August 4, 1962: The Mysterious Death of Marilyn Monroe
Sept 11, 2023 18:45:37 GMT -5
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Post by Graveyardbride on Sept 11, 2023 18:45:37 GMT -5
August 4, 1962: The Mysterious Death of Marilyn Monroe
The proposed demolition of 12305 5th Helena Drive, the last home of Marilyn Monroe and only home she ever owned, caused an uproar among fans of the blonde sex symbol and those who wish to preserve the architecture of Old Hollywood. “The Marilyn Monroe house is not just a home; it’s a national treasure, an integral part of Hollywood’s glittering history that cannot simply be erased,” Jamie Rummerfield, a representative of the organization Save Iconic Architecture, said in a KTLA interview.
Outrage over the decision of Glory of the Snow Trust, the current owner of the property, to destroy the iconic residence, the Los Angeles City Council promptly rescinded the demolition permit. “Immediately my team and I sprung into action,” Councilwoman Traci Park announced at a press conference. “Unfortunately, the Department of Building and Safety issued a demolition permit before my team and I could fully intervene and get this issue resolved.” Now, the Office of Historic Resources and the Historic Cultural Commission will have 75 days to evaluate the structure to determine if it qualifies for historic preservation.
“For people all over the world, Marilyn Monroe was more than just a movie icon,” Park added. “Her story from her challenging childhood growing up in orphanages and foster homes to becoming a global sensation is a shining example of what it means to overcome adversity.”
Built in 1929, the Spanish Hacienda-style four-bedroom, three-bath home on a half-acre lot was purchased by Marilyn in February 1962 for $77,500. She was in the process of decorating her house, which she named “Cursum Perficio”: the Latin term means “My journey ends here,” ironic in light of what happened six months later. In the early morning hours of August 5, 1962, the body of the venerated, albeit fragile, star was found nude on her bed in the master bedroom, the telephone clutched in her cold, dead hand.
Dr. Thomas Noguchi. At the time, Dr. Thomas Noguchi, a deputy medical examiner, determined she had died of an overdose of Nembutal and chloral hydrate, and declared her death a probable suicide. But not everyone agreed with Noguchi’s findings. Although no one denied she succumbed to an overdose of the sedatives pentobarbital and chloral hydrate, how she came to ingest such was in question. For example, had she taken a number of Nembutal (pentobarbital) capsules by mouth, there would surely have been evidence of yellow dye in her stomach, but according to Noguchi, there was none. It was then suggested that perhaps she emptied the capsules in water, or alcohol, however, there was no drinking glass or cup on her bedside table and no empty capsules were discovered in the bedroom or bath. Of course, she could have flushed the capsules after emptying them, but would a woman, whose living spaces were always cluttered, planning to end her own life, have bothered to flush the capsules?
Some believe the pentobarbital was administered by someone intent upon shutting up the actress after she threatened to call a press conference to tell the world about her affairs with John F. and Robert F. Kennedy. Noguchi, however, claimed he had examined Marilyn’s body with a magnifying glass and found no indication of an injection. Yet, her treating physician, Dr. Hyman Engelberg, said he administered an injection to his patient, Friday, August 3, so how did Noguchi manage to miss this needle mark? Or was he deliberately lying? Did someone pay off the lowly deputy medical examiner, who had been on the job only a few months and whose command of the English language left something to be desired? Others wondered why the chief medical examiner assigned the high-profile case of one of the world’s most famous women to an inexperienced employee instead of performing the postmortem himself, or in the alternative, assigning it to a more experienced deputy ME.
By 1967, Noguchi had been promoted to chief medical examiner, but his tenure was short-lived. In 1968, another high-profile case came his way when he autoposied the corpse of Robert F. Kennedy, who, on June 5, was shot at the Ambassador Hotel during his presidential campaign. But it was what happened just prior to Kennedy’s death that got Noguchi into hot water. Upon learning of the shooting, Deputy Los Angeles County Counsel Martin Weekes saw Noguchi dancing around his office declaring, “I am going to be famous! I hope he dies!” Additionally, a secretary later testified she heard Noguchi say he would like to perform a vivisection (surgical examination of a live subject) on the county’s chief administrative officer, with whom he frequently argued. Although he was forced to resign, Noguchi was rehired after whining that he was the victim of discrimination because he was Japanese. He remained chief medical examiner until 1982, when the self-described “Coroner to the Stars” was again removed from his position following accusations of promoting personal projects and indiscretion, and this time, he wasn't reinstated. He finished his career at the University of California Medical Center, where he worked as a pathologist and teacher until his retirement in 1999.
