June DiMaggio's Revisionist History of Marilyn, Joe DiMaggio and the Family K

In Reporters: Memoirs of a Young Newspaperman, Will Fowler relates a story of an enterprising young writer who wanted Fowler's collaboration on an article he hoped to sell detailing the idea that Marilyn Monroe had been murdered. Fowler read through the material and, unimpressed, told the young man that it was a shame he hadn't been married to Monroe, as that would have made for some interesting reading. Deflated but still determined, Robert Slatzer returned a few days later with the revelation that he had indeed been married to the blonde star. Although Fowler dropped out of the project, convinced that Slatzer was a shyster, Slatzer ran with Fowler's idea, wrote his book, had a TV movie made out of it and set the foundations for what has since become a rather lucrative cottage industry of murder, conspiracy, high level politics and the merging of the famous and the dead in pursuit of the All American buck.

The story of Robert Slatzer and Will Fowler came to mind with the publication of June DiMaggio's Marilyn, Joe and Me, (2006 Penmarin Books), in that it seems that someone somewhere along the line told Ms. DiMaggio that stories of Joe and Marilyn were all well and good but wouldn't it be an even better read if she had the inside skinny on Monroe's murder? And so what might have made a fine, small book of memories, (akin to the wonderful My Sister Marilyn (1994 Algonquin Books) by Berniece Miracle), filled with anecdotes of the two superstars ends up a farfetched fantasy of sneaking into "the death house," retrieving pizza tins and an old woman taking to her grave information that could have solved the case had she not feared for the life of her family. What makes this particular book so painful is the thought that this is not the doing of one promoting herself to be Marilyn's best friend, or former husband or one who never met Monroe. This is a member of Joe DiMaggio's family and one can only be grateful that Ms. DiMaggio waited until Mr. DiMaggio had been buried before she tried to make a buck off his name and that of his former wife.

What is particularly frustrating about Marilyn, Joe and Me is that so many of the things Ms. DiMaggio puts forth as true can so easily be discredited. She might have realized this had she or her co-author Mary Jane Popp done a little research. If James Frey can get raked over the coals by Oprah and his publisher for elaborating on his own life, why has Ms. DiMaggio been given free rein to invent the facts of someone else's life?

Some of the things presented in Ms. DiMaggio's books fall under the heading of "Nitpicking." They may be trivial but if one is to rewrite history one should at least get the little things correct.

1.Ms. DiMaggio states that the house at 12305 5th Helena and its phones were bugged and that the listening devices were placed independently by Jimmy Hoffa, the FBI, and the CIA. While I agree with Ms. DiMaggio that the phones were likely bugged, there has never surfaced any proof of this nor has there ever been any documentation whatsoever to state that these were placed, independently or not, by those Ms. DiMaggio names.

2.Ms. DiMaggio writes that high-tech (circa 1962) recording equipment was found in the attic of 12305 5th Helena. While other authors have said that additional wiring possibly used for tapping phones was found at the home, this is the first I have ever read of any actual recording equipment being found, let alone in "the attic." Did Marilyn's last home even have an attic? If it did, it was highly unusual for a home in Southern California.

3.On the weekend before her death, Marilyn was "cavorting nude in the pool" at the Cal Neva Lodge. If this is true, Ms. DiMaggio is the very first to report it and one has to wonder where she came up with her information. Anthony Summers interviewed a great many of the employees who were working the Lodge that weekend and this is the first anyone has said Marilyn went swimming, with or without a swimsuit.

If Ms. DiMaggio had only claimed these small items as fact, the educated reader would likely give the woman a break and not quibble over incidentals. However, when Ms. DiMaggio goes beyond the point of nitpicking errors and ventures into the out and out falsehood, the line has irrevocably been crossed.

The sad thing is most readers will read Ms. DiMaggio's book and take what it presents as the unvarnished truth. If the story of Monroe's last days and all the legitimate questions that still surround her passing had not already been heavily covered in other books over the last twenty-some years, it is likely that there would no one around to point out the outright lies Ms. DiMaggio, thanks to her surname, has been allowed to put into print. Let me elaborate on just a few of these.

