Dr. Greenson, her long-time psychiatrist, was grief-stricken and incoherent when approached by reporters. Actor Marlon Brando, with whom Monroe had been linked romantically, refused any statement. Patricia Newcomb, Monroe’s publicist, shouted at news photographers when she reached the star’s home after the death, “Keep shooting, vultures!”
Actor Peter Lawford, a close friend of the star and husband of President John Kennedy’s sister Patricia, wandered along the beach of his Santa Monica villa, according to neighbor Antonia Fuchs, who claimed she was wakened late at night by the sound of what she presumed was his helicopter. She recalled looking out to see the actor “outside and in a complete state of shock . . . devastated, weeping.”
A product of at least 10 foster homes, the illegitimately born movie star gravitated toward strong, protective older women. Reported to be the closest of these in latter years is Alberta Holland, a prominent figure of power behind the scenes in Hollywood. By several accounts, Holland, known as “counsellor to the stars,” was one of very few people who regularly saw the star during her last months of semi-seclusion, when Monroe appeared only at brief intervals, often in disguise.
Rumors circulate that Holland has threatened “to rock the film capital” with her account of the actress’s “real death.” In a prepared statement in which she calls Monroe “the greatest movie star—and one of the dearest,” Holland labels her “a victim.” In her statement, she claims that “the truth will not emerge for years, and only after more deaths.” No further explanation has been made. Holland’s housekeeper, Juanita Brogan, reports she has been instructed to say only that Holland was “fleeing incognito to Long Beach.” Film sources claim Holland has left the country “for reasons of her own.”
Monroe’s association with Holland and others of Hollywood’s politically “liberal” wing has been the subject of speculation among Hollywood insiders. Holland became the object of scandal during the hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigating alleged subversive associations in the film capital. She named as “fellow travelers” “Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, F.D.R.” She was sentenced to a year in prison for contempt of Congress. In a Tribune interview, Monroe had called her “one of the most courageous people I know.”
Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin Crouch, who handled legal aspects of the movie star’s relations with 20th Century-Fox Studios, have refused further questioning, claiming they are “in shock . . . we know nothing, we love her, we know nothing more.”
Rumors of irregularities surrounding the reports of death, including the time of death, supposed removal of private documents and letters, and even the exact place of death, continue to circulate. But Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Lange, former campaign adviser to President John F. Kennedy and an insider on the Hollywood and Washington, D.C., circuits, discounts the “rumors” as “expected.” “There is nothing mysterious about her death, only her life.” He refused to elaborate.
Meanwhile the most famous body in the world lies unclaimed in the County Morgue. According to a spokesman, DiMaggio has taken steps to claim it upon his expected arrival in Los Angeles. The spokesman urged fans and friends to send donations in the star’s name to the Children’s Home Society in lieu of flowers. The actress had recently contributed $10,000 to that group of orphaned children.
Around the world, weeping fans hold vigils. Amanda Ullman, president of the National Marilyn Monroe Fan Club, claims the movie star’s “sad early life” inspired her, while still in her teens, to keep her own illegitimate child instead of putting her up for adoption. Ullman sobbed, “There will never be another star like Marilyn. She was the greatest movie star of all time. We will always love her. I will teach my child to love her.”
Even the first family of the country reacted to Monroe’s death. President Kennedy, for whom the star sang “Happy Birthday” during a birthday salute at Madison Square Garden before 15,000 cheering Democrats, acknowledged “the great loss to motion pictures.” After her rendition of “Happy Birthday,” the President had remarked, “I can now retire from politics after having had ‘Happy Birthday’ sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.”
In his home state of Texas for Youth Activities Week and the dedication of a commemorative plaque designating the school where he first taught as a grammar school teacher, Vice President Lyndon Johnson called the death of the actress “a shame, a rotten shame.”
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, brother of the President, heard the news at a ranch south of San Francisco, where he was relaxing by playing touch football and horseback riding at the home of his host, John Bates. The Attorney General took time out from preparing his address for a meeting of the American Bar Association tonight to comment on the star as “a sweet, a dear woman, loved the whole world over.” After his address and dinner with the Director of the C.I.A., Kennedy will vacation in an undisclosed location with his family.
