The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals

by Michelle Morgan

  29

  Marilyn Monroe’s Nude Calendar Scandal

  In today’s era of semi-nude pop stars and paparazzi pictures of celebrity wardrobe “malfunctions”, it is strange to think that something as innocent as a picture of a nude woman (with lower parts hidden) would cause anything more than a halfraised eyebrow. However, in the 1950s, when nudity was meant for the bathroom only (if at all), a risqué calendar caused an absolute scandal and almost crushed the career of up-and-coming actress Marilyn Monroe before it had really begun.

  Born in Los Angeles in 1926, Norma Jeane Baker was the daughter of Gladys Baker, an unwed mother who was volatile and suffered huge emotional problems. At just a few weeks old Norma Jeane was sent to live with a foster family, before an unsuccessful attempt at living with her mother ended with Gladys being taken to a mental hospital. Norma Jeane was then raised in a series of foster homes and an orphanage.

  In an attempt to escape the foster system, Norma Jeane chose to wed a young man called James Dougherty when she was just sixteen, though she found marriage stifling and took solace in a new-found modelling career at the age of nineteen. Norma Jeane’s husband was away at war during this time and he insisted that, although he would tolerate her career while away, the moment the war was over he expected her to give everything up and become a full-time wife and raise a houseful of children.

  Norma Jeane rejected this idea immediately. She had by this point become a successful model and enjoyed seeing her face on many magazine covers. Film studios were also knocking on her door and in 1946, after sending her husband a “Dear John” letter, she travelled to Nevada in order to obtain a divorce. Free at last, she then signed with Twentieth Century Fox, changed her name to Marilyn Monroe and launched full-steam into an acting and modelling career. Her photos ranged from the girl-next-door to classic glamour or “cheesecake” shots, and while her acting career was full of bit parts and walk-ons, her star quality nevertheless began to increase.

  However, organizing her finances was never a strong point for Marilyn, and by early 1949 she had fallen behind not only with her rent, but also with the payments on the car she relied on to get to and from auditions. Threatened with repossession of the vehicle, Marilyn picked up the telephone and called Tom Kelley, a photographer who had asked her to pose nude for him several months before.

  She had declined to take her clothes off at that time, but now, worried that she was about to lose her possessions, she changed her mind and arrived at his studio on 27 May 1949 in order to pose. There, in the company of Kelley’s partner Natalie Grasko, Marilyn removed her clothes, reclined on a red velvet blanket, and was paid $50 for her efforts. When asked years later what it felt like, Marilyn replied, “Very simple . . . And drafty!”

  Initially Marilyn had felt okay about posing nude, since she did certainly need the money and was somewhat (naively) convinced that no one would actually see the photos. If they did, she told herself, they would not know it was her anyway, since she had signed her name as “Mona Monroe” on the release form. However, as time wore on and her acting career started to gain more attention, she became increasingly concerned that the photos would somehow emerge and destroy all that she had worked so hard to achieve.

  Rumours started to circulate that Kelley was in the midst of selling the photos to a calendar company, and Marilyn finally broke down and admitted what she had done to her good friend, Bill Pursel, who shared his story with me for the book, Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed:

  She told me she had done something she was ashamed of, and she wanted to tell me about it before I found out elsewhere. She said she wanted to apologize and started to cry, before finally telling me she had posed nude and had done it because her rent was way past due. She then asked if I would look at the pictures and when I said yes she produced them. My first reaction was that these photos were not pornographic at all and they were actually very good. She said the photographer had promised not to sell them but I told her that he probably would, since selling photographs was what he did for a living. I told her that I thought the pictures were in good taste and she asked if I was ashamed of her, to which I said no, but that neither she nor I could undo something that was already done and I was in no position to object to them anyway.

