was a constant threat.
[reporter 3] You are in the crosshairs of the bombsight.
[host] A massive nuclear intercontinental capability.
The communist plan for world domination.
It is a contest unlike any we have ever faced in our history as a nation.
[Anthony] A March 1962 document,
during a trip to Mexico,
Marilyn spent time with friends,
known American communists and left-wingers.
They'd been kicked out of America.
She told one of them, Fred Vanderbilt Field,
of a talk she'd had with Bobby Kennedy about politics.
She'd mingled with communist American expats.
And FBI agents had been watching.
To the intelligence agencies,
the Kennedys' celebrity plaything,
a volatile creature running to her psychiatrist every day,
chattering on the telephone to all and sundry,
was absolutely the wrong woman
to be on intimate terms with the president and the attorney general.
[man] I remember when she sang for the president.
[Anthony] This was only a month or two before she died, of course.
[Henry] And she was so excited about it.
'Cause, "Why, the president of the United States," you know.
You know, it was one of the most exciting things of her life.
President is winding up his New York day here at Madison Square Garden
in a sort of pre-birthday celebration.
Mr. Kennedy has the best seat in the house at the function,
and it will be starting just about now, the finale for this affair.
Mr. President,
on this occasion of your birthday, this lovely lady, Marilyn Monroe.
-[crowd cheering] -[applause]
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday, Mr. President ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
♪ We thank you so much ♪
Everybody! Happy birthday!
[orchestra plays]
[Henry] Just being the one to sing.
She was picked.
[ominous music playing]
-[whirs, distorted voice] -[Henry] She was picked.
The one.
[Anthony] Two documents that make extraordinary reading.
On July the 13th, 1962,
an unnamed informant quoted Marilyn as saying she'd just days earlier
lunched with President Kennedy at Peter Lawford's house on the beach.
They had, she said, discussed the morality of atomic testing,
and Marilyn was described as positively and concisely leftist.
And they especially get in a state when Marilyn had spent time with Robert Kennedy
at the home of the Peter Lawfords in Hollywood.
He had been in California, had seen her there,
and then headed to Nevada
to witness a nuclear weapons test.
Now remember,
at that very time,
Cuba's Fidel Castro
was making urgent appeals to the Soviet Union for military help.
Khrushchev shipped ballistic missiles to Cuba,
dozens of miles from Florida.
Nuclear matters were the dominating international issue…
and they were just loose-lipped.
They were bloody idiots, weren't they?
Because she was in touch with people who were regarded as communist,
all of whom were talking to Fidel Castro's people.
The political risk was extreme.
This is very possibly the thing to which the Kennedys said,
"Shit."
"She can make public that we've been discussing nuclear matters
at this critical time."
"We've got to stop all this."
"We can't deal with Marilyn Monroe anymore."
[ominous music continues]
[Arthur] We met in Laguna.
[Anthony] Uh-huh.
[Arthur] A month before she died.
[Anthony] Was that just for supper or something?
She came down for the weekend.
And… she told us the…
What had really taken place with the Kennedys.
[Anthony] Huh.
[Arthur] I can… You know, I can go into the dirt,
or I can go into lots of other things,
but she… She was…
She was, uh, hurt.
Terribly hurt when… [hesitates] …she was told directly
never to call or contact again.
[Anthony] Not to talk to Robert anymore?
-Robert or John. -[Anthony] Right.
They had both said, "That's it. No more"?
[Arthur] Well, no, that was an order.
[Anthony] But both of them had said to her, "That's the end of it"?
-[Arthur] No, Jack didn't contact her. -[Anthony] Yeah.
[Arthur] Bob did.
[Anthony] I see.
[Arthur] And that's what killed her.
[Anthony exhales]
[Arthur] I don't care what anyone else says.
It was the beginning of the last day, if you will.
[somber music playing]
[Anthony] How did she seem?
[Gloria] Prior to her death?
-[Anthony] Yeah. -[Gloria] Uh…
She had been mixing drink and sleeping pills.
[Anthony] I find varying accounts. She was really on the downward path.
I thought she very definitely was on the downward path.
And I just never could quite understand whether
she understood there was help to be had
and people did care about her.
And whether she was just…
letting go.
[Marilyn] I like to stay here and now.
Fame is fickle.
It had its compensation.
But… it also has its drawbacks.
And I know it.
I've had you, fame.
So long!
[announcer 1] One of the most famous stars in Hollywood history is dead at 36.
