Her clothes are taken from her, and she is given a hospital gown to wear. Then she is placed in a padded room, the door is slammed shut and locked from the outside.
Alone, Marilyn Monroe starts to panic. She is the world’s most glamorous film star yet, all her life, she’s feared inheriting her mother’s insanity. Has it finally come for her? She’s hysterical. Screaming, she pounds on the metal door with her bare hands. Her fists are raw and bleeding.
But no one comes, no one answers. She paces around the cell like a caged tiger, pulling at that famously blonde hair.
Suddenly, she gets an idea from a role she once played in a film and picks up the room’s only chair and hurls it at the door repeatedly until the window shatters. At last, the staff come running – with a straitjacket. After securing her in the restraint, four male nurses carry her to a more secure unit on the ninth floor, where she is sedated.
Meanwhile the true identity of the patient who was signed into the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in New York as Faye Miller to protect her privacy has spread throughout the hospital.
Doctors and nurses form a queue to peek at the world-famous Marilyn Monroe in a straitjacket, screaming, crying, and rolling around on the floor of her cell.
She has been committed to the mental institution by her psychiatrist Dr Marianne Kris who, after her patient has come to her 47 times in a matter of months, has concluded she is not only exhausted and prone to overdosing on hard drugs but suicidal because of her chaotic emotional life. She has set her sights on Jack Kennedy, recently inaugurated as soon-to-be US President, and is conducting a clandestine affair with him.
Eventually, she is allowed one phone call and rings her ex-husband, the former star baseball player, Joe DiMaggio.
At the point of being admitted to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in New York, Marilyn Monroe has set her sights on Jack Kennedy, recently inaugurated as soon-to-be US President, and is conducting a clandestine affair with him
Kennedy pictured with his then fiancee Jacqueline Bouvier while on holiday at the family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts in 1953
Marilyn Monroe poses in a bed wearing sexy lingerie during the shooting of Some Like It Hot
He flies from Florida to New York, arrives at the clinic and demands: ‘I want my wife, and if you don’t release her to me, I will take this place apart, piece of wood, by piece of wood.’
The quaking staff release her.
After a while recovering from the trauma of her ordeal, Marilyn returns to Hollywood where she moves into an apartment next to one that Frank Sinatra has been using as a getaway since his divorce from Ava Gardner. With Marilyn also newly single following her divorce from playwright Arthur Miller, the old friends begin a casual affair.
The relationship is strictly hush-hush. There is to be a special concert for the release of his latest album in Las Vegas and the press are instructed that ‘under no circumstances is any photographer allowed to photograph Mr Sinatra and Miss Monroe together’.
Marilyn starts drinking champagne at noon and, by the time Sinatra takes the stage, she is already drunk.
In a black dress with lace cut-outs on the chest, she takes her seat alongside Elizabeth Taylor and her latest husband, Eddie Fisher. Marilyn edges closer to the stage, hooking her arm over the edge and gazing up at Frank.
An observer said: ‘From a distance, it was, ‘wow, she’s a knockout’. But, close up, she didn’t look well and seemed a little crazy.’
A few weeks later, she is back in hospital. She’s poorly nourished, her skin is dehydrated, her hair is unwashed and she has the symptoms of a diseased gallbladder. She’s wheeled into surgery to have the organ removed.
Marilyn Monroe sings Happy Birthday to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, for his upcoming 45th birthday
Monroe with celebrated playwright Arthur Miller, who she was married to beteen 1956 and 1961
Tragic star: Marilyn Monroe was plagued by poor physical and mental health in her final days
Her fame, though, is unblemished and at the Golden Globes in Beverly Hills, she is to be presented with an award as World Film Favourite. As she prepares her platinum hair and make-up, she hasn’t had a bite to eat all day, reminding herself she has to be skinny for Frank.
He has promised to pop in from next door to see her new dress before she leaves for the ceremony. He says he has a surprise for her.