  Several years passed and, to the relief of Marilyn, the photos were nowhere to be seen. She continued her career and enjoyed a small but important part in the Marx Brothers film, Love Happy, which took her on a major tour around the United States. Fans clamoured to see her and fan letters began to clog up the mailroom at Twentieth Century Fox. Unfortunately, this national attention guaranteed that the nude photographs would be in great demand, and sure enough, in 1952 they showed up on calendars entitled “Golden Dreams” and “A New Wrinkle”.

  Still, nobody at the studio seemed to notice the existence of the calendars, and life continued as normal for Marilyn, until one day in 1952 when she was approached on the street by a man clutching one of the calendars. “This ought to be worth quite a bit of money to you. Suppose I showed it around town?” asked the stranger. Marilyn refused to be blackmailed and replied: “Mister, I’d just adore for you to show it around Hollywood – would you like me to also autograph it for you?”

  Although obviously more than a little worried that the calendar could cause a sensation, outwardly Marilyn played it cool and chose not to do anything until finally Twentieth Century Fox got wind of the situation and called her into the office. Asking straight out if Marilyn was the nude girl being gawped at around the country, they were shocked when she nodded her head and admitted everything. The executives were furious and a frenzy ensued with them first demanding that she lie about it, then changing their minds and deciding she should say nothing at all.

  Unfortunately for them, Marilyn saw no reason to deny the stories and, after much discussion, a statement was prepared which allowed her to put forward her version of events – that she was broke and needed money for her rent. She played the sympathy card and won, with the public not only forgiving the nude scandal, but also loving her even more for her honesty and candour.

  Marilyn was immediately relieved, and once it became apparent that the photos would not negatively affect her career, she actually became quite proud of them. In fact, so pleased was she that the actress actually autographed a great many of the calendars and gave them away as gifts for her friends, as well as to future husband, baseball star Joe DiMaggio.

  Marilyn Monroe had survived the nude scandal and her career continued to blossom. However, it was only a matter of years before she would be caught up in another scandal, this time brought on by Joe DiMaggio himself . . .

  30

  The Wrong Door Raid

  In 1954, Marilyn Monroe married baseball star Joe DiMaggio. It was a marriage made in heaven for the press, but not so much for the two stars, as from the very beginning, it was a depressing and often abusive affair. DiMaggio had just retired from baseball and was quite content becoming a family man with the woman he loved. Marilyn, on the other hand, was at the peak of her career and any fantasies of settling down, ironing her husband’s shirts and bearing his children were just that – fantasies.

  The marriage dragged on for nine months, during which time Marilyn entertained the troops in Korea and made There’s No Business Like Show Business with Ethel Merman. Joe was not happy about his wife working so hard but he went along with it anyway, though he often refused to accompany her to red-carpet events and parties, preferring to stay at home instead. Unfortunately, while Marilyn was shooting The Seven Year Itch in New York, DiMaggio decided that on this occasion he would actually go along and see what his wife was doing, just in time to observe her standing on a subway grating, her skirt flying into the air and panties on full display.

  The jealous and insecure DiMaggio was furious and a huge argument broke out that evening, which some say turned particularly violent on the baseball player’s part. It was at that moment that Marilyn decided she no longer wished to be m
arried to Joe, and once they were back in Los Angeles, she moved out of their North Palm Drive house and into 8338 De Longpre Avenue, where she intended to stay until her divorce was organized.

  During this time the actress began a romance with her voice coach, Hal Schaefer. The two had been great friends for several years and during the marriage to DiMaggio they had been so close that the baseball player had started to have suspicions they were having an affair. It is true that Schaefer was in love with the actress and in the months just before separating from her husband, Marilyn cooled her friendship with him to such an extent that he attempted suicide. This shocking event sent Marilyn straight to her voice coach’s bedside, and DiMaggio was once again enraged.

  However, by the time a true romance began for the pair, Marilyn was on her way to becoming divorced and it proved to be a comfortable, carefree relationship, the complete opposite to what she had endured with the volatile and moody DiMaggio. For Monroe the romance was fun, but for Schaefer it was true love, as he said in an interview for the book, Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed: “We became lovers and were going to get married,” said Schaefer. “She wanted to convert to Judaism because I was a Jew. She was still legally married to DiMaggio but had already moved out and had started divorce proceedings.”

