Breaking Down "Secret Life" Part 10/10

Breaking Down "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" final part 10/10. Before continuing, please check out the previous parts of my review so that you’re all caught up! Trigger warnings: suicide

Links are here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

THE MOVIE(1): Marilyn is invited to perform at JFK’s birthday gala in New York. She is teased about being late.

REAL LIFE(2): We all know this to be one of the most memorable events in history: the night Marilyn sang happy birthday to President Kennedy. Marilyn had a reputation of being late to things such as events, parties, work, and the like. When being introduced at the gala, Peter Lawford jokingly asked the audience to welcome “the late Marilyn Monroe.” What makes this introduction so poignant is that this would be one of Marilyn’s final public appearances before her sudden death only a few short months later. Marilyn attended this gala on May 19, 1962, much to her studio’s disapproval. They had originally granted her permission to fly to New York to perform, but at the last minute changed their minds because they were so behind on filming. Marilyn, understandably, still chose to go anyways. She would be fired from Fox a month later.

From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe"

May 19, 1962: JFK's birthday gala in New York

THE MOVIE(2): Marilyn and friend Pat Lawford, wife of Peter Lawford, are taking a walk on the beach. Marilyn soon goes on a tirade about how it should be her with President Kennedy instead of Jackie. Pat says: “Stop living in a dream world.”

REAL LIFE(2): As we’ve covered in the previous installments of this review, Marilyn was absolutely by no means paranoid or delusional over Jackie or John Kennedy. There are no eye witness accounts or accounts by close friends or reliable sources to substantiate any type of delusion whatsoever. Marilyn was not picturing a life with the President, nor did she ever have anything against Jackie. The way The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe book and movie portrays this area is horribly inaccurate to say the least.

From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe"

THE MOVIE(3): The movie then cuts back to Marilyn’s house and her conversation with Dr. DeShields, and the day is noticeably coming to an end. Marilyn has greatly opened up to this new therapist over the course of this interview. She has trusted him with her entire life story. She wants to continue working with him after this day, as she says: “You’re different from Dr. Greenson. You don’t tell me what to do.”

REAL LIFE(3): Marilyn did have a long session with Greenson the day she died. He arrived at Marilyn’s house at approximately 4:30pm, and did not leave until about 7pm. We can assume this session did not go well, as Marilyn’s secretary Pat Newcomb was asked to leave by Dr. Greenson. Marilyn was annoyed with him for doing so but promised to speak to Pat soon. The movie also implies that Marilyn would have liked to work with a new therapist, however there is nothing to suggest Marilyn was planning to fire Greenson any time soon or work with another doctor. Shortly after Dr. Greenson left her that day, Joe DiMaggio Jr. was finally able to get a call through to Marilyn, as her housekeeper Eunice Murray had been telling him all day that Marilyn was unavailable. Marilyn was in “high spirits” and happy during this call with her former stepson, as Joe Jr. was announcing the news to her that he broke off the engagement to his fiancé; Marilyn had been against him marrying so young. However, it was shortly after this cheery phone call that everything became dark and Marilyn’s fate was set in motion.

THE MOVIE(4): A distraught Marilyn stumbles down her hallway carrying a bottle of alcohol in one hand. She sits down on her bed and begins taking some sleeping pills. After a night of tossing and turning, she turns the light on to retrieve a picture frame off of her nightstand. The photo inside is of her as a baby with her mother. She takes the photo and pulls it into bed with her, where she slowly passes away.