Through the years, Noguchi sought the limelight, producing several poorly written books, which were, for the most part, nothing more than a rehash of previously published material. To this day, there are those who knew and/or worked with Noguchi who say he should never have been promoted to chief medical examiner and once ousted, should not have been reinstated.
The Housekeeper and Her Nephew. At the time of Marilyn’s death, her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, probably knew more about what was going on with Marilyn than anyone else, and through the years, she changed her story. In 1985, 23 years after her former employer died, Ms. Murray, during an interview for the BBC documentary, Say Goodbye to the President, suddenly blurted, “Why, at my age, do I still have to cover up this thing?” When the interviewer asked what she was covering up, the 83-year-old lady confided, “I was not supposed to know the Kennedys were a very important part of Marilyn’s life, but over a period of time, I was a witness to what was happening.” When questioned specifically about the attorney general’s presence at Marilyn’s home the day the actress died, she replied, “Oh sure, yes. I was in the living room when he arrived. She [Marilyn] was not dressed.”
Norman Jeffries, Ms. Murray’s nephew, who performed handyman work around the house, recalled Kennedy’s arriving with his brother-in-law, Peter Lawford, between 3 and 4 p.m., while Pat Newcomb, Marilyn’s publicist, was there. “Mr. Lawford made it very clear that he wanted Eunice and I out of there,” Jeffries remembered. “He told us to go to the market. When we came back – maybe it was an hour later – their car was gone, and when we went into the house, Marilyn was hysterical and looked awful. Something terrible had happened. She was scared out of her mind … having this hysterical rage. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen. She was scared, and at the same time, she was incredibly angry.”
This was damning, but there was more to come: Between 9 and 10 p.m., according to Jeffries, Bobby Kennedy returned, this time with two men he did not recognize. Again, he and his aunt were asked to leave the house, and while they complied with the request, they remained in the neighborhood. Around 10:30, they saw Kennedy and his two accomplices leave the premises.
Also at approximately 10:30, Peter Lawford received a call from Marilyn during which she apparently lost consciousness. Lawford broke the connection and called Joe Naar, who had been at his home for dinner that night, and asked that he check on Marilyn, who lived nearby.
Jeffries and his aunt returned to the house shortly after Kennedy and the men left and found Marilyn lying naked on the daybed in the attached guest house. (The guest area is where Marilyn kept a filing cabinet and there are those who believe she was there because Bobby was searching for her diary, which allegedly contained sensitive information revealed by JFK and RFK during “pillow talk.”) “I thought she was dead,” Jeffries told the interviewer. “She was face-down, her hand kind of holding the phone. It didn’t look to me like she was breathing and her color was awful – like she was dead. Eunice took the phone and called an ambulance. Then she put through an emergency call to Dr. [Ralph] Greenson, who was nearby and said he would be right over. He [Greenson] told Eunice to call Dr. [Hyman] Engelberg.”
Death in the Guest House. Schaefer Ambulance Service was called and the unit, manned by James Hall and Murray Leibowitz, was only around three minutes away when they received the Code 3 instructing them to proceed with lights and sirens, i.e., as quickly as possible. Hall recalled entering the guest cottage – not the main part of the house – where they found a woman comatose on the bed and another woman (Pat Newcomb) hysterical. Marilyn was placed on the floor on her back and the pair attempted to resuscitate her. Dr. Greenson then arrived and ordered Hall to remove the resuscitator, after which the psychiatrist attempted to inject adrenaline directly into the heart, but the needle hit a rib and within moments, the woman was dead. (If true, then this is another needle mark missed by Dr. Noguchi.)
A few minutes later, at approximately 11:30, Mr. and Mrs. Abe Landau, who lived at 316 South Carmelina, a few yards from Marilyn’s property, arrived home to see an ambulance and police car at their neighbor’s house, and at the same time, they heard a helicopter hovering overhead.
Peter Lawford. Around midnight, Lynn Franklin – the highest-decorated officer on the Beverly Hills police force – observed a dark Mercedes speeding east on Olympic Boulevard. When he stopped the vehicle, he recognized the driver as Peter Lawford, and when he shined his flashlight into the backseat, saw none other than U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and another man, who turned out to be Dr. Greenson. Lawford explained he was rushing the attorney general to the Beverly Hilton Hotel on urgent business, so Franklin, after calling Lawford’s attention to the 35 mile-per-hour posted speed limit, waved them on. (The photo above shows Lawford and Marilyn at the CalNeva Resort at Lake Tahoe.)
