J. Taraborrelli - The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

During this period, Marilyn renewed her friendship with a publicist named Pat Newcomb, a woman who had worked with her on Bus Stop and whom Marilyn rehired at the end of 1960. Rupert Allan, a good friend of Princess Grace Kelly, had decided to spend more time with the princess in Monaco. Newcomb would take his place as Marilyn’s personal publicist. “At the core of her, she was really much stronger than all of us,” Pat Newcomb recalls of Marilyn, “and that was something we tended to forget, because she seemed so vulnerable, and one always felt it necessary to watch out for her.”

Marilyn actually spent Christmas with Pat, gifting her with a mink coat for the holiday. She also decided to rekindle her relationship with Joe DiMaggio after he sent her poinsettias for Christmas. When she asked him why he had sent them, he said that he did so because he knew she would call him to thank him. “Besides,” he said, “who in the hell else do you have in the world?” When Marilyn allowed him to visit her on Christmas evening, some in her circle were concerned about it. After all, it had not ended well with DiMaggio. Most people felt that he was the last thing she needed at this desperate time in her life. (In just a short time, DiMaggio would turn out to be a savior in her life.)

Marilyn’s divorce from Arthur Miller would be the first order of business to be taken care of in January 1961. Along with her publicist, Pat Newcomb, and attorney, Aaron Frosch, Marilyn would fly to Mexico on January 20—picking the day of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s inauguration specifically because it was sure to have the attention of all media—where the divorce would be quickly granted. There would be no alimony for either party and the house they owned in Roxbury would go to Miller since he used the money from the sale of his previous home to buy it.

With another marriage over, and especially after the affair with Montand, Marilyn’s image was now, maybe more than ever, that of a hussy, a homewrecker. The perception was that she had used Arthur Miller to write movies for her— Let’s Make Love , for example—then dumped him. Considering that it was because of Miller’s alleged ties with Communists that Marilyn would be forever tailed by the FBI, maybe it was appropriate that even the Russian media got into the act. “When you speak of the American way of life,” commented the Russian magazine Nedyela , “everybody thinks of chewing gum, Coca-Cola and Marilyn Monroe. She found in Arthur Miller what she lacked. She exploited him without pity. He wrote scripts for her films and made her a real actress. Marilyn paid him back. She left him. Another broken life on her climb to the stars.”

When a reporter read that commentary to Marilyn, she couldn’t contain her anger. “Listen!” she exclaimed. “I know Arthur Miller better than the Russians and I’ve learned from Arthur Miller more than the Russians. I’ve learned from Arthur Miller that he does not believe in a Communist State. That’s what I’ve learned from Arthur Miller. The Russians can talk all they want about my climb to the stars, his broken life and what I’ve done to somebody. But I know the man. They’re talking about an idea. They can have their ideas. I had the man.”

Earlier, Marilyn had told Joe DiMaggio, when he visited her, that she was looking forward to returning to Los Angeles so she could continue her treatment by Dr. Ralph Greenson. At the end of the month of January, as if to bid a final and respectful farewell to Arthur Miller and her life with him, she would happily attend the New York premiere of The Misfits with Montgomery Clift.

Marilyn Is Committed

I opened my living room window as wide as I could and I leaned out. I knew that I had to make up my mind inside the room. If I climbed out onto the ledge, someone below would be certain to recognize me and there’d be a big spectacle. I squeezed my eyes shut at the open window, clenched my fists. I remembered reading somewhere that people who fall from heights lose consciousness before they hit the ground. Then when I looked down, I saw a woman walking along the sidewalk near the building awning. She was wearing a brown dress and… I knew her. ”

Those were Marilyn Monroe’s words to her friend Ralph Roberts, when she described to him her decision to commit suicide in February 1961. It was a startling admission. Marilyn told Roberts that she had been so depressed about any part she might have played in the death of Clark Gable that she had considered leaping from her thirteenth-floor apartment window. Luckily, she changed her mind at the last moment.

After her divorce from Arthur Miller, Marilyn began once again to sink into the deepest of depressions, some of which were so bottomless it seemed to those who knew and loved her that there was simply no reaching her. Clearly she wasn’t eating much, and by the beginning of 1961 she looked gaunt and sickly. She wasn’t even washing her hair, once so vibrant and luxurious but now dull and lifeless. It was as if she no longer cared about anything. With the exception of her daily visits to her psychiatrist Dr. Kris’s office, she secluded herself in her New York apartment, refusing most guests and expressing no interest in socializing. Socializing had become an ordeal for her especially as she got older. Monroe historian Charles Casillo explains it best this way: “There was no place for lines in her face with that kind of persona. Let’s face it, we all want to look nice when we go to a party, but imagine every person you meet inspecting every inch of you, judging you on your appearance only? Does she have freckles? Is she tired? Is she thin? Is she really that beautiful? Marilyn had to face that kind of scrutiny every day, with every person who faced her. She knew what her major attraction was. She even admitted that at times she was invited to a party ‘to dress up the dinner table.’ Would the invitations keep coming if the dessert wasn’t so appetizing?” *

Those who managed to reach her by telephone couldn’t help but note the abject despondence in her voice. She had taken such a sharp turn for the worse, there was genuine concern about leaving her alone, yet she refused to allow anyone to stay with her. Though Dr. Kris had been trying to find a proper pharmaceutical strategy for managing not only Marilyn’s depression but also her increasing anxiety, nothing seemed to work. She had been taking so many drugs for such a long time, it had become difficult to find one that would have a true impact on her condition.

During a session, Marilyn relayed to Dr. Kris the same chilling story she told Ralph Roberts about her near suicidal leap. Obviously, it piqued the doctor’s concern. After all, sitting before Dr. Kris was an important patient she had been trusting to follow her orders when it came to proper drug dosage and frequency. Kris was well aware that if Marilyn had genuine interest in killing herself, she could easily do so with the pills already in her possession. She wouldn’t have to leap out of a window to get the job done. There was no question about it—the doctor needed to take action.

Dr. Kris suggested to Marilyn that she check into a private ward at New York Hospital for some rest and relaxation under medical supervision. Reluctantly, Marilyn agreed. Therefore, on Sunday, February 5, Dr. Kris drove her to Cornell University–New York Hospital. Marilyn checked in using the pseudonym of “Faye Miller,” in order to keep her presence there unknown. However, when it came time to take her to her room, she was mysteriously escorted to another clinic on the expansive premises.

From the moment Marilyn entered this strange new wing, it was obvious to her that there was something very different about it. She had been to hospitals over the years, and none of them were quite like this one. For one thing, the orderlies escorting her seemed distant and forceful. Her journey deeper into the ward involved passage through numerous steel doors, most of which required a key from both sides. Suddenly, it all became clear, and fear swept through her at the realization: Those doors were meant to keep people in , not keep people out.