REAL LIFE(4): The picture frame scenario never happened, and was added in for dramatic effect. Another major thing portrayed in the film that never happened was this: Marilyn was NOT drunk the night she died NOR did she consume ANY alcohol whatsoever. Her pathology results conclude with the fact that there was no alcohol in her system that night. This is a scenario that is constantly being repeated in various books, documentaries, and magazines. Marilyn was not intoxicated the night she died and that is just a fact. However, other than the alcohol situation, her death is portrayed pretty accurately. Which is kind of shocking. You would think a film which is already host to a plethora of inaccuracies such as Marilyn becoming psychotic, hearing voices, and being obsessed with JFK, you would think her death would end in something crazy like murder. That wasn’t the case here. In real life, Marilyn Monroe passed away from an overdose of sleeping pills. And that’s all there is to it. Although the story of her death has been dissected and fabricated and blown out of proportion for so long, including unnecessary convoluted accounts from people like Eunice Murray, the only real question regarding her passing is this: accidental or intentional? This is something we are simply never going to know. Did Marilyn have a suicidal impulse that night and choose to end her own life, only realizing her mistake when it was too late and that is when she called Peter Lawford and Ralph Roberts for help? Or did she simply forget what she had taken and consumed far too many pills? These are the real questions. Nowhere does murder, the Kennedys, or conspiracy theories factor in. There is absolutely nothing regarding her death that even suggests murder. If this movie had not included the part about her drinking that night, it would have been a pretty accurate representation of her death.

This review has really been a journey, and I've learned a lot about Marilyn through this process. Thank you so much for reading it, and for all the support. I hope you learned something new!

© Ky Reynolds and fifthhelena.blogspot.com 2016 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ky Reynolds and fifthhelena.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.,

Breaking Down "Secret Life" Part 9/10

This week we take a look at Marilyn's marriage to Arthur and the end of it, as well as Marilyn's pill usage and failed pregnancies. Before continuing, please check out the previous parts of my review so that you’re all caught up! Special thank you to Elisa Jordan for seeking more information for me on Gladys's alleged suicide attempt. Trigger warnings: mental illness, sanitarium, razor blades, suicide attempts

Links are here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

THE MOVIE(1): Marilyn is pacing the room of what is assumed would be a house in Palm Springs. Two men soon enter the room, notifying her that they president is ready to see her. They escort Marilyn down a walkway to JFK’s room, where Marilyn disappears to.

From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe"

REAL LIFE(1): Okay. Here’s where the controversy starts. The official presidential schedule places JFK at a luncheon at the Lawfords in November of 1961. Supposedly this may have been Marilyn and JFK’s first meeting, however there is no evidence to prove that Marilyn was actually there. So the first confirmed meeting between them was in fact at Bing Crosby’s Palm Springs home in March of 1962. This is substantiated by a reliable Marilyn source: Ralph Roberts. Ralph Roberts was Marilyn’s masseur and close friend. He is one of the small handful of people who knew Marilyn who remain trust worthy today. He says that he received a call from Marilyn the day she was in Palm Springs, and that she had put Jack on the phone to ask Ralph questions about muscles in his back. Ralph had said he had immediately recognized Jack’s distinctive voice. This is the only day/night in history where something may or may not have happened between Marilyn Monroe and JFK. We’ll truly never know, but this is the only possible time. All those photos you see of them are either photoshopped or look alikes. Two photos exist of them together: both in crowded rooms full of people.

THE MOVIE(2): The movie cuts to Marilyn and Pat lounging poolside and having a discussion about JFK. Marilyn says she had an immediate connection with him, saying “I haven’t felt anything like it since I met Joe,” and, “Just between you and me, he’s going to divorce Jackie.” Marilyn then implies that her goal is to marry Jack and become Pat’s “sister.”

REAL LIFE(2): Let’s just establish this to start off: by no reliable account was Marilyn ever jealous of Jackie, wanting to be Jackie, wanting to marry JFK, wanting to become Pat’s sister, or delusional over JFK or Jackie. The fact that this situation continues to be falsely documented in books and magazines today is mind-blowing. Forget everything you hear about Marilyn and Jackie, it isn’t true. It never happened. The general public today is always much more interested in the juicier stories and conspiracies, rather than the cold, hard truth.  As Marilyn once said herself in a handwritten note: “The truth can only be recalled, never invented.” Remember that next time you hear those insane rumors.

