Marilyn The Mystery

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written by New York Post | views: 3513

'DEAR MR. von Fuehlsdorff: Thank you for your Champagne. It ar rived. I drank it, and I was gayer! Thanks again. My best, Marilyn Monroe."

That's a little note written by the most famous movie icon of all time, to the German consulate general in 1961.

This note, and hundreds of similarly intimate items - checks, receipts, bank ledgers, telegrams, letters from and to lawyers, furs, jewelry, makeup compacts, perfume bottles, poems from T.S. Elliot (maybe) a letter from Somerset Maugham (for real), favorite photos, etc. - were part of a treasure trove, a cache of belongings that were quickly packed up in the immediate aftermath of Marilyn's death from a barbiturate overdose on August 5, 1962.

Now Vanity Fair for October, in its very special 25th anniversary issue, has put Monroe on the cover, and is telling the long and winding saga of these items - how they were spirited out of Monroe's Brentwood home by her business manager Inez Melson. (Inez was employed by Joe DiMaggio to basically "keep an eye" on his beloved Marilyn, during and after their marriage.)

This collection was not a part of what MM's acting gurus Lee and Paula Strasberg got their hands on; trunks full of memorabilia, later sold for millions by Lee's widow and second wife, Anna, at the famous 1999 Christie's auction. (After much legal wrangling, Anna has possession of the "lost" knickknacks too.)

The writer Sam Kashner tells how this collection traveled, vanished, reappeared, and became a source of obsession for some. It's a massive, twisty tale that does not - Vanity Fair's coverline about solving a mystery notwithstanding - solve much of anything. Marilyn remains just out of reach, despite the sometimes delicious, often mundane minutia revealed. The essential quality will always be - "who was she?"

The average VF reader (that means you!) will find much new and unexpected info - Marilyn's charming correspondence (in one adorable note she writes to her stepchildren by Arthur Miller, in the voice of the family basset hound!) Also her financial situation. She was cash-poor, overgenerous and spending beyond her means. But, though the author doesn't mention it, MM was potentially solvent, thanks to her profit participation in "Some Like It Hot" and her own company's "The Prince and the Showgirl." She had been rehired at twice her salary to complete "Something's Got To Give" and on her nightstand, found along with her pill bottles was - among other offers - a pitch to appear in Las Vegas for $100,000. Still, those close to her worried. Joe DiMaggio was a great help to her, financially and emotionally. Arthur Miller, was not. "For a time," the article states, "She was supporting him."

The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up. Read more Marilyn Monroe quotes

Kashner also questions an $800 bill for a hospitalization for gynecological treatment in 1953. He asserts that this might have been an abortion! In reality, Monroe was plagued by excruciating "female problems" her entire life. She underwent several procedures to make it possible to bear a child. She never did, miscarrying three times.

The non-average reader, the Monroe historians (I know a few) will tell you that the majority of this material, now beautifully collated and photographed by Mark Anderson, is not-so-startling. Much of it has been dipped into and used by biographers for 30-something years. Indeed in Fred Lawrence Guiles' admirable 1969 bio "Norma Jeane," the eye-opening missive to Marilyn from Jean Kennedy Smith was first noted: "I hear you and Bobby are the new item!" Jean scribbled cheerfully to Monroe.

And Marilyn's 1960 letter to Lester Markel, the then Sunday editor of The New York Times, was reprinted in a later bio: "Lester Dear . . . about our political conversation the other day. I take it back that there isn't anybody. What about Rockefeller . . . Adlai Stevenson might have made it if he had been able to talk to people instead of professors. Of course, there hasn't been anyone like Nixon before because the rest of them at least had souls!" Marilyn then goes on to test out some campaign slogans: "Nix on Nixon!" . . . "Over the Hump With Humphrey" . . . "Stymied with Symington" . . . "Back to Boston by Xmas - Kennedy"