When
first thinking of Marilyn Monroe your thoughts may be of her glamourous life
style, timeless quotes, or iconic pictures but there were plenty of scandals
concerning the last years of her life. Was her “suicide” really a suicide, and
if it was were there any efforts to help the young struggling actress? From
this question rises a few conspiracy theories:
1. Did her house keeper Eunice
Murray and Physiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson have something against her?
2. There’s also the fact that she
was the government’s watch list and the FBI has missing files concerning her.
Could they have been involved?
3. Lastly, it is rumored that she
had been romantically involved with the Kennedy brothers, John and Richard,
both who held important political positions, right up until her suspicious
death in the 1960’s.
Either way, did she really deserve
her unfortunate ending? Let’s take a look at Marilyn Monroe, the conspiracy
theories surrounding her death, and the likelihood that her death was rooted
from the Kennedy Administration.
Character Analysis
Who was Marilyn Monroe? You may be able to
answer this question yourself, but there is much more to her than what meets
the eye. Most people picture her angelic blond hair, perfect hour-glass figure,
and white dress blowing up from under a subway grate, but the struggles she
overcame to accomplish this iconic image were tremendous. Monroe endured a
troubling childhood which then effected the way she lived out her life.
She grew up not knowing her father, and having
a mother who had psychiatric problems and spent the majority of Marilyn’s
childhood in a mental institution. Later in life Monroe states, “the earliest
memory I have is my mother trying to smother me in my crib with a pillow,”
(Marilyn Monroe). With her mother being admitted into a mental institution,
Monroe bounced around from home to home in the foster care system. In her foster home, she reported being
sexually assaulted and raped at only 11 years old (1). With the absence of her
mother and father throughout her childhood, it caused her great internal
conflict. She never felt good enough and this lead to problems in her adult
life. To get out of the foster care system, she married her first husband Jimmy
Dougherty in 1942 at the age of 16 (1).
This relationship diminished in 1946 when she was discovered by a
photographer and began to focus on her career.
When
Monroe’s career began to flourish, her insecurities rooting from her childhood
began to play a role as well. Monroe suffered from pre-performance anxiety that
sometimes made her physically ill and was often the root cause of her legendary
tardiness on film sets (1). Not only did her insecurities play a part in her
job, but also in her relationships as well. Her lack of a father figure in her
childhood years caused her to be distrustful of men. She had several
unsuccessful marriages with not only Jimmy Dougherty but with Joe DiMaggio and
Arthur Miller as well. With the insecurity of never feeling good enough, she
was in constant pursuit of trying to prove herself. Her co-star Don Murray once
said, “She was trying to prove she was a serious actress and not just a movie
star playing bimbo parts. She was trying to prove she was an actress of
substance, and in my opinion she certainly did,” (King). Two years previous to
her death, Marilyn started seeing a psychiatrist named Dr. Ralph Greenson. She
would sit in his office and spill her secrets, insecurities, and stories, with
which Dr. Greenson has taken to the grave. He diagnosed her with depression and
border line personality disorder. For this, she was prescribed different
medications, which may have been the cause of her “suicide” at the young age of
36.
While her internal conflicts
sparked from a situation she could not control (her childhood), her external
conflict was also something of fate. Marilyn Monroe was, and always will be, an
iconic sex symbol in the history of Hollywood. Her seemingly good looks have
pleased many, especially those of the male gender. She was the lady that every
woman dreamed of looking like and the one who every man lusted after. Whether
it was her intimidating gene pool or her mental disability, Marilyn faced the
external conflict of not only having failed relationships but also not very
many close friends. Amy Greene, a friend of Marilyn’s said, “She was a recluse.
When she lived in Los Angeles, she had no social life. She ate, slept, and
worked. She didn’t go out at night,” (King).
Being intimidating for women and
lacking deep personal friendships was an external conflict that Monroe dealt
with in her short years of life. With the mix of a troubling childhood, failed
relationships, and intimidating looks the conflicts in her life defined her.
Conspiracy
Descriptions (Main Idea and Details with Survey Results)
In the murder case of Marilyn
Monroe, three conspiracies are emphasized. One of the theories suggest that her
house keeper Eunice Murray and psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson were involved in
her “suicide”. Another suggests the involvement of the government due to her
suspected involvement in communism. The most popular theory concerning her
death is the idea that the political family the Kennedys were in some way
connected to it.
The first conspiracy theory
proposes that Marilyn’s housekeeper, Eunice Murray, and her psychiatrist, Dr.
Ralph Greenson, are in some way responsible for her premature death. The story
goes that Monroe was pronounced dead by her doctor around 3:50am, but it’s
rumored that she was found dead before this time (Unredacted). The first people
on scene were Murray and Greenson. Oddly enough, Murray obtained her position
of the housekeeper through Dr. Greenson (1). There was much confusion
concerning the main witness, Murray’s, statement due to the fact that she
changed her story multiple times. One of Murray’s stories goes like this: “She
knocked on Marilyn’s door around midnight and got no reply. Worried, she called
Greenson who arrived with Dr. Hyman Engleberg, her internist. They then broke
into her room through the French windows of Marilyn’s room and discovered her
lifeless body laying face down in the bed. They then called the police at
4:25am and the first police on scene, Sergeant Jack Clemmons, was suspicious.”
