Crypt 33

by Adela Gregory

  On March 22, the FBI chief met with the President for a private White House luncheon. He must have threatened Kennedy, telling him of the secret FBI files on a former lover, Inga Arvad, an older woman who had been linked as a Nazi spy. Hoover obviously did not want his own office compromised by any evidence leaked to the press about JFK’s Mafia ties, which in turn could lead to an investigation uncovering Hoover’s own earlier “favors” to Joseph Kennedy. (During his bootlegging days, Joseph Kennedy had donated large sums of money to the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation, helping to secure cover for his own covert operations.) The credibility of both Hoover and JFK was in jeopardy, and Kennedy’s political life was on the line.

  With this menacing situation in mind, Jack phoned Judith from the White House for the last time. Just two days short of the President’s planned vacation at Frank’s Western White House and now threatened with exposure, Bobby made the fateful call to his brother-in-law Peter pleaded with Robert to change his mind, knowing of Frank’s full-time preparations and the anger and possible retribution that would be forthcoming. Bobby refused his appeals. Peter frantically telephoned the President, but even Jack stood firm on the decision, explaining, “I can’t stay there... while Bobby’s handling the Giacana investigation. See if you could find somewhere else. As President I just can’t stay at Frank’s and sleep in the same bed that Giancana or any other hood slept in!” Obviously not privy to Jack and Sam’s shared mistress, Peter reluctantly obeyed the President’s command to handle the sudden change in plans. The Secret Service objections would make a good cover, so they agreed to give Frank the excuse. Even though Sinatra’s home and grounds were immense, Peter used the lame excuse that it would not be as efficient for the Secret Service operations and that the President would end up staying at Bing Crosby’s home while the house of Crosby’s next-door neighbor, Jimmy Van Heusen, could act as headquarters for the Secret Service, thereby serving to protect the President better than Frank’s Western White House.

  Livid and especially angry that a Republican and former rival would end up the choice, the singer blamed Peter and called Bobby directly to complain. Bobby told Frank that for the sake of appearances, it would not be possible. Still enraged, Frank proceeded to sledgehammer the entire helicopter pad. Though Sinatra was told that the President had promised later to assuage Ol’ Blue Eyes, the fiery singer continued venting his anger, calling Bobby Kennedy a hypocrite, by taking “hoodlum money and not taking their friendship.”

  Peter quickly invited Marilyn Monroe to spend the weekend with the President. And Marilyn obliged. Waiting in the living room of her home, Peter paced the floor impatiently while Miss Monroe ran to Greenson’s house to wash her hair because her plumbing had been disconnected. Lawford would serve as escort and chauffeur. For several hours, Kennedy and Marilyn lounged around Bing’s house, drinking and kissing, with Kennedy fully dressed in a turtleneck and slacks and she in a robe. That evening, while the President was frolicking with the actress, JFK suggested that Peter call Sinatra to invite him to Bing’s, ostensibly to apologize for the earlier decision. Sinatra declined to accept the left-handed invitation, saying that he had “friends” waiting for him in Los Angeles. Rumor had it that the “friends” referred to, in actuality, were none other than Jack Kennedy’s former lover and Frank’s former costar Angie Dickinson. Although at the time she was mum on her affair with the President, Angie would later remark that Frank complained bitterly, “If he would only pick up the telephone and call me and say it was politically difficult to have me around, I would understand. I don’t want to hurt him. But he never has called.” Sinatra justified his rage without ever bad-mouthing the President, only Bobby Kennedy and Peter Lawford. It appeared that Jack had attempted a reconciliation with Sinatra against his brother Bobby’s wishes. Aside from flirting with political disaster, Kennedy attempted to fiercely challenge Sinatra in wooing the same beautiful women, superficially having the last word.

  So the attorney general stepped up his surveillance on the mobsters, especially Sam Giancana. Bobby never wanted anybody in the administration or the public to assume, sense, or suspect that his family had ever associated with the mob or taken their favors. His compulsive appetite for convicting gangsters (in 1961 his conviction record was over one hundred underworld figures) should prove to the world that the rumors of his family’s ties with organized crime were absolutely false. Out to show the skeptics were wrong in doubting his qualifications and competence to hold the key cabinet position, the attorney general was also determined to prove himself worthy of his appointment.