1.Much has been made over Marilyn's "little red diary" over the years. As the legend goes, Marilyn, not one noted for having all that much intelligence, was wont to jot down things she wanted to discuss with her new friends in the higher echelons of the US government, and then scribble down all that she had heard either across a Malibu dining table or via pillow talk. Anyway, that's the way the story is told and it doesn't matter much that for those who actually met and knew Marilyn, she was considered if not an intellectual, than at the very least extremely intelligent. A woman of little formal education. Monroe would count among her friends and acquaintances the likes of Carl Sandburg, Michael Chekov, Karen Blixen, Carson McCullers, Dame Sybil Thorndyke, Truman Capote and all those serious theater folk who were the continuous habitués of the Actors Studio. As to the "little red diary," it seems to surface every so often, usually in the most incongruous places like when actor Ted Jordan announced that he had found it in his neighbor's garage and, as a result, was in "in fear of his life." Offered a princely sum for the diary, Mr. Jordan never responded and it would seem that that was that. Now Ms. DiMaggio tells us that Joe DiMaggio spent much of Monday, August 6, 1962, rifling Marilyn's Brentwood home in search of the elusive red book. Next we learn that Peter Lawford had the diary and passed it on to a friend. Maybe that friend lived next door to Ted Jordan but I'm seriously doubting it.

2.Ms. DiMaggio claims to know for a fact that Monroe publicist, Pat Newcomb, was at Marilyn's home the night of Marilyn's death before the police were notified at approximately 4:25 A.M. August 5, 1962. Careful study of the many books that have covered the events of that night, as well as the police reports, lead one to believe that Arthur Jacobs, (Ms. Newcomb's boss), the "housekeeper" Mrs. Murray, Dr. Greenson, (Marilyn's psychiatrist), Dr. Engelberg, (Marilyn's physician), and possibly Mickey Rudin, (Marilyn's lawyer), were at the house before the police were called. In no books or official reports does Ms. Newcomb appear at the home until after she was called by Mr. Rudin close to four-thirty that Sunday morning. While Jacobs and Rudin seem to have been at the home before the police were notified, the only people present according to the police reports were the two doctors and Mrs. Murray.
3.According to Ms. DiMaggio, the small nightstand next to Marilyn's bed was empty the morning of August 5, 1962. Although all photographs of the room taken that morning show the nightstand a veritable pharmacy of prescription bottles, Ms. DiMaggio states that there were no pills there. Does it strike anyone else that this is a bit odd that she should be the only one to have heard from "witnesses" that this is the case? Who are these witnesses?
When Ms. DiMaggio places herself at Marilyn's home in the early hours of August 5, 1962, she goes that one step beyond Nitpicking or those errors that could be chalked up to the passing along of rumor as fact. By stating that she was at the home, after the body had been removed, goes beyond irritating. This is flat-out lying and not something any reader should find in a published book labeled as non-fiction.

By this point most of us have heard the tale that Ms. DiMaggio had baked Marilyn a pizza pie on the afternoon of August 4. And most of us have also read that Dr. Nouguchi's autopsy report shows that Marilyn Monroe did not eat on the last day of her life. This is backed up by Mrs. Eunice Murray's book, The Last Months, in which she offers to cook Marilyn breakfast, lunch and dinner yet is turned down each time. But then, without that pizza tin June DiMaggio is so intent on retrieving, there is no reason for her to sneak into Marilyn's home. And without sneaking into "the death house," a great deal of the drama would be lost.

The only problem is Ms. DiMaggio covers ground that has not only been covered by other authors but has photographic evidence proving Ms. DiMaggio in error. June DiMaggio states that she snuck into the home, in the dead of night, and using a flashlight slipped under the police tape that surrounded the house after the body of Marilyn Monroe had been removed.

The problem is that photographs show that the body was removed in daylight. Photographs show the house being sealed with a single notice on the front door. No police tape was ever used at the home as it was never considered a crime scene. The point is, if one is going to lie about something, shouldn't one at least do a bit of research first so as not to make their claims immediately labeled as foolish?

