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It's one of the most infamous tales of celebrity, crime and political scandal in American history: how Marilyn Monroe was used, abused and lost in a game of power, politics and betrayal
Marilyn Monroe was 1950s Hollywood’s brightest star. But beneath Tinseltown’s glitz was an industry shaped by the mob. Did Marilyn pay dearly in a brutal game of power and betrayal?
Marilyn Monroe was 1950s Hollywood’s brightest star. But beneath Tinseltown’s glitz was an industry shaped by the mob. Did Marilyn pay dearly in a brutal game of power and betrayal?
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00:01There, glittering on the screen, I can see my town in its party dress, and see again,
00:08shown so vividly across the horizon. Marilyn Monroe, one of the most iconic movie stars of
00:16the 20th century. You mix everything about Marilyn Monroe together like a cocktail.
00:22Her physical beauty, her wit, her talent for acting. Adored for her beauty,
00:30Marilyn was also a performer of remarkable depth and charisma. Marilyn is a perfect movie star.
00:37You watch her repertoire really expand throughout the course of her career.
00:42To the world, she was the picture of glamour and success. Yet behind the facade lay vulnerability,
00:50turmoil, and danger. For Marilyn's earliest days in Hollywood,
00:57On the surface, she seemed to have such a zest for life.
01:00To her untimely death, aged 36.
01:04Marilyn Monroe was found dead in bed.
01:07Under circumstances that were...
01:08Powerful and ruthless men tried to possess and control her.
01:13These were people that Marilyn will have at some point or another come into contact with.
01:17Some speculates left with.
01:21Celebrities, celebrities, politicians, and violent figures from the world of organized crime.
01:28Everyone in the mob knew that John F. Kennedy was sleeping with Marilyn Monroe.
01:34What were Marilyn's connections to the mob?
01:37And did they play a role in her mysterious death?
01:39Box office neighbors. Motion picture hit.
01:57Norma Jean Mortensen was born in California in 1926.
02:04Unfortunately, her mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was eventually institutionalized for it.
02:10Which meant that Marilyn had very little contact with her mother.
02:15She was almost immediately after birth put into foster care with a family.
02:21They were very religious and it was a very strict upbringing on her.
02:28She spent her early years, her childhood years, in many different foster homes and for a while in an orphanage.
02:35Marilyn is exploited by cruel and manipulative people from an early age.
02:40A pattern that will repeat throughout her life.
02:45There are various sources that say that she may have suffered some sexual abuse in her childhood.
02:51By the time she was 16, she had lived quite a rough childhood and quite a rough upbringing.
03:00When she was a child, in all her loneliness and unhappiness, her one escape was the movies.
03:07She always said that.
03:08She'd go to the movies early in the morning and sit at the movie theater all day long watching whatever
03:13was playing over and over again.
03:16And I think that started to look to her as an escape.
03:21She could be other people.
03:22She didn't always have to be Norma Jean.
03:25I think that that was the seeds in her wanting to become an actress.
03:35The Hollywood Strip is not a burlesque, but a section of Sunset Boulevard.
03:40By the time that Norma Jean is growing up in the 20s and 30s, Hollywood has established itself as a
03:48kind of primary form of entertainment.
03:50The American public who are looking to the screen for solace during difficult times and a sense of hope.
04:00And so young Norma Jean was another kind of person who was going to the movies, loving Jean Harlow, another
04:05great blonde bombshell.
04:08She looked to these stars and saw something to emulate or to admire.
04:20Women are employed as never before.
04:22More than 19 million at the war's peak.
04:25When World War II breaks out, Norma Jean takes a job in a munitions factory.
04:31After a short-lived marriage in her teens, the factory offers stability.
04:36Until a chance encounter changes her life and sets her on the path towards Hollywood.
04:42There was a photographer.
04:45David Conover was assigned to basically take photographs of the attractive young women working to encourage other women to join
04:54up the war effort.
04:56He saw immediately that she was very photogenic.
04:59And they immediately saw her potential.
