Marilyn Monroe is fixed in our cultural consciousness as forever young, blonde, and beautiful because
she never got the opportunity to age gracefully.
At just 36 years old, Monroe was found dead in her home in Brentwood, California.
This is the truth about Marilyn Monroe's death.
By the 1960s, Monroe had won over American's hearts in films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
and The Seven Year Itch.
Despite personal struggles, Monroe's success at the box office seemed limitless, until
the morning of Sunday, August 5th, 1962.
The evening before, Monroe called her psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, complaining she couldn't
sleep.
She also phoned actor Peter Lawford, who was worried she sounded depressed and was slurring
her words.
He invited her to dinner with him and his wife, Pat, but she claimed she was too tired.
She then told him, referencing then-President John F. Kennedy, according to police reports:
"Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to Jack, and say goodbye to yourself, because you're
a nice guy."
When the housekeeper, Eunice Murray, awoke around 3 am, Monroe's bedroom light was still
on, but the door was locked.
When she knocked and received no answer, Murray phoned Dr. Greenson.
Per the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Greenson arrived around 3:30 and used a fire poker to smash
the window and enter the room.
Monroe was lying face down in bed, nude and clutching the telephone receiver, with an
empty bottle of Nembutal lying next to her.
But what really happened?
And how did it come to this?
She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles on June 1, 1926.
She never knew her father, so she went by Norma Jeane Baker, taking her mother's last
name.
Gladys Baker suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, though, and was incapable of caring for her
daughter.
Monroe was raised in and out of foster homes, where she suffered violence and sexual abuse.
To escape, she got married at 16 to a man named Jimmy Dougherty.
While he served as a merchant marine in the South Pacific during World War II, Monroe
did her part for the war effort by working at a munitions factory in Van Nuys.
In June 1945, she caught the eye of David Conover, an army photographer who had been
sent by the Army's First Motion Picture Unit to take pictures of the factory girls.
With her curvy figure and pretty face, Conover recognized her potential.
In January 1945, Monroe quit her factory job and began modeling as a pin-up girl.
As reported in Vintage News, by the time Doughtery returned in 1946, Monroe had appeared on 33
magazine covers.
He disapproved of her career, and they divorced that September.
But by then, she had set her sights to grander things.
She signed her first acting contract, dyed her hair, changed her name, and moved to Hollywood.
Marilyn Monroe and playwright Arthur Miller began a romantic relationship in 1955.
Monroe converted to Judaism to marry him in a small ceremony on June 29, 1956.
Their honeymoon period ended when they moved to London in 1957.
According to the book, Monroe discovered a diary entry, in which Miller wrote that he
was "disappointed" in her, and sometimes embarrassed by her in front of his friends.
She was crushed.
They returned to America, buying a house in Roxbury, Connecticut.
But, clearly unhappy, Monroe had an affair with Yves Montand, her Let's Make Love costar,
in 1960.
Despite that, Miller pressured Monroe to star in the film adaptation of his story The Misfits.
As reported in Rare, she was reluctant to accept the role.
She hated the sexism she experienced on set, and resented that the role was based on her
life.
"No, the trouble was, I always end up back where I started.
I never had anybody much."
While the press was busy promoting The Misfits, the couple divorced.
It would be the last film Monroe would complete.
Exhausted and depressed, Monroe committed herself to Payne Whitney's psychiatric ward
following her separation from Miller.
Upon arrival, her clothes and belongings were taken from her.
She was forced to take a bath and put on a hospital gown.
A doctor performed a full-body examination, over Monroe's protestations that she had just
received one less than 30 days before, according to Vanity Fair.
Monroe recounted her traumatic experience in a letter to Dr. Greenson, which read:
"I picked up a light-weight chair and slammed it...against the glass intentionally...I went
over with the glass concealed in my hand and sat quietly on the bed...I said to them 'If
you are going to treat me like a nut I'll act like a nut'...I indicated that if they
didn't let me out I would harm myself."
