4
And what was in the Valentine envelope?
Seeing her stricken face, Rollo Freund quickly took it from her.
“Oh, Miss Monroe. Sorry.”
It was a square of white toilet paper upon which someone had carefully block-printed, in what appeared to be actual excrement,
WHORE
MY HOUSE. MY JOURNEY.
The scene must be properly lighted. Beyond the stage there is unacknowledged darkness.
—From The Actor’s Handbook and the Actor’s Life
12305 Fifth Helena Drive, Brentwood California
Valentine’s Day 1962
Dear Mother,
I just moved into my own house!
I am furnishing it & I am SO HAPPY.
It’s a small house Mexican style. So
charming. Hidden & private at the end
of this street & a wall partway around.
Wood-beamed ceilings & a large living
room (with a stone fireplace). The kitchen
is not very modern but you know me,
I’m not Homemaker of the Year exactly!
The big surprise is, behind my house
there is a swimming pool. It’s big. Imagine!
When we lived in the Hacienda, & on Highland,
that one day we would have a house
in Brentwood with a pool.
I am divorced now. You didn’t ask about
the baby. I’m afraid I lost the baby.
I should say the baby was taken from me.
It was an accident I think
I wasn’t well for a long time & lost
touch with people.
Now I am VERY WELL. I hope to bring
you home to visit with me soon.
I am “in retreat” from life. Theres a
French philosopher says the unhappiness
of human beings is not being able to stay
in one small room. I walk through these
rooms singing!
I had to borrow $$$ to make this purchase,
I confess. I cried when I signed the
papers. Because I was SO HAPPY. Owning
my first house.
Wish I had more $$$ to show for my long
years of work. Broke into films in 1948
& have only about $5000 saved. I’m
ashamed when others have made so much $$$
from Marilyn. The real estate agent who
sold me this house was surprised I could tell.
Hey I’m not bitter of course! Not me.
Mother, I can’t wait to show you my
special surprise for you. It’s our piano!
Our white Steinway spinet, remember? Once
belonged to Fredric March. I’d put it in
storage after my first marriage ended & now
it’s here. In the living room. I try to
play every day but my fingers are “rusty.”
Soon I will play “Für Elise” for you.
There’s a room for you here, Mother. Just
waiting. I think it must be time
I plan to furnish the house with authentic
Mexican things including tiles. I will travel
soon to Mexico with a friend. Will you be my
friend, Mother?
I have other news, Mother.
I hope you won’t be upset. But, I have been
in contact with Father. After all these years,
imagine! Nobody more surprised than me.
Father lives near Griffith Park. I have not yet seen
his house but hope to soon. He said he followed
my career for years & admires my work esp.
The Misfits which he belives is my best (I agree).
Father is a widower now. He speaks of selling
his big house. Who knows what our future will be!
Sometimes I feel I am a widow. Strange there is
no word for a mother who has lost her baby. Not
in English anyway. (Maybe in Latin?) This is a
harder loss than a divorce for sure.
Sometimes I feel I am riding the Time Machine,
don’t you? That scary story you read to me.
Oh Mother, I’m not critical but—
it’s hard to talk to you sometimes!
On the phone I mean. You don’t try to raise
your voice to be heard. I guess that’s the
problem? Last Sunday my feelings were hurt,
you left the receiver dangling & walked away?
The nurse apologized. I told her no, I was
just worried you were (1) angry with me (2) unwell
However you know, mother You can come stay here
as long as you wish. On medication, much can
be done. I have a new doctor here & new medication.
I am prescribed for “chloral hydrate”
to help me sleep & calm my nerves. If there
are voices
This doctor says there are miracle drugs now
to control the “blues.” I said, oh if the
blues go, what about blues music? He asked
is the music worth the agony & I said that
depends upon the music & he said life is more
precious to retain than music, if a person is
depressed her life is endangered & I said
there must be a middle way & I would find that
way.
One day in this house on Helena Drive there will
be grandchildren for you, Mother, I promise.
We will be like other Americans! Life Mag.
asked could they photograph MARILYN MONROE in
her new house & I said oh no not yet, I don’t
feel it’s mine yet exactly. I have surprises
for you all!