[reporter] Her housekeeper, Eunice Murray,
found the actress dead in bed,
holding in one hand a telephone, which was off its hook.
Bottle of sleeping pills near her bed.
[announcer 2] No notes were found.
[announcer 3] The coroner ruled the cause of death an overdose of drugs.
It is our opinion, probable suicide.
Well, the official finding will never tell the story
of her life and end.
[Anthony] Marilyn Monroe's death was just a huge event,
pages and pages and pages.
Question marks.
Dig, dig, dig.
Over two years.
Hollywood,
Los Angeles,
the bugging, the eavesdropping.
Had she been murdered?
John F. Kennedy,
Robert Kennedy,
Jimmy Hoffa.
Rumor.
White House files, FBI files.
Honesty.
Assembling the facts.
And…
Marilyn's death.
Focus, focus, focus.
The public version of the story,
the accepted version in 1962,
turns on the word of Mrs. Murray,
Marilyn's housekeeper, and of Dr. Greenson.
On Saturday, August 4th, her final day alive,
at about 8:00 p.m., according to Mrs. Murray,
Marilyn went into her bedroom and closed the door.
Then perhaps sometime after 3:00 a.m.,
she woke to find the light still on.
The door, Mrs. Murray said, was locked.
Worried, she phoned psychiatrist Greenson.
He got up and drove the mile and a half to Marilyn's house.
According to him, he then managed to peer through a window
to see Marilyn lying facedown on the bed.
Having broken a window and climbed in, Greenson said, he had told Mrs. Murray,
"We've lost her."
They called the police, according to police records, at 4:25 a.m.
4:25.
The original timeline has been a fixed point of the official story,
but I had significant breakthroughs on that front.
The biggest breakthrough I had was when I got to the widow of Arthur Jacobs,
the man who ran Marilyn Monroe's public relations.
Natalie Jacobs told me that that evening,
she and her husband had been at the Hollywood Bowl
listening to a Henry Mancini concert.
[Natalie] I will never forget that night
because we were at the Hollywood Bowl,
and someone, I don't know who it was, that came to us,
and all I remember is that we were no longer
at the Hollywood Bowl, if you know what I mean.
[Anthony] Yes. So when would you think you heard the news
and had to leave the Bowl?
About half past ten.
[Anthony] And you then left and went home, and he went to Marilyn's place?
-Exactly. -[Anthony] Right.
An attendant had come and called her husband from the auditorium
and brought him to the telephone
because something was terribly wrong at Marilyn Monroe's house.
Now, how does one account for the fact that
the housekeeper is supposed to have called Dr. Greenson,
and he is supposed to have got in at 3:30 in the morning
and found Marilyn lying dead on the bed,
nobody else in the house except the housekeeper?
That's not true because my husband was there.
[Anthony] Yes, and had been there for some hours by that time.
That's correct.
-[Anthony] Remember, the official story-- -My husband fudged everything off.
[Anthony] Ah.
I cannot tell you why because he's no longer with us, as you know.
-[Anthony] He didn't tell you why-- -Don't forget, that was his business.
To keep the press at bay. He kept everyone in abeyance.
[Anthony] Okay. [inhales]
The important thing is that she stresses that this was well before midnight.
I found corroboration for what Natalie Jacobs had told me.
A member of Arthur Jacobs' staff, Juliet Roswell.
And I find my original handwritten note,
um, in which she says that Jacobs did say,
"I went out to Monroe's house at eleven o'clock at night."
You couldn't have Mrs. Murray, the housekeeper, finding Marilyn dead
at three o'clock in the morning
and also Arthur Jacobs being called away from the concert
as early as eleven o'clock.
What was going on at the house between 11:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m.?
Clearly a key question. And in the end, we got answers to it.
I found the DA had been contacted by a former ambulance man.
And he said that he'd been aboard an ambulance
that had gone to Marilyn Monroe's house that night.
-[DA] What happened? -[man] What do you mean?
[DA] Did you go into the house?
-[Ken] Yeah. -[DA] Did you see Monroe's body?
[Ken] Yeah, she was on the bed.
[DA] Do you recall whether she was on her back or stomach?
[Ken] Side.
-[DA] She was on her side. -[Ken] Yes.
[Anthony] His allegation stood all by itself.
So I made my way to the offices of Schaefer Ambulance
and talked to Mr. Schaefer himself, Walt Schaefer.
-[dial tone] -[distorted voice]
[Anthony] Forgive me troubling you.
