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Marilyn Monroe | |
|---|---|
 Monroe (right) with communist Arthur Miller | |
| Born | Norma Jeane Mortenson June 1, 1926 Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Died | August 4, 1962 Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Cause of death | Poisoning |
Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962) was a Statesian actress and model. During her affairs with John and Robert Kennedy, she learned classified information about the Bay of Pigs invasion, Vietnam War, and coups in the Dominican Republic and South Vietnam.[1]
Acting career[edit | edit source]
Monroe's first movie was The Asphalt Jungle (1950).[1]
John Roselli, a follower of mafia boss Sam Giancana, connected Monroe to producer Joe Schenck. Schenck gave Monroe acting roles in exchange for sexual favors.[1]
Personal life[edit | edit source]
Monroe married Yankee baseball player Joe DiMaggio in 1953. In 1956, she married Arthur Miller, a playwright who compared McCarthyism to the Salem witch trials in The Crucible.[1]
Death[edit | edit source]
After her affair with Robert Kennedy ended, Monroe worried that the CIA was planning to assassinate her. On July 29, 1962, Monroe told her hairdresser Sydney Guilaroff that Kennedy threatened her. Peter Lawford, Kennedy's brother-in-law, admitted in 1982 that Kennedy had fought with Monroe on August 4 and demanded her diary. He then made her drink a glass of water laced with a sedative and left after she passed out. Later that night, Giancana sent mafia members to poison her with Nembutal.[1]
Monroe's public relations officials, Arthur and Natalie Jacobs, left a Henry Mancini concert at 10:30 p.m. after hearing that Monroe was in a coma and drove to her home in Brentwood. An ambulance picked her up before midnight, but she died before reaching the hospital and was returned to her house. Police officer Lynn Franklin stopped Lawford and Kennedy in a car speeding away toward the airport at 12:10 a.m. on August 5. Kennedy sent the FBI to destroy evidence at Monroe's house and flew to San Francisco at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. LAPD chief William Parker drove to Monroe's house in an unmarked car before anyone called the police.[1]
Investigation[edit | edit source]
Around 3:00 a.m., housekeeper Eunice Murray noticed that the light in Monroe's bedroom was still on and called psychiatrist Ralph Greenson, who had previously been in the ambulance with Monroe. Greenson broke the window to her room and found her body lying facedown on the bed. Police were called around 4:25 a.m, and Officer Jack Clemmons arrived 20 minutes later. Housekeeper Eunice Murray was doing laundry at the time, and Clemmons caught Greenson flushing pills down the toilet. Clemmons noticed that there was no glass of water and Monroe's body was not holding a phone, but they did appear in later photos of the crime scene. He refused to sign a report by Captain James Hamilton, but Parker forged his signature anyway.[1]
At St. John's Hospital, coroner Theodore J. Curphey declared her death a suicide. There was no suicide note, and no pills were found in her stomach. Her body was cold, indicating she had died hours earlier, and liver mortis showed that she was initially lying face-up and was later moved. Coroner Thomas Noguchi said that there were barbiturates in her blood but not her stomach, indicating an injection.[1]
Political views[edit | edit source]
Monroe became a leftist after marrying Arthur Miller in 1956.[1]