(Who knows maybe Father will join us. That’s
my secret wish. Well, “it’s a wonderful life”
as they say.)
Mother, I am SO HAPPY. I cry sometimes, I am
alone & so happy. My heart can reach out to
those who have hurt me, & forgive.
On a tile outside my front door there’s a
Latin saying CURSUM PERFICIO (translated means
“I am finishing my journey”).
Mother, I love you.
Your loving daughter
THE PRESIDENT’S PIMP
Sure he was a pimp.
But not just any pimp. Not him!
He was a pimp par excellence. A pimp nonpareil. A pimp sui generis. A pimp with a wardrobe, and a pimp with style. A pimp with a classy Brit accent. Posterity would honor him as the President’s Pimp.
A man of pride and stature: the President’s Pimp.
At Rancho Mirage in Palm Springs in March 1962 there was the President poking him in the ribs with a low whistle. “That blonde. That’s Marilyn Monroe?”
He told the President yes it was. Monroe, a friend of a friend of his. Luscious, eh? But a little crazy.
Thoughtfully the President asked, “Have I dated her yet?”
The President was a wit. A joker. A quick study. Away from the White House and the pressures of the Presidency, the President was known to enjoy a good time.
“If not, make the arrangements. Pronto.”
The President’s Pimp laughed uncertainly. He was not the President’s only pimp, of course, but he had reason to believe that he was the President’s favored pimp. He was certainly the President’s most informed pimp.
Quickly telling the hot-blooded President that the sexy blonde was a “poor risk” for a relationship. Notorious for—
“Who’s talking about a relationship? I’m talking about a date in the cabana there. If there’s time, two.”
Uneasily, in a lowered voice, conscious of many admiring eyes upon them as they strolled poolside smoking their after-dinner cigars, the President’s Pimp informed the President, as the F.B.I. would have done if consulted, for their files on MARI
LYN MONROE A.K.A. NORMA JEANE BAKER were bulging, that Monroe had had a dozen abortions, she snorted cocaine, mainlined Benzedrine and phenobarbital HMC, and had had her stomach pumped out a half-dozen times in Cedars of Lebanon alone. It was public knowledge. In all the tabloids. In New York, she’d been committed to Bellevue streaming blood from two slashed arms, carried inside on a stretcher stark naked and raving. This had been in Winchell’s column. In Maine a couple of years ago she’d had a miscarriage, or tried her own abortion and it misfired, and had to be fished out of the Atlantic by a rescue squad. And she hung out with known and suspected Commies.
See? A poor risk.
“You know her, eh?” The President was impressed.
What could the President’s Pimp do but nod gravely. Tugging at his collar movie style to indicate sweaty nervousness, which, in fact, he was feeling. The President’s favorite pimp was an in-law of the President and his wife might give him royal hell and put a new lien on his credit if he dared introduce the President to the sexpot Marilyn Monroe, who was a junkie, a nymphomaniac, suicidal, and schizzy.
“But only indirectly, chief. Who’d want a close contact with her? Monroe has had relations with every Jew in Hollywood. She slept her way up from the gutter. Lived with two notorious junkie fags for years and serviced their rich friends. Monroe’s the origin of the Polish sausage joke, chief, you’ve heard?”
But the freckle-faced boy President, youngest and most virile in our history, scarcely listened. Staring at the woman known as Marilyn Monroe, who’d been drifting uncertainly about the terrace like a sleepwalker, vaguely smiling, and that look about her, or perhaps it was an aura, of such extreme vulnerability, such not-thereness, others kept their distance too, watching. Unless this was my dream they could see into? The Blond Actress on the moonlit terrace swaying at the edge of the shimmering aqua pool, eyes shut, mouthing the words to a recording of Sinatra’s “All the Way.” Platinum hair glowing like phosphorescence. Red-lipsticked mouth a perfect sucking O. She wore a teasingly short terry-cloth beach robe borrowed from her host whose name just possibly she’d forgotten, and this was tied tight around her waist; she appeared to be naked beneath. Her legs were a dancer’s legs, slender and hard-muscled, but the upper thighs were beginning to show fatal white striations in the flesh. And her skin was starkly white, like an embalmed corpse’s, drained of blood.