I talked to Ken Hunter, who used to drive for you.
[Walt] Yeah?
[Anthony] And Ken Hunter said one of your ambulances was called,
what, during the night?
-[Walt] Yeah. -[Anthony] Do you know where it took her?
[Walt] Took her to Santa Monica emergency.
[Anthony] Now the reason that puzzled me
was that according to all the public reports,
in the end she was dead at home.
[Walt] No, she wasn't.
[Anthony] Your impression is she was alive but presumably somewhat comatose.
[Walt] Yes, that's right.
[Anthony] I mean, you're quite certain? You'd put money on it?
[Walt] Yeah.
[Anthony] She was picked up and taken,
-comatose, to the hospital… -[Walt] Right.
…and that was the end so far as Schaefer's were concerned?
[Walt] It's the truth.
And what's more, I found no less than seven members of Schaefer Ambulance,
who corroborated the notion that she had been carried that night.
And this is a huge development in the story.
But then, it would have been between the two drivers and--
-[Walt] The other people involved. -[Anthony] Involved.
[Walt] I don't know who was involved.
[microphone crackles]
[Anthony] Could you just summarize for me what Greenson told you
and when it probably was that he told you it?
Greenson and I were both at a… at a lunch.
I was sitting next to him at the table.
-[Anthony] Yes. -[Sherlock] And…
This is after she died. '64, somewhere like that.
Quite closely related to her death.
[Anthony] The question was whether she died in the ambulance
or whether she got to the hospital,
and as I remember, Greenson told you that, yes, she'd been taken away by ambulance
and that she got to a hospital. Isn't that right?
They took her to St. John's.
[Anthony] St. John's Hospital. Just recap on it for me.
And that she died in the ambulance.
Then they took her back to the house. That was what he told me.
[Anthony] She died on the way, and the ambulance brought her body back.
[Sherlock] Right…
[Anthony] Greenson didn't say he was with the ambulance, did he?
[Sherlock] Yeah, he did! He told me that he was in the ambulance.
[Anthony] But he never reflected any of that to you?
Um…
Yeah, I just don't feel comfortable telling you what he told me.
[Anthony] I mean, about, for instance, that weekend when it had happened.
She died.
This sort of thing was not talked about.
-People of that magnitude. -[Hildi] Yeah.
Also, he wouldn't want to burden me with
a knowledge that I would then have to hide.
[Anthony] Who was actually at the house?
And what were they doing? Why were they there?
-[tape rewinding] -[suspenseful music playing]
[phone line ringing, connects]
[man] Hello?
Hello, Bill Woodfield?
[Bill] Yes.
[Anthony] Hi, evening. Um…
[Bill] I don't want to go through it with Marilyn again because, uh…
[Anthony] I respect that the journalism that you did in two or three days,
and which it appears to me, nobody else tried seriously to do
or has done since--
Listen, I don't know really anything else that I feel that I ought to do.
[Anthony] I would like you--
-Tony! -[Anthony] Yeah?
This has not had any interest for me in a long time.
I went in, did my number, took my money and got out of the business!
[Anthony] I would frankly like you on board in some way.
Find out where Bobby Kennedy was that weekend.
[Anthony inhales] Yeah.
It's January the 24th, 1984,
in the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles with Harry Hall.
[Harry] Do you wanna ask me something or--
[Anthony] Yes, I thought maybe I'd kick you off.
You said yesterday that you knew something about the events.
Did you learn anything about Bobby's movements the weekend Marilyn died?
Yeah, I had heard,
on good authority, that the Saturday that this happened,
Bobby had come into town.
Bobby was in town and supposedly left.
And when I say I heard it, I heard it from a federal agent.
[Anthony] Can you tell me which agency?
[Harry] Yes. It was definitely from the FBI.
[tape rewinding]
[Anthony] Were you aware that Bobby was in town?
I think he was at Peter's house at the beach.
[Anthony] Yes.
Yeah, that's what I…
In fact, I… [hesitates] I must say, yes, I… I do remember that.
-He was. -[Anthony] Right.
-He was at Peter's house at the beach. -[Anthony] Right.
Somebody said the guy you certainly need to speak to is a guy called Reed Wilson.
The only thing is that he won't talk to you.
Wilson was renowned in government and business circles
as one of the most effective, discreet eavesdropping operatives
in the United States.
He was working directly for Fred Otash.
Last week, I did go to see him, Fred Otash.