  Jimmy Hoffa and Sam Giancana also continued their surveillance of the Kennedys while the FBI relentlessly tried to maintain its “tough on crime” image. While still collecting “dirt” on his “hypocritical” friends, Giancana got word through Judith Campbell that the FBI was on to Jack’s scheme of using her as a courier. Incensed over the unraveling situation, the mobster understood the President’s motives. By minimizing his contact with Judith, Kennedy was protecting himself. The weekly FBI reports of the activities against the mob chieftain would no longer be forthcoming but Kennedy had been cheating him all along, pretending to release entire reports, but actually eliminating any notations regarding surveillance on Giancana. But now even the show of cooperation would be irregular.

  Giancana was still content to perform occasional “dirty tricks” for the CIA, including international smuggling and money-laundering ventures. After finally admitting to Bobby Kennedy that they had done favors for Giancana, the CIA insiders risked losing their jobs, but no action was taken. Feeling confident that his control was still intact, Giancana no longer needed to rely on Sinatra or Judith Campbell for information or influence, though he continued seeing Campbell on a regular basis. The Chicago mobster took matters directly into his own hands. Although he continued developing his case for blackmailing the President, CIA contacts warned him that total exposure of the President would curtail Giancana’s own activities by drawing attention to the mob’s profit-making rackets. On the inside track, Giancana still had to contend with G-men Bill Roemer and Ralph Hill, assigned to trail his every move.

  Not a complete stranger to the world of espionage, Marilyn recalled the days right after her separation from DiMaggio when he enlisted private detective Fred Otash to keep an eye on her activities by “bugging” her. John Danoff, who worked with Otash in the early 1960s, admits to wiring Monroe’s apartment and Peter Lawford’s house as early as 1961. Jimmy Hoffa hired Bernard Spindel, “king of the wiretappers.” In the middle of construction, Marilyn’s house made an easy target, and the most celebrated clandestine tapper had little trouble with the phone tap lines and room bugs. A pioneer in the field of electronic eavesdropping, Spindel had mastered his skills during World War II. By the fifties, Hoffa had hired him to bug his own union and to debug his offices. Bobby Kennedy actually tried to turn Spindel against Hoffa, but his maneuvers backfired and Spindel remained hostile toward Bobby until his death. With his expert skills, Bernie had ingeniously placed taps in the Justice Department. Later when Bobby Kennedy was aware of the possibility that he was being bugged, he began carrying antibugging devices in his briefcase at department meetings. But Bobby didn’t know of the tail on Marilyn or that his visits to her home were all being recorded.

  Production on Something’s Got to Give was slated for early April, and Monroe began testing for wardrobe and hairstyles, typically changing outfits and hairstyles up to seven times a day. Whitey Snyder and Marjorie recalled that Marilyn looked as beautiful as she had ten years before. Her eyes were clear, her skin radiant, and her body was trim and in terrific shape. The lighting director perfected a method of softening the actress’s screen appearance by grouping amber and pink lighting. George Cukor’s refusal to attend the tests initiated their long, bitter struggle over control on the set. In all his inexperience, producer Henry Weinstein simply paced the floor, fearing the worst. But his fears were assuaged when the test results proved that Monroe was still a
t the top of her form and that she could compete with much younger women.

  Producer David Brown, who had been vying for eventual appointment as head of Twentieth-Century Fox, was set to produce Something’s Got to Give, and Cukor was confident that he would be the right ally and adviser to help keep control of the set. But the executives had assumed that Greenson, Weinstein, and Cukor would make a better combo to keep Marilyn in line and on time, so Weinstein had replaced Brown. Once Cukor found out that Weinstein had been chosen because of his artistic association with Marilyn’s therapist, he blew his stack, commenting, “So you think you can get Marilyn to the set on time? Let me tell you something. If you placed Marilyn’s bed on the set and the set were fully lighted, she wouldn’t be on time for the first shot!”