05:02And she started working right away as a model.
05:06That world sort of introduced her into the acting world.
05:10In 1946, she changes her name.
05:14She takes her first name from a Broadway actress, Marilyn Miller, and she takes her surname, Monroe, which is her
05:20mother's maiden name.
05:22So, in this middle 40s, late 40s period, she meets a series of photographers, agents, acting coaches,
05:32and begins to sculpt an image which is different from this kind of sweet strawberry blonde.
05:39She starts to really lean into the voluptuous blonde.
05:48As Marilyn tries to make it as an actress, she soon discovers that Hollywood has a dark side.
05:56From the early years of Hollywood, there was a connection between organized crime and some of these studios.
06:04If you wanted to be successful in Hollywood, you had to know organized crime figures.
06:09Across America, organized crime is thriving.
06:13From mobsters in New York to gangsters in the Midwest controlled by mob boss Al Capone.
06:19The next frontier for these mobs is California.
06:24It came from the outfit in Chicago, which was Al Capone's organization.
06:29There are lots of ample opportunities for them to extort and racketeer across the state, and particularly across Los Angeles.
06:37They were sent to shake down the movie studios and extort a tremendous amount of money from them on an
06:44annual basis.
06:47Most of the big movie studios had to pay $100,000 a year.
06:52So the studios, hand in hand, are very much linked into the mob.
06:56The mob was able to control Hollywood.
07:04The attraction with Hollywood, it looked easy, the glamour.
07:08It's a very misogynistic kind of environment.
07:12And you've got all these powerful people, head of studios or casting directors.
07:19It's an open secret in Hollywood, the casting couch, a polite phrase for a dark and abusive practice.
07:28Girls were asked for sexual favors in return for parts in movies.
07:35It was one of the only ways to really break in.
07:38It was almost like an initiation.
07:41Casting couch plays, and still does, play an enormous role in the stars' kind of rise to fame.
07:53You're selling sex for a job, sex to get on, sex for status.
08:00And often I would think sex for absolutely nothing at all.
08:04Because as soon as you've had the sex, it's no, you know, there's no interest anymore.
08:10Certainly in the 30s, 40s, 50s, you have this truth amongst actresses that there are certain things that must be
08:17done in the name of advancing one's career.
08:32You've got Marlon Monroe coming into this world as a hugely attractive girl, willing to help everybody, troubled by her
08:41own upbringing, wanting to get on, seeing other people getting on, wanting to be a star.
08:50Marlon used whatever she had to get ahead.
08:53She famously said that Hollywood is a place where they pay you $1,000 for a kiss and 50 cents
08:57for your soul.
08:59She desperately wanted you to be taken seriously as a serious actress.
09:03She's going to have the best care a car ever had.
09:06I think sometimes her looks actually went against her.
09:10She sees the casting couch for what that is.
09:12She's quite willing to lie on that casting couch.
09:15She's quite willing to move up the studio system through connections with studio bosses.
09:21She wrote a piece called The Wolves I Have Known.
09:24She talked about all the different men that had sort of tried to take advantage of her throughout her career.
09:29She was very conscious of that.
09:32In 1949, Marlon was actually signed to a small contract with 20th Century Fox.
09:48At 20th Century Fox, Marlon's beauty and charm don't go unnoticed, especially by legendary studio boss Joseph Skank.
09:58Joseph Skank is an important money man and one of the original founders of 20th Century Fox and Hollywood as
10:05an empire.
10:08He's a much older man by the time Marlon is on the scene.
10:12Sort of a symbiotic relationship where he's impressed by her beauty and her sexuality and she knows that this is
10:19a good man to have helping her.
10:22And he must be late 60s, 70s.
10:25She's early 20s.
10:27So there's a relationship which is beneficial to both.
10:31He's a studio head.
10:32He can help her in her career.
10:34She can make him feel better.
10:37He became extremely fond of her.
10:39He's the one that actually got her the role in Ladies of the Chorus, her first speaking role.