  It is doubtful that Marilyn wanted to rush straight from one marriage to another, but she did enjoy Schaefer’s company and their new romance nevertheless. Unfortunately, DiMaggio was not about to give up on his wife that easily, especially as he was still in love and hopeful that Marilyn would one day forgive the mistakes he had made within the marriage, and move back in with him.

  DiMaggio disliked Schaefer intensely as a result of the friendship his wife had shared with him during their marriage, and on hearing that Marilyn might actually be involved with the man, he took the questionable decision to hire private detectives from the City Detectives and Guard Service to follow the couple around Hollywood. The company began surveillance on 20 October 1954, and trailed both Marilyn and Schaefer between various Los Angeles neighbourhoods, witnessing her picking up friends, visiting her attorney and calling on her acting coach, Natasha Lytess.

  They even followed Schaefer alone to a nightclub, where they reported that he looked “very dopey”, though he was not drinking. Bizarrely, the detectives claimed to witness him “doing something to his arm”, and wondered if he was “shooting up”. All of this was written down in their reports, though if the detectives thought they were inconspicuous they were very wrong, as Marilyn and Hal were very much aware they were being followed.

  “It was a sick and hostile situation because of DiMaggio”, remembered Schaefer. “He hired private detectives and bugged Marilyn’s car, my car, and my apartment. We were followed everywhere and it was very scary. Marilyn was terrified.”

  When she appeared at Santa Monica Court House for her divorce on 27 October, Marilyn did not mention the surveillance, even though it was ongoing. Instead, she leant on the arm of her business manager, Inez Melson and told how her dream of marital bliss had turned into a nightmare of “coldness” and “indifference”. She added, “My husband would get into moods where he wouldn’t speak to me for days at a time – a week, sometimes longer, maybe ten days. If I tried to coax him to talk to me, he wouldn’t answer at all, or he would say, ‘Leave me alone, stop nagging me!’”

  Joe, meanwhile, insisted that he still wanted to be friends with Marilyn, though in truth he was verging on the obsessive. On 5 November it came to a head when a private detective tailed her to 754 Kilkea Drive, the apartment block of Sheila Stewart, a friend of Marilyn and ex-student of Schaefer. Bizarrely Joe DiMaggio was tailing the detectives (an amusing fact that they later recorded in their report); determined to catch Marilyn “in the act” with Schaefer, he stormed the apartment, along with the detectives and DiMaggio’s friend, Frank Sinatra.

  Aside from the fact that this was a ludicrous and illegal act, it was made even more absurd when it was discovered that the foursome had broken into the wrong apartment – that of Florence Kotz, who later described it as a “night of terror”, adding, “I was terrified. The place was full of men. They were making a lot of noises and lights flashed on. They broke a lot of glasses in the kitchen getting out of there.”

  Frank Sinatra later claimed that he had stayed in the car and smoked a cigarette during the proceedings, and when the case went to court in March 1957, Joe DiMaggio backed him up (though Sinatra was not in court himself). Private detective Phil Irwin, however, insisted that Sinatra was an active participant in the raid and had most certainly stormed into Miss Kotz’s apartment that evening.

  Active or not, the “Wrong Door Raid” shook every inhabitant of the apartment block, including Marilyn and Hal Schaefer, who were together in the flat upstairs. At the time, both parties denied all knowledge of being in the building, but some fifty years later, Schaefer came clean:

  The apartment belonged to an ex-student of mine who had become a friend. She knew about Marilyn and I, and when she went out of town, she gave me the key to the apartment so that we could use it. It was just Marilyn and me in the apartment when the raid took place and Marilyn was terrified. I don’t believe I’d be around today if they’d found me in the apartment. They almost wrecked the building – rammed the door down of the wrong apartment and the woman ended up suing. Marilyn and I managed to get out the back door.