From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe"

THE MOVIE(3):We are now deep into the JFK delusion which we have now covered and determined that none of it actually happened. Marilyn is at home attempting to reach the president, who is unavailable. Marilyn becomes furious, and slams the phone down on the receiver repeatedly. The movie soon cuts to the scene of Marilyn sorting through her mail. She notices a letter from her mother Gladys. However, she notices that it had already been opened. Not only that, but she proceeds to burst into a tangent of delusional accusations such as “They poisoned it,” and, “It had to be Jackie.” Marilyn then races into the kitchen, sets the note on fire with a lighter, and burns it in the sink. She assumes Jackie sent the poison-laced letter to her pretending to be Gladys.

REAL LIFE(3): As we’ve covered previously in this review, it was Marilyn’s mother that was schizophrenic and had outbursts of paranoia, not Marilyn. Saying something such as a letter being laced with poison is something someone with Gladys’s condition is more likely to say. However there is one incident that Marilyn’s sister Berniece covers in her book, upon her visit to Marilyn in the early 1960’s. Berniece says that Marilyn thought the food she received was poisoned. Berniece is a reliable source, but this seems entirely out of character for Marilyn and we only have her word. I'm not sure that I fully trust this claim. But by no account did Marilyn ever receive a letter she accused of being contaminated, and certainly not from Jackie.

From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe"

THE MOVIE(4): Marilyn is visiting her mother at the asylum and notifies her that she will be moving away to New York. She says, “I have a friend there. A very important man. I can’t tell you who he is.” The movie then cuts to a scene where Marilyn is on the floor of her New York hotel room, seemingly drunk or dazed. She crawls towards the window, forces it open, and looks down at the street below, contemplating whether or not to jump out and end her life.

REAL LIFE(4): Again, Marilyn never saw her mother when she was institutionalized so we can ignore the meeting represented in the film. The “important man” we have to assume is JFK, who we now know Marilyn was not delusional over, nor was she picturing a life with him. So we can ignore that comment as well. So let’s go straight to the hotel room scene. Marilyn herself told this story to Ralph Roberts, who we, as previously stated, is a reliable source. According to him, shortly after Marilyn’s divorce from Arthur Miller, Marilyn had a suicidal impulse to jump out her 13^th floor apartment window. This is ultimately what led to her admission to Payne Whitney, which we will cover right now.

From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe"

THE MOVIE(5): Marilyn is dragged into a sanitarium against her will. She is in a strait jacket and is thrown and locked into a padded cell as she screams for help. Eventually, Joe comes to her rescue, demanding that she be released immediately, threatening to turn the establishment down “piece of wood by piece of wood.”

REAL LIFE(5): In 1961, Marilyn’s psychiatrist., Dr. Marianne Kris, suggested Marilyn receive further treatment at a facility. She failed to mention that place would be a sanitarium. That February, Marilyn was admitted to the Payne Whitney Clinic, the psychiatric division of the Cornell University Hospital, and endured five days of being held against her will there. She felt helpless. She was not severely unstable, and did not believe Payne Whitney was the right place for her. Shortly after her release, she wrote a famous six page letter to Dr. Ralph Greenson, in which she detailed her stay at the sanitarium. She states, “There was no empathy at Payne Whitney – it had a very bad effect – they asked me after putting me in a ‘cell’ (I mean cement blocks and all) for very disturbed depressed patients (except I/felt I was in some kind of prison for a crime I hadn’t committed.” Furthermore, it was not Joe alone that came and rescued Marilyn from the sanitarium. Joe did, however, demand that Dr. Kris release Marilyn from the institution, which Kris agreed to. Once Marilyn was released, she was driven home by friend Ralph Roberts and also Dr. Kris, who was immediately fired.

From "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe"

Marilyn upon her release from Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, where she stayed for a few weeks to recover after Payne Whitney

THE MOVIE(6): Gladys learns of her daughter's admission to Payne Whitney. She takes a razor blade to her wrist, and is hospitalized, narrowly escaping death. Once Marilyn is recovers, she visits Gladys in the hospital, and is told that Gladys will be all right.

