Two weeks ago, more or less, I had left Marilyn Monroe on top of the world, or anyway the part of it that included a soundstage swimming pool at Twentieth Century-Fox, whose executives were at her feet. Now, having breakfast at Nate ’n Al’s in Beverly Hills, I was reading in the LA Times about a very different Marilyn from the one Sam and I had watched doing a sexy water ballet.
According to Hedda Hopper, Marilyn had been “half mad” on the set of Something’s Got to Give, unable to remember her lines, sleepwalking through her performance, and-on the day of her nude swim-stripping off her Jean Louis bikini, so high on drugs “she didn’t even know where she was.”
Around me in the showbiz-heavy deli, Marilyn arguments pro and con raged, and when I went around picking up various other papers, including the trades, I found amazing quotes: director Cukor saying, “This is the end of the poor girl’s career,” Fox studio head Peter Levathes claiming, “Miss Monroe is not temperamental, she is mentally ill,” producer Walter Bernstein insisting, “By her willful irresponsibility, Marilyn Monroe has taken the bread right out of the mouths of men who depend on this film to feed their families.”
“This film” had officially been shut down by Fox for recasting or outright scrapping, and Marilyn fired.
I pushed aside half a plate of scrambled eggs and lox, quickly paid the check, and tooled the Jag back to my bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. My digs were just the basics-living room, marble fireplace, two bedrooms, two baths, private patio. The spare bedroom had a desk that I used for work, and from there I tried to phone Marilyn at her North Doheny Drive apartment, but a dozen rings got me nowhere.
Trying Pat Newcomb at the Arthur Jacobs agency got me a little somewhere-a receptionist put me through to the publicist’s male assistant, who took my name and number and said he would pass it right on to Miss Newcomb, who was out.
I went on about my business, spending the day at the A-1 office in the Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles-we were hiring, and my partner, Fred Rubinski, and I interviewed half a dozen ex-LA cops. Despite what Jack Webb might have you believe, not every LA cop is intelligent, reliable, and honest, and it was a chore.
Anyway, the following Monday I was reaching for the phone to make a TWA booking back to Chicago when the damn thing rang, making me jump a little. Maybe I wasn’t as tough as I used to be.
“Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner,” Pat Newcomb said. She sounded tired.
“I guess you’ve had your hands full.”
“I have. I’m at Marilyn’s now, as it happens.”
“The Doheny pad?”
Marilyn’s actual residence was an apartment on East Fifty-seventh in New York, but since she and Arthur Miller divorced, her Hollywood address had been at a triplex in West Hollywood, owned by Frank Sinatra. Frank’s Negro valet, George Jacobs, lived there, and usually one or two of the singer’s squeezes, or sometimes a pal needing a temporary roof. Which category Marilyn fell into, I wasn’t sure.
“No, she’s not there anymore,” Newcomb said. “She has a house in Brentwood.”
“How’s she doing? This shit in the papers, it just doesn’t let up.”
And it hadn’t.
“It’s a smear campaign by the studio.”
“You’re not asking me to believe Hedda Hopper is untrustworthy, are you? She has such a nice smile.”
“She’s a bitch,” Pat snapped, maybe not reading my sarcasm. “As for Marilyn, she’s had a rough couple days and nights, but… Well, come see for yourself.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. She wants to see you. She likes you.”
“Don’t sound surprised. Haven’t you noticed how lovable I am?”
She wasn’t in the mood for banter, and just gave me the address and the directions.
On the way over, I wondered if I would at last encounter the Marilyn of Hollywood rumor-the notorious drug-addicted dumb-blonde diva. Would I finally see that dark, self-pitying side of her that had caused, supposedly, half a dozen or more suicide attempts? Would she be a slurry wreck, or perhaps a paranoid harridan blaming the Fox executives for all her woes?
The closest I’d come to knowing the troubled Marilyn was the occasional very-late-night phone call from her-I was one of her long-distance buddies who she might reach out to when she was having trouble sleeping. Insomnia was her real archenemy, worse than Fox or Hedda Hopper.
That phone-friend list must have been fairly long, because I’d had only five or six of these calls over the years, coming at two or three in morning, and always starting the same way: “This is Marilyn Monroe. You know, the actress?”
That was silly, of course, but usually enough time had passed since I’d heard from her to make it credible, coming from that oddly shy, modest part of this girl who must have been in some manner an egotist to have made it so far.