‘Hi, baby,’ she whispers breathlessly when he arrives. ‘Close your eyes,’ he says and from his dinner jacket takes a leather box, saying, ‘Now you can look!’ Resting on a velvet cushion is not the large, hoped-for engagement ring but a pair of emerald and diamond earrings to match her bright green dress. He clips one to each ear.
‘Thank you, Frankie,’ she whispers. ‘They’re very beautiful.’ ‘I should hope so,’ he replies. ‘They cost me $35,000.’
The actor Peter Lawford, one of Sinatra’s Rat Pack of celebrities and also Jack Kennedy’s brother-in-law, invites Marilyn to a dinner in New York in the new President’s honour.
At 9pm, she is an hour late and still not ready. One of Lawford’s aides has been waiting outside her room for almost two hours and finally bursts through the door to plead with her not to keep the President waiting.
He finds Marilyn sitting at her dressing table, applying make-up. She pulls a black beaded sheath from its hanger. ‘Can you help me with this dress?’ she asks. ‘It just needs a little tug!’
The aide remembers: ‘So I’m watching this giant international movie star standing there stark naked in her high heels as she pulls this beaded dress over her head. It was so tight it took me ten minutes to get it down over her ass!’
The actor Peter Lawford, one of Sinatra’s Rat Pack of celebrities and also Jack Kennedy’s brother-in-law, with Marilyn Monroe before her famous birthday rendition to the president
Bobby Kennedy warns his brother that it doesn’t look good for the president to be seen with Frank Sinatra, who is associating with hoodlums and racketeers, including the cousin of infamous gangster Al Capone
At the party, the Secret Service clears her in, and, according to another guest, as she enters the party room, everyone stops and stares as if by magic. Kennedy is among them. ‘Finally! You’re here,’ he says. They talk and flirt all night long until he whispers in her ear. Would she like to join him for a weekend in Palm Springs?’
Marilyn doesn’t answer right away. ‘Jackie [his wife] won’t be there,’ he adds. She accepts.
The weekend is supposed to be at Frank Sinatra’s estate in Palm Springs, which the singer is spending over $500,000 doing up for the presidential visit. He builds a helicopter pad, guest cottages and a giant flagpole from which the presidential flag will fly. He even installs a gold plaque in the bedroom announcing: ‘JFK slept here.’ Except that he doesn’t.
In the Justice Department, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, JFK’s brother, is holding a crisis meeting on the proliferation of organised crime in America. It doesn’t look good, it is pointed out to him, that the president is associating with Sinatra, who is associating with hoodlums and racketeers, including the cousin of infamous gangster Al Capone.
Bobby calls the President and tells him the optics are terrible. He suggests that Jack has his weekend at Bing Crosby’s nearby house instead.
Lawford is given the task of breaking the bad news to Sinatra. The scorned host is furious. He calls Bobby every name in the book, banishes Lawford from the Rat Pack, then goes outside with a sledgehammer and smashes up the landing pad of his heliport.
Sinatra’s wounds are personal and political. How could the President spend the weekend with Bing Crosby? A Republican!
Marilyn dumps Sinatra too and heads for Crosby’s place, driven there by Lawford. For the trip she disguises herself as Kennedy’s ‘new secretary’ in a sharp black suit, a brunette wig and a pair of spectacles.
Jackie warns Marilyn against pursuing her husband and later tells her sister: ‘Life’s too short to worry about Marilyn Monroe’
To complete the image she is carrying a writing pad and a fistful of sharpened pencils. Once there she changes into a flowing, robe-like dress and is casually intimate with Kennedy, linking her arm through his.
After the weekend in Palm Springs, the Secret Service becomes even more watchful of her interest in the President.
Kennedy assures a friend that he had dismissed Marilyn, telling her she’s ‘not First Lady material’. Yet her infatuation continues.
