A new book reveals that the actress became pregnant at the time she was related to John and Robert Kennedy
Despite the fact that she died almost half a century ago, the figure of Marilyn Monroe continues to be fascinating for the general public and also for biographers, who see in her a character that is exploited in public as well as full of folds in private. Hence, this week a new biography is published that delves into hitherto less trite issues about the star of The Temptation Lives Upstairs. Thus, according to author Fred Lawrence Giles, Monroe anonymously underwent an abortion in the month of July 1962. She would commit suicide on August 4.
Giles' new book, called Norma Jean: The Life of Marilyn Monroe, delves into the star's private life and interviews dozens of people associated with her. Giles is one of the greatest connoisseurs of Monroe and her life, and for the volume he collects testimonies from everyone around her, such as two of her husbands, James E. Dougherty, and the writer Arthur Miller; the acting teacher of the actress, Lee Strasberg or directors like Otto Preminger, John Huston and Billy Wilder.
In the slightly more than 500 pages of the book, the abortion suffered by Monroe is one of the main revelations of Giles. In a preview published exclusively by The Daily Beast, it is hinted that the child he was expecting could be the result of a relationship with the then president of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or with his brother, Robert Bobby Kennedy.
"Throughout the month of July, Marilyn made frequent phone calls to the Justice Building in Washington, and when Bobby was out of the office, her secretary, Angie Novello, would talk to her," the book reads. In that month, the last of her life (she would die on August 4), she also met on occasion with Joe DiMaggio, who believed that he could have something serious with her again, and with Frank Sinatra. In addition, she did a couple of photo sessions —like the famous one with Bert Stern— and gave a couple of last interviews in which she was relaxed and hinted at the little importance she gave to the fame associated with being an actor. "As a person, my work is important to me," she confessed in one of them. “My work is the only field in which I have had a place of my own. Acting is very important. To put it bluntly, it seems that I have a superstructure but no foundation. But I'm working on the base”, she hinted about how she was often more valued for her physique than for her acting essence.
One of the publicists in the office that handled her communication, Arthur P. Jacobs, affirms that on July 20 Marilyn was admitted to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, one of the most famous in Los Angeles and located in the middle of Hollywood, with a pseudonym. “The press aide was shocked. If Marilyn was really pregnant, her state of mind must have been unimaginable, "says the book, which continues:" Three months had passed since her last intimate encounter with President Kennedy, and only a few weeks since the last time with her brother . It would have been easy to assume that the baby she aborted was a Kennedy, but she was also seeing other men in the spring and summer."
Advertisers reported that she had gone to a lake that weekend. Then, on Monday, July 30, Monroe phoned Bobby Kennedy. “There is no way of knowing if she ever told him that she had terminated a pregnancy,” Giles explains in his text. “What we do know is that she seemed to sink into a deep depression. By early July, Dr. Greenson had begun seeing her daily and would continue to do so until his death.”
There were only a few days left for it. On August 3, says the author, "she went to her favorite restaurant, La Scala, with a couple of friends and, according to at least one source, Bobby Kennedy, who was in California with her family." . That night, the actress was agitated, nervous. “Bobby had been a big part of her love life for two and a half months, but he could very well have brought [his wife] Ethel and his family to California to help get him out of the mess. Marilyn had led to an unrealistic view of the situation, believing that Bobby was somehow available to her. Now the Kennedy clan was pushing her to come back to her place. If she was feeling like the possibility of a really serious relationship with Bobby was slipping away, that would help explain her bad mood of hers that Friday night."
A document from the files of the US Department of Justice shows that Bobby Kennedy and his family spent that weekend in August on a ranch about 135 kilometers south of San Francisco and that on Monday he gave a conference in the city. It is, according to the author of the volume, an "uncommon" document, since its inputs and outputs are not normally collected, even less so in personal situations. “It doesn't say anything about the tragedy taking place in Los Angeles that weekend. But that document served to make it officially clear that Kennedy was away when word got out about what happened."