And no sooner had I sat down at his table
than he said, "Have you been talking to Reed Wilson?"
[Reed] Well, I hope your phone is clean.
[Anthony laughs] I hope so too. Yes.
-[Reed] Which is a good question. -[Anthony] Yes.
Did Freddy, uh, cooperate? And if you don't wanna tell me, okay.
But I can call Fred. He'll tell me.
[Anthony] He said that Reed, in my experience,
had never been known to be a liar.
Well, you're talking to a lot of people, and, you know,
you're obviously really intent on getting into this thing.
[Anthony] It was difficult to get to him.
I had to meet him at various locations
at points when he didn't show up, but I knew that I was being watched.
And eventually came close to getting his full confidence.
So I'm not at all of the mind of the loony people
who write books saying she was murdered.
[Reed] That Marilyn was murdered is baloney.
[Anthony] Straighten me out a bit.
-[Reed] I'll put you straight on it. -[Anthony] Yeah.
[Reed] First of all, what did Freddy tell you?
[Anthony] He said…
There were tapes recorded the day of her death.
[Anthony] Right.
Bobby Kennedy called her the night of her death from Lawford's house.
And she said, you know, "Don't bother me. Leave me alone. Stay out of my life."
A very violent argument, that, you know, "I feel passed around, I feel used,
I feel like a piece of meat."
[Anthony] He said he thought shenanigans
got Monroe in a terrible state of mind before she died.
[Reed] Now, that's true.
-What you just said is true. -[Anthony] Right.
She was raising a stink,
calling the broth… Calling John and the White House
and complaining about the situation.
-[Anthony] Because of the brother. -[Reed] Yes. The picture that I remember
is that she'd been hot and heavy for… for Bob.
-[Anthony] Yes. -[Reed] At first.
And then, she'd gotten the cold shoulder, or somehow or other, it had turned.
-Now the details of that, I don't know. -[Anthony] Right.
[Reed] But she had come to the point where she felt like
-she was just being used. -[Anthony] Yes.
[Reed] And that's where it was at about the time the end came.
-[Anthony] Right. -[Reed] She was upset and heartbro…
I don't know whether-- I don't think she was heartbroken.
I don't think that it was a thing of being heartbroken.
It was a thing of feeling taken advantage of and feeling
a lot of lies and feeling that she was just being…
Had come to where she said, you know, "I don't even want to see you."
You know, and, "Why did you come here?"
You know, "If you want to see me, you come to see me."
-You know, "I'm not coming down there." -[Anthony] Right.
The call to the White House thing,
I understood it to mean that, like she was calling to say, you know,
"Get your brother away from me. I hate all of you."
-That type of thing. -[Anthony] Right.
[Reed] There was a turning point in her feelings.
[Anthony] Right.
[somber music playing]
Like a piece of meat, used, passed around.
[Anthony] Eminent men… again.
[Reed] I don't think she was heartbroken.
Feeling used.
[Anthony] Again and again.
-[Reed] "I hate all of you." -[tape clicks]
[ominous music playing]
[microphone crackles]
[woman] I appreciate very much your calling.
I think about you once in a while.
[Eunice] The Kennedys were a very important part of Marilyn's life.
I wasn't included in this information, but I was a witness to what was happening.
[Anthony] And he was here that day?
-[Eunice] Oh, sure. -[Anthony] That afternoon?
[Eunice] Yes.
And it became so sticky
that the protectors of Robert Kennedy, you know,
had to step in there and protect him.
[indistinct voices]
[Anthony] Was it your impression there was any kind of FBI investigation
of her death?
Not an investigation, but rather a "hush-hush."
Because the man that really was involved was the boss.
He was the attorney general, so he could have the FBI do anything.
People that knew,
they knew that they didn't want Bobby Kennedy's name brought into this,
again, because his brother was president.
They had done everything to hush this up.
[Anthony] Billy Woodfield,
one of the reporters working on the case,
in the days following her death, got lucky.
[Bill] We sort of started to piece together what happened.
Press accounts were coming out, and they didn't make a lot of sense to us.
And so we started playing detective.
I pieced together the notion that a helicopter was used
and went out to see a helicopter pilot.
And I said, "Can I look at your log? Have you got a log?"
And he said, "Sure!"
And he produced his log, and I started thumbing through it.
And I saw an entry that said
that he took Kennedy to meet a flight en route to San Francisco.
[Anthony] And the time roughly is--
Two or three in the morning.