She telephones the Kennedy Compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, reaches Jackie, doesn’t identify herself but says only that she’s ‘looking for Jack’. Alone in her bedroom, Jackie recognises the voice of the woman who’s looking to take her place. She has heard that Marilyn’s a bit troubled, so she keeps it light.
‘Marilyn, you’ll marry Jack, that’s great,’ she says. ‘And you’ll move into the White House, and you’ll assume the responsibilities of the First Lady. And I’ll move out, and you’ll have all the problems.’
Jackie tells her sister: ‘Life’s too short to worry about Marilyn Monroe.’
Marilyn is not well. A cold develops into chronic sinusitis. She is barely able to open her eyes, such is the pain in her head. One day she passes out in the bath. She’s due on set for her latest film, Something’s Got To Give, with Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse, but is too ill to work.
The studio, 20th Century Fox, is suspicious. With Marilyn, it’s always easier to believe that she’s once again suffering the ill effects of alcohol and pills rather than her actual diagnosis. This seems a not unreasonable assumption when she abandons the shoot entirely and finds the strength to fly to New York.
Kennedy assures a friend that he had dismissed Marilyn, telling her she’s ‘not First Lady material’
There, the Democratic Party is hosting a birthday salute to the President. America’s top entertainers will perform at Madison Square Garden in front of 15,000 people. Marilyn is listed in the programme as one of the performers, alongside Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Harry Belafonte and Maria Callas.
The studio is outraged. It sends her a letter warning that her planned absence from the set ‘for the purpose of attending a social function’ could be a breach of her contract. The letter is refused receipt and is returned unopened.
Meanwhile, Marilyn is pulling out all the stops, getting her costume designer to create a dress in a sheer souffle fabric the same colour as her skin, and hand-sewn with thousands of rhinestones that will make her appear as if she is covered in shimmering stars.
When it’s delivered to her house, the material is so delicate that she can lift it in the palm of one hand – and so thin she won’t be able to wear any underwear.
At Madison Square Gardens on May 19, 1962, JFK steps into his private box, signalling the compere, Lawford, to start the show. Bobby and Ethel Kennedy are sitting nearby. (First Lady Jackie is absent. She is at a horse show winning a third-place ribbon on her horse Ninbrano.)
Marilyn is due on after Harry Belafonte sings Michael Row the Boat Ashore, but misses her cue. Lawford jokes into the microphone: ‘Mr President, this young lady is not only pulchritudinous but punctual.’ A spotlight pans to the corner of the stage. It’s empty. Laughing, Lawford gives her a second cue. ‘A woman about whom it truly may be said, ‘She needs no introduction’. Here she is.’
From the band, a drum-roll. Again, the flash of the spotlight, to reveal a blank space. The audience laughs along. It’s all part of the show, isn’t it?
Lawford is riffing now but gears up for a final introduction. ‘In the history of showbusiness, perhaps there has been no one female who has meant so much… who has done more… Mr President, the late Marilyn Monroe!’
Marilyn wears the same iconic gown she selected for her Happy Birthday performance to the president at Madison Square Garden in 1962
To thunderous applause, she finally appears, crossing the stage in tiny, geisha-like steps, the top of her magnificent dress concealed by a hip-length white ermine coat.
As Lawford helps her out of her wrap, the audience inhales sharply. Neither Jack nor Bobby can take their eyes off her. No one can. She flicks the microphone with her finger and starts to sing ‘Happy biiiiiirthday to youuuu…’
It is a breathy rendition with the gentlest hint of innuendo that is smartly judged and perfectly knowing, just as she rehearsed it. She is undoubtedly, as Time Magazine reports, the hit of the evening.
At the after-show party, her dress continues to attract attention.
‘She was wearing skin and beads,’ says distinguished diplomat Adlai Stevenson, ‘and I didn’t see the beads!’
Her whirlwind cross-country trip to serenade the President has exhausted Marilyn, but, back in Hollywood, she nonetheless makes her 6.15am call on set. A studio doctor examines her and clears her to shoot a solo sequence that the screenwriter calls the ‘midnight skinny dip’.