As dramatized in the TV movie Norma Jean and Marilyn, four staff members forcibly carried
Monroe to the seventh floor, where she was made to take another bath.
Monroe was kept in a padded cell in the locked psychiatric ward for three days.
Monroe continued in her letter to Greenson:
"There was no empathy at Payne-Whitney...The inhumanity there I found archaic.
They asked me why I wasn't happy there...I answered: 'Well, I'd have to be nuts if I
like it here'...[Dr. Kris] told me I was a very, very sick girl and had been a very,
very sick girl for many years."
Over the course of her career, Monroe's films had grossed $200 million, per the Los Angeles
Times.
But on her last film shoot, her director decided her star power wasn't worth putting up with
her chronic tardiness, absenteeism, and overall difficult behavior.
Monroe began shooting Something's Got to Give in early 1962.
According to the 1990 documentary Marilyn: Something’s Got to Give, she was derided
by her coworkers as, quote, "willfully disruptive...[drifting] through her scenes in a depressed and drug-induced
haze."
That June, she was fired for quote, "spectacular absenteeism," and sued by Fox for $750,000
for "willful violation of contract."
However, her costar Dean Martin threatened to quit unless she was brought back, saying
in a statement at the time:
"I have the greatest respect for Miss Lee Remick and her talent, and all the other actresses
who were considered for the role...but I signed to do the picture with Marilyn Monroe and
I will do it with no one else."
She was rehired a few months later.
Not everyone was pleased about her return.
The film's screenwriter, Walter Bernstein, called her, quote, "a movie star who's getting
her way, and who doesn't give a damn about anybody else."
Filming was set to begin again in October, but that would never happen.
Monroe was found in August.
Monroe's body was sent to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office for examination.
The chief medical examiner did not perform the autopsy, though.
Instead, it was performed by Thomas Noguchi, a junior medical examiner.
Noguchi told the Telegraph:
"You start from the assumption that every body you examine might be a murder victim."
But he found no needle marks to indicate she had been injected against her will.
A toxicology report was performed, but only on her blood and liver, not any other organs.
While skeptics would seize on this oversight as evidence of a cover up, the report showed
clear signs of overdose: 8.0 micrograms percent of chloral hydrate and 13.0 micrograms percent
of Nembutal, both fatal amounts.
Some also found it suspicious there were no pills or evidence of Nembutal's signature
yellow dye in her stomach.
But that was not particularly unusual for a habitual drug taker.
Pills taken on an empty stomach would have been absorbed directly into her intestine,
leaving few traces behind.
Ultimately, Noguchi felt there was nothing to indicate foul play.
On August 17th, the coroner's office released their official statement, saying Monroe's
death was, quote, "caused by a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode
of death is probable suicide."
It was well-known Marilyn Monroe suffered from depression and substance abuse problems.
According to the documentary Arthur Miller: Writer, when her future husband first met
Monroe, he told her,
"I think you're the saddest girl I ever met."
Her drug and alcohol abuse was exacerbated by her chronic insomnia, according to Sarah
Churchwell, author of The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe.
The Nembutal on which she had overdosed had been prescribed by her psychiatrist, Dr. Hyman
Engelberg, to help her sleep, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Monroe had even previously overdosed on prescription pills.
Per Anthony Summers, author of Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe, Henry Weinstein,
the producer of Something's Got to Give, called Monroe one morning in early 1962 after she
failed to show up for work.
When she answered, she was confused and slurring her words.
Weinstein went to her house and found her in a barbiturate coma.
Doctors arrived in time to pump her stomach, but the incident raised doubts about Monroe's
ability to complete the film.
There were no real conspiracies surrounding Marilyn Monroe's death until 1964, when Frank
A. Capell published The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe.
The book wildly claimed Monroe had been murdered by Communists on the orders of then–Attorney
General Robert Kennedy.
Capell, a staunch anti-Communist, believed Monroe and Robert Kennedy had been lovers,
but the relationship soured when Kennedy refused to leave his wife.