  The two were to clash throughout the making of the picture—Marilyn defending her criticism of the screenplay and decisions that would affect her character, while Cukor insisted that lines be changed by his latest choice of writer. Cukor detested women who were unwilling to submit to his control.

  Like the studio system he belonged to, Cukor hated ceding power in a business at which he truly excelled. After so many highly acclaimed films, including Little Women, Camille, Romeo and Juliet, The Women, A Star Is Born, and The Philadelphia Story, in an effort to maintain his lofty stature Cukor signed a two-picture contract with Fox, starting with Let’s Make Love. But against his better judgment, Skouras reassigned Cukor to Something’s Got to Give.

  Committing to Something only after his attorney had made threatening gestures to the top brass, Cukor already loathed Monroe, telling Nunnally Johnson, “She is a spoiled, pampered superstar and represents all that is bad about Hollywood today.” Ironically, his impression of the actress was not too far from what some in the industry thought of him. With his penchant for overstatement, he lived a luxurious life in a seventeenth-century Mediterranean villa where he entertained sailors and “wannabe” actors at his gay soirees, had a personal valet, and drove a Rolls-Royce.

  Cukor feverishly consumed amphetamines to control his appetite and his figure. And by the end of a day on the set the uppers would usually send the director into a tailspin. He frequently aimed his drug-induced tantrums at Marilyn Monroe.

  Attempting to imbue the film with his own style, Cukor went so far as to re-create for the picture his very own Sunset Boulevard mansion, down to the minutest detail. Proud of having directed the grand leading ladies of the day, he tried to intimidate Monroe with his absolute control over the set, replicating even the beach balls given to him by Vivien Leigh on the set of Gone With the Wind. Clark Gable refused to work with the “gay” director who favored the “girls” too much and demanded Cukor be replaced by Victor Fleming.

  The garish replication made executives request everything possible to change cinematic angles in order to avoid such a conspicuous display of Cukor’s own gaudy personal tastes. Insulted by the rejection, Cukor became even more incensed with Marilyn.

  Living in a drug-induced fog, Cukor even became paranoid about a conspiracy between one of the screenwriters and the original script writer, Nunnally Johnson, believing they had banded together to change the script without his approval. His contract called for his final script approval, not Marilyn’s. He would be damned if he’d let her have the final say. But she eventually would.

  Levathes called a meeting in efforts to soothe the bruised egos of his director and his star, who was accompanied by her attorney, Milton Rudin. Levathes sided with Monroe, and Cukor became still angrier.

  On the set, the high-strung director became more unnerved as Paula Strasberg passed judgment on his work. Although even Whitey Snyder would admit everybody dreaded her, Paula was still on the payroll under the auspices of Marilyn Monroe Productions.

  Most of the takes revealed an actress clearly in control, though Monroe still had her normal morning fears about appearing on the set. But with Snyder’s constant but gentle prodding, she did just fine.

  In the throes of an out-of-control budget with Cleopatra, executives were frightened that the budget on Something would also mushroom to many more millions than initially called for. Cleopatra was originally budgeted for $2 million with actress Joan Collins set to star, but executives brought in Elizabeth Taylor, who received a salary of $750,000 plus 7.5 percent of the gross, plus $50,000 for overtime per week. With perks including a Silver Cloud Rolls-Royce, china, and crystal, a job for her husband, Eddie Fisher, and a huge personal staff, including doctors, Taylor would eventually lose the battle between fantasy and reality in her efforts to relive the luxurious life of Cleopatra, sending the ailing studio close to bankruptcy. Even with the eventual success of The Longest Day, the studio was still in the red.

  Marilyn Monroe was perpetually insulted by Taylor’s enormous salary. Resenting Taylor for singlehandedly causing Twentieth to cut the fat on Something, once again she felt Taylor had bested her. When Levathes suggested that Monroe might cause the studio to go under, Marilyn went into a tirade. Angry over not only the inequities of the two actresses’ salaries in 1959, Monroe had actively pursued the role of Cleopatra herself, begging Skouras to cast her. She even sent Skouras photos of her in costume as Cleopatra, which eventually appeared in Life magazine. Her agent George Chasen closely followed Cleopatra’s casting in hopes that her previous typecasting could be transcended, but her pleas were not loud enough and Taylor had been signed.