10:48But he's a very powerful man to have in her corner and he starts to invite her to his parties,
10:52to his poker games and things of that nature.
10:56At Skank's exclusive poker parties, Hollywood's elite rub shoulders with the underworld's most notorious figures.
11:05You have Marlon there, you may have other starlets there, all sitting on their knees.
11:09They were sexual favors.
11:12Now, Skank had a bit of a checkered past.
11:15He'd been in prison.
11:18He had long had relationships with gangsters like Sam Giancana and Johnny Marcelli, who was another very powerful figure.
11:26These were people that Marlon will have at some point or another come into contact with.
11:32Some speculate slept with.
11:34She would have known and been aware of these people and how powerful they were from quite an early point
11:38in her career.
11:42Marlon's career takes her to a new studio, one which had alleged ties to organized crime.
11:50One of the studios, Columbia Pictures, was run by a man named Harry Cohn.
11:56The mob invested so much money in Columbia Pictures that they were able to control who appeared in movies, who
12:03didn't appear in movies, and even in some cases what movies were made and not made.
12:08Harry Cohn was known as, quote unquote, the meanest man in Hollywood.
12:14He was notorious for not at all soft peddling his critiques of his stars and his employees.
12:23He fired people at the drop of a hat.
12:25He was a notorious tyrant.
12:29Cohn was very severely connected to the mob and very, very powerful man.
12:37Quite a frightening man, I think, too, because, I mean, he was vicious.
12:41He was blood brothers in a sense with Johnny Marcelli, who was the Mr. Fix-It in Hollywood for the
12:48mob.
12:48And Marcelli even gave him a sapphire ring and he had one for himself and these were his and her
12:54rings, if you like.
12:55The studio had one and the mob guy had one.
12:59Actresses who wanted to star in a Harry Cohn movie at Columbia Pictures often had to sleep with Harry.
13:07And there were a couple of actresses who refused to do it and went to other studios where they had
13:11successful careers.
13:14Powerful and sometimes dangerous men like Joseph Skank and Harry Cohn shape Marilyn's early career.
13:21But it's a man named Johnny Hyde who truly sets her on the road to superstardom.
13:32Johnny Hyde was the president of William Morris Agency, one of the most powerful acting agencies in Hollywood at the
13:38time.
13:39And he was mad in love with Marilyn.
13:42He met Marilyn at a New Year's Eve party.
13:47And he actually left his wife to devote himself totally to Marilyn in her career.
13:55And together they kind of form the Marilyn that we see and recognize today.
14:01She becomes fully platinum blonde.
14:05She has very slight corrective surgery to fix a little bump on her nose.
14:13She has electrolysis to change her hairline.
14:16She starts to be sewn into her dresses.
14:19She mixes Vaseline in with her foundations so that she has this kind of incredible glow on the screen.
14:25So it's very much a moment of persona creation.
14:30And he got her the two roles that really jump-started her career.
14:35All about Eve and the asphalt jungle.
14:39And she really got a chance to shine in them.
14:44Unfortunately, he didn't live very long after that so he never got to see what he accomplished in really being
14:50the springboard for one of the greatest stars in Hollywood history.
14:57I like to think that Marilyn was aware of the fact that these men were often quote unquote wolves.
15:04That they treated Hollywood like an open brothel.
15:07So I don't think that she was this stereotype of a little girl lost who was so innocent and naive
15:14that she just was stumbling around looking for a daddy.
15:17I think that's quite a reductive and ultimately not very empowered way to see Marilyn.
15:25For Marilyn, Hyde's sudden death from a heart attack at 55 is devastating.
15:30But her career is now unstoppable.
15:33By the early 1950s, the age of Marilyn Monroe has begun.
15:40Now here comes a young lady who has created a real sensation of the picture business.
15:44That's Marilyn Monroe.
15:50The public started noticing her.
15:54And the fan mail started coming in.
15:56Who's the blonde?
15:57I know Marilyn. When's the first time we met?
16:00Well, once you almost gave me a job.
16:02There was an excitement about her. Everybody in the industry felt it now.
