The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

by Donald H. Wolfe

  Paul “Skinny” D’Amato, who managed the Cal-Neva Lodge for owners Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana, remembered Marilyn’s visit well, and though he wouldn’t talk about it in great detail, he made the statement to Anthony Summers, “There was more to what happened than anyone has told. It would have been the big fall for Bobby Kennedy, wouldn’t it?” Immediately regretting that he said anything at all, D’Amato murmured, “Of course, I didn’t say that….”

  But Skinny had said enough. The raison d’être for the “mysterious weekend” was to persuade Marilyn, by whatever means, not to go to the press. Not only would it have been “the big fall for Bobby Kennedy,” it would have been the “big fall” for the executive branch of the government and a whole coterie of people associated with the Kennedy clan as well as Sam Giancana. Stakes were high. Fates were on the line, and Sinatra and his partner, Giancana, were in it for the big Kennedy marker.

  Sinatra orchestrated the sinister occasion, ostensibly inviting Marilyn to Cal-Neva to celebrate her new deal with Fox and discuss her next film, What a Way to Go, which was to costar Sinatra. According to Ralph Roberts, Marilyn had no real desire to go, but Dean Martin was headlining in the Celebrity Room that weekend, and Marilyn was hoping to persuade him to rearrange his nightclub schedule so that Something’s Got to Give could resume filming in the last week of August. But there was a hidden agenda, and the desperate import of the weekend can be surmised by the odd nexus of people that Old Blue Eyes brought together.

  Sinatra flew Marilyn to Cal-Neva in his private plane, Christina, complete with wall-to-wall carpeting, carved wood paneling, bar salon, piano, and luxurious bathroom with heated toilet seats. Sinatra’s plane also picked up Peter Lawford, the man Sinatra had threatened to “punch in the face” after Jack Kennedy had changed his plans about staying at Sinatra’s Palm Springs estate. Sinatra and Peter hadn’t spoken since that incident, nor were they to speak again, but Lawford and his wife, Pat, had influence over Marilyn, and on this weekend there were other considerations that took priority—even over vindictiveness.

  The Lawfords were having marital difficulties. Peter had been drinking heavily and made no pretense about his debauchery. Pat spent most of her time on the East Coast, away from him, but Marilyn had more regard for Pat than for Peter, and they had become friends. Because Pat was able to reason with Marilyn, and had some influence over her, she too flew to Cal-Neva from Hyannisport.

  Marilyn’s friend Gloria Romanoff was at the lodge when Marilyn arrived, as was another guest whom Marilyn hadn’t expected to see, Sam Giancana. Because Giancana was identified by the Nevada Gaming Commission as a guest at Cal-Neva that weekend, Sinatra would later lose his gambling license.

  According to Robert Slatzer, Marilyn had been told that Bobby Kennedy might be there. The attorney general had been in Los Angeles the previous day. The Beverly Hills Hotel guest register shows that he had checked in on Thursday, July 26, and departed on Friday, July 27. Though the Kennedy Library retains the attorney general’s daily diary and appointment records covering his years in office, portions of the July and August records are not available, their whereabouts unknown.

  Arthur Jacobs’s secretary, Peggy Randall, recalled that she was working alone at the Sunset Boulevard office on Saturday, July 28, when a call came in from Bobby Kennedy. Randall said that Kennedy was trying to reach Pat Newcomb. Stating that it was urgent, Kennedy left a number for Newcomb to call, but Randall doesn’t recall where he was calling from. She stated, “It wasn’t unusual for Robert Kennedy to call Pat Newcomb there at the office. He had called her there on a number of previous occasions.”

  Marilyn’s name never appeared on the Cal-Neva register. She was put in bungalow 52, part of a complex reserved for special guests of Sinatra and Giancana. Bellboys who delivered food to her room said that the door was usually answered by Peter Lawford and that they never saw her leave the room.

  Mae Shoopman, who at that time was a cashier at Cal-Neva, recalled, “She kept herself disguised pretty much, kept herself covered with a black scarf and dark glasses and stayed in her room most of the time. She would sleep with the telephone at her ear open to the switchboard. I think she was afraid.”

  It soon became apparent to Marilyn why she had been brought to Cal-Neva. It wasn’t a gathering of friends; they wanted her to forget about the Kennedy brothers and to ensure her silence.