  18

  The “Coming Out” Party

  Struggling with a viral infection in her sinus cavity and suffering a slight fever, Marilyn continued to miss shooting days. By the time she would recover sufficiently, Dean Martin, her screen love interest, would come down with a flu and high fevers. Marilyn refused physical contact with her costar, fearing for her own health.

  In addition, Marilyn was plagued by nervous tension in preparation for a big event. She had made a long-standing commitment to appear at JFK’s forty-fifth birthday party at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The producer of the show, New York director-composer Richard Adler, as well as Peter Lawford and Bobby Kennedy thought Marilyn Monroe would be the perfect gift for a man who had everything and “everyone” else!

  After their intimate weekend in Palm Springs, the closeness between the two had solidified, and the President had already given Marilyn his private phone number. At the party, she was to sing “Happy Birthday” in a grand finale. Knowing of the weaknesses in JFK’s marriage, Marilyn wanted to believe that the President was going to make a public statement about their relationship.

  In preparation for “their” coming-out party, Marilyn went all out to upstage Jackie in every way she could. Her gown would have to be spectacular and “historical.” In secrecy, she hired fitter Elizabeth Courtney and her favorite French designer, Jean-Louis, teasing him about the upcoming appearance and alluding to an affair. Wanting to look both elegant and sexy, the actress planned to display her newly reshaped curves as never before.

  Within one month her designer had located the sheerest fabric from France. The sheer soufflé would create the illusion of nudity, and the thousands of beads would create a sparkling effect without obscuring Marilyn’s splendid curves. Initially working with muslin, the couturier painstakingly contoured the pattern directly on her body. Planning to dispense with underwear, the designer did his best to create a support system that would hold up Monroe’s breasts, cinch her waist, and lift her behind without telltale undergarment lines. Marilyn described the extravagant gown to the President, and like a man wanting to present his girlfriend to the world, he encouraged her, inspiring her to look her best—better than anybody in the world, including his wife. The constant calls between the two continued, validating her idea that indeed Jack was making a “presentation” for the world to see.

  Feeling the fruits of renewed self-esteem and growing confidence in her decision-making through continued analysis, Marilyn reveled in the host of possibilities. “If he didn’t want the relationship public, he wouldn’t want to presen
t me!” she rationalized.

  The President seemed unduly anxious himself about the event and ultimately requested that she sing “Happy Birthday” with the breathy voice she used in her pictures. He sent Lionel Newman to coach her.

  Just as filming on Something had begun, Monroe begged off a couple of days in order to fulfill the President of the United States’s wish, or so she put it. The front office was initially in complete acceptance of her prior commitment. But as the budget for Something began increasing, due to delays caused by Marilyn’s ill health, and due to ever-increasing problems with the Cleopatra set in Rome, the agreement was rescinded two weeks prior to her appearance. With the board of directors pleading their case for Twentieth, her attorneys aligned with Bobby Kennedy in a bitter battle of wills and control. The battle would continue well after Marilyn traveled to New York.

  Bobby believed that his brother was more important than the studio and its chairman of the board and all the directors they could muster. This was indeed a command performance, and nobody had the right to say no to the popular president who had charmed the country to its feet.

  The fight raged first between Levathes, when he refused “the President’s” request. Then Bobby took his case to the most powerful financier at Fox, Milton Gould. At first polite, Bobby attempted to persuade him to release Marilyn. But Gould would not hear of it. He explained to the solicitous thirty-five-year-old attorney general that Something’s Got to Give was behind schedule and well over budget, and that the company had severe financial problems that it was trying to curtail and contain. Not taking refusal lightly, Bobby promised retribution on the studio for not complying with the request of the most powerful man in America. A shouting match ensued, with Gould sticking to the fact that the vote was in and Marilyn was forbidden to go, hinting that a lawsuit and/or termination could follow.