REAL LIFE(6): This scene may have been inspired by an event that actually occurred, but not with a razor. In Marilyn’s letter to Dr. Greenson in which she describes her experience at Payne Whitney, she speaks of one incident that occurred involving a shard of glass. Here are her exact quotes: “I went back into my room knowing they had lied to me about the telephone and I sat on the bed trying to figure if I was given this situation in an acting improvisation what would I do. I got the idea from a movie I made once called ‘Don’t Bother To Knock.’ I picked up a light-weight chair and slammed it, and it was hard to do because I had never broken anything in my life – against the glass intentionally. It took a lot of banging to get even a small piece of glass – so I went over with the glass concealed in my hand and sat quietly on the bed waiting for them to come in. They did, and I said to them, ‘If you are going to treat me like a nut I’ll act like a nut.’ I admit the next thing is corny but I really did it in the movie except it was with a razor blade. I indicated if they didn’t let me out I would harm myself – the furthest thing from my mind at that moment since you know Dr. Greenson I’m an actress and would never intentionally mark or mar myself, I’m just that vain.” She then goes on to describe how four strong men carried her up to the seventh floor in the elevator and put in another cell. As far as Gladys’s suicide attempt, there is nothing on record to prove this incident happened. There are only rumors that float around, nothing to be taken too seriously. And we know by now that the last time it is confirmed that Marilyn even saw her mother was back in the 1940’s.

© Ky Reynolds and fifthhelena.blogspot.com 2016 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ky Reynolds and fifthhelena.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.,

Breaking Down "Secret Life" Part 8/10

Continuing with my incredibly lengthy but informative breakdown of The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe the movie (or mini-series). This week we take a look at Marilyn's marriage to Arthur and the end of it, as well as Marilyn's pill usage and failed pregnancies. Before continuing, please check out the previous parts of my review so that you’re all caught up! Trigger warnings: mental illness, miscarriage.

Links are here:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

THE MOVIE(1): Marilyn strolls into the living room, where an open journal sitting on Arthur’s desk catches her eye. She approaches it, observing what he has written. She reads, “This marriage is a mistake – I’m trapped.”

REAL LIFE(1):The open diary is a story that gets endlessly tossed around and recycled and edited among Marilyn fans. It is one of the first things fans bring up in an attempt to bash Arthur. What was written in that diary? We don’t know. We don’t have it. We can’t say. Whatever was in it, Marilyn was hurt by it. Arthur was obviously expressing his doubts and worries about their relationship. But this discovery was early on in their marriage. They managed to stay married another 4 years. So it was certainly nothing that caused any huge problem within the marriage and it was something they both got over. Marilyn wasn’t delusional over this. Sure, some level of trust was damaged, but overall, the diary incident was not fatal to their marriage, and today it certainly gets blown out of proportion.

From The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

THE MOVIE(2):Marilyn awakens to severe abdominal pain late in the night. She limps outside to where Arthur is. She is covered in blood, and Arthur immediately runs to her aid. Marilyn realizes she has had a miscarriage.

REAL LIFE(2): In the summer of 1957, Marilyn and Arthur were vacationing in Amagansett, Long Island, when Marilyn began suffering from severe stomach pain. She was immediately rushed to the nearest hospital in New York, where her pregnancy was terminated. For ten days afterwards, Marilyn rested in the hospital in attempt to regain her strength both physically and mentally. She, of course, was absolutely devastated. In her adult life, Marilyn had wanted nothing more than to become a mother, and have children of her own. Her endometriosis condition made it difficult for her to carry a baby to term. Marilyn, unfortunately, had two confirmed miscarriages. She was farthest along in 1958, about 3 months, when her pregnancy ended in a miscarriage that December while shooting the film Some Like It Hot.

A pregnant Marilyn in 1958

THE MOVIE(3): Marilyn is delusional after the loss of her child. She has fired the maid after accusing her of kidnapping her unborn daughter. She is completely out of her mind, saying things like, “Shhh, you’ll wake the baby,” even though there is no baby. Marilyn even has a vision of her mother, Gladys, coming to her and saying, “You have no one to blame but yourself.” A confused and distraught Marilyn makes her way into the living room, where Arthur finally accuses Marilyn of killing their child, and that it’s Marilyn’s fault that she miscarried.