In Hyannisport, Joseph Kennedy, father of the President, was informed of the movie star’s death while he was performing convalescent exercises in his swimming pool and recovering from a recent stroke. Recalling that the actress had earlier sent the elder Kennedy a get-well telegram, the only member of the family or staff who would comment on reaction there to Monroe’s death was chauffeur James Abner. “A strange silence came over everybody who was there,” Abner said.
Three
ENID MORGAN
Died in Spring
1980
Normalyn read the inscription on the temporary marker, which would be replaced with a stone when it was ready. It, too, would contain the only words Enid wanted. She had paid for the plot, chosen the stone, announced, “I’ll die in spring; I don’t want snow covering my cold body.” The soft earth about the marker was tentative, not ready to receive this new death.
Yesterday, in Enid’s dusking bedroom—calmly—Normalyn had read once again every paper Enid had left her. The cryptic letters N.J.R.I.R. had been so assertively inked that they cut into the sheet. Standing in the room in order not to wrinkle Enid’s bedspread, Normalyn went through the other newsclippings. The article about the “hunt” for “Marilyn’s mystery friend” indicated only that a close friend, a woman, was being sought for information concerning the star’s last days. Other articles repeated that reference and reported rumors of “high-level pressures” to halt an inquest into the death.
Normalyn inspected the markings on the newspaper account of reaction to the star’s death. Next to Billy Wilder’s name, there was a dismissive X. Mildred Meadows, a double slash, darkened over. Darryl Zanuck, a contemptuous expulsion. Peter Lawford, one solemn black line. Alberta Holland, a circle, the name underlined. Patricia Newcomb, all but obscured. Dr. and Mrs. Crouch, coiled tangles. David Lange, a dark question mark. On the margins, checkmarks signaled attention to certain names. The references to the Kennedy brothers were enclosed in a black-inked border—like an obituary.
Normalyn studied the dual entries on her revised birth certificate. During early years, Enid would convert an uneventful day into a sudden “birthday party,” birthdays so erratic that Normalyn was not sure what the date of her birth was, nor where she had been born. Enid would dismiss any inquiries: “You’re my little girl, that’s all you have to know. You’re born where your memories begin.” Normalyn became sure that Enid obscured details of her birth because she was the illegitimate daughter of the despised man—“Stan!”—who had abandoned them long ago. And so it was as if she had been born in Enid’s memories, and again, less powerfully, when she began accumulating memories of her own. But she had few. She remembered only Gibson and nearby cities—and, sometimes, a city near the shoreline, the sea, water, ocean.
Normalyn shifted her attention to the news picture of the disguised movie star, photographers circling her like predators determined on capture. The woman looked so despairing! Normalyn’s eyes drifted to the night table, the twin frames of the two beautiful women. Placing the letter and the other papers in the brown envelope, Normalyn allowed herself
to touch Enid’s bed. Catching herself, she pretended to smooth the silk-brocade bedspread. She picked up a dark petal from the floor. She crushed it. Leaving the envelope on the table with the chipped angel, the lavender flowers, the two pictures, Normalyn closed the door of Enid’s bedroom. Firmly. She decided: None of what Enid had thrust into her life would have any effect on her. None.
She went downstairs. She walked into her bedroom—pretty, in pastel hues, decorated by Enid so that Normalyn felt she herself was merely borrowing it. For moments, Normalyn knelt before the bottom drawer of her dresser, about to open it. Inside were books she had once cherished . . . might still. No! She had thrust them into the bottom drawer one terrible night and she would not return to them. When she finally fell asleep much later, Normalyn thought she heard Enid’s soft sobbing in the house.
She woke into panic. Enid was dead! She counted her breathing, extending yesterday’s tight control. She would return to the cemetery—to ensure the placement of the permanent stone. But she knew she would go there because Enid was there.
She extended beginning that journey, keeping it as a goal for this day’s future. A day without Enid controlling it, a future without her? And tomorrow? There would be tomorrow.