But I’d never got a drugged-up or drunk Marilyn on the line-just that familiar, breathy female voice. The kind no healthy heterosexual male would respond to with, “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
What you say is, “Yeah, I remember you. I think maybe I saw one of your pictures,” or maybe, “I know you. I’m a detective, remember?”
And she would laugh and you’d talk till finally she started getting sleepy enough to sign off.
Brentwood had recovered from its disastrous fire of the previous November, once again a sleepy upper-middle-class community whose main drag was San Vicente Boulevard, its wide median home to sculpted coral trees. I wheeled the Jag onto Carmelina Avenue, a winding affair off of which were various greenery-swarmed cul-de-sacs. I was looking for Fifth Helena Drive, only Pat Newcomb warned me that it wasn’t marked-I had to count the cul-de-sacs, plus she described the houses on either corner.
Somehow I got it on the first try, though calling this short narrow strip a cul-de-sac was rather grand-I knew an alley when I saw one. At the mouth, on either side, were the homes the publicist had described for me, and at the end of the alley were two more homes, a two-story to the right, and Marilyn’s to the left.
You couldn’t see much of Marilyn’s place, though-a whitewashed seven-foot brick wall smothered in blooming bougainvillea vines blocked everything but a glimpse of red barrel-tiled roof of what would prove to be the garage.
The Jag I left half on the grass in case some other vehicle needed the space, and stepped from air-conditioning into a pleasantly warm sunny Cal afternoon, kissed with a nice coastal ocean breeze from the west.
Hollywood royalty lived here, but I was informal-black-collared gray Ban-Lon sport shirt; beltless, cuffless H.I.S. gray slacks; black suede loafers-and I’d taken to going hatless. Our young president’s fault.
I knocked at the double scalloped-topped wooden gate, and then knocked some more, and at last a middle-range female voice (definitely not Marilyn’s) responded drowsily from a distance, making three sluggish syllables out of “Yes.”
“Nathan Heller,” I said to the gate, loud but not yelling. “Miss Monroe is expecting me.”
The breeze ruffled pond fronds as footsteps minced on hard surface.
The gate wasn’t locked, although swinging it open seemed to take a lot out of the small dowdy middle-aged woman. She had short-cut wispy dark hair and unflattering dark-rimmed cat’s-eye glasses, and her shapeless floral housedress covered a stumpy asexual figure.
She gazed at me as if we were both underwater and I was a rare fish she’d come across, only she wasn’t interested in rare fish.
“You are…?”
“Nathan Heller? Miss Monroe’s expecting me?”
Was there a fucking echo in here?
“Oh. Yes. Well, all right.”
She turned her back to me and trundled across the tile courtyard toward the house, a quietly handsome L-shaped Spanish colonial with stuccoed adobe walls. But this absentminded troll belonged guarding a ramshackle middle-of-nowhere mansion, the kind where you ask to use the phone because your car broke down, and wind up a mad doctor’s next experiment.
She was reaching for the front door, but I said, “Let me get that,” ever the gentleman. Glancing down at the four tiles on the doorstep, depicting a coat of arms, I noted an inscription in blue on gray: Cursum Perficio.
“What’s that mean?” I said, more to myself than my hostess.
“Latin,” she whispered, as if this were a secret. “For ‘I have completed my journey.’ Marilyn finds comfort in that.”
She gave me a sick smile and went in. I closed the door after us, moving through the entryway into a wide living room dominated by a fireplace and glass doors onto the swimming pool. Thick white carpeting and textured white walls made a sharp contrast with bright colors courtesy of Mexican art and dark, rustic furnishings that matched the open beams.
In a white cotton short-sleeve blouse and dark capri pants, Marilyn-sitting Indian-style on the carpet near the unlighted fireplace-wore only a touch of lipstick, her platinum hair tousled, though her toes did reveal red nails. She had a fresh, freckled, youthful look, more Norma Jeane than MM.
She just smiled and waved, like a beauty queen on a float who’d spotted a homely gal friend in the crowd, and returned to her dictation.
Because that’s what she was doing, giving dictation to Pat Newcomb, who was seated on a Mexican-style wooden chair with insufficient cushions, taking down Marilyn’s crisp words on a steno pad. Some kind of list was in her lap. The publicist was looking haggard, though still attractive in her eternal sorority-girl way; she was in a blue blouse and darker blue slacks.
“‘Shutting the film down was none of my doing,’” Marilyn was saying. “‘I hope you know that. I am working to get us all back working again. Say hi to your lovely girls. Love, Marilyn.’… How many does that make?”