  The relationship between Schaefer and Marilyn ended soon afterwards when she moved to New York at the end of 1954. However, despite the fact that DiMaggio had followed her, hired detectives to spy on her and stormed an apartment block to find her, Marilyn was eventually prepared to forgive him. The two remained good friends throughout the years and were seen together to such an extent that reporters started to believe they might get back together again. “Is this a reconciliation?” they asked when the couple were spotted at the theatre. “Just think of it as a visit,” replied Marilyn, though the look on Joe DiMaggio’s face made it clear that he wanted the visit to turn into a permanent arrangement.

  Still, Marilyn was adamant that they would not get back together again, with the Wrong Door Raid being more than a little fresh in her mind. She married playwright Arthur Miller in 1956, although when that marriage broke down and she suffered a nervous breakdown, it was DiMaggio who came to her aid. After making The Misfits in 1960, Marilyn was exhausted and, encouraged by her doctor to stay in a hospital for a rest, she agreed, although she had no idea that the hospital to which she was admitted was actually a psychiatric clinic and not somewhere to relax for a few weeks in peace. From the confines of the clinic, she telephoned Joe DiMaggio who turned up and threatened to take the building apart “brick by brick” if they did not release her into his care.

  The hospital did indeed release her and the two became firm friends again, with memories of their failed marriage and the Wrong Door Raid fading into the past. There was talk once again about reconciliation but it was not to be. When Marilyn died mysteriously at her Brentwood home on the night of 4–5 August 1962, it was once again Joe DiMaggio who tried to come to her rescue. He may have been too late to stop her death, but he did claim her body and help to organize the private funeral.

  The baseball player never stopped loving his ex-wife and for the next twenty years ordered flowers to be delivered to Marilyn’s grave every week. He never remarried, nor did he ever talk publicly about his lost love, preferring to live his last years quietly in Florida, alone with his memories and mementoes of their time together.

  Their marriage had been painful; the break-up led to scandal, private detectives, threats, intrusion and a law suit; but his love for Marilyn never ended. When Joe DiMaggio passed away in 1999, his last words were reported to be, “At last I’ll get to see Marilyn . . .”

  31

  The Sudden Death of James Dean

  It is now almost sixty years since the world lost James Dean, although like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, he is still all around us in songs, in movie
s and on posters, mugs and postcards. He was the first “Rebel Without a Cause” but certainly not the last. When he died so tragically in 1955, the world lost not only a great actor, but also a star who has come to epitomize the 1950s and, in particular, the jeans and T-shirt-wearing teenagers of his generation.

  Born on 8 February 1931, James Byron Dean was raised in Marion, Indiana, and then Santa Monica, California, where he lived a rather normal and loving life with his mother Mildred and father Winton. Unfortunately for the child, his mother developed cancer and passed away when Dean was just nine years old, forcing him to be raised by his aunt and uncle as his father could no longer care for his son. He was not an exceptional student at school, preferring sports to the basics such as maths and literacy. However, James did enjoy drama with his teacher Mrs Nall, and it would seem that it was these early lessons that planted the seed of his acting talent and interest.

  After he graduated in 1949, James moved back to California with his father, where the young man enrolled in college and majored in pre-law. This thrilled his family but it was not long before Dean grew bored of the subject and changed his studies to drama at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), much to the chagrin of his father who could not see any point in studying such a frivolous activity.

  While at UCLA, he had the opportunity of acting in Macbeth, which gave the young man enough confidence in his abilities to believe that he no longer needed to study the craft full-time; he wanted desperately to put all he had learned into action instead. With this in mind he dropped out of college and endeavoured to work as a full-time actor, though in reality he found himself offered only bit parts and the occasional commercial. But despite the disappointments, Dean was not prepared to give up on his career and it wasn’t long before he moved across the country to New York, where he studied his craft and gained work on television.