When director George Cukor calls ‘action’, Marilyn, wearing a flesh-coloured bikini that’s meant to make her appear nude, cavorts in the pool.
But in the first shots, her bathing suit straps are visible across the shoulders. ‘That’s easily solved,’ Marilyn calls from the pool. ‘I’ll just take it all off.’ This is no spontaneous gesture. It is planned. Her publicist has alerted a photographer friend, Lawrence Schiller, who’s due to be on the set shooting a story for Paris Match.
Marilyn, posing for a portrait in 1953, was one of the most recognisable celebrities of her time
He was advised to make sure to be there all day tomorrow ‘because Marilyn has the swimming scene and, knowing her, she might slip out of her suit!’
Marilyn has one condition. ‘Larry, if I do come out of the pool with nothing on, I want your guarantee that when your pictures appear on the covers of magazines Elizabeth Taylor is not anywhere in the same issue.’
Schiller selects a long lens as Marilyn moves through a series of poses. One leg over the edge of the pool. Laughing and splashing in the water. Lying on the pool deck under artfully draped towels. He shoots 13 rolls of film.
Word flashes round the studio that Marilyn Monroe is taking her clothes off on Stage 14, and security is posted at the doors to keep out Fox employees eager for a look. Marilyn doesn’t mind the commotion. She’s taken uppers and painkillers and she can’t feel a thing. Least of all how cold the water is. The shoot goes on for four hours.
She says afterwards: ‘I had been wearing the swimsuit, but it concealed too much and it would have looked wrong on screen. The set was closed, all except members of the crew, who were very sweet. I told them to close their eyes or turn their backs, I think they all did.’
Marilyn personally reviews every image. She approves the ones she likes and cuts through the ones she doesn’t with scissors. The photos sell to 70 magazines worldwide.
Hugh Hefner offers $25,000 for a single shot, more than his Playboy magazine has ever paid for an image. Schiller thanks Marilyn for the biggest payday of his career so far. ‘See what t*** ‘n’ ass can do?’ he jokes.
Marilyn laughs. ‘There isn’t anybody that looks like me without clothes on,’ she agrees.
Internally Marilyn is troubled by the insecurity that has always dogged her – that she’s not seen as a serious actress, just a sex symbol. Pictured: The actress in 1953
But inside she is troubled by the insecurity that has always dogged her – that she’s not seen as a serious actress, just a sex symbol.
Her insecurity then takes an even more devastating blow when on JFK’s actual birthday rather than his official one, she telephones the White House to wish him the best for his 45th but her call is blocked.
The switchboard has been informed that ‘Miss Green’ – as Marilyn called herself when calling the President – should not be put through any longer. Kennedy’s private number has also been disconnected.
Meanwhile, the skinny-dipping shoot leaves Marilyn with an ear infection and needing penicillin. At home she is gripped by a fever and a chill. It’s also her birthday, her 36th, and her mind is whirring with the feelings that wash over her every year at this time, feelings of sadness and regret over being alone.
Her telephone rings. The clicks when she picks up indicate it’s long distance. She’s brimming with hope when the operator connects her with Hyannis Port. ‘Jack?’ But it’s not the President. It’s Lawford, who yet again has been pressed into doing the Kennedys’ dirty work. ‘You can handle it, Peter,’ JFK told him.
Clearly and firmly, Lawford tells Marilyn that she will never again hear from Jack Kennedy. The President was never going to divorce his wife to marry her. Marilyn was never going to be First Lady. To drive the point home, he gets crude. ‘You’re just another one of Jack’s f****.’
Marilyn is deeply distraught. But she can always sedate herself. Her housekeeper enters her dark bedroom and finds her wrapped in a bedsheet.
Her face is white with anxiety and damp with sweat, classic signs of a Dexamyl (antidepressant) overdose. ‘I can’t sleep,’ Marilyn is saying.