Newcomb’s smile was strained. “That’s one hundred and four.”
I had taken a seat at a low-slung black-leather-covered coffee table nearby. Newcomb glanced at me, and I must have raised an eyebrow or something, because she explained: “Marilyn has dictated telegrams to every crew member on Something’s Got to Give. Each one personalized.”
Marilyn was nodding. “I always know everyone on the crew… Hi, Nate. Thanks for coming.”
“Hi, Marilyn. Pleasure’s mine.”
She little-girl frowned at me. “You saw that ad, didn’t you? The one signed by all the crew members?”
I nodded. In Variety, an ad supposedly signed by all the propmen, carpenters, electricians, and so on had said: “Thank you, Marilyn Monroe, for the loss of our livelihoods.”
Newcomb said, “It was a fraud. We called around. Nobody on the crew knew anything about that ad. Everybody knows Marilyn is a friend to the workingman.”
Marilyn giggled. “That sounds dirty.” She had a glass of champagne going, resting where the carpet gave way and the fireplace began; no bottle was in sight, though.
The publicist shut the steno pad. “That’s it, then?”
“No! Send this to Arlington, Virginia. You know where.”
“Marilyn… honey… what-”
Comically commanding, Marilyn pointed at the publicist. “Write! I have to decline a formal invitation, don’t I? It wouldn’t be polite otherwise, would it?… ‘Dear Attorney General and Mrs. Robert Kennedy. I would have been delighted to have accepted your invitation honoring Pat and Peter Lawford.’”
Newcomb was hunkered over her pad like a slave at an oar, pencil tip scratching paper.
“‘Unfortunately, I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of minority rights belonging to the few remaining…’” She looked toward the open beams for guidance. “‘… earthbound stars.’”
“Signed, respectfully…?”
“Keep writing. ‘After all, all we demanded was our right to twinkle.’” She blurted a “Ha!” and rocked on her bottom, then had a sip of champagne.
Then she remembered me. “Nate, would you like something? There’s plenty of Dom Perignon.”
“I bet there is. No.”
“I can get you some other drink, what is it you like? Rum and Coke?”
“I switched to vodka gimlets.”
“Ooh, how sixties of you. I can have Mrs. Murray fetch you-”
“Is that your housekeeper or-”
“She’s more a companion. Social secretary.”
She’d have made a better companion or social secretary for Vincent Price than Marilyn Monroe. But whatever she was, I hadn’t even seen her go. Mrs. Murray had vanished without even a puff of smoke.
“No, thanks,” I said. “You girls finish up your work.”
Marilyn shrugged exaggeratedly, then extended both hands. “That’s all! We’re done!” She clapped once, got to her bare feet. “Come on, Pat-don’t be so glum. We’re making strides.”
Newcomb smiled, nodded wearily. “We are. I’m really happy to see you in such good spirits.”
“You have to be in good spirits to fight back. And that’s what we’re doing. And after this good news-”
I interrupted: “What good news?”
She turned her big blue eyes on me, very wide. “I guess it hasn’t hit the papers yet. Might be on the radio and TV.”
“What might be on the radio and TV?”
“Dean. Dean Martin? My costar?”
“Yeah, guy who used to work with Jerry Lewis. What about him?”
Her smile was fetchingly smug. “Those smart-asses at Fox didn’t think to look at his contract-he has costar approval! When Kim and Shirley turned them down, they talked Lee Remick into taking my part… Lee Remick? I mean, she’s cute, but… Anyway, Dean quit the picture.”
Newcomb was smiling. “That’s right. He said, ‘No Marilyn, no Martin.’”
“He’s a sweetie,” Marilyn said, and her eyes got misty. “I mean, it’s touching, isn’t it? That kind of loyalty? In this town?”
She swallowed, and Newcomb went over and gave her a hug, then moved away, saying, “I better get out of here. I have a hundred and five telegrams to post.”
Marilyn’s smile was a beacon in the little room. “Yes, you do! Now scoot!”
Newcomb scooted, though she did take time to cast me a glance and a smile. I did her the same.
As the door closed, Marilyn came over to me and said, “Your turn,” and gave me a big hug. She smelled great-Chanel No. 5, as usual, but probably not directly applied; she always dumped a bottle in her bath.
“I have to say you look great,” I said.
She spread her hands in a presentational manner. “Not bad for thirty-six, huh? You think I’ve lost too much weight?”
“I like you any way I can get you. But this, this I think is your ideal fighting weight.”