Capell claimed that when Monroe threatened to go public with the relationship, Kennedy
supposedly dispatched a cabal of Communists to eliminate Monroe and cover up the murder.
There's little evidence to back up any of Capell's assertions, but one element at least
caught the public imagination and has been a focal point for scrutiny since.
Monroe is widely believed to have had relationships with both President John F. Kennedy and his
brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
Tongues began wagging after Monroe sang her now-famous sultry rendition of "Happy Birthday"
to the president at a Democratic fundraiser on May 19, 1962.
JFK responded by saying:
"I can now retire from politics after having had 'Happy Birthday' sung to me in such a
sweet, wholesome way."
While their relationship was salacious, it was nothing more than a casual fling.
More troubling was Monroe's alleged affair with Robert Kennedy.
Actor Peter Lawford, the last person to speak to Monroe, was also the Kennedys' brother-in-law.
She possibly feared Lawford; according to Vanity Fair, back in 1956, Monroe wrote in
a diary that she was, quote, "afraid of Peter he might harm me, poison me, etc."
This has led to some wild speculation that Lawford killed Monroe on Robert Kennedy's
orders, but no real evidence supporting this has emerged.
By the 1970s, even more wild conspiracy theories began surfacing that Monroe had been murdered
by Kennedy loyalists.
Allegedly, she had been privy to confidential information about a secret CIA plot to kill
Fidel Castro.
This theory states that when she threatened to reveal the truth, the CIA injected Monroe
with barbiturates and staged the death to look like suicide.
So is there any evidence backing up this claim?
Well, not exactly.
But Jack Clemmons, the homicide investigator who was first on the scene at Monroe's death,
was adamant that:
"she was murdered by needle injection by someone she knew and probably trusted...This was the
cover-up crime of the century, a matter of the Los Angeles Police Department and other
officials here protecting a famous political family of the East who had good reasons to
shut Monroe's mouth."
In August 1982, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office reopened the investigation
into Monroe's death in light of new allegations.
The Deputy Coroner, Lionel Grandison, came forward claiming he had been coerced into
signing the death certificate.
As reported in the Chicago Tribune, Grandison claimed:
"the whole thing was organized to hide the truth...An original autopsy file vanished,
a scrawled note that Marilyn Monroe wrote and which did not speak of suicide also vanished,
and so did the first police report.
I was told to sign the official report, or I'd find myself in a position I couldn't get
out of."
Private detective Milo Spiriglio also claimed Monroe's diary had gone missing after her
death.
He believed the diary held damning information about the Kennedys, supposedly including proof
of conspiracy theories like the CIA's plot to kill Castro and the Kennedys' involvement
with the mafia.
He was confident not only that it still existed, but that it, quote, "may tell us who killed
Marilyn Monroe."
He even offered $10,000 to anyone who could turn up her missing diary, according to the
Chicago Tribune.
However, the diary never appeared, and the inquest failed to turn up any viable new information.
Monroe's official cause of death remained suicide.
A final tragic explanation is Marilyn Monroe's death was simply an accidental overdose.
Monroe's career was on the upswing, and she had only recently purchased her Brentwood
home.
Monroe's close friend, Pat Newcomb, insisted the death was accidental, sharing that they
had made plans to go to the movies the following day, and that:
"Marilyn was in perfect physical condition and was feeling great."
Monroe had also made plans to meet with her lawyer, Milton Rudin, who claimed "she appeared
to be happy."
According to the Psychiatric Investigative Team's report on Monroe's death, she had been
seeking psychiatric treatment, with one of the main goals being to reduce her drug intake.
She had been, quote, "partially successful" and, quote, "was reported to be following
doctor's orders in her use of the drugs."
But they also reported that on multiple occasions, she had previously attempted to take her own
life using sedative drugs.
While Dr. Robert Litman, the psychiatrist who headed the Psychiatric Investigative Team,
declared that she probably took her own life, it is possible that on this occasion, she
wanted rescue but was unable to call for help in time.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.