Robert Randisi: You're nobody 'til somebody kills you

“The meanderings of an old man,” I said. It wasn’t far from the truth. I tended to go on when people would let me talk about old Vegas.

“Eddie … why?”

“Because I don’t want anything I say to alter Marilyn’s legend?”

“Legend? She was a pathetic woman who couldn’t have a lasting relationship. Her only success was what she was in the imaginations of men.”

“That’s the slant you’ll be takin’?” I asked.

“What else is there?”

“She was much more than you think, much more than most people think.”

Maybe I should have told her that Marilyn saved both our lives, but I knew if I did that the newspapers the next day would all carry the same headline: MARILYN MONROE COMMITTED MURDER.

“Take a walk with me,” I said.

“Where?”

“Just a stroll through the casino. Come on.”

“I need to bring my recorder, my notes-”

“No, this really is off the record. Leave them there,” I said, “I’ll tell Melina to watch ‘em. Nobody’s gonna touch ‘em.”

“Well, okay …”

We got up and I conferred briefly with Melina, who nodded. We left the coffee shop by the door that took us directly into the casino. I exchanged greetings with several waitress and dealers, as well as a casino host. We didn’t have casino hosts back during the Rat Pack days. If we had, maybe I never would’ve met the guys because some host would have been put in charge of seeing to their needs.

“You’re still known by a lot of people, Eddie,” J.T. said.

“Everybody in this town wants to stay connected to old Vegas,” I said. “But all around us are the signs of new Vegas. Look, right there.”

I pointed to a slot machine that had Dean Martin’s voice singing, “How lucky can one man be, I kissed her and she kissed me …”

“Dean Martin slot machines,” I said. “Dino must be turnin’ over in his grave. Look, over there … Elvis machines … Frank Sinatra machines … and come over here with me.”

I led J.T. to a bank of machines against a wall. There were four of them, the new kind, like TV sets rather than upright slot machines.

Above each machine was a different photo of Marilyn, and in each she was smiling and wearing a different gown.

“I don’t approve of all these things,” I said to J.T., “but they prove one thing. These people are all icons, especially Marilyn.”

“Eddie, there are a lot of icons, that doesn’t mean they were good people.”

“Well, Marilyn was good people,” I said. “If you write that I’ll swear to it.”

One of the shots above the slot machines was the one from The Seven Year Itch , with her standing in that white dress over the street grate. Back in the 1960s I never suspected how slot machines would grow and take over as the biggest moneymakers in Vegas. And I certainly never expected to see my friends pop up all around me in casino after casino.

“Okay, Eddie,” J.T. said, “I won’t use it.”

“You won’t?”

“No,” she said, “but tell me, what did you tell Marilyn? I mean, about being followed, and watched.”

“I struggled with that,” I said. “I really did, but I decided to put her mind at ease. I told her she was safe, that nobody was watching her anymore.”

“You lied to her then,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, “I did.”

“How did you feel after her death?”

“I was devastated.”

“Do you think she died because you lied to her?”

I turned and looked at her. “Why, J.T.,” I said, “I think you’re turnin’ mean.”

“I’m just tryin’ to get my story, Mr. Gianelli,” she said, and stormed off.

“Eddie?”

Melina was coming toward me. She handed me J.T. Kerouac’s tape. “I took another tape from her bag and replaced it.”

“Thanks, Melina. You’re a doll.”

“Anything for you, Eddie.”

“Here,” I said, handing her a twenty, “I know she’s gonna stiff you on your tip.”

“Thanks.”

I wondered how J.T. would feel when she got to her booth and found her notes gone.

I sat for a moment in front of one of the Marilyn machines. The night she died she had called Peter Lawford. He was supposed to have been the last person she spoke to. But that wasn’t true.

She had called me …

Las Vegas, Nevada

August 5, 1962

4:04A.M.

“Eddie …”

“Marilyn?” I was home that morning because it was my night off. I glanced blearily at the clock next to my bed.

“Marilyn, what’s wrong?”

“Everything, Eddie,” she said, “everything’s wrong. It’s … all over.”

“What’s all over?” She sounded sleepy … or drugged.

“They won’t talk to me, Eddie … Jack, Bobby … I called Peter, but he won’t help … I talked to Joe … but you’re the only one who can help me.”

I immediately felt guilty. I had only spoken with Marilyn a couple of times over the past seven months. I had returned to Vegas, to my life, and read about her, or heard about her on the news, like everybody else. I called her once, she called me once, but we went back to our own lives.

“Help me, Eddie …”

“Marilyn, what did you do?” I asked. “Honey, talk to me. Did you take anything?”

“Pills … I have pills, Eddie …”

“Yes, but did you take them?”

I remembered the bottles I’d seen at her bedside that day, among them Nembutal and chloral hydrate. I’d meant to talk to her about them, but I never did. After Jerry got out of the hospital we had all said good-bye and driven back to Vegas. Danny returned to work, Jerry flew back to New York and I went back to the Sands.

Apparently, Marilyn had gone back to her private demons.

“Marilyn?”

“Eddie … help …”

The line went dead.

I dressed and got into my Caddy, drove as fast as I could to L.A. I drove so fast I was stopped twice by the police, and neither time did they believe that I was rushing to L.A. to try to save Marilyn Monroe. They both gave me speeding tickets.

By the time I arrived at Marilyn’s house the police were there, and so was a crowd outside. I saw them remove her body, and I cried, but nobody noticed, because there were plenty of other people crying too …

Las Vegas, Nevada

2003

Years later, of course, there are so many different stories about Marilyn’s death, but I had seen the Nembutal and chloral hydrate on her night table myself. And one report said they attributed her death to an overdose, even though no glass had ever been found. But I always thought she could have taken the pills in the bathroom and then stumbled back to bed.

But the majority of people in the world don’t care about how she died. They only care that she lives on in movies, and in books and, of course, on slot machines.

God help us.