  Giancana was there to enforce just how important it was to him that Marilyn didn’t cause any trouble. Sam was not a man to mince words. If Marilyn became a problem, he undoubtedly made it clear to her that problems could be dealt with.

  According to Susan Strasberg, when Marilyn returned from Cal-Neva she told Paula Strasberg she was “afraid of the Mafia,” but Strasberg had passed her comment off as paranoia.

  Marilyn also spoke to Ralph Roberts about the Cal-Neva weekend: “She told me it was a nightmare, a dreadful weekend. She said she didn’t want to go particularly and once she got there, she felt like a prisoner, and that the only friend she had there was Joe DiMaggio, and she wasn’t able to see him.”

  Joe DiMaggio arrived unexpectedly. Had she called him when she became afraid? He was staying in San Francisco, which was less than an hour’s flight away. Bell captain Ray Langford recalled that DiMaggio arrived late Saturday night and wasn’t allowed to stay at the Lodge. Langford helped him get a room at the nearby Silver Crest Motel. DiMaggio asked where Marilyn was, but Langford didn’t know because she wasn’t registered. Langford’s brother, Joe, who had picked Marilyn up at the airport, later revealed that Sinatra had issued orders that DiMaggio wasn’t to enter the hotel or have his calls put through.

  A Cal-Neva doorman later told the poignant story of looking down at the pool on Sunday morning as a fog was settling in on the Tahoe shore. He was surprised to see Marilyn standing “at the edge of the pool, barefoot, swaying back and forth. She was staring up at the hill.” The doorman followed her gaze up to the foothills above the rustic lodge, and standing there in the mist staring back was Joe DiMaggio. It was the last time DiMaggio would see her alive.

  According to DiMaggio’s friend Harry Hall, DiMaggio was enraged about what had happened to Marilyn at Cal-Neva that weekend. He was furious with Sinatra, and he was furious with the Kennedys. “He was very upset,” stated Hall. “She went up there, they gave her pills, they had sex parties—I don’t think he’s ever talked to Sinatra again.”

  Photographer Billy Woodfield, who worked for both Marilyn and Sinatra, saw darker images of the Cal-Neva weekend. Woodfield stated that when Sinatra returned from Cal-Neva, he brought Woodfield a roll of film to be developed. In his darkroom the photographer was shocked to see that the photos were of an unconscious Marilyn Monroe being sexually abused in the presence of Sam Giancana and Sinatra. Marilyn had been drugged in order for the compromising photos to be taken.

  When Sinatra was given the negatives and prints, Woodfield suggested that Sinatra burn them, but the pictures were intended to ensure Marilyn’s silence.

  The FBI’s surveillance of Giancana corroborates the appalling story. Agent Bill Roemer, who was working with the Chicago Crime Commission, had Giancana under electronic surveillance in 1962. He reports that shortly after Marilyn’s death, Johnny Roselli had gone to Chicago to confer with Giancana. Agent Roemer recorded a conversation between the two Mafia mobsters:

  “The conversation was muted,” Roemer says, “but what I had gleaned was that Giancana had been at Cal-Neva, the Lake Tahoe resort, with Sinatra and Marilyn the week before she died. There, from what I had been able to put together, she was involved in an orgy. From the conversation I overheard, it appeared she may have had sex with Giancana. Roselli said to Giancana, ‘You sure get your rocks off fucking the same broad as the brothers, don’t you.’”

  Roemer was surprised to learn that Roselli was referring to the brothers Kennedy.

  Peter Lawford later gave a false account of the Cal-Neva weekend in order to support the suicide scenario that was promulgated
after Marilyn Monroe’s death. He supplied various accounts of Marilyn having attempted suicide and overdosed that mysterious weekend. Lawford stated, “She tried to kill herself the night of July 28, and she finally succeeded on August 4.” He described the incident at Cal-Neva as an overdose caused by her despondency over being fired by Fox. But Lawford knew that Marilyn had been victorious in her fight with Fox, and had, in fact, been elated by her victory. “When Marilyn left,” said Joe Langford, “it was in an awful hurry. I think she was giving them some problems.” Barbara Lieto, the widow of Sinatra’s pilot, recalled that her husband was ordered to Lake Tahoe on short notice on Sunday afternoon, July 29. According to Mrs. Lieto, Peter Lawford and Marilyn returned together and Marilyn appeared to be intoxicated or drugged. The plane arrived in Los Angeles after midnight, and Mrs. Lieto recalled her husband saying that Lawford argued with him about where they should land. Lawford insisted that they land at the Santa Monica Airport, but Lieto pointed out that the airport was closed after midnight. When the plane finally landed at Los Angeles International, Marilyn was “out of it, a mess.” Barefoot, she walked from the plane to her limousine, and the crew gave Lawford a ride to his beach house in their car. Mrs. Lieto remembered that her husband was angry because Lawford insisted on stopping a few blocks from his home to make a twenty-minute telephone call from a pay phone. The pilot wondered why Lawford couldn’t have waited a few minutes and made the call from his house. By then, Lawford had undoubtedly learned from Bobby Kennedy that his house was under electronic surveillance. Who would Lawford have telephoned about an imperative confidential matter before dawn that Monday morning?

