Home > Great Coverups > The Death of Marilyn Monroe: Overview

The Death of Marilyn Monroe: Overview
CoverUps.com

Introduction

Of all the film industry's sex symbols over the decades, only one actress has endured more than forty years after her tragic demise, to become the supreme example of silver screen sexuality. It's Marilyn Monroe, of course, who earned the title of Screen Sex Queen, and paid dearly for it.

Her death, at age 36, left behind a mystery. Though the cause of her death was officially listed as suicide, questions linger about the last day of the star's life and the hours immediately following the discovery of her body.

The Marilyn Pages...

Countdown To Tragedy
The Day Marilyn Died
Some CoverUps Theories
Our CoverUps Conclusion
Visitors Have Their Say
Marilyn with Joe DiMaggio

Marilyn the Movie Superstar at MovieActors.com

PHOTOGRAPHS

Hover your mouse over the pictures below for captions.

On September 15, 1954, Marilyn stood on a subway grate in New York City wearing a little white dress and fought with only partial success against an upward breeze. The scene, from the movie Seven Year Itch, went on to become one of the most iconic moments in all of cinematic history.

Marilyn's first cover shoot for LIFE magazine, in April 1952, made by the great photographer Philippe Halsman, remains one of the most famous and collectible covers in the history of the magazine. She was only featured on LIFE's cover six times while she was alive.

In this stream-of-consciousness prose poem, written on Waldorf-Astoria stationery, Marilyn recounts a nightmare in which her acting coach Lee Strasberg is operating on her, with her psychoanalyst Dr. Hohenberg assisting:

"Best finest surgeon—Strasberg to cut me open which I don’t mind since Dr. H has prepared me—given me anaesthetic and has also diagnosed the case and agrees with what has to be done— an operation—to bring myself back to life and to cure me of this terrible dis-ease whatever the hell it is—"

On May 19, 1962, Marilyn Monroe brought her breathy, sensual happy birthday wishes to President Kennedy on the occasion of a Democratic party fundraiser at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Marilyn, John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy mingled briefly at the afterparty — held by movie studio boss Arthur B. Krim — for the President's 45th birthday celebration.

Marilyn was discovered in her bed by her housekeeper, who awoke in the early hours with a feeling that something was wrong. Empty medicine bottles were found by her bed and the toxicology report ruled out an accidental overdose — which is not quite the same as a ruling of suicide. Some have charged that the scene of her death was staged.

No one knows how many people had access to Marilyn's house the night her body was found. Papers were destroyed, telephone records seized. Were they searching for her little red book?

A picture of Marilyn as her body arrives at the mortuary in the back of the hearse. "When we removed the sheet covering her, it was almost impossible to believe this was the body of Marilyn Monroe," writes Allan Abbott, who ran one of the most popular funeral services in the 1960s for celebrities along with Ron Hast. "She looked like a very average, aging woman who had not been taking very good care of herself."

This Los Angeles County Coroner document shows the autopsy report for Monroe, dated Aug. 5, 1962. The autopsy report describes how she was found, and includes detailed descriptions of her body, surgical scars, organs and all, and an accounting of prescription medications.

This photo is widely known and accepted to be that of Marilyn Monroe upon the conclusion of her autopsy, performed by L.A. County Coroner Thomas Noguchi, the so-called coroner to the stars.

Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times obituary of Marilyn Monroe:

Marilyn Monroe, a troubled beauty who failed to find happiness as Hollywood’s brightest star, was discovered dead in her Brentwood home of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills Sunday.

The blond, 36-year-old actress was nude, lying face down on her bed and clutching a telephone receiver in her hand when a psychiatrist broke into her room at 3:30 a.m.

She had been dead an estimated six to eight hours.

About 5:15 p.m. Saturday she had called the psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, and was told to go for a ride when she complained she could not sleep, police reported.

The first detail included in the sub-headline would have infuriated Marilyn – "Found nude in bed." She'd spent the last years of her life at war with the cultural meme that she was just a dumb, pretty blonde, a joke. And here, on the front page of The New York Mirror (among other papers), the spectacle of her nakedness is trotted out.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Criminologist Speriglio's third book on the Marilyn Monroe question (Marilyn Monroe: Murder Cover-up, 1982; The Marilyn Conspiracy, 1986), rounding up what's new since 1986. Speriglio makes the hardest case yet that Marilyn
was the victim of foul play carried out by a Mafia hit team from Chicago, masterminded by mobster Sam Giancana at the behest of Joseph Kennedy, Sr., and JFK but unbeknownst to Bobby Kennedy.

Amazon web page

For years, the government has put out hits on people that they found “expendable,” or who they felt were “talking too much,” covering up their assassinations with drug overdoses and mysterious suicides. In Dead Wrong, a study of the scientific and forensic facts of various Government cover-ups, Richard Belzer and David Wayne argue that Marilyn Monroe was murdered, that the person who shot Martin Luther King Jr. was ordered to do so by the government, and examines many other terrifying lies we've been told throughout our country’s history.

Amazon web page

From Goodreads.com:

It is one of the greatest mysteries of the twentieth century. How did Marilyn Monroe die? Although no pills were found in her stomach during the autopsy, it was still documented in the Los Angeles coroner's report that she had swallowed sixty-four sleeping pills prior to her demise. In Marilyn Monroe: A Case for Murder, biographer Jay Margolis presents the most thorough investigation of Marilyn Monroe's death to date and shares how he reached the definitive conclusion that she was murdered.

Goodreads web page

After combing through thousands of recently declassified FBI files and interviewing key witnesses, crime analysts, and forensic experts during years of research, investigative writer David Gardner has unearthed new information that will transform the way we look at these iconic tragedies that have long fascinated and intrigued the general public.

Amazon web page

From the back cover:

Marilyn Monroe's death has been shrouded in decades of deception, conspiracy, and lies. Donald H. Wolfe has written a startling portrait of the twentieth century's greatest film star that not only redefines her place in entertainment history but also reveals the secret conspiracy that surrounded her last days.

In The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe, Wolfe confirms that the tragic actress was a homicide victim. He documents the mode of death, and names those involved and those who participated in the cover-up. Filled with documented revelations, eye-opening information about the dark secret in Marilyn's relationship with John and Robert Kennedy, and shocking details about the many bizarre events that took place at Marilyn's home the day she died, Donald H. Wolfe's remarkable book is the culmination of more than seven years of research. It will change forever the way we view the life—and death—of this great star.

Amazon web page

From the author:

Jay Margolis is a noted Marilyn Monroe author and expert who graduated from the University of Southern California summa cum laude.

Richard Buskin is a New York Times bestselling author and freelance journalist who specializes in film, music, television, and pop culture. His articles have appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world, and among the thirty nonfiction books that he has written are biographies of Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, Whitney Houston, and Sheryl Crow. A native of London, England, he lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Amazon web page

From a reader review on Amazon:

This is a slender pamphlet, originally published in 1964 with addenda up to 1969, consisting overall of 88 pages. It presents the author's opinion that Marilyn Monroe was sexually involved with Robert Kennedy and that he was involved in her death. It includes a copy of Marilyn's autopsy report, several bills which were sent to her estate and details on the backgrounds of some key players, including Murray and Newcomb. Most of this material has been published elsewhere since, but he includes some which subsequent writers ignore.

Amazon web page

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: