Why did Marilyn Monroe die?

In October 1954, Marilyn Monroe had just announced her intention to divorce her husband, DiMaggio, and the two drove away from the residence. (Visual China/Photo)

Sixty years after the tragic death of Hollywood superstar Marilyn Monroe, Netflix aired the documentary "The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The First Recording," directed by female director Emma Cooper. Monroe died at the age of 36, and after her death, the conspiracies and rumors that arose were rampant, and the public no longer focused on her talent and intelligence. Irish journalist Anthony Summers wrote the nonfiction "Goddess: The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" in the 1980s, based on his extensive recordings of investigative interviews, in which Summers himself appeared.

As many as 650 tapes of the recordings, which have never been released before, come from Monroe's former close friends, psychologists, people around him, as well as senior FBI agents and private investigators investigating Monroe's case, collage scenes from the last two years, two months, weeks and day before the legendary superstar's death.

After the launch of the documentary, the ratings of major fan websites were generally low, and many people were rushing to discover new materials, expecting that this documentary, like many crime films, could finally achieve a plot reversal, such as Monroe not dying of overdoses, but from murder, or having other hidden plots. The New York Times film reviewers also said sarcastically: "If you name a movie 'The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: A Recording of the First Appearance', your task is to at least provide something worth listening to... But for the most part, the film is just a banal reenactment of established facts and widely circulated rumors about Monroe's life. ”

Indeed, if you rush to dig up new materials and expect to reverse, this documentary will probably disappoint the audience. In an era when superstars are no longer producing, what is the point of looking at an "obsolete" existence that resembles a "National Pictorial Girl"? But if you let go of the curiosity mentality, this documentary is remarkable in its efforts to reduce the goddess to a "person", vividly and clearly outlining Monroe's short, brilliant and tragic life, an "orphan" who has been fostered to 10 families, spent four years in an orphanage, and was sexually assaulted at the age of 9 - she prefers to call herself a "wanderer". As one Douban netizen commented, the documentary "does not aim at summarizing a conclusion that is convincing enough, but to retrace the male-dominated industry manipulation and dangerous public consciousness of that era." The tragedy of Monroe may also be the tragedy of the times.

"She did have trauma that affected her relationship with the world, but she didn't call herself a victim. She worked very hard... The way she sometimes shows vulnerability and sometimes hides it is so moving. We now know that women can make their voices heard and show great influence, but in that era, few women had the courage to explore themselves as freely as Marilyn. Cooper said in an interview with The Guardian.

"She wants to take back the lead and wants to be respected"

Summers is a journalist and celebrity biographer who has won him the Pulitzer Prize for his work on Nixon's The Arrogance of Power, The Dismissal of a Tsar: The Kennedy Conspiracy, and his nonfiction work about the legendary American white jazz singer Frank Sinatra, Sinatra: Life and the Eleventh Day. Summers' study of Marilyn Monroe began in 1982, twenty years after Monroe's death.

For two decades, the discussion about the cause of Monroe's death has never stopped. This year, the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office reopened the Monroe case, claiming to re-investigate whether Monroe committed suicide or he killed, the news caused a sensation in the United States, a senior British editor noticed the news, he called Summers, thinking that Summers can investigate deeply at this node to help the public find the truth. Thus, Summers embarked on a three-year investigation.

The documentary opens with historical images that draw viewers back to Hollywood in 1946, where dazzling stars walk on the Walk of Fame, and the host says in an impassioned tone: "Hollywood, a drunken land of lights and temptations, a glamorous and fascinating mythical kingdom." Monroe's voice rang out: "When I was 6 years old, I often went to the cinema to see movies, and the content of the performance was not important, as long as it appeared on the big screen, I liked it." Although I didn't know anything about movies, I was eager to learn about them. ”

In Hollywood in the 1950s, agents were extremely powerful. El Rosen, a well-known Hollywood agent, recalls proudly that "all casting directors had a black roster of girls who could go to bed." Times have changed, and now money is the most important, and it used to be sex – girls come from the ends of the earth, waiting for a fate-changing phone call."

The Romanov Clubhouse was a well-known nightclub at that time, known as the "Holy Land of Brokers". Gloria Romanov, a club lady, recalled in an interview with Summers that Marilyn Monroe, like many young girls eager to be famous, frequented Romanov in search of opportunities — a golden age when many powerful agents haunted Romanov, including Joseph Schenck, president of 20th Century Fox, and Johnny Hyde, one of Hollywood's most influential agents at the time.