16:07They knew she was going places, so they put her on the cover of Life magazine with the headline, The
16:13Talk of Hollywood.
16:14She's become a huge pinup for Korean War veterans.
16:17Marilyn Monroe arrives in Korea to tour the front lines for four days.
16:21Live with troops as Marilyn puts on her act.
16:25Officers estimate that she plays to about 60,000 men in her first two days in Korea.
16:32There's agreement among soldiers and Marines.
16:34People are coming out in their droves to see her, to see her appearances at things.
16:41She's really become this kind of cultural phenomenon.
16:45Marilyn was a sort of supernova by this point.
16:47She was this glittering blonde diamond of a star.
16:52And everyone was incredibly in love with her.
16:55She was magnetic.
16:58Marilyn's rise is meteoric.
17:00In 1953 alone, she stars in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,
17:06How to Marry a Millionaire,
17:09and Niagara.
17:12They put her in full Technicolor glory.
17:15And, wow, the impact she had on audiences.
17:20Seeing Marilyn Monroe flesh come to life on the screen, she bowled everybody over.
17:25At this point, there was no other blonde in Hollywood.
17:28It was only Marilyn Monroe.
17:37As Marilyn's stardom soars, so does the public's fascination.
17:41Especially when she falls for one of the most famous athletes in the world.
17:45One of baseball's all-time greats, Joe DiMaggio.
17:49Joe DiMaggio slams what looks like a sure homer.
17:53Joe DiMaggio had just retired.
17:55He was one of the greatest baseball players for the Yankees in history.
17:59He met Marilyn, and he asked some friends to pull some strings to get a date with her.
18:05He was very taken with her right away, and she was taken with him.
18:10They have a brief marriage, nine-month marriage.
18:14Former baseball star Joe DiMaggio wed screen star Marilyn Monroe.
18:20The level of fame that was afforded to them as this enormous celebrity couple.
18:26Joe D and Marilyn arrive in Tokyo.
18:28The recently wedded couple get a royal welcome.
18:31DiMaggio's here to help coach...
18:32I think she was always in search of the father that she never knew.
18:37There was something of a father figure in a relationship.
18:40She needed a protector.
18:42And Joe DiMaggio offered that.
18:45In 1955, Marilyn stars in The Seven-Year Itch.
18:50Featuring one of the most unforgettable moments in cinema history.
18:58They were actually filming on a subway grate, and there was a man underneath the grate with a van.
19:04And the dress was going way up in the air.
19:09As funny as it is to believe today, that was quite a shocking thing to do.
19:14And a lot of people complained about it.
19:17There's an open set on The Seven-Year Itch where the famous shot of the white dress blowing up over
19:24the subway grate
19:25is then attended not only by the cast and crew, which is already a lot of people,
19:29but by people in New York who just want to come and flock to see Marilyn maybe show her underwear.
19:35Joe DiMaggio was watching it with several other people.
19:40And that was his wife.
19:42He was mortified at that.
19:44But, you know, you marry Marilyn Monroe, that's part of the bargain.
19:50He's aggressive to the point of violence, jealousy and protectiveness around her.
19:56But The Seven-Year Itch kind of comes as a final straw for DiMaggio,
20:00that they got into such a violent fight after that she shot the scene that he struck her.
20:05The marriage was effectively over and on its way out by the time The Seven-Year Itch comes out.
20:14Joe DiMaggio believed that Marilyn Monroe left him not because he was abusive to her, which he was, but because
20:23she was having an affair with another man.
20:25And he hoped that if he hired a private detective to film her that that would bring her back to
20:33him.
20:35Joe DiMaggio turns to a close friend for help, a man with mob connections, who also happens to be the
20:41most famous singer of the age.
20:44Mr. Swoon himself, the old Collapso singer, Frank Sinatra.
20:52Sinatra, for all of his great talent, does sometimes fancy himself as a bit of a tough guy and does
20:58like to pal around with gangsters.
21:03And so him and DiMaggio run in the same circles as tough guy Italian-Americans, and they know each other,
21:09they're friendly.
