Jay Margolis - Marilyn Monroe: A Case for Murder

People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him.

Robert Francis Kennedy

Jack Kennedy could have been a movie star himself. He had the charisma, the charm, that come-hither quality that can never be duplicated. Is it any wonder he got elected president?

Marilyn Monroe to Lawrence Quirk (November or December 1960)

Its not what you are. Its what people think you are.

Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.

MARILYN MONROE:
A Case for Murder

Jay Margolis

iUniverse LLC

Bloomington

Marilyn Monroe: A Case for Murder

World Copyright 2011 Jay Margolis

World Copyright 2011 George Barris for the front cover photograph

World Copyright October 1993 Michelle Justice. Reprinted with permission from fan newspaper Runnin Wild: All About Marilyn, Number 12

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-1755-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1756-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1757-7 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011907146

iUniverse rev. date: 12/12/2011

Contents

This is a scholarly work with extensive source notes. In the past, no one biographer has successfully explained how Marilyn Monroe died. I put together a large amount of never-used information from previous works on the subject, including past interviews. One in particular is a revealing interview by private investigator Cathy Griffin with the psychiatrists wife Hildi Greenson.

As for the eighteen interviews I cited from Donald Spoto, most of the individuals interviewed are now deceased. In that regard, I found his collection quite helpful. Additionally, I interviewed twenty-two individuals. Many were carefully chosen from among Marilyns friends and others who knew her during the last year of her life and whose testimony is key to the story. In this manner, I have reached a definitive conclusion as to what really happened to Marilyn Monroe. It wasnt an accident. And it wasnt suicide. Then-Deputy District Attorney John Miner came to the conclusion that someone killed her. Hes right. Marilyn Monroe was murdered.

Miner, who oversaw her autopsy with Dr. Thomas Noguchi, told Playboy in an interview for their December 2005 issue, How can the woman rest in peace when theres a lie about how she met her death? My response is that Monroe was denied the basic right to which every American, dead or alive, is entitled due process of law. I share Miners rationale and that is the reason why I wrote this book. I have many people to thank for it.

I thank my parents and my friends. I thank Dr. Elias Amador for his brilliant expertise on a complicated medical case. I would also like to thank my interview subjects and the biographers whom I cite in this work, especially C. David Heymann at Simon & Schuster, Anthony Summers, and Donald H. Wolfe.

I owe thanks to Greg Schreiner, President of Marilyn Remembered , who provided me with much support. I thank Michelle Justice, co-author of the scholarly fan newspaper Runnin Wild: All About Marilyn . Her newspapers have fascinating interviews with George Barris, Whitey Snyder, and many more of Marilyns friends.

I would also like to thank Mrs. Gloria Romanoff for her kindness and patience with my tough questions. I thank actresses Terry Moore and the late Jane Russell. I thank Mike Selsman, a guy with a true love for history. I want to say a special thank you to actress Jayne Mansfields press secretary Raymond Strait for his generosity and time in speaking with me. This book would have been incomplete without my interviews with him.

Most of all, I thank an excellent photographer George Barris who took the most natural pictures of Marilyn Monroe. On August 3, one day before she died, he was one of the last to speak to her over the phone. Mr. Barris is a wonderful man. He loved Marilyn very much. I hope my research on his friends death will bring closure. I dedicate the book to the memory of Marilyn Monroe. In that respect, I have written it as truthfully as I know it.

J.M.

JANE RUSSELL TO JAY MARGOLIS (11/29/2010): Thats the first time I got to know her was when we made Gentlemen . Her makeup man told mine that she was all ready. She had come in at least an hour before I did. She just felt nervous about going out alone. Id go by her dressing room and say, Come on, baby, we got about ten minutes to go. And shed look up at me and say, Oh, alright. And wed trot on together. Those other idiots would just sit there and sulk because she was late on other pictures but nobody went by to get her! The press were trying to have us hate each other. But it wasnt that way at all. She was like a little sister to me. She was very sweet and got very upset about a lot of things that I wouldnt have gotten upset about at all. But this was Marilyn. I think she felt alone and she didnt know who her dad was. Her mother was in a sanitarium On Gentlemen , the guy playing Daddy had a friend of his come up and say, Well, you just kissed Marilyn Monroe. Now what was it like? He said, It was uh, it was uh, it was like being swallowed alive! Marilyn heard that and she ran to her dressing room crying. If that had happened to me, Id say, Honey, youd be so lucky.

JOAN GREENSON (Manuscript by the psychiatrists daughter, p. 46): Marilyn couldnt even have her own phone number on the phone. She found out that often people who came into the house would write it down and sell it, or call her. So as a joke, she put on her phone dial the phone number of the local police department, so anyone thinking they had pulled a fast one was in for a big surprise.

GEORGE BARRIS TO JAY MARGOLIS (01/07/2011): When I was in the country, I was with my brother-in-law. We went to a local grocery to get some milk and bagels. I sat in the car and he went in to buy it and he came running out. And he looked at me, It just came over the radio. I said, What are you talking about? Marilyn is dead. You shouldnt make jokes like that. Its not nice. No, its true. Honestly. I couldnt believe it. I was just in a shock. I dropped him off then I drove all the way back to New York where I lived at Sutton Place. It was about a 100 miles. Luckily I didnt get a ticket or in an accident I was driving so fast. When I got back, the doorman told me that there was a bunch of press and photographers and reporters looking for me. If they come back, tell them Im not here. I went upstairs. I put on the television and radio. All that came over was Marilyn is dead. Marilyn is dead. It was too much. I shut everything off. I couldnt take it.

RAYMOND STRAIT (11/28/2011): Jay Margolis Marilyn Monroe: A Case for Murder is without a doubt the most thoroughly researched (and most on point) as any I have ever read and Ive read them all. Much in his book I can vouch for because of my twenty-year relationship with Fred Otash, Hollywoods top private detective.

GLORIA ROMANOFF TO JAY MARGOLIS (01/28/2011): Theyre coming very close on whatever verdict they give Dr. Murray in the Michael Jackson situation. I think the two cases coming simultaneously will create a huge excitement. Are you quite prepared for what you may be dealing with once your book is published?