Marilyn's Last Sessions
Read Marilyn's Last Sessions Online
Authors: Michel Schneider
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street,
Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published by Canongate in 2011
Copyright © Michel Schneider, 2006
English translation copyright © Will Hobson, 2011
The moral right of the author has been asserted
First published as
Marilyn dernières séances
in France in 2006
by Editions Grasset, 61 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris
The publisher acknowledges subsidy from the Scottish Arts Council towards the publication of this volume.
This book is supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of the Burgess programme run by the Cultural Department of the French Embassy in London
(
www.frenchbooknews.com
).
For text permissions, please see
here
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84767 051 9
eISBN 978 1 84767 914 7
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To Marilyn
‘There’s always two sides to a story.’
Marilyn Monroe
Los Angeles, Downtown, West 1st Street
August 2005
Los Angeles, West Sunset Boulevard
January 1960
Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard
1960
Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Roxbury Drive
January 1960
Brooklyn, Brownsville, Miller Avenue
September 1911
Hollywood, Beverly Hills Hotel, West Sunset Boulevard
January 1960
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
February 1960
Fort Logan, Colorado, Army Air Force Convalescent Hospital
1944
Beverly Hills, Roxbury Drive
November 1979
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
March 1960
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
Spring 1960
Hollywood, Santa Monica Boulevard
1946
Los Angeles–New York
March 1960
Beverly Hills Hotel
Late April 1960
New York, Actors Studio, West 44th Street
January 1955
New York, West 93rd Street
February 1955
Hollywood, Century City, Pico Boulevard
June 1960
New York, Gladstone Hotel, East 52nd Street
March 1955
Los Angeles, Bel Air
August 1960
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
August 1960
Outskirts of London, Englefield Green
July 1956
London, Maresfield Gardens
August 1956
Los Angeles, Beverly Hills
Late August 1960
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
Early September 1960
London, Maresfield Gardens
Spring 1956
New York, Central Park West
1957
Pyramid Lake, near Reno, Nevada
19 September 1960
Los Angeles, Sunset Strip
Late September 1960
Los Angeles, Westwood Village
November 1960
Hollywood, Doheny Drive
Autumn 1960
New York, YMCA, West 34th Street
Winter 1960
New York, Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic
February 1961
Los Angeles, Beverly Hills Hotel
1 June 1961
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
Summer 1961
Los Angeles, Wilshire Boulevard
Autumn 1961
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
July 1961
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
Late July 1961
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
October 1961
Berkeley, California
5 and 27 October 1961
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
Autumn 1961
Beverly Hills, Roxbury Drive
Autumn 1976
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
December 1961–January 1962
Brentwood, Fifth Helena Drive
February 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
March 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
Late March 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
Early April 1962
Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive
25 March 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
April 1962
Beverly Hills, Roxbury Drive
May 1962
Beverly Hills, Roxbury Drive
8 May 1962
Michigan, Ann Arbor University
1969
Hollywood Heights, Woodrow Wilson Drive
April 1970
Los Angeles, Pico Boulevard
May 1962
New York, Madison Square Garden
May 1962
Beverly Hills, Roxbury Drive
21 May 1962
Hollywood, Pico Boulevard, Fox Studios
31 May 1962
Beverly Hills, Roxbury Drive
31 May 1962
Hollywood, Pico Boulevard, Fox Studios
1 June 1962
Hollywood, Bel Air, Joanne Carson’s house
August 1976
Westwood, Fifth Helena Drive
6 June 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
11 June 1962
Hollywood, Warner Bros Studios
December 1965
New York, Eighth Avenue
Mid-June 1962
Los Angeles, University of California
June 1966
Los Angeles, Hollywood Sign
June 1962
Los Angeles, Pinyon Canyon
Autumn 1970
Santa Monica Beach
29 June–1 July 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
25 July 1962
Lake Tahoe, Cal-Neva Lodge
28 and 29 July 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
Late July 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
Early August 1962
Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard
August 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
3 August 1962
Brentwood, Fifth Helena Drive
4 August 1962
Brentwood, Fifth Helena Drive
Night of 4–5 August 1962
Los Angeles County Coroner’s office, the morgue
5 August 1962
Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard, Schwab’s Drugstore
5 August 1962
Paris, Hôtel Lancaster – New York City
5 August 1962
Gainesville, Florida, Collins Court Old Age Home
5 August 1962
Beverly Hills, Roxbury Drive
7 August 1962
Beverly Hills, Roxbury Drive
8 August 1962
Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendon Avenue
August 1984 and August 1962
Beverly Hills, Milton ‘Mickey’ Rudin’s law firm
6 August 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
August 1962–November 1979
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
8 August 1962
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
8 August 1962
Beverly Hills, Roxbury Drive
November 1978
Los Angeles, Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
November 1979
Santa Monica, Franklin Street
8 August 1962
Downtown Los Angeles, West 1st Street
April 2006
New York, April 1955. The writer Truman Capote is at a funeral with Marilyn Monroe.
MARILYN: ‘Seriously, though. It’s my hair. I need colour. And I didn’t have time to get any. It was all so unexpected, Miss Collier dying and all. See?’
She lifts her kerchief slightly to display a fringe of darkness where her hair is parted.
TC: ‘Poor innocent me. And all this time I thought you were a bona-fide blonde.’
MARILYN: ‘I am. But nobody’s that natural. And, incidentally, fuck you.’
Like Marilyn’s hair, this novel is a phoney of the bona-fide kind. It is inspired by actual events and, except where changes have been made to respect the privacy of the
living, its characters appear under their real names. Locations are accurate, dates verified, and quotations from accounts, notes, letters, articles, conversations, books and films are the
protagonists’ own.