21:10Frank Sinatra had quite a few ties to the mob.
21:14DiMaggio asked Sinatra, with the connections that Sinatra has, to burst in on Marilyn having an affair.
21:20Sinatra suggests they all go over there with one of their heavies.
21:23To Marilyn Monroe's apartment to catch her in the act.
21:28And instead, they went to the wrong door.
21:33And with sledgehammers and axes, they hacked down some woman's apartment door.
21:38And she was screaming and yelling.
21:40And she didn't know what was happening.
21:43And when they realized they had knocked down the wrong door of the wrong apartment, they all took off running.
21:50It's a very, very ugly event.
21:53But what it does show is a very depressing degree to which that patriarchal chumminess and male chumminess meant that
22:00they felt they had complete carte blanche and ownership over her to do something like that.
22:04Which is a pattern you see again and again in her life, unfortunately.
22:10By 1955, Marilyn is one of 20th Century Fox's biggest stars, her films grossing tens of millions.
22:19But with superstardom comes relentless pressure.
22:24Marilyn was always very nervous on set.
22:27She often requested many retakes.
22:29She sometimes forgot her lines.
22:32Some of her early acting coaches, a woman called Natasha Leites that she worked with, used to say sometimes for
22:38close-ups she would ask to hold Natasha's hand on the set.
22:42She always felt she had to either live up to her image or better it.
22:47And it put a tremendous strain on her to face the camera.
22:52She had become this otherworldly kind of person, this phenomenon.
22:59And so the appeal of a little bit of something to take the edge off, a little bit of second
23:06all, some barbiturates, a little bit of champagne, which was her drink of choice, would just relax her a bit.
23:12It starts out as a relatively innocuous habit that many other stars have.
23:18But it does grow over time and fame mounts and pressure mounts.
23:25Feeling suffocated by Hollywood, Marilyn escapes to New York, determined to reinvent herself.
23:32There, she studies acting to hone her craft and begins to move in more liberal intellectual circles.
23:44She's hanging out in these New York circles and she meets the great playwright of The Crucible, Arthur Miller,
23:50who is very taken with her.
23:53And he will become her third husband.
23:56Actress Marilyn Monroe and playwright Arthur Miller are married, climaxing days of worldwide speculation.
24:02The happy couple poses for a battery of feverish photographers at their honeymoon retreat, the Miller Farm in Roxbury, Connecticut.
24:09Arthur Miller is a left-wing firebrand.
24:12Were you actually a member of the Communist Party one time?
24:15I attended several meetings that were meetings of communist writers.
24:19And soon Marilyn finds herself caught in the political crossfire of 1950s America.
24:27As his wife, and as someone who very, very strongly supported that position, there's a question mark over her.
24:34And so J. Edgar Hoover, who's the head of the FBI, opened a file on her.
24:39It does put her in the position to be accused of communist leanings.
24:50It's a bit of a mixed bag for Marilyn in the late 50s. Her career is doing phenomenally well.
24:57Marilyn's brilliance shines brighter than ever in the smash hit comedy, Some Like It Hot.
25:04Some Like It Hot, along with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, it's the quintessential Marilyn Monroe movie.
25:11I mean, it became a smash hit. I think it was the biggest hit of her career.
25:16And she wins the Golden Globe in 1959 for that performance.
25:20But unfortunately, same time, her personal life is unraveling.
25:26She's not having a lot of luck in her marriage to Arthur Miller.
25:30That's not helping with her ongoing substance abuse.
25:42In 1960, Marilyn stars in The Misfits, a powerful drama penned by her husband, Arthur Miller.
25:50Though hailed as one of her finest performances, the production itself is plagued by tension and turmoil.
25:58She was addicted to sleeping pills.
26:01If it was difficult for her to face the camera before, now it was nearly impossible.
26:06Eventually, they had to shut down the production.
26:09Her eyes weren't focusing when they were shooting.
26:12She was just too sort of zonked out on the sleeping pills.