By meeting Joseph Schenck, Monroe was offered a contract with 20th Century Fox. But 20th Century Fox initially arranged most of Monroe's sexy, flirtatious bad films, and they only used Monroe as a vase, without really exploring her acting potential. Naturally, Monroe, who liked movies, could not accept this arrangement, and she began to refuse to participate in such films, and went to New York to attend acting training classes to improve her acting skills.

More important is Johnny Hyde. Hyde was obsessed with Monroe, who was 53 years old at the time, 30 years older than Monroe. Hyde died of a heart attack in December 1950, and for the last 18 months of his life he devoted everything he had to Monroe's acting career.

At Hyde's recommendation, Monroe met the famous Hollywood director John Houston. In an interview with Summers, Houston recalled his impression when he first met Monroe at MGM, "energetic", "very attractive", "very timid and shy". Houston was working on the crime film Nightfall, and he gave monroe the script to audition for Angela, a blonde girl with a comfortable life. Two days later, Monroe returned, and she read Angela's lines. "It's a great read, it's very good, she's the best person for Angela. She will integrate her own personal experience directly into the character, go deep into her own heart, and find something. This is unique in that she finds feminine qualities in herself. Houston said.

1953 was a fate-changing year for the 27-year-old Monroe. This year, she starred in three well-made films "Niagara", "Gentleman Loves Beauty" and "Willing to Marry the Golden Turtle Wife", attracting a large number of fans, and she quickly became a popular female star, and her career climbed to new heights. The "Niagara" promotional video even bluntly exaggerates: "Niagara Falls and Marilyn Monroe are the two most exciting things in the world." "Marilyn has always had something that touches people's hearts deeply, and she's now a sexy icon in the country." Houston also commented.

The American Guide to Popular Culture writes: "As a hallmark of American pop culture, Monroe has few rivals in popularity, including Elvis Presley (Elvis Presley) and Mickey Mouse... Never before has a star inspired such a wide range of emotions— from lust to pity, from envy to remorse. ”

After becoming famous, Monroe soon set up a production company named after herself, which was a remarkable move at the time. In the United States, female stars set up their own production companies, and there was no precedent before Monroe. And Monroe worked harder than the female stars who debuted at the same time. Another heroine of "Gentleman Loves Beauty", Jane Russell, who was also Monroe's friend at the time, later recalled to Summers that Monroe would squeeze out time at night to find a performance director to learn and hone her acting skills, "We were so tired that we just wanted to lie down and not move."

"She's been using the rules to fight for her rights, she wants to take back the lead, she wants to be respected." Summers observes.

"I've never been used to being happy"

Marilyn Monroe rose to fame and became the face of the "American Dream," but at the same time, her spiritual world was collapsing step by step.

In the second half of the documentary, while investigating the mystery of Monroe's death, Summers finds a key person, the psychologist Ralph Greenson. In the 1980s, Dr. Greenson died long ago, and his widow, daughter and son were still alive. For the last two years before Monroe's death, Dr. Greenson's family had been with her, treating her and being her friends.

Greenson's daughter Joan read Many handwritten letters from her father to Summers, in which Greenson believed monroe "had paranoia, but not schizophrenia, and that her suspected paranoia response was more masochistic," which the doctors believed was triggered by past abandoned orphan experiences. Monroe was open to the Greenson family, recounting her unhappy childhood: she was an illegitimate daughter, her father was unknown, she was fostered by 10 families as a child, and she spent two more years in an orphanage; After living with her birth mother for a year, her birth mother shot her neighbor and went to prison, she changed her guardians, until the guardians were sent to a mental hospital, and she returned to the orphanage again; At the age of 9, in a foster home, Monroe was also sexually assaulted. "I saw in Marilyn a woman who had been deprived of her childhood." Dr. Greenson wrote in the letter.

Greenson's wife remembers that Monroe would often show pessimism in front of them, she always said, "No one likes me," "Everything I do is meaningless," "I have no friends, I'm a street child."

In a recording of Monroe's interview, Monroe said: "When I was sent to the orphanage, they pulled me, and I kept crying and shouting that I was not an orphan. As long as there are women who come to see me, I will say, it is mom; If a man came to see me, I would say dad. ”

As an adult, Monroe longs for love, but every time she is disappointed. The documentary conceals a failed marriage and miscarriage of children from her early adulthood. After the age of 25, Monroe's love story with celebrities has become a hot spot chased by the public and the media.

