J. Taraborrelli - The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

In March 1961, the couple took a relaxing vacation to a secluded resort in Redington Beach, Florida. Marilyn certainly needed the break. Just before they left, she became very upset about an article that was published that quoted Kay Gable (wrongly, as it would happen) saying that she believed Marilyn was responsible for her husband’s death. “John [Springer, Marilyn’s publicist] told me, ‘Do not send this to Marilyn, whatever you do. If she sees this, I don’t know what she’ll do,’ ” said Diane Stevens. “ ‘So, just send it over to Aaron [Frosch, her lawyer.]’ That’s what I did. Then, somehow or another, Marilyn saw the clipping. I think she was in Aaron’s office and it was on his desk. She became unglued over it. ‘How dare you keep this from me!’ she asked me on the phone. ‘I need to know what is going on. I’m the only one who doesn’t know what the hell is going on! You tell John that I am very, very angry about this. I should fire him over this.’ I tried to explain that we were just concerned about her, but she didn’t want to hear it. ‘God damn it,’ she said. ‘Everyone is so concerned about poor, screwed up Marilyn. Poor, poor Marilyn is going cuckoo and can’t handle her own press. I don’t want to hear it. I just don’t want to hear another word about it. ’ Then she slammed the phone down. By that time, I was shaking. I told John and he called her right away. Then she let him have it. It was clear that she was very much on edge and not well at all.”

Shortly after, Marilyn received a letter from Kay Gable. It was clear that Gable did not blame Marilyn for her husband’s death. In the letter, dated April 11, 1961, she wrote, “I miss Clark each day more, I’ll never get over this great loss, but God has blessed me with my three great children and precious memories.… Went to confession after 24 years (hope the priest did not call the cops), seriously, you do not know how much this has helped me.” Marilyn would soon visit Kay as well; there were certainly not hard feelings from Kay, though that didn’t seem to assuage Marilyn’s own sense of guilt.

At the end of April, Marilyn decided to take another apartment in Los Angeles. It was then that she learned the news that her friend Pat Kennedy Lawford was pregnant with her fourth child. “I remember Pat saying, ‘I don’t even know how to tell Marilyn this news, considering what’s going on in her life. I’m afraid it’ll make her even sadder,’ ” said a relative of Pat’s. “ ‘I already have three kids. She just wants one.’ Of course, she had no choice but to tell her when Marilyn was back in Los Angeles. By that time she was about six months pregnant. She told me later that when Marilyn laid eyes on her, she jumped into the air with excitement. Then she wrapped her arms around Pat and started to cry, she was so happy. It added another dimension, I think, to Pat’s friendship with Marilyn when she realized that Marilyn was able to put aside her own sadness, at least in the moment, and share in Pat’s joy. She told me, ‘I think she’s a wonderful woman and would make such a great mother. I pray every night that she has a child soon. I know it would change her life if she had someone else to be worried about.’ ”

During this time, as mentioned earlier, Marilyn rekindled her romance with Frank Sinatra. It’s not known how Joe DiMaggio felt about Marilyn and Frank, or even if it mattered. Clearly, Joe and Marilyn had an understanding about their relationship as it stood at this time, because Marilyn would likely not have been dating Frank if Joe had strenuously objected to it. For his part, though he was dating Juliet Prowse at the time, Frank was still attracted to Marilyn and, according to those who knew them well, couldn’t resist her. “He was in love with her, no doubt about it,” said Milt Ebbins, who was a good friend of Sinatra’s and also vice president of Peter Lawford’s production company, Chrislaw.

“By 1961, though, his feeling about her was more protective than passionate. I remember that there was an incident involving President Kennedy, who was new in office at the time. Peter and I arranged a luncheon for Kennedy, and Frank was invited. We had a special chef flown in from New York to cook fettuccine Alfredo, veal picatta, and a salad and ice cream at the end. Sinatra’s secretary called at the last minute and said he couldn’t make it, that he had a cold. I was astonished. This is JFK. He can’t stand up JFK. I knew Frank loved that guy, had campaigned for him, organized his inaugural entertainment, so it seemed strange. I found out later that what happened was that Marilyn was staying with him for the weekend and had left the house without telling him where she was going. He was frantic with worry. So he spent the day driving around trying to find her, and he did. She was out shopping. So that shows you how much he cared about her, if he was willing to miss a luncheon with the president so that he could figure out what the hell happened to Marilyn.”

Rupert Allan confirmed, “I always thought of Frank and Marilyn as star-crossed lovers. In a different time and place, they would have been together. He loved her a lot. However, by 1961, she was in so much turmoil, I think he was annoyed with her a lot of the time. He just thought she should have worked harder to pull it together so, yes, sometimes she pissed him off. Also, Sinatra certainly didn’t want to be involved with anyone who would be considered weak or vulnerable.”

Indeed, women like Marilyn were usually too much trouble for him. He liked his “dames” to have more inner strength and self-reliance, like Ava Gardner and his mother, Dolly Sinatra, both of whom represented his ideal of the total woman. He often didn’t have the patience necessary to deal with someone as conflicted as Marilyn. Just recently released from a mental hospital, Marilyn was not on sure footing when she was with Sinatra, and he wasn’t exactly tolerant with her. For instance, at one gathering at his home, Marilyn began to become emotional, was sharing sad childhood stories to guests. She seemed on the verge of an intense crying jag, only to be cut off by Frank. “Look, Norma Jeane,” he said, “we don’t want to hear it. Toughen up, baby, or get the hell out. I ain’t no babysitter.” She got up and bolted to her bedroom.

Some people in Sinatra’s circle thought that the only reason he was with her was because he felt sorry for her. “If Marilyn Monroe wanted sex, and she did constantly to make herself feel desirable, Mr. S. would play Sir Galahad and rise to the occasion,” said his longtime valet, George Jacobs. “He would rarely turn a good friend down. It fit in with his padrone self-image to give rather than receive. [However,] Mr. S. had a ton of misgivings about Marilyn. She was a total mess.”

People who were in his circle back then still talk about what happened on June 7, 1961—six days after her thirty-fifth birthday—when Frank invited Marilyn to Las Vegas. He was appearing at the Sands and was also planning a party for Dean Martin’s forty-fourth birthday that day. From the Sands interdepartmental correspondence between Jack Entratter, president; Al Guzman, publicity director; and Al Freeman, advertising and promotional director, we can glean that there was a great deal of preparation for the Dean Martin party, some of it concerning Monroe and Sinatra.

One memo, from Entratter to Guzman and Freeman, dated June 6, 1961, states, “Please be advised that under no circumstances is any backstage photographer permitted to photograph Mr. Sinatra and Miss Marilyn Monroe together at the cocktail reception to follow the performance on 7 June. Any photographer who attempts to do so will be permanently barred from the hotel. Be advised that this is not only a Sands requirement, it is a requirement of Mr. Sinatra’s and, as such, will be absolutely enforced. Thank you.”