The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe: The Shocking True Story (30 page)

Before travelling on to the Garden, at precisely 7.05pm JFK avoided the heat by hosting a dinner party in Manhattan’s opulent Four Seasons restaurant. While there, he showed his gratitude to the 375 individuals who had purchased the highest-priced $1,000 tickets to his show by stopping at every one of their tables and personally pumping each of their hands. Although Marilyn Monroe was one of those purchasers, she was not at the restaurant. She was busily beautifying herself for the big night.

Five hours earlier, after returning briefly to her condominium (where a home-movie enthusiast caught a glimpse of her signing her autograph and hugging and chatting to an elderly female fan), the actress had been driven round to the Lilly Daché building. There, at a cost of $150, her hair stylist Kenneth Battelle was ready and waiting to mould her hair into his most famous creation, parted to the side with a flick. (Contrary to the insistence of many historians, the hairstyle was not done by hairdresser Mickey Song.
Not only did he have no connection with the actress, he was a complete stranger to the Kennedy family too.) Afterwards, with Pat Newcomb still by her side, Monroe gingerly climbed into her limousine again and was rushed back to her apartment where her make-up lady, Marie Irvine, was lingering to give her a special $125 beautification. When it was completed, with the aid of her personal maid, Hazel Washington, the actress was painstakingly hooked and stitched into her stunning new Jean Louis gown. Throughout all this, her rented black limousine sat idle on the road outside.

Kennedy meanwhile left the Four Seasons at 8.50 and arrived at the Garden shortly after 9.10. He travelled happy in the knowledge that, for the first time since November 1960, the party was solvent. ‘All we have now is the federal deficit,’ he joked to waiting reporters. With tickets for the gala priced in a range from $100 and $500 to $1,000, the Democratic Party had easily surpassed their gross target of just $11,300 for the night. (In total, their coffers were sweetened by $1 million. However, despite the long-held belief that it was a full house that evening, only 12,000 of the 17,500 ticket-holders turned up to see the night’s entertainment.)

Waiting to greet Kennedy as he entered his private box was his Vice-President, Lyndon B. Johnson. The crowd within the arena gave the President a rousing standing ovation and roared ‘Happy Birthday’ to him at every available opportunity. Coinciding with his arrival, the orchestra played ‘Hail to the Chief’, the official anthem of the President of the United States. The notoriously drab venue had never looked so festive. Red, white and blue bunting hung everywhere and hundreds of balloons, adorned with the American flag, rained down from the ceiling several times during the night.

Another long-believed myth about the gala was that Kennedy’s brother-in-law, Peter Lawford, was the MC for the entire show. In fact, for the first half, the host was radio and television comedian Jack Benny. At approximately 9.30pm, a full hour after the allotted starting time, the comic got the presentation off to a cracking start when he quipped, in a reference to his notoriously tight-fisted public persona, ‘The greatest compliment I could pay the President was the fact that I flew all the way from California at my
own
expense and I’m not even a Democrat.’ When the laughter died down, another joke followed. ‘The amazing thing to me is how a man in a rocking chair can have such a young wife.’ (This was a satirical nod to Kennedy’s 1955 P & P Chair Company rocking chair, in which he would sit to help relieve the pains in his lower back.)

Benny was followed by the dance troupe Jerome Robbins’ Ballet USA, actor Henry Fonda, comedian Jimmy Durante, and singers Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte (a last-minute replacement for comedy actor
Danny Kaye), Peggy Lee (who climbed out of her sick-bed to appear), Maria Callas (who flew in from Europe to deliver songs from the musical
Carmen
) and Judy Garland (who had flown in especially from Shepperton Studios in Surrey where she was shooting
I Could Go On Singing
).

The President watched the entire show from his box. Throughout, he sat sandwiched between his mother, Rose, and Anna Rosenberg, the former Assistant Secretary of Defence and co-sponsor of the presentation. Clearly relaxed, he was determined to enjoy himself. With his feet perched high on the enclosure’s rails, he serenely puffed away on his cigars and happily laughed and clapped along to the evening’s entertainment.

The artists performing on the bill that night had been requested to assemble backstage and be ready to take their seats in the hall by 8pm. Characteristically, Marilyn was late, arriving at precisely 8.40pm, in the company of Pat Newcomb and her date for the night, Isidore Miller. Just prior to her arrival at the Garden, the actress had insisted on performing her rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ to Miller at her apartment; rather than being influenced by JFK, as has sometimes been claimed, the real inspiration behind the rendition was in fact Miller. The version she would perform that night was actually orchestrated by
his
directions.