  The White House telephone records indicate that the president received a call of eighteen minutes’ duration from Lawford on Monday morning, July 30, at 8:40 A.M., or 5:40 A.M. Pacific time. Clearly, the Marilyn Monroe problem had reached a crucial impasse.

  59

  The Ominous Ear

  It’s my feeling that Marilyn looked forward to her tomorrows.

  —Eunice Murray

  Telephone records indicate that on the day Marilyn returned from Cal-Neva, Monday, July 30, she placed an eight-minute call to the Justice Department. Only the ominous ear of electronic surveillance may know what Marilyn had to say to Bobby Kennedy.

  During the week, Marilyn entered a whirlwind of discussions about new projects. There were conferences at the studio with director J. Lee Thompson about her next Fox production, What a Way to Go. She spoke with Gene Kelly about a new musical. There were plans for her to do a musical version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and she spoke with composer Jule Styne about the score.

  On Tuesday, July 31, she called her East Coast friend Henry Rosenfeld to discuss plans for a three-day New York trip in early September. She was going to give a theater party in Washington, D.C., and wanted Henry to be her escort at the opening night of the new Irving Berlin musical, Mr. President, directed by Joshua Logan. Mr. President was to open on September 6 at the National Theater in Washington, and the press had reported that President Kennedy and Jackie would be in attendance. Interestingly, Marilyn Monroe was making a point of being there the same night, and she had ordered a new $6,000 evening gown from Jean-Louis for the occasion. It promised to be a memorable night at the theater.

  On Tuesday evening, July 31, Marilyn invited Whitey Snyder and wardrobe assistant Marjorie Plecher to her home. They were engaged to be married, and together they celebrated both the wedding plans and Marilyn’s new start date for Something’s Got to Give, which was set for September 16. The Snyders recalled how optimistic and enthusiastic Marilyn was about the future. “She never looked better—she was in great spirits,” Plecher commented.

  Mrs. Murray didn’t stay overnight on Wednesday, and Marilyn spent the evening at home. She had made an appointment with Kennedy hairstylist Mickey Song, who had helped her at the birthday gala. Song arrived at her house assuming Marilyn wanted her hair styled. Instead, she wanted to pump Song for information about the Kennedys. “She figured who else would know more about the Kennedys’ private life than their hairdresser?” Song recalled. Marilyn asked him questions about both Bobby and Jack Kennedy—where they had been, and if Song had seen them with “other women.”

  “I didn’t want to get involved, and she knew I was being evasive, so she said, ‘Don’t you want to help me?’ Then she told me that the Kennedys were using me, just as they were using her. She tried to make us comrades against the Kennedys. I just said, ‘I’m not being used. They’re treating me great!’” Several weeks later, after Marilyn’s death, Song said, “I saw Bobby, and he said to me, ‘You’re always defending the Kennedys, aren’t you? That’s good. I heard a tape Marilyn made of you a couple of weeks ago.’

  “I was stunned. I had no idea she was taping me. I guess she was trying to get something on them. At the time I didn’t really care about Marilyn or the Kennedys. Now, I think she was abused. They played with her, and they tired of her, and I think they found her a lot of trouble to get off their hands. She wasn’t going to go that easily.”

  In mid-July, Marilyn went to private investigator Fred Otash and asked him to supply her with electronic equipment to bug her own telephone. Unknown to Marilyn, Otash was already involved with bugging her home and apartment. At the time she hadn’t told Otash why she wanted the equipment, but it occurred to him that “maybe she wanted to have something she could hang over Bobby’s head.”