In 1954, Monroe, whose film career was in full swing, married baseball star DiMaggio, which caused a sensation in the United States. Newspapers ran their peach-colored news, saying that "the girl who starred in "How to Marry a Millionaire" successfully showed everyone how to marry a baseball hero."

But the marriage lasted only 9 months before it ended. In an interview with Summers, famed director Billy Wilder recalled the scenes he took on The Seven Year Itch. In this movie, Monroe left the world's most classic screen image - the wind at the subway mouth blew up the corners of her skirt, and she covered the skirt shyly and panickedly. Wilder remembers that in order to shoot that scene, he initially arranged for 5 staff members to be on the scene, and then gathered tens of thousands of people to watch, and everyone ran to see the bottom of Monroe's skirt. Later, Monroe's close stylist recalled that DiMaggio was also at the scene, and after witnessing that scene, he was very angry and felt that his wife was ugly. Back at the hotel, he beat up his wife. Such violent scenes often appeared in his short marriage to Monroe.

In 1955, the divorced Monroe met the famous American playwright Arthur Miller, who was 29 years old and Miller was 40 years old, and the two began a vigorous love affair. In June of the following year, the two secretly held a low-key wedding. Milton Green, a partner at Monroe Productions, attended her wedding, and he later recalled to Summers that Monroe's wedding ring was engraved with "Now is Eternity," and she wrote on the back of one of the wedding photos: Hope, Hope, Hope. Her marriage to Miller for more than four years was perhaps the happiest time of Monroe's life, and she didn't have many happy times, she once said, "I've never been used to being happy, that's not what I live on." ”

Monroe later revealed to Green that if she made a choice between an actor and a child, she would not hesitate to choose the child, and she also told Green that after filming "The Prince and the Dancer", she would stop the film and live the family life wholeheartedly. But reality betrayed her again. After two consecutive pregnancies and eventual miscarriages, Miller dissolved his marriage with Monroe in January 1961. He publicly expressed disappointment with Monroe, "I married a woman who was just as flawed as my ex-wife. ”

Director John Houston last met Monroe on the set of 1960's "Mandarin Duck Score." He was surprised that after only a few years, Monroe's original vitality had disappeared, and the situation on the shooting scene was frequent, always late to the set, sometimes late in the morning, sometimes not in the state at all. At that time, Monroe's mental condition was deteriorating, and she took a large number of stimulants, amphetamines, tranquilizers, barbiturates, and most deadly, sleeping pills. Houston angrily told Miller that if he continued to let Monroe do this, within three years she would be in a mental hospital or die.

A video of Monroe from 1961 appears in the documentary. It looks like a mediocre scene where another star is surrounded by fans and media. After divorcing Miller, she hadn't been seen in public for a while. The media heard the wind and chased and blocked the place where she appeared, desperately asking her how she was doing, and she raised her spirits and said "I'm fine" again and again. In fact, Monroe had been in a psychiatric clinic for four days.

"We lost her"

In the last year of her life, Monroe often went not to the set, but to Dr. Greenson's home. Greenson's daughter Joan recalls to Summers that Monroe sees them as family, and one day she happily reveals to Joan that she has a new boyfriend. "I can't say more, he's a very powerful man, everyone calls him General." Monroe told Joan. "General" is an insider's term for Robert F. Kennedy, then U.S. Attorney General and brother of 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Regarding the relationship between Monroe and the Kennedy brothers, there have long been various speculations in the United States, and the kennedy brothers' open private life is an open secret in the United States. Guy Tris, the famous journalist and founder of the new journalism in the United States, explicitly described this in his non-fiction work "The Neighbor's Wife", and Tris specifically mentioned that Time magazine's Washington correspondent Hugh Sidney once wrote an article on the prevalence of debauchery in the White House, which was later banned from publication and became a confidential memorandum to the Editor of New York. In the memo, Sidney wrote, "The extravagant and lascivious style of the Kennedy administration was sometimes reminiscent of the hedonism of ancient Rome, which also made his reporting difficult, because at night or on weekends they seemed to be busy attending social events in Washington or elsewhere, and they could not even see the shadows." ”

In the documentary, in order to get closer to the truth, Summers visits people from all walks of life. Actress Dean Martin's wife, Jenny Martin, was interviewed. The couple often attended a party by Peter Lauford, a member of the "Rat Party" (an informal group of American film actors) at his home at a beach house in Malibu, California, where the Kennedy brothers were also guests, and among the stars who often spent the night at the Lawfords' house, Monroe. Jenny Martin revealed in the interview, "Peter was clearly the Kennedy brothers' pimps, and they would do that in public, while their wives might be right next door." The two brothers share a Marilyn Monroe. ”