Attired in her stunning new, underwear-free creation, Marilyn slid out of her stretch limo and immediately headed backstage where, for the next two hours 50 minutes, she was seen chatting and mingling with the other big-name stars on the bill. Her casual, Dom Perignon-induced demeanour was superbly captured in stills form by the multi-talented Broadway performer and photographer Victor R. Helou. Fearful of adverse publicity, Marilyn made it clear to everyone, including Kenneth Battelle, that she did not want to be seen at the event with
any
specific male on her arm, aside from the relatively safe Isidore Miller.

At 11.30pm, approximately two hours into the gala, co-MC Peter Lawford once more strolled on to the podium. His mission this time was to herald the actress on to it.

Each of his initial attempts appeared to be met with failure. ‘Mr President,’ he announced. ‘On this occasion of your birthday, this lovely lady is not only pulchritudinous but punctual. Mr President, Marilyn Monroe.’ He turned to greet the actress. A spot of light instantly illuminated the area at the back of the stage where she was due to materialise. A roll on the drums followed. But she failed to appear. Laughter rang out from the audience.

Lawford walked four paces away from his lectern, clutched his chin and stared in bewilderment at both the audience and the empty abyss at the rear of the platform. Though many in the audience failed to see the joke,
it was an obvious satirical nod to the actress’s legendary tardiness in both her social and professional life, a caper Lawford and Marilyn had concocted between them in the days leading up to the event. Contrary to the assertions of some previous Monroe biographers, she was never scheduled to appear earlier in the show and, because of her tardiness and drunken behaviour, continually shunted down the bill until she was ready to perform. As the surviving running-order notes from the gala clearly demonstrate, the actress’s rendition was always set to be the twenty-third – and final – part of the programme.

The actor returned to his stand and attempted the introduction again. ‘A woman about whom, it truly may be said, she needs no introduction. Let me just say . . . here she is.’ Another drum-roll followed but there was still no sign of Monroe. Once more, the audience laughed.

However, she
was
nearby, standing motionless, visibly trembling and noticeably tipsy, in the darkness at the very edge of the Madison Square Garden stage, waiting patiently for her cue in Lawford’s apparently rambling introduction. When it came, Marilyn took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, pushed out her chest, stuck out her buttocks, coyly clutched at her white ermine jacket (borrowed from Fox’s wardrobe department), ascended the short flight of steps and strode into the bright glare of the spotlights.

Her arrival was met by rapturous applause and a spectacular tidal wave of flashing photographic light bulbs. Her premature emergence cut short Lawford’s corny, ‘Mr President, because, in the history of show business, at best, there has been no one female, who has meant so much . . . who has done more’ speech. When the audience caught sight of Marilyn skittering, tippy-toe, geisha-like, across the stage to stand alongside Lawford under the brightest spotlight in the building, their gasps soon turned into a thunderous roar. ‘She mounted the stage in the tightest, slinkiest, ankle-length silk and sequin creation ever seen in the Garden,’ wrote Robert S. Bird of the
Herald Tribune
. ‘She was the high-spot of the evening,’ admitted event co-organiser Clive David. ‘The guest-list was incredible but she was the
true
highlight of the whole thing.’ The last words of Lawford’s introduction would, regrettably, prove to be prophetic. ‘Mr President. The
late
Marilyn Monroe.’ He then collected the jacket from her torso and exited stage right.

Monroe was now alone on stage. But no one noticed. Everybody was transfixed by her seemingly transparent, flesh-coloured, rhinestone-decorated dress, which sparkled incessantly. ‘There was a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing,’ she remarked to
Life
magazine later in the year. ‘I thought, “Oh my gosh, what if no sound comes out?”’ She flicked the microphone to check if it was working; it was. Amid the sound
of another drum-roll, she lunged at it, shaded her eyes from the strong Madison Square Garden lights, fleetingly glanced up at the President in his box and waited before starting to sing.