In the startling morning-brightness of Enid’s kitchen, Normalyn ate a forced breakfast. In the living room, she looked at the mosaic Enid had designed around the fireplace: “It’s a peacock, can’t you see?—just like Valentino had at Falcon’s Lair—Doris Duke bought the house later.” The living room was ordered, as it had always been during her lifetime—“everything in its place,” Enid commanded nervously, hands fussing against disorder, even a stray wisp of her hair. Earlier in their lives, in spring and summer, she had filled patterned vases with fresh flowers from her garden. “Natural ones,” she’d pointed out, “not artificial ones, except for the lavender bouquet,” she asserted without explaining why she cherished it. One day, she’d stopped cutting the flowers, leaving blossoms in the vases until they darkened and pieces fell like dried blood.
Outside the house, Normalyn stood on its circular white steps and prepared for her journey to the cemetery. New spring leaves on trees had survived last night’s raid by the wind. The only evidence of its rampage were abandoned tumbleweeds, those desolate tangles Normalyn detested. The day was warm, unstirring. Which route to the cemetery would expose her to fewer people, fewer words of commiseration masking the curiosity Enid aroused among “those damn Gibsonites”? Yes, they would have gone to her funeral, inquisitively, to be at the gravesite of “that woman who was in the movies,” to scrutinize Mayor Hughes’s reaction. But only the Mayor, Dr. Phillips, Rosa with her little boy, and the mumbling minister Mayor Hughes insisted on were there with Normalyn. With a sigh, the Mayor had agreed with her that Enid had lived apart; she would not have wanted anyone else there—“clucking their damn sympathies,” Enid’s voice said.
Normalyn would avoid the memorial plaza in the middle of Gibson’s small business section. Enid hated the statue there, designated only as “A Texas Hero.” It was noon, and in the plaza on its ornate benches would be familiar people Enid had kept apart from—and now so would she.
A window slammed. The divorced man next door was trying to get her attention again. An old man himself, he had just returned to live with his ancient mother and father. Normalyn saw his odd, tilted face staring at her from behind a screen.
Ahead, two small children played in the ghostly rainbow of a sprinkler. Dripping water from chubby bodies, they ran up to her. “Your crazy mother killed herself,” the boy shot at Normalyn.
“Was she in the movies? How come you’re not crying?” the girl whined.
Normalyn touched the shield of her glasses.
A woman rushed out of the house and gathered the fat children. “Now y’all hush and say sorry to poor Normalyn,” she told them, not firmly.
“I’m not poor,” Normalyn said. “My mother left me a fortune.” What Enid might have left her, she had not even considered. She had never known the definite source of Enid’s comfortable income. “An inheritance from blackmail! Those rich Texans who took me to Dallas didn’t adopt me, they bought me.” Enid would laugh darkly.
Normalyn began to walk away, stopped, turned. “You,” she said precisely to the gaping woman and her children, “are silly morons.”
That’s what Enid would have said. Moving away, Normalyn tried to imitate the way Enid walked, hand raised gracefully at intervals as if to adjust her hair, her glamorous hat—and to brush away—like pesky gnats—the people who stared at her.
A youngman peeked out from behind the raised hood of his car. Once he had asked Normalyn out. She had run away. Emboldened by Enid’s death, he swaggered toward her. “Sorry about your old lady,” he drawled. “Is it true she was almost a movie star?—my mother says she never heard of her.”
“How could she have? She doesn’t know how to read.” Normalyn crossed the street. A carload of young people drove by in a sports car. They waved at her. She did not wave back. One of the girls had done an imitation of her at school, walking rigidly, head lowered, fists clenched. Normalyn re-crossed the street so anxiously that a car had to brake. Suddenly recognizing her, the driver shouted out irritated deepest sympathies. “I don’t need them!” she yelled back.
Her frantic dodging had led her to the plaza! There it was, the despised memorial to “A Texas Hero,” the statue of a mustachioed soldier, one hand planted on his heart, another on a rifle against his thigh. It was a greenish statue pocked with pigeon droppings. No one conjectured any more who the “hero” was, but nevertheless on patriotic holidays rigid old men of the Veterans of Foreign Wars solemnly placed a wreath on its stolid platform.