Yet the President trailed after her, that look in his eyes unmistakable. A parochial schoolboy bent upon mischief. Boston-Irish bulldog charm. Fierce in loyalty to family and friends, fierce in enmity to all who crossed him. In all scenes the President was the leading man, the actor with the script; everyone else improvised sink or swim. The President’s Pimp could only say, vehement and pleading, “Monroe! She’s screwed Sinatra, Mitchum, Brando, Jimmy Hoffa, Skinny D’Amato, Mickey Cohen, Johnny Roselli, that Commie ‘Prince’ Sukarno, and—”
“Sukarno?” Now the President was impressed.
The President’s Pimp could see that things had gone too far for intervention. It was often thus. He could only shake his head and murmur, ungallantly, that if the President became involved with Monroe it would be wise to use protection for the woman was known to be infected with VD of the most virulent strain, when to get her ex-husband the Commie Jew off HUAC’s hook she’d flown to Washington to screw McCarthy; this was common knowledge in all the tabloids. . . . The President’s Pimp was himself a good-looking man of still youthful middle age with graying temples, intelligent if self-loathing eyes, and puffy jowls. His face looked as if it had been poached in a milky sauce. At Trimalchio’s banquet he would have played Bacchus the Reveller, vine leaves and ivy twined about his head, smirking and simpering among the drunken guests, though frankly (he knew) he was getting too old for the role. In another decade he’d have the red-glazed eyes of the perpetual souse/junkie and a tremor in both hands like Parkinson’s but not just yet. Oh, the President’s favored Pimp had his pride! Wouldn’t stoop to a lie even out of terror of his wife. “As to whether or not you’ve dated this person Marilyn Monroe, chief, to the best of my knowledge you have not.”
At that moment, as if on cue, Marilyn Monroe glanced nervously in their direction. Tentatively, a little girl not knowing if she’s liked or disliked, she smiled. That angel face! The President, smitten, was all business muttering in the Pimp’s ear, “Make the arrangements, I told you. Pronto.”
Pronto! White House code for within the hour.
THE PRINCE AND THE BEGGAR MAID
Would you love me if you knew? The Prince smiled at me and said. . . .
He said he knew, he knew what it was to be poor! to be bone-aching poor and in terror of what’s-to-come!—not in his own lifetime, his family is wealthy as everybody knows, but in his Irish ancestors’ past, the sorrow of oppression by the English conqueror. Like beasts of the field they worked us, he said. Starved us to death. His voice quavered. I was holding him tight. This precious moment. He whispered, Beautiful Marilyn! We are soul mates beneath the skin.
His skin coarse-freckled and hot to the touch as if sunburnt. Mine smooth and thin and eggshell-pale and, where a man grips me in the forgetfulness of passion, easily bruised.
These bruises proudly worn like mauled rose petals.
This, our secret. Never will I reveal my lover’s name.
He knew he said what it is to be lonely. In his large family there was loneliness growing up. I was crying to think he understood! Understood me. He, of a great American name. A tribe of the blessed. I told him I revered him so I would never ask anything of him after this night except to think of me now and then. To think of MARILYN with a smile. I revered his family, I said. Yes, and his wife, too, I revered, so beautiful and poised, so gracious. He laughed sadly, saying, But she can’t open her heart like you, Marilyn. She lacks the gift of laughter and warmth you possess, dear Marilyn.
So quickly we fell in love!
For sometimes it’s so. Though unspoken.
I said, You can call me Norma Jeane.
He said, But you are MARILYN to me.
I said, Oh, do you know MARILYN?
He said, Wanted to meet MARILYN for a long long time.