There is so much more in Ms. DiMaggio's book that is in error that it is hard to keep track. If the police came to her home at 11:00 Saturday, August 4, looking for Joe DiMaggio, why was a call placed to the police at 4:30 A.M. Sunday, August 5, to notify them of Monroe's death? If June DiMaggio's mother was on the phone with Monroe and then heard her scream and drop the phone, why was the receiver in Marilyn's hand when the body was found? June DiMaggio states that a full bottle of Nembutal was found on the nightstand although this appears in no written recollection of that night nor does it appear on any police report. And if a full bottle of Nembutal was on the nightstand, why does Ms. DiMaggio also state that the nightstand was completely empty? Why would Marilyn have made plans to fly to Mexico with June's mother on Sunday, August 5, if she had already made plans with friend Ralph Roberts for a backyard cookout? Why is it that Ms. DiMaggio appears in none of the many photos taken at Marilyn's funeral and does not appear on the list of those invited yet she spends so much time letting her readers know what a great comfort she was to Joe during the funeral?

There is a great deal more to say about the errors and falsehoods in Ms. DiMaggio's book but there is something much deeper at work here than just someone claiming to have been present at one of the great heartbreaks of the 20th century.

When Marilyn Monroe died it was the first of a weary decade of shocking deaths. And while at first the death of a movie star seemed inconsequential compared to the deaths of Medgar Evans, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X or Robert Kennedy, the death of Marilyn Monroe now seems one of the most important deaths of that horrific period referred to as The Sixties. It isn't that Marilyn Monroe's death made an impact on the course of history but thanks to the innuendos, rumors and the many claims of "at long last final truth" that have proliferated around her demise, the death of a movie star has completely altered the way the world views history.

Perhaps a revisionist view of the Kennedy Years was inevitable after the death of both Jack and Robert Kennedy. After Richard Nixon and Watergate, after Ronald Reagan and the Iran Contra affair, after George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, it seems nearly natural that we should find the idea of the 35th President of the United States having a hand in murder acceptable. What started out as a far right slam against the late President and his brother by one Frank Capell, (The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe - curiously published during the height of the election year Robert Kennedy was attempting to capture the New York senate seat), has morphed into a cottage industry of Marilyn Was Murdered. While Capell's pamphlet can be looked at as a political smear piece, the subsequent books by "former husband" Robert Slatzer, and those who simply perpetuate the rumors with speculation such as Donald Wolfe and Sandra Shevey, have no such excuse.

The question should be not so much why these individuals have earned so much money without truly researching, but why no one calls them on it. While it has long been a favorite pastime of Americans to relish the downfall of the high and mighty, why is it that the repeated claims that Marilyn Monroe was murdered by or at the request of John and Robert Kennedy not officially investigated? Above all, why is it that no one much seems to care that the Test Ban Treaty, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Alliance for Progress have all been forgotten and most people now remember John F. Kennedy not for the hope he brought to the world but as the man who boffed then killed a movie star?

What is it about Marilyn Monroe that has made so many people falsely claim to have been a part of her life? It goes beyond the untold number of individuals who claimed to have been on the phone with her when she passed away or spoke with her in her last hours. I can think of no one who has written a book claiming to have been a former husband or best friend to Dorothy Dandridge or Inger Stevens, other stars whose lives ended far too early. Judith Campbell Exner wasn't murdered to keep her from talking about her lengthy affair with Jack Kennedy. Although the rumors are there, shelves of books have not been written linking Angie Dickenson with either Jack or Bobby Kennedy.

It seems to me that there is something more than the pursuit of an easy buck that is going on here. While there are a great many serious questions surrounding the death of Marilyn Monroe, while the reputations of John and Robert Kennedy have been savaged to the point where most people assume them guilty of murder, while a great many people continue to buy books like Ms. DiMaggio's and believe all that is written, no steps have been taken to officially investigate the death of a woman whose demise now has the apparent ability to alter future history books. Let me rephrase that. Investigations have been done. There was the original coroner's investigation and two grand jury investigations were instigated. But while their conclusions of "probable suicide" were made public, the actual investigations remain a mystery. Backup documentation, interview transcripts, and the reports themselves remain closed to public eyes.

Personally, I would encourage and support any investigation that would once and for all supply an answer to what actually took place on the night of August 4, 1962. By this point it is far more than idle curiosity. It is a matter setting history straight, regardless if the findings are suicide or murder. It isn't so much the saving of a maligned reputation, (be it Marilyn's or John Kennedy's), but to provide the public with the truth about our government, our police departments, and our history. Personally, I would be pleased to see those lying in print about real people discredited to the same degree that James Frey was when he lied about himself. And that, I feel, is far more important than the question of retrieving a pizza pie tin.