“Fighting weight is right,” she said, and made two fists and held them up muscleman style. “You have no idea what these bastards are trying to do to me.”
“What can I do to help?”
She gave me another hug, then a sweet, short kiss that hovered somewhere between brother and lover. “First let me give you the dime tour. Don’t you just love this place? It’s my safe haven, it really is.”
So she took me by the hand like Mommy leading her favorite little boy, chattering on about how it was the first home she’d ever owned and how she cried when she signed the papers, pausing when we reached a point of interest.
To the left of the living room was a small dining room that led to a bright, cheery, wicker-filled sunroom at right and a modern kitchen at left, the latter a real point of pride to her.
“Have I ever cooked for you? You would love my pasta. And my guacamole? To die for. Remember when I was Jewish for a while?”
“Sure,” I said. When she was married to Miller.
“Well, I can still whip up a mean borscht, and my matzoh ball soup is incredible. You just won’t believe it. You are Jewish, aren’t you?”
We’d never talked about it.
“Yes and no,” I said. “My mom was Irish Catholic and died when I was a brat.”
“How sad…”
“My pop was a nonpracticing Jew, and the only part of it I have any interest in is that food you were talking about.”
“Well, it doesn’t hurt to be Jewish out here.”
“Done wonders for Sammy Davis, Jr.”
She laughed a little too hard at that. She seemed a tad high, but I’d been around enough pill-poppers to recognize the signs, and these weren’t those. This was a combo of champagne and renewed self-confidence, and nice to see. Fun to see.
Back through the living room, she led me to the master bedroom, which had a witch’s hat fireplace (maybe this was where Mrs. Murray disappeared to) and blackout curtains, with a portable phonograph on the floor, Sinatra albums scattered nearby. The double bed with its white satin comforter took up much of the space in the modest-sized room.
“Everything looks a little naked,” she said. “There’s a lot of stuff I bought in Mexico that hasn’t come yet.”
Then she caught me looking at the pills on her small round-topped nightstand-dozens of little bottles crowding a tiny lamp with a couple of red-covered spiral pads stuffed between.
“Those are all empty, Nate, except for one bottle of sleeping pills-go ahead, look.”
“No, I believe you. It’s your business, anyway.”
She put her arms around my waist from behind, pulling me near her with a nice familiarity. “I’m clean. I’m not taking anything except a little chloral hydrate, if I’m having sleep trouble.”
“Well, that’s great.”
“I have a fantastic shrink right now, and he’s done wonders. And, anyway, I never have any trouble kicking.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I’m a freak of nature. All I have to do is decide I don’t need to take anything anymore. Cold turkey is just a deli sandwich, far as I know.”
I didn’t know whether to buy this or not, but didn’t say anything. I turned to face her, still close enough to whiff the Chanel.
She said, “My biggest problem right now is sinusitis, and all I’m taking, cross my heart, is liver extract. You know, every day I called in sick, Fox’s own doctor came and looked at me, and said I wasn’t fit for duty. I’ve been fighting cold and fever and ten kinds of God knows what since last spring.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t stand so close to me, then. Why don’t you stop in an hour or so.”
She laughed at that, gave me another quick kiss, and took my hand again, back in tour-guide mode.
“None of the rooms are big,” she was saying, “but they’re nice. Wait till you see it fully decorated.”
Another bathroom joined the other two bedrooms, across the hall. One she described as the guest bedroom, outfitted with walnut cabinets and a twin bed, but the other was designated her “fitting room,” with a large wardrobe cabinet (“Not much closet space-Depression-era home, y’know”) and three floor-length mirrors hinged together into one big viewing space.
The fitting room had another function-two telephones, one pink, one white, perched on a walnut table near the door. They had endless spiral cords, which enabled her to walk around the house talking and even take a phone to bed.
“The pink phone’s a number for… usual callers. The white phone has a number only for special, select people… like you, Nate.”
She gave me that number and, feeling special and select, I jotted it in my little notepad.
“Actually,” she said, and bit her lip, shyly, “those phones are kind of why I wanted you to come see me.”
“Really.”
She nodded, frowned, glanced toward the hall. “Why don’t we go out and sit by the pool.”
“Sure.”
We did that, settling into black wrought-iron chairs. This was a more modest pool than the Fox soundstage one, and she quickly said she rarely used it, but encouraged guests to do so. We had a view of the narrow sloping backyard with eucalyptus and other trees.