(1). Clemmons noticed several skeptical things. The body looked to be posed and
not in a natural body position, there was no glass of water present, and Eunice
Murray was washing and drying sheets. (1). These weren’t the only conflicting
things concerning the circumstances. Monroe’s lawyer was told that Marilyn had
been found dead before her body had been discovered (1). In 1985, journalist
Anthony Summers claim that Murray states, “The reason for the cover story was
because Robert Kennedy was at the house that day,” (1). While this conspiracy
theory doesn’t offer a clear cause of death, it offers the fact that Murray and
Greenson know more than they are letting on.
The second conspiracy suggests the
government was responsible for the death of Marilyn Monroe. The idea of Monroe
being romantically involved with both John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy is
common knowledge to American society. This scandal may be reason enough for the
government wanting to silence Monroe, but their motive does not end there. She
was also acquainted with Fredrick Vanderbilt Field, the great-great grandson of
Cornelius Vanderbilt and also a known supporter of communism who had been
exiled to Mexico for his beliefs (Summers). She had been spotted in Mexico with
him 7 months before her death, where she spent 10 days shopping for her
Mexican-style home in California (1). Upon Marilyn returning to the United
States, an FBI official in Mexico sent Director J. Edgar Hoover a report
stating: “Monroe had been associated closely with certain members of the
American Communist Group in Exile…during the course of this visit a mutual
infatuation arose between Monroe and Field…” (1). This document along with
others concerning her encounters with the Kennedys were filed under “Marilyn
Monroe—Security—Communist” and were withheld within the governments records for
40 years. Monroe was also known to gravitate to left-wingers. The people she
surrounded herself with seemed to be entangled with the communist party. These
people include her psychiatrist Greenson, internist Engleberg, and her
ex-husband Arthur Miller. Her psychiatrist’s daughter, Joan Greenson, said that
Monroe was “passionate about equal rights, rights for blacks, rights for the
poor. She identified strongly with the workers,” (1). The actress had also
before mentioned her commendation for the activities in China and her
dissatisfaction at the McCarthy era witch hunt against suspected communist sympathizers
in Hollywood. For her romantic relations with the Kennedy brothers, which
presented her with valuable political information, and her supposed involvement
in communism this categorizes her as a security risk and a threat to the
government. On March 25th, 2015 a 78-year old man named Normand
Hodges admitted on his death bed to being a hit-man for the American
government. He introduced the idea that he had committed 37 assassinations
throughout his life, one including Marilyn Monroe (Mikkelson). His explanation
behind the assassination was that, “I had evidence that Marilyn Monroe had not
only slept with Kennedy, but also with Fidel Castro. My commanding officer told
me she had to die and it had to look like a suicide or overdose… I obeyed and
did it for America. She could have transmitted strategic information to the
communists, and we couldn’t allow that!” (2). While this conspiracy theory does
offer an answer to the famous question of Marilyn’s death, it can not be proven.
The four other members of the CIA which worked along side of Hodges are dead or
missing leaving no one to back him up on his story (Zapo).
The last conspiracy theory, and
certainly the most well known, has to do with the involvement of the Kennedy
Brothers. It focusses mainly on Robert Kennedy known to be romantically
involved with her around the time of her death. Her relationship involving
Robert Kennedy spurred from his brother’s disinterest of Marilyn in her
constant pursuit of him. President John F. Kennedy sent his brother, Robert
Kennedy, to Los Angeles to tell this iconic sex symbol that he was not
interested in leaving his wife in order to be with her (Margolis and Buskin).
During this time in Los Angeles, Robert was put under Marilyn’s spell. Being in
an adulterous relationship with both of the Kennedy brothers came along with
not only dangerous relationships, but also with knowledge of important and
private political news and events. It was rumored she had kept and little red
diary where she wrote about her illicit affairs and of all the dangerous
secrets concerning the Kennedys. Eventually Robert admitted, the same as his
brother, that he indeed would also not be leaving his wife to marry Marilyn.
This infuriated Marilyn to the point where she threatened to expose all the
affairs and all the secrets that surrounded them (1). Robert demanded that she
hand the red diary over to him, but Marilyn refuse. This is when Robert plotted
a way to silence Marilyn once and for all. Robert called Marilyn’s psychiatrist
Dr. Ralph Greenson, who Robert knew she was also having and affair with (1).