[Anthony] And apart from seeing the log, you mentioned it to him,
and he said, "Yes, I did that."
-[Bill] Yeah. -[Anthony] Yeah.
And he confirmed that he'd done that one that night. Yeah.
You called in to The Herald Tribune, and they called back and said, no--
Well, also a call was made to Bobby Kennedy's people.
[Anthony] You were trying to confirm that he had been in town.
That's right, and that he had been at the beach house and that he had flown out.
That that was one reason for the delay.
The message we got back was that Kennedy
would appreciate it if we didn't do the story.
We decided that we would not go with the story.
[ominous music playing]
[Reed] Uh… What did Freddy tell you about that?
[Anthony] He talked to me about the middle of the night tale, you know?
[Reed] But I mean, the only people that would know about that
would be the people at the meeting.
[Anthony] That's right.
In the early dawn hours after Marilyn was found dead,
ironically, Wilson had been hired with Otash by Lawford
to clear her house of information that might compromise the Kennedys.
Lawford showed up completely disorientated
and in a state of shock, saying that Marilyn Monroe was dead,
that Bobby Kennedy was there,
that they had gotten in a big fight,
that he was spirited out of town back up north,
and that he'd like to have me make arrangements
to have someone go out to the house
and pick up any and all information
that was possible regarding any involvement
between Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys.
He was convinced there was diaries around and maybe a note.
[Anthony] There's only one surviving photograph
of Marilyn with the Kennedy brothers.
It was taken at a party
following the star-studded extravaganza for JFK at Madison Square Garden.
Other photos would be seized from at least one picture agency
shortly after Marilyn's death
by men claiming to be FBI.
And also the covert recordings of Marilyn and each of the Kennedy brothers
may have been seized by law enforcement.
Can I speak to Jim Doyle, please?
-[woman] One moment, please. -Doyle.
[Anthony] As far as the actual records being removed,
you were aware of that from your colleagues?
-[Jim] Yes. -[Anthony] This had occurred?
-[Jim] Oh yeah. It did happen. -[Anthony] Right.
[Jim] I was there at the time when she died.
There were some people there that normally wouldn't have been there.
-[Anthony] Bureau people? -[Jim] Yes.
[Anthony] Are you aware how long afterwards they came on the scene?
[Jim] Immediately. Before anybody even realized what had happened.
It had to be instructions from someone high up, higher than Hoover.
[Anthony] Schoolboy question, who's higher than Hoover?
-[Jim] The general or the president. -[Anthony] Yes.
[Jim] The only two.
[Anthony] Yes.
There have been several conspiracy stories.
There are people, on very thin evidence,
I think largely made-up evidence, who suggest that
people wanted to hide the precise circumstances of her death
because Marilyn was murdered.
Although I made a lot of progress in the work
and indeed found out things to do with her dying
and the circumstances of her dying, which had not been found out before,
I did not find out anything that
convinced me that she had been deliberately killed.
She died committing suicide
or taking a huge accidental overdose of drugs.
But I did find evidence the circumstances of her death
had been deliberately covered up.
If you then say to me, why were those circumstances covered up?
I would say that the evidence suggests it was covered up
because of her connection with the Kennedy brothers.
[poignant music playing]
[Reed] She was raising a stink.
She was…
She…
[poignant music continues]
[Anthony] In 1982,
following a district attorney's review of the case,
the original finding remained unchanged.
[man] Well, as far as the Los Angeles District Attorney is concerned,
she killed herself, either on purpose or accidentally.
The Marilyn Monroe case is closed.
[Marilyn] The true things rarely get into circulation.
It's usually the false things.
It's hard to know where to start if you don't start with the truth.
[Anthony] The Kennedys' brother-in-law, actor Peter Lawford,
that key character in the cover-up,
he agreed to talk to me.
Just a shadow of the man that he had once been.
Lost.
[Lawford] I checked the operator for…
-Out of order. -[Anthony] Hmm.
[Lawford] The operator said the phone's off the hook.
[Anthony] Hmm.
Hey, it's all right. Forget it. Let's have a drink.
[indistinct voices]
[Lawford] She was dead…
I've had to live with it…
I should have got in my car and gone up there.
[voice breaks] I should have known better.
[Marilyn] When I was a kid,
sitting in the front row…
at the movies on Saturday afternoon…
and I'd think how wonderful it would be to be an actress.
Everything that I would see.
And…
I…
I wanted to know.
I would like to be a good actress.
[somber music playing]