No celebrity death has raised more eyebrows than the supposed suicide of Hollywood’s most beloved glamour girl, Marilyn Monroe. The sexpot starlet made a name for herself as the most alluring, seductive and coquettish woman of the big screen in such films as Niagara, Some Like It Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
By 1962, as Monroe’s career was faltering, she became romantically linked with some of the country’s most powerful men – namely, President John F. Kennedy and his brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. As some people would have you believe, her association with the "boys from Camelot" may have contributed to her early death.
On Aug. 5, 1962, at approximately 4:45 a.m., Sergeant Jack Clemmons received a phone call from Dr. Hyman Engelberg informing him that Marilyn Monroe had died from an overdose of pills. Clemmons drove out to Monroe’s modest bungalow in Brentwood. He had suspicions that it might have been a prank, but they were soon doused upon his arrival at her home.
Dr. Engelberg and housekeeper Eunice Murray led Clemmons into Monroe’s bedroom. The officer found the actress facedown on her bed, nude, her left hand sprawled across the bed touching the telephone on the nightstand. He noticed several prescription bottles littered on top of the nightstand. He did not, however, notice a drinking glass in the room. Clemmons asked Murray about the bathroom. The maid informed the detective that there was no running water. Clemmons also noticed that Murray had done the laundry, so he questioned her `about her odd behavior. She nervously replied she knew the coroner would come to the house and seal it up for evidence, so she wanted to make sure everything was neat and tidy.
Clemmons further observed that Monroe’s body was in an advanced state of rigor mortis, which indicated that she had been dead for at least six hours. The officer asked Murray what time she found Monroe’s corpse. Murray claimed that she noticed Monroe’s bedroom door was locked after midnight. Murray claimed she knocked on the door and did not hear a response from her employer. She got worried and telephoned Dr. Engelberg.
The doctor claimed to arrive at Monroe’s bungalow and was unsuccessful in waking up Marilyn Monroe. The doctor and maid went outside to Monroe’s window and saw the actress lying on her bed. Dr. Engelberg retrieved a fireplace poker and smashed the window to gain entry. Monroe, however, was already dead.
Instead of calling for police or paramedics immediately, Murray waited nearly four hours to contact authorities after discovering Marilyn Monroe’s body. Murray also admitted to contacting some movie studios first, as well as some of Monroe’s business associates. Clemmons knew it should not have taken four hours to complete these calls.
Despite all of the uncertainty surrounding Marilyn Monroe’s death scene, Clemmons packed up his notepad, called the coroner’s office, and headed back to the station to file a report. He was relatively new to the force and assumed a higher ranking detective would take over the case for him.
When Monroe’s body arrived at the coroner’s office, it quickly turned into a zoo. Reporters, insurance company representatives and curious onlookers flocked to the morgue. Monroe’s dead body was put on display like a freak in a traveling circus sideshow. Medical examiners and their staff, studio heads, actors and politicians traipsed through to get a glimpse at the actress’s body. One enterprising paparazzo even snapped a picture of Monroe’s corpse.
Head coroner, Dr. Theodore Curphey, added to the aura of mystery surrounding Marilyn Monroe’s death. Curphey stated, unequivocally, that Monroe died from an oral overdose of Nembutal and chloral hydrate. He estimated she had swallowed at least 50 pills in "one gulp," despite there being no water at the death scene.
Furthermore, Curphey was not dissuaded by the lack of some key evidence. Nembutal capsules, when digested, leave a yellow dye discoloration on the lining of the intestine. There was no such discoloration inside Monroe. There was no evidence that partially or undissolved capsules even existed in her digestive tract.
It seemed as if the coroner’s office was determined to call Marilyn Monroe’s death a suicide at all costs.
The question is, "Why?"
Why did the coroner fail to test her lower intestine for the tell-tale dye marks? If there was no liquid to swallow the pills, why didn’t the coroner’s office look at other methods of introduction, such as an injection or colonically? Why did the "official" death certificate list the cause of death as "Probable Suicide," with the former word penciled in?
Many theories abound. Some believed it was a simple case of suicide. Others believe Murray was angry for being fired earlier that day. Many more believed it had something to do with the Kennedy brothers.
In 1962, Monroe was had just come off two box office failures -- Let’s Make Love and The Misfits. She had begun work on a new film with Dean Martin called Something’s Got to Give. Her troubled history with drugs and depression reared its ugly head on the set as she constantly missed days of filming, flubbed her lines, and seemed dazed and confused. For the first time in her illustrious career, someone did not want Marilyn Monroe. The studio fired her.
That same year, her relationships with the Kennedy brothers heated up. On May 29, Monroe made her now legendary appearance at President John F. Kennedy’s birthday party at Madison Square Garden, where she sang "Happy Birthday" to the president. Monroe’s skintight dress and seductive voice caught the attention of the president’s brother, Bobby, who became infatuated with the icon.
Allegedly, Monroe felt that Bobby was a better lover than his brother. She also fell in love with Bobby and believed he would divorce his wife for her. There were rumors that Monroe kept a diary of her late-night pillow talk with Bobby Kennedy -- a diary that supposedly contained detailed conversations about several top-secret political matters.
As the U.S. attorney general, one of Bobby Kennedy’s objectives was to crack down on Mafia-controlled unions and their leaders, most specifically AFL-CIO head Jimmy Hoffa. The union leader was supposedly tipped off that Kennedy had been sleeping with Monroe. Hoffa wanted to get the goods on the president’s pesky little brother so he allegedly wire-tapped Monroe’s home, to record the couple’s most intimate moments. When Bobby Kennedy’s handlers found out about Hoffa’s nefarious activities, they decided he had to dump Monroe, which he did.
What was Marilyn to do? According to one of her former lovers and friend, Robert Slatzer, she scheduled a press conference for Monday, Aug. 7, 1962. Monroe was planning to spill the beans on the Kennedy boys. She also made an appointment to meet with her attorney right before the press conference because she intended to revise her will.
Reportedly, Robert Kennedy was in Los Angeles on Aug. 4, the day Monroe died. His staff, however, claimed he was in San Francisco for the entire day and could not have been in Brentwood to kill Monroe.
However Marilyn Monroe died, her legacy has only grown over time.
Her legions of fans, from horny men to uber-feminists, find something positive in Marilyn Monroe to this day. Her sexuality, charm, innocence and wit have pulled in generation after generation of new fans. Her mysterious death only raises more questions and intrigues more people who want to know what really happened to America’s favorite screen goddess.