Marilyn was plagued by negative thoughts about herself. ‘Nobody loves me. People are only nice to me when they want something,’ she said
‘I’m ugly. Nobody loves me. People are only nice to me when they want something. My life isn’t worth living.’
Given her condition, Marilyn is once again a no-show on set. She has missed 17 of 30 shooting days on Something’s Got To Give and 20th Century Fox has had enough. It removes her from the cast list.
Marilyn is devastated. A friend observes: ‘She had never been fired before. She couldn’t understand it.’
Less than a month ago, her picture was on the front page of every paper singing Happy Birthday to the President. Now her name is linked with failure. Not only that but in a calculated smear campaign, a studio executive describes her publicly as ‘not just temperamental but mentally ill, perhaps seriously’.
For 16 days there is a stalemate between Fox and Marilyn. Then, out of the blue, the studio is back on-side, consenting to changes she wants in the script which it had previously rejected and offering her a new seven-figure deal that puts her in the same pay bracket as Elizabeth Taylor.
Exactly what prompted the studio’s reversal is unclear. But Marilyn suspects that someone she fondly calls ‘the General’ is watching out for her. That would be Bobby Kennedy, who is dazzled by her.
He has been spending a lot of time at the Lawfords’ Santa Monica beach house, and when the Lawfords throw dinner parties, they always invite Marilyn.
A neighbour recalls seeing Bobby and Marilyn walking out together through the patio to the beach.
Secrecy is impressed on everyone. Bobby’s bodyguard cautions a young parking attendant: ‘You have eyes but you can’t see, you have ears but you can’t hear, and you have a mouth but you can’t speak. You’re gonna see a lot of things but you have to keep quiet.’
Marilyn pictured on the set of There’s No Business Like Show Business in 1954
Which is something Marilyn was expressly not doing, telling dozens of people about her burgeoning relationship with the President’s brother. It is validating for her after Jack’s rejection.
But, according to a friend, ‘it wasn’t a physical attraction for her. It was more mental. Bobby was a bright guy. That’s what turned her on’.
Marilyn tells her masseur: ‘I like him but not physically.’
She desperately wants him to take her seriously, and so she starts taking notes on their conversations in her little red diary. Because, as she explains, Bobby liked to talk about political things and he got mad at her if she didn’t remember what he’d told her.
It’s not long before FBI director J Edgar Hoover is poring over a secret report from one of his agents. He already knew that Marilyn was making notes of her conversations with President Kennedy when she was his lover. Now she is doing the same with his brother.
His suspicion that she is a communist is also confirmed. ‘Subject’s views are very positively and concisely Leftist,’ the secret report tells him.
Days later, Bobby stops taking her calls. The sudden cold shoulder, so reminiscent of what happened with Jack, leaves Marilyn furious. ‘He should face me and tell me why,’ she rants to friends.
When she can’t get through to the attorney general, she turns to his sister for help.
Marilyn also turned her attentions to the President’s brother, Robert Kennedy (right)
‘Forget it,’ Pat Kennedy Lawford tells her. ‘Bobby’s still just a little boy. But you have to remember he’s a little boy with a wife and seven kids.’
Not only that, but a staunch Catholic who’d been named ‘Father of the Year’ just two years earlier. There’s simply no way he’s ever going to sacrifice his career and reputation and leave his wife for her.
But Marilyn is deeply hurt and can’t let it go. She continues unsuccessfully trying to reach him: on his private number, at the Justice Department and even at home.
If Bobby keeps ignoring her, she tells a friend, ‘I might just hold a press conference. I’ve certainly got a lot to say!’
What could be a bigger scoop, she thinks, than the true story of Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys? What indeed.
Adapted from The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe by James Patterson and Imogen Edwards-Jones (Century, £20), to be published on Thursday. © James Patterson 2025.
To order a copy for £18 (offer valid to July 12; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937