  Some years after Marilyn’s death, Otash told the Los Angeles Times that he had been hired by the master surveillance expert Bernard Spindel to install electronic listening devices at the homes of Peter Lawford and Marilyn Monroe. Spindel had told him that Jimmy Hoffa was trying to obtain compromising information on the president and the attorney general. However, there is no hard evidence that the surveillance was actually made for Hoffa. If the contents of the tapes were as devastating as Otash claimed, they were never used to effect by Hoffa during his egregious problems with Robert Kennedy. In all probability the surveillance tapes were contracted by the CIA counterintelligence chief, James Jesus Angleton, whose signature is on one of the transcript cover sheets. Domestic surveillance is prohibited under the CIA charter; but, as the Church Committee hearings revealed, CIA domestic surveillance was commonly carried out by contracting private investigators, such as Spindell’s B. R. Fox Company, which had a history as a CIA contractee.

  According to Eunice Murray, on Thursday, August 2, “Marilyn, who was fascinated by greenery and plants, spent four hours at Frank’s Nursery in Santa Monica, and ordered citrus trees and an array of flowering plants for her garden.” And Dr. Greenson saw her twice that day. According to his final bill, he saw her once at his residence, and later at her home.

  On Thursday evening, Marilyn was invited to the Lawford beach house, where Peter’s friend Dick Livingston recalled, “She came in carrying her own bottle of Dom Perignon champagne. She drank it over little ice cubes from Peter’s ice cube maker. She had on the damnedest outfit—a pair of hip-huggers with a bare midriff that revealed her gallbladder operation scar—and a Mexican serape, wrapped around her neck. She was absolutely white, the color of alabaster.” Livingston said to her, “My God, Marilyn, you ought to get some sun.” She looked at him and whispered, “I know. What I need is a tan—and a man.”

  Bobby Kennedy, along with Ethel and four of the children, jetted into San Francisco on Friday, August 3. The attorney general was scheduled to speak at the opening of the American Bar Association Conference on Monday, August 6, and he planned to spend the weekend at the Bates Ranch, located about sixty miles south of San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle stated, “He was without his usual flashy smile and shook hands woodenly with those that welcomed him. Perhaps the cares of the administration are weighing heavily on him.” Or perhaps Kennedy had read columnist Dorothy Kilgallen’s lead item in the New York Journal-American that day:

  Marilyn Monroe’s health must be improving. She’s been attending select Hollywood parties and has beco
me the talk of the town again. In California, they’re circulating a photograph of her that certainly isn’t as bare as the famous calendar, but is very interesting…. And she’s cooking in the sex-appeal department, too; she’s proved vastly alluring to a handsome gentleman who is a bigger name than Joe DiMaggio in his heyday. So don’t write off Marilyn as finished.

  Kilgallen had been zeroing in on the Kennedy-Monroe story and had questioned a number of people close to the Kennedys, including Kenny O’Donnell. Kilgallen had called Robert Kennedy at the Justice Department on Wednesday, August 1, to try to verify the rumors. Kilgallen later claimed she had learned about Marilyn’s Kennedy affairs through a source close to the film star. The Angleton CIA document inferred that Kilgallen’s source was Howard Rothberg. However, while Rothberg was Kilgallen’s interior decorator and a social friend, he did not know Marilyn. Rothberg became privy to intimate details of Marilyn Monroe’s private life through a complex series of relationships.

  Rothberg was a friend of Ron Pataki, a syndicated drama critic for the Scripps-Howard newspaper in Columbus, Ohio, where Pataki was a longtime friend of Robert Slatzer. They had grown up together in Columbus, and it was through Slatzer that Pataki obtained his job with Scripps-Howard. When Anthony Summers was researching Goddess in 1984, he interviewed Pataki along with several friends of Slatzer’s who had firsthand knowledge of Slatzer’s relationship with Marilyn Monroe.

  Today Ron Pataki still lives in Columbus, where he has become a therapist with a doctorate in theology. In a recent interview he recalled, “Oh, yes, I was very aware of Bob’s long-standing friendship with Marilyn. Whenever Bob was in Columbus we’d get together, and oftentimes Bob spoke to Marilyn on the phone. A few times he’d put me on the phone, and I spoke to her on several of those long, rambling calls…. She called me several times looking for Bob when he was staying at my place. She called here once from Reno or Cal-Neva. She knew Bob had a real understanding of her. She could always turn to him with her troubles.”