Summers was suspicious of Jenny Martin's words until he found a private investigator named Fred Otash and his subordinate John Danov. Ottash was hired by Jimmy Hoffa, then president of the American Truck Union, a sworn enemy of John F. Kennedy, who was determined to dig up Kennedy's black material and create a despicable image for the Kennedy brothers, so he hired Otash, a private investigator who installed four bugging devices in Lauford and Monroe's homes, after which Danov began eavesdropping on the phone calls between Monroe and Kennedy. Danov's narration also appeared in the documentary, where he recalled Summers: "The president shouted, Marilyn, Marilyn, Marilyn called president. We recorded a lot of marilyn having sex with the president, and he held her for a while and then stripped her naked. Monroe's friend and stylist Henry Rosefield recalled that a month or two before Monroe's death, she also publicly sang to the president to celebrate her birthday, and in that video, Monroe was super excited, and her eyes were full of admiration, "What she thought was that I was dedicated to the president of the United States." ”

Monroe rarely talked about her and the Kennedy brothers among friends until a month before her death. Friend Arthur James recalled to Summers that a month before Monroe's death, she invited her friends to spend the weekend together, and at that party, Monroe told her about the affair between her and the Kennedy brothers. "Everyone could have gossiped about it, but she was hurt because she was abandoned by the Kennedy brothers and was told never to call or contact again, and she was very sad." James said.

"The last stage of her life, from there, the last month, she almost gave herself up, drank heavily, and took sleeping pills." In the documentary, Summers narrated.

On August 5, 1962, at the age of 36, Monroe died in her home. When the police arrived, she was naked on the bed, next to sleeping pills, leaving no last words. Later, the police determined that the cause of death was an overdose.

Monroe's housekeeper, Mrs. Murray, was the first to find out monroe had died and call the police. At the time, she said that Monroe locked the door at 8 p.m., but by 3 a.m., the lights were still on in the house. Worried, Murray called the psychiatrist Greenson, who got up and drove to Monroe's house 2.4 kilometers away, broke through the window, saw Monroe slumped on the bed, and Greenson said to Murray, "We lost her." "At 4:25 a.m., the police received an alarm.

Twenty years later, Summers found Natalie Jacobs, the widow of Monroe's then-agent, Arthur Jacobs. Natalie told Summers herself, "My husband taught Mrs. Murray to lie and fabricate the truth. On the night of the incident, the couple was watching a performance in the amphitheater, and at about 10 p.m., a group of men dressed in black found them in the theater and made them rush to Monroe's house.

At about 11 p.m., the Jacobs couple arrived at Monroe's house. At that time, Monroe was still alive, an ambulance arrived, and at least seven ambulance personnel confirmed that Monroe was alive and unconscious when she was taken to santa monica emergency center. Two years after Monroe's death, Dr. Greenson spoke to reporter John Sherlock and mentioned a version that was close to the truth: "Monroe died on the road and the ambulance brought her body back. ”

Who was the last straw that crushed the camel? For a long time, people from all walks of life have been secretive about this topic. Later, an American colleague of Summers hinted to him: "Go figure out, where was Robert Kennedy that weekend?" ”

One of the eavesdroppers, Reed Wilson, spoke to Summers and recalled the recording of the afternoon of the incident he overheard. The man who showed up at Monroe's house that afternoon was Robert Kennedy. "The two had a heated argument, and she said I felt like a prostitute selling meat; She kept shouting and shouting, saying she was going to call Robert's brother, john and the White House, complaining for days. She had always liked Robert, but she finally found herself being toyed with, which led her to the end. Wilson said.

The mystery of Monroe's death did not reverse at the end of the documentary, and the Los Angeles district attorney reopened the Monroe investigation in 1982 and concluded that Monroe died by suicide. But Monroe's tragic life, her life story and the final stages, cannot be reflected in the official conclusions.

Monroe's final interview before her death was a cover story for Life magazine. One of her words was this: "At this moment, I want to say that fame is unreliable, it will bring fame, but it also has shortcomings, I deeply understand." 」 Fame, I've had you, goodbye! ”

Southern Weekend reporter Li Yilan Southern Weekend intern Wang Zhuoying