Some hammering and other construction sounds came from her guesthouse, and I had the feeling that was partly why we were seated here, where our conversation would be concealed.
“I have to be careful,” she said softly. Then she smiled past me at Mrs. Murray, framed in the glass doors. She gave her housekeeper/companion/social secretary a little wave and the woman smiled and nodded and faded back into the living room, like a ghost.
“ She’s a ray of sunshine,” I said.
“I don’t really like her,” Marilyn said, matter of fact. “But she’s a friend of Dr. Greenson’s and needs the job.”
“Dr. Greenson is… the shrink you mentioned?”
She nodded. “The remodeling I’m doing?” She flicked a red-nailed finger toward the guesthouse and the hammering. “Mrs. Murray’s son-in-law Norman is doing that. He’s harmless. Maf likes him.”
“Maf?”
“My little poodle. Short for Mafia. Guess who gave him to me?”
“Sinatra.”
“Ha! You’re good. Anyway, Maf tags around after Norman, and that’s fine. When I have company, Maf can be a pesky little bother, the sweetie.”
I shifted, and the wrought-iron squeaked. “So what do you need, Marilyn?”
She gave me an impish look, reached over and squeezed my hand. “What if I said I needed a man?”
“I’d say you came to the right place.”
“Could I trust you not to fall in love with me?”
“No. But you can trust me not to marry you. I’ve married one actress and that’s my limit.”
She laughed soundlessly, flicked her head, and the platinum stuff bounced. “Maybe one of these days or nights, we can have a little fun. Would you like that, Nate?”
“I don’t hate the thought.”
Her eyes widened and her smile broadened. “Did your son have fun? At the set?”
“You bet.”
“I’m sorry they shooed you off with the photographers.” She shivered. “I was in that water for four hours!”
“Sam would’ve liked to meet you.”
“We’ll correct that one of these days.” She shifted; more squeaking. “Now… about my phones.”
“What about your phones?”
“I want you to tap them for me. You know-record my calls?”
“I know what phone-tapping is, Marilyn. Why?”
Her eyes went to the pool, where sunlight glittered like her best friends. “It’s this studio fight. I’m trying to get reinstated, and I’m having to talk to some… unlikely bedfellows.”
“What kind?”
“For instance-if you can believe it-Darryl Zanuck. He never liked me, you know. Thought I was just another bimbo-didn’t ‘get’ it. But he gets it now. He and Spyros Skouras are trying to get reinstated, too-trying to sell the Fox board that these Wall Street lawyers who took over don’t know rule one about movies. Rule one being, don’t fuck with Marilyn unless she’s in the mood.”
“And for this you need your phone tapped?”
“Yes. I want to keep track. What do they call it, a paper trail? I want a tape trail. Do you know how to do that?”
“Not personally, no, but there’s a guy we use.”
Roger Pryor, an ex-FBI man, did all the A-1’s work out here. He was a whiz at this spy stuff.
“When can you… Sorry.” She had raised a finger to her lips, and was looking past me.
A guy who might have been Tony Perkins’ homelier, taller brother ambled over, a tool kit clanking in his grasp. He was wearing coveralls and a blank expression. “Excuse me, Miz Monroe. I need to get some things from the house.”
“That’s fine, Norman. You really don’t have to ask.”
“Well, I saw you got company and figured maybe I should.”
“That’s thoughtful, Norman. Thanks.”
He ambled off.
“That was Norman,” she said.
No kidding.
“If this is about something else,” I said, “something more than just this movie studio nonsense, you should tell me. Like you’d tell your shrink.”
“What makes you think that?”
“The way you couldn’t meet my eyes when you were going on about it. If you’re in trouble, if somebody’s bothering you, I am that man you said you needed.”
“No, really, Nate-just do this job.”
“Okay. I’ll find out when my guy is available, and call you on your private line. You’ll need to make sure both Mrs. Murray and Norman are out of the house.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. There’s always shopping to be done. Will a thousand-dollar retainer do?”
“Sure.”
She’d anticipated this and drew a checkbook out of her capris. She was handing me the check with her famous signature still glistening when Mrs. Murray stuck her head out of the house, like a cuckoo from a clock, and informed Marilyn that Mr. Zanuck was on the line.
I wasn’t an actor, but I knew my cue. We both stood, then I got one more quick kiss from Marilyn, and took my leave.
Pulling the Jag away from the peaceful little hacienda, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to this than Marilyn was sharing. But for right now I’d have to settle for the thousand she’d given me.