At 4:25 a.m., close to six hours after she died, Sergeant Jack Clemmons of the West Los Angeles Police Department received a call from a man who identified himself as Dr. Hyman Engelberg. “Marilyn Monroe has died,” he said. “She’s committed suicide.”
Assuming the foregoing is accurate, at some point during the almost six hours that elapsed between her death and Dr. Engelberg’s call, Marilyn Monroe’s body was moved from the guest area to her bedroom and the scene was set.
Deborah Gould, who was married to Peter Lawford for a few weeks in 1976, told a story for which she was handsomely paid, wherein she claimed her husband admitted there was an affair between Marilyn and Bobby Kennedy. When she asked if he knew anything about how the famous star died, he allegedly replied, “Marilyn took her last big enema.” She also was quoted as saying Peter “never admitted that he took a suicide note, but he didn’t deny it, either. I still believe to this day that he did.”
Patricia Seaton, Lawford’s fourth wife who was with him when he died in 1984, told a different story. She said he told her Marilyn accidentally killed herself and he felt guilty for not having gone to her home to check on her when she called that night.
Robert F. Kennedy. There’s no doubt Robert F. Kennedy was in California on August 4, 1962, because he, his wife and four of their children were visiting a ranch 320 miles north of Los Angeles in Gilroy as guests of John B. and Nancy Bates. John Bates, the successful San Francisco lawyer who owned the ranch, always insisted RFK was present the entire weekend. “There’s no way in the world he could have left, no way,” Bates insisted. Other members of the Bates family, as well as their employees, including ranch steward Robert Snyder, confirmed Kennedy’s presence.
The Kennedys arrived at San Francisco Airport, Friday, August 3, and according to those present, the following morning, the two families had a big breakfast before setting out on a horseback ride. After lunch, the group played touch football, swam in the pool, etc., and after the children were tucked into bed, the adults enjoyed a leisurely dinner, which ended around 10:30. On Sunday morning, the two families attended services at St. Mary’s Church, and after lunch, they drove into San Francisco and spent the remainder of the day and evening with Mr. and Mrs. Edward Callan and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Tydings. (While everyone knows photos can easily be manipulated today, such was much more difficult 60 years ago, and there is photographic evidence of RFK’s presence on the horseback ride (above) at the ball game, in the swimming pool, etc.)
On August 20, 1962, 16 days after Marilyn’s death, an FBI agent allegedly contacted Kennedy concerning a rumor that he had an affair with a woman in Texas. According to the agent, whose report appears in Goddess by Anthony Summers, RFK “said he was aware there had been several allegations concerning his possibly being involved with Marilyn Monroe. ... He said he had at least met Marilyn Monroe since she was a good friend of his sister, Pat Lawford, but these allegations just had a way of growing beyond any semblance of the truth.”
We’ll Never Know. Was Marilyn, who had just been fired from her latest film, Something’s Got to Give, at such a low point that she fantasized a different life, one in which she was the wife of a powerful politician and part of an influential family? Did she lead people to believe she was having a torrid affair with the attorney general of the United States who was going to leave his wife and seven children to marry her and take her away from all her troubles? Did she tell enough people that the story was picked up by J. Edgar Hoover, who saw an opportunity to embarrass the Kennedys, whom he hated, and use the story to his advantage? (If Bobby Kennedy was questioned by an FBI agent in August 1962, Hoover more than likely ordered the interview, or if he didn’t, would have known about it shortly thereafter.)
After the passage of more than six decades, we’ll never know what really happened on the night of August 4, 1962, and it would be a shame to raze the home of the world’s most iconic sex symbol thereby destroying the site of one of Hollywood’s most enduring mysteries.
You may add your name to the petition to save Marilyn’s home here.
Sources: Wesley Stenzel, Entertainment, September 11, 2023; Mary K. Jacob, The New York Post, September 7, 2023; James McClain, The Robb Report, September 6, 2023; Cindy Von Quednow and Kareen Wynter, KTLA, September 6, 2023; Noelle Bertram, GirlWhoTravelsTheWorld, March 5, 2019; Cecilia Rasmussen, The Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2005; James Spada, Vanity Fair, May 1991; Say Goodbye to the President; The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, October 7, 1985; Robert Lindsey, The New York Times, November 23, 1985; The Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe by Robert Slatzer; Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe by Anthony Summers; University of California Los Angeles; and Petition.org.