Fifteen seconds passed. Anticipation filled the air; momentary bursts of applause punctuated the calm. Rightly milking every last moment, she pursed her lips, caressed the microphone, stared seductively into the vast crowd and then, in front of 12,000 loyal Democratic Party members, half-sang, half-talked an extremely sultry, sexually charged, super-slow rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ in a way that no one had ever heard it sung before. Before doing so, she thought to herself, ‘By God, I’ll sing this song if it’s the last thing I ever do.’ Each and every line of her performance was greeted with overwhelming critical and audience approval. Her words were like a caress of pleasure. She had successfully managed to breathe sexual innuendo into a simple, innocent, age-old refrain. She sang it so breathily, so gaspily, so erotically that even the coldest, most reticent people in the house were moved.

‘With Marilyn whispering “Happy Birthday” and the crowd yelling and screaming, it was like mass seduction,’ Richard Adler recalled. Politician Adlai Stevenson remarked, ‘I don’t think I have ever seen anyone so beautiful as Marilyn Monroe that night. She was dressed in what she called skin and beads . . . I didn’t see the beads.’ Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr reiterated this, writing in his journal, ‘I do not think I have seen
anyone
so beautiful.’ The UPI columnist Merriman Smith recalled, ‘Her low-cut, skin-tight evening dress was such a form-fitting creation that the crowd paid little attention to what she said.’ Clive David’s reaction to Marilyn’s performance was simple. ‘Wow! She created the biggest smile
ever
in history,’ he confessed. ‘
Everyone
in the audience just beamed.’ The actress had unintentionally managed to steal the night right from under the President’s nose.

She concluded her dazzling but brief performance with a unique rendering of the classic song and Bob Hope theme tune, ‘Thanks for the Memory’, rewritten by Richard Adler with lyrics directed at Kennedy. ‘Thanks, Mr President,’ Marilyn sang, ‘For all the things you’ve done, The battles that you’ve won, The way you deal with US Steel, And our problems by the ton, We thank you so much . . . ’ The new lyric referred to a speech made on Thursday 12 April, in which Kennedy had denounced US Steel Corp chairman Roger M. Blough’s planned $6-a-ton rise in steel prices as ‘unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest’.

‘Everybody, happy birthday,’ she then shouted, frantically waving her arms as she introduced a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ by the house orchestra. On cue, the audience rose to give the President yet another standing ovation.

Marilyn quite rightly regarded her performance as one of the most triumphant moments of her career. The gala had been an elite gathering of America’s finest, and the fact that she was thought of as the highlight of the evening confirmed the power and recognition she still wielded as an international celebrity in 1962. Furthermore, it showed that, despite the harsh words of some newspaper critics, she was still the most exciting and desired woman on the planet.

Everyone seemed to love her – everyone that is except for Jacqueline Kennedy. Fully aware that Marilyn was going to hijack the show, and no doubt still incensed by her husband’s one-night liaison with the actress two months previously, the President’s wife decided to miss the event, instead choosing to take herself and her children away. At the very last minute, as the
Independent Press-Telegram
noted on Sunday 20 May, she was a shock attendee at a two-day horse competition in Leesburg, Virginia. ‘Mrs. J. F. Kennedy was a surprise participant in the Loudoun Hunt Horse Show Saturday. Mrs. Kennedy, accompanied by her young daughter, Caroline, came here from the Kennedy leased estate, Glen Ora . . . Clad in riding habit, Mrs. Kennedy rode Minbreno in three classes and took third place in the Maj. Larry Lawrence Memorial Trophy event for owner-riders.’

At the conclusion of Monroe’s brief but scenic performance, after a five-foot high, multi-tiered cake studded with 45 sparkling blue candles had been carried out from behind the stage by two toque-wearing chefs, and following the briefest of introductions by New York Mayor Robert F. Wagner, the President mounted the stage and humorously remarked, ‘I can now retire from politics after having had “Happy Birthday” sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.’

Plans to follow Monroe’s performance with a lengthy, pre-prepared speech about his programme of action and Republican opposition were swiftly discarded. Protocol had been cast to the wind. Clearly relishing the birthday party spirit, he instead used the opportunity to jest and personally thank those who had one way or another played a part in the night. ‘To Jack Benny,’ he said, ‘who came to help an older man celebrate his birthday. Danny Kaye, whom I talked to in a hospital, I feel sorry for him. Harry Belafonte, I don’t feel sorry for him though, because he interrupted his tour in Columbus, Ohio and I can tell you, there is no city in the United States where a Democrat gets a warmer welcome and less votes than Columbus, Ohio . . . ’