Robert convinced Greenson that Marilyn was going to go public on their affair,
even though she had no intention in doing so (1). If that kind of information
went public, he would not only lose his profession, but also his wife and would
have to spend some time in prison. With the fear of all of these consequences,
Greenson agreed to help end Marilyn’s life. The afternoon of August 4th,
1962 Robert Kennedy along with his brother-in-law, Peter Lawford, visited
Marilyn for the last time (1). This visited resulted in an argument which
caused Robert to leave and return later with his personal bodyguards and
Lawford (1). “One bodyguard shot Marilyn in the armpit with Nembutal to calm
her down, the then Robert threw her to the floor,” (1). This statement came
from Robert in a deposition confirming he and Lawford were indeed at her house
the night of her death (1). The Nembutal injection was not strong enough to
sedate Marilyn so they then gave her “ and enema filled with broken-down pills
containing anywhere from thirteen to nineteen Nembutal and seventeen chloral
hydrates,” (1). While Marilyn was under the men searched frantically through
her house for the red diary which could ruin their futures. Kennedy and Lawford
left her house without the diary at 10:30 pm, leaving her house keeper, Eunice
Murray, to find her face down hanging over the edge of the bed in the guest
cottage (1). Eunice called an ambulance and attendant James Edwin Hall was the
first one on scene at around 12 pm (1). Hall states, “ She was naked. She had
no sheet, no blanket. There was no water glass. No alcohol… We ascertained that
her breathing was very shallow, her pulse was very weak and rapid and she was unconscious
at the time. As I bent over it hit me- there was no vomit, unusual with an
overdose which is what the woman managed to tell us that she thought was wrong…
there was no odor of drugs from her mouth. Another classic symptom,” (1). While
Hall was trying to revive her, Greenson arrived stating, ‘”I’m her doctor, give
her positive pressure,” (1). Greenson was acting suspicious. While pushing on
Marilyn’s abdomen in the wrong place, Hall remembers Greenson saying, “I’ve got
to make a show of this.” (1). Greenson then, “drew up a liquid from a bottle
with a rubber seal and filled the syringe. He pushed hard and he drove it all
the way through the rib, making a loud snap as the bone broke. I know he
scarred that rib broke. I know he scarred that rib bone. I had watched a lot of
medical procedures and this guy was downright brutal,” states Hall (1). Peter
Lawford, Murray Liebowitz, and James Hall were all witness to Marilyn Monroe’s
murder and state that Dr. Ralph Greenson was responsible (1).
While not one conspiracy theory has
been proven there are many speculations that Marilyn Monroe would take her own
life. A survey of twenty people indicated that 80% agree that no, Marilyn’s
death was not actually a suicide. The idea that the Kennedy administration is to
blame is the most explainable conspiracy theory due to the fact they have the
most prevalent motive.
Conclusion
The death of Marilyn Monroe has and
will continue to haunt the American people until a more justifiable conclusion
is reached.
On August 5th, 1962 in
her home in California, Marilyn Monroe was found dead with the cause of her
death being ruled suicide. This rose many questions and several conspiracy
theories due to the scandalous way she was rumored to live. Here are three
conspiracy theories that surround her death:
1.
Her
housekeeper and psychiatrist were involved
2.
The
government wanted her dead
3.
The
Kennedy brothers, mainly Robert, had her killed to cover for himself.
In 2016, the 54th
anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death just passed and the case is still ruled
as probable suicide. This cause of death is still questioned today while the
American people still remained enamored with the iconic sex symbol herself.
Works Cited:
Buskin, Richard, and Jay Margolis.
"EXCLUSIVE - Bobby Kennedy Ordered Marilyn Monroe's Murder by Lethal
Injection to Prevent Her from Revealing Her Torrid Affairs with RFK and JFK:
New Book Sensationally Claims to Have Finally Solved the Mystery Surrounding
Her Death." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 16 May 2014.
Web. 27 Nov. 2016.
King, Susan. "Marilyn Monroe: People Who
Knew Her Recall the Real Person." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles
Times, 4 Aug. 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2016.
"Marilyn Monroe." Bio.com.
A&E Networks Television, 26 Apr. 2016. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.
Mikkelson, David. "Retired CIA Agent Confesses on Deathbed:
'I Killed Marilyn Monroe'"Snopes. Snopes, 16 Apr. 2015. Web. 14
Nov. 2016.
Noguchi, N. "Autopsyfiles.org - Marilyn
Monroe Autopsy Report." Autopsyfiles.org - Marilyn Monroe Autopsy
Report. Autopsy Files, 5 Aug. 1662. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.
Summers, Anthony. "FBI/CIA Murdered
Marilyn Monroe." Tangible Information:. N.p., 30 July 2007.
Web. 14 Nov. 2016.
The Unredacted. "Marilyn Monroe - Killing
the Legend." Theunredacted.com. The Unredacted, 10 Mar. 2016.
Web. 27 Nov. 2016.
Zapo, George. "Dyin CIA Agent Claims He Assassinated Marilyn
Monroe." Inquisitor. N.p., 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.
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