Boldly, Normalyn walked into the old square. She felt eyes. On this warm day several people sat on the coppery benches, eating lunch. Normalyn heard readied expressions of sorrow: “Sorry about your—”
“Liars!” she said. Then her defiance collapsed. Determined not to run from their stares, she stumbled. Her glasses fell. She picked them up, fighting terror.
When she reached the cemetery, she ran past tall iron-piked gates. Tense, breathless, she faced Enid’s grave.
Behind her, she heard the crunch of footsteps in the otherwise deserted cemetery. She saw a tall lanky man moving swiftly toward her along stones, crosses, urns.
It was him!
Terrified, she flung herself on the moist dirt of Enid’s grave.
2
She had flung herself on the sand of the Rio Grande like that one distant afternoon, a year ago, when she was seventeen. She had walked to the river, which, usually dry here, carves an indolent S about the greenness of Gibson. Much younger, when she had first started reading books, she had come here and imagined herself on a raft with Huckleberry Finn.
She sat dreamily on the sand reading the book she had checked out, again, from the public library, her favorite, Wuthering Heights. She was soon aware of evening shadows. She would have to run home to thwart Enid’s anxiety, easily aroused by her absence beyond the time she was allotted to roam the library. Enid had threatened to lock the door, “as a lesson,” if she was late again.
Normalyn heard the sound of tires scraping the graveled road near the river. She looked up to the embankment.
It was him!—tall, dark, the “gypsy cowboy.” He had found her! She had seen him one day after school—exactly as if Heathcliff had stepped right out of Wuthering Heights. He had smiled at her that time, and then another day when he had driven past her in his white pickup. She stood up now in shy anticipation. They’d walk along the river, like Catherine and Heathcliff on the moors. She was about to smile in recognition when she saw he was not alone. He was flanked by two other “aggies”—his age, about twenty—“cowboys” from the nearby agricultural college in Langsdon.
The three rushed her.
She threw herself on the ground.
“You’re the girl with the crazy mother,” said one of the three. He was blond, skinn
y, with twisted features on a pocked face.
Short, nervous, dancing grotesquely about her, his hands on his groin, the second cowboy grabbed the book from her, thrust it away. “Always reading, huh? Never been fucked, huh? Bet you want it bad.”
Normalyn turned desperately for help from the man she recognized. It wasn’t possible!—he was leaning roughly over her, his long fingers pulling at her dress. His body pushed against hers.
The skinny cowboy grasped the dark man’s shoulders. “Us first, spic,” he laughed hoarsely. “This is white pussy.”
“That’s what y’all want, huh, Gonzales?” the other snickered.
He knelt so close to her that Normalyn felt his heated breath. She yelled out a hated apology: “Please don’t! I’m sorry!”
Suddenly Gonzales stood up, adjusting his pants. He looked startled at the two men and then down at Normalyn as if in sudden new awareness.
The blond cowboy was tearing at Normalyn’s dress. She flailed on the sand. His knees pushed her legs apart, a hand ripped at her underpants.
Gonzales shook his head. “Leave her alone,” he said.
The blond man pushed between Normalyn’s legs, to enter her clumsily. Normalyn scratched fiercely at him. The short cowboy pinioned her arms.
“I said leave her alone!” Gonzales ordered. He yanked the blond man off Normalyn. The blond man sprawled on the dirt, spitting dust. Normalyn kicked at the groin of the short man. Gonzales thrust his fist into the twisted face of the blond cowboy. The two grappled on the grainy strait of river. The short man waited. Normalyn heard the crunch of flesh over the yowling of rising wind. She ran under graying sheets of sky. She thought she heard a voice calling, “Wait, I won’t hurt you! I swear it!”
An infinity later, Normalyn reached her house, shouting. The door was locked. She beat on it, beat on it. Enid flung the door open. In shame, Normalyn clutched her torn dress to cover her breasts. Her body trembled with her sobs.