REAL LIFE(3): Here’s where things really start to get pretty drastic and inaccurate in the movie. As we’ve determined, Marilyn wanted nothing more than a child she could care for and love, since she herself was robbed of that kind of affection in her own childhood. She was understandably distraught and devastated over her two failed pregnancies. However, by no account was she hallucinating or breaking into psychotic episodes over it, such as searching for her missing child. At this point in the movie and for someone who didn’t know better, the viewer would think Marilyn was slowly inheriting her mother’s illness, which she, in real life, did not. Gladys was the one who suffered schizophrenia, not Marilyn. Arthur, too, is hurt by this loss, but there is no account of him mentally abusing her with insinuations that she killed his child.

From The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

THE MOVIE(4): Marilyn is out at lunch with a new character we are introduced to: Pat Kennedy Lawford, played by Tamara Hickey. They have a discussion about Pat’s brother, president John Kennedy, where Marilyn mentions the first time she met him, and soon Marilyn notices that her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio has entered the restaurant. He walks over and compliments Marilyn, striking up a conversation. Joe then goes home with her.

REAL LIFE(4): First, Pat Lawford. Marilyn was introduced to Pat through actor Peter Lawford, her husband. She was introduced to Peter through mutual friend Frank Sinatra, who Marilyn had dated briefly in 1961. Marilyn and Pat became quick friends, which was uncommon for Marilyn. Marilyn didn’t have many close female friends. Her male friends (yes, male friends, that she had no romantic relationship with) greatly outweighed her female friends. Pat really cared for Marilyn. Marilyn was beginning to sort of surround herself with a new social circle following her divorce from Arthur Miller. Christopher Lawford, Peter and Pat’s son, wrote in 2005: “My mother told me Marilyn was like ‘her little sister.’ It surprised her that Marilyn was so open with her. Marilyn Monroe trusted my mother’s love for her.” In August of 1962, Pat flew out to Los Angeles with the intention of attending Marilyn’s funeral. However, she was refused entrance by Joe DiMaggio, who did the same to most of Marilyn’s Hollywood friends and acquaintances. Pat was incredibly hurt by this. As far as Joe DiMaggio re-entering Marilyn’s life, he did this soon after Marilyn and Arthur’s divorce. He demanded Marianne Kris have Marilyn released from Payne Whitney, he took care of her and frequently visited her when she was hospitalized, and he took her on a relaxing vacation to Florida. Joe lived the rest of his life in regret for how he treated Marilyn, and he really stepped up and became a real friend to her in the last year of her life. However. Marilyn was adamant that they were just friends. Although we can never know what happened behind closed doors, it is commonly accepted that they were just that: friends. Marilyn greatly appreciated his coming back into her life. They even spent her last Christmas together. And forget what you hear about their planning to remarry the year she died, because there is nothing to prove that.

From The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

THE MOVIE(5): Marilyn is hanging out in her room with Pat Lawford. After excusing herself to use the restroom, Pat comes back and expresses her concern at the amount of pills Marilyn has in her medicine cabinet. Marilyn says, “They keep me going in the morning, they put me out at night.”

REAL LIFE(5): Let me start off with the disclaimer that I am no medical expert whatsoever. Marilyn didn’t take nor need pills to make it through the day. She needed them to make it through the night. She wasn’t regularly taking stimulants; she was regularly taking sedatives before bed to help her sleep. If you look at her numerous prescriptions, they’re all prescriptions for medications such as valmid, Librium, chloral hydrate, tuinal, seconal, Nembutal, and several other types of sedatives. If that sounds like an unnecessary amount, it’s because it is. Her doctors were providing this medication for her rather than trying to wean her off of it. The only time she was prescribed a stimulant was on July 1, 1962, in the form of 12 dexedrine tablets.

That concludes part 8 of this ongoing review. Thank you so much for keeping up with it and if you have any questions or comments, leave them here or message me on my Instagram which can be found at the top of this blog. Thank you!

© Ky Reynolds and fifthhelena.blogspot.com 2016 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ky Reynolds and fifthhelena.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.