Cuddling together on tossed-down beach towels and terry-cloth robes smelling of damp and chlorine on the floor of the bathhouse. Like naughty children laughing together. He’d brought with him a bottle of scotch whisky. And the party spilling out of the beautiful glass house onto the poolside terrace only a few yards away. I was so happy! where only an hour before I’d been so sad! wishing I hadn’t been talked into coming to this weekend party but had stayed home in my house I love, my little Mexican house on Fifth Helena Drive. But now so happy, and giggling like a little girl. He is a man who makes a woman feel like she’s a true woman. Like no man I have ever met. A figure of History. Making love with him, my Prince. How quick and hard and excited like a boy. Though his back was not strong, cervical spine strain he said, temporary, nothing for me to be concerned about, oh, but you were a war hero, I said, oh God how I revere you! My Prince. We were drinking, he would lift the bottle to my lips for me to drink, though I knew I should not, not with my medication, but I could not resist, as I could not resist his kisses; who among women could resist this man, a great man, a war hero, a figure of History, a Prince. And his hands a boy’s eager hands, so urgent! We made love again. And again. A wildness came over me. I did feel something, a tinge of pleasure: like a flame being scratched out of a match, quick, fleeting, gone almost immediately yet you know it’s there and may return. How long we were hidden away in that bathhouse, I don’t know. Who knew we’d slipped away from the party, I don’t know. The President’s brother-in-law had introduced us; Marilyn, he’d said, I’d like you to meet an admirer of yours; and I’d seen him, my Prince, staring smiling at me, a man women adore, that look of ease and lightness in a man who knows he is adored by women, his very desire like a flame that women will stoke, and quench, and stoke, and quench, through a lifetime. And I laughed; suddenly I was The Girl Upstair
s. I was not Roslyn Tabor, I was not a divorcée. I was not a widow. I was not a grieving mother who’d lost her baby in a fall down cellar steps. I was not a mother who’d killed her baby. I had not been The Girl Upstairs for a long time but in my white terry-cloth robe and bare legs I became again The Girl Upstairs on the subway grating. (No, I would not wish the Prince to know my true age: soon to be thirty-six. And not a girl.) He winced, his back was hurting. I pretended not to notice but settled myself on top of him, fitted myself to him, my slightly sore vagina, my empty womb this man might fill, his penis so hard and eager; I was gentle as I could be until nearing the end he grabbed my hips and ground himself against me whimpering and moaning almost out of control so I worried he would hurt himself, his back, as he was hurting me, his hands gripping my hips so hard, and I was whispering Yes yes like that like that yes though rivulets of sweat ran down my face and my breasts, he was biting my breasts, biting the nipples, You dirty girl he was saying, moaning, dirty cunt, I love you dirty cunt; and soon it was over and I was out of breath and hurting and trying to laugh as The Girl would naturally laugh and I heard myself say, Ohhhh! I’m almost afraid of you I guess! which is what men like to hear; I caught my breath and said, If I was Castro ohhhh! I’d be real afraid of you; I was The Girl dumb-blonde style saying Hey, where’s those Social Security men that follow you around? (for suddenly I realized that those men, plainclothes officers, must be close outside the bathhouse guarding the door and a wave of shame passed over me I hoped to God they hadn’t been listening or worse yet watching with some sort of surveillance device as sometimes even in my house with the drapes drawn, and in the bedroom thick black drapes stapled to the window frames, I seemed to know I was being spied upon and my phone tapped), and he laughed and said, You mean Secret Service men, MARILYN, and we broke up laughing, whisky-laughing; I was the girl from North Carolina who didn’t give a shit, laughing from the gut as a man laughs. Oh, it felt good. The tense moment was past as if it had never been, already I was forgetting the names, the ugly words he’d called me, my Prince, shortly I would forget that I’d forgotten anything and by next morning I would recall only kisses, a fleeting match flame of sexual pleasure, the promise of a future. My Prince was saying MARILYN you’re a genuinely funny woman, I’d heard you were bright quick intelligent fan-tas-tic (he was tonguing my breasts, tickling) and I said, Oh Mr. P-president, know what? I write my own lines, too. He said Mmmm! you have the nicest lines in show biz MARILYN. I said, stroking his thick hair, You can call me Norma Jeane, that’s what people call me who know me, and he said, What I’m going to call you, baby, is whenever I get the chance. Pronto!