26:16Her marriage with Arthur Miller was unraveling at that time.
26:20He left his diary out for her to see, and it was saying what a disappointment she turned out to
26:26be to him.
26:27It devastated her.
26:29And I think that was the moment that started the house of cards collapsing.
26:36It's a tragically familiar pattern in Marilyn's life.
26:39From mob-linked moguls in Hollywood, to writers and intellectuals in New York City.
26:46Her search for love and stability repeatedly collides with men who exploit and control her.
26:52When she separates from Arthur Miller, she really takes a sort of a downhill slide.
26:59She ends up going into a psychiatric institution called the Pain Whitney in New York.
27:06She ended up having some terrible sort of existential crisis while she was there.
27:11Eventually, she's heavily sedated and put in a sort of padded cell.
27:16It probably was one of the most terrifying experiences of her life.
27:20And she finally got one call through, and she called the one person she knew she could count on.
27:26It's quite an interesting story of who she relies on when she's at her lowest ebb.
27:30And it's not Arthur Miller, and it's not anyone who you would have thought.
27:34It's Joda magic.
27:38And he got her out of there.
27:44After leaving the hospital, Marilyn doesn't return to Joe DiMaggio.
27:49But reputedly finds comfort in the arms of his close friend Frank Sinatra.
27:56Beginning a risky new affair.
28:00Frank Sinatra has always been in and around the glitz and glamour of Marilyn's life.
28:07He bought her a dog when he heard news of her and Arthur Miller's divorce in order to console her,
28:13which she then nicknamed Moffs, as in Mafia.
28:18She was always aware of what was going on, if nothing else.
28:23Frank Sinatra had an on-again, off-again relationship with Marilyn Monroe.
28:29He was attracted to Monroe.
28:32He liked Monroe.
28:33He respected Monroe.
28:37Marilyn has long known men with ties to organized crime.
28:41But Sinatra now brings her even closer to the mob.
28:45He's been friends with gangsters since his childhood in New Jersey.
28:54Frank Sinatra was born into the mob in Hoboken.
28:59His mother ran a bar where all the mobsters hung out.
29:03He was kind of adopted by them.
29:06When Frank's mother asked the Mafia boss to help get her son singing engagements,
29:12Willie did.
29:13Because the mob controlled just about all the nightclubs in New York and in New Jersey.
29:18It was no big deal for him to get that to happen.
29:22His career was managed.
29:28He was organized by them in a big way from the very early days all the way through.
29:35Marilyn started dating Frank Sinatra seriously in 1961 after her divorce.
29:43Their relationship, more hush-hush.
29:45He had been good friends with Joe DiMagino and he knew that it would hurt him.
29:52Marilyn's affair with Sinatra is brief but intense.
29:55And even after it ends, their friendship endures.
29:58Yet she remains connected to Sinatra's world.
30:02A glittering circle where Hollywood stars, politicians and mobsters allegedly mingle.
30:07Including the notorious Sam Giancana.
30:19Sam Giancana is a Chicago gangster who came up in the 1920s in Chicago.
30:27He gained this reputation of being the toughest guy.
30:30He made money for the Chicago mob.
30:33He took care of those who opposed the Chicago mob.
30:37I think with Giancana, he was such a psychopath.
30:41He killed so many people he thought entitled to get what he wanted.
30:45I haven't got away with it. I've got away with it for so long.
30:47He loved being around celebrities.
30:50When Frank Sinatra meets him in the early 1950s, he finds a bit of a fellow traveler in Giancana.
30:58He's a tough guy.
31:01Giancana was attracted to the fame.
31:03The accoutrements of fame.
31:06The women, the jewelry, the swagger.
31:08If you haven't got your own swagger, borrow somebody else's.
31:13Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana are rumored to have been close for years, sharing a taste for nightlife, gambling and
31:20beautiful women.
31:22But politics soon joins the list.
31:24When they come into the orbit of a promising young senator with presidential ambitions, John F. Kennedy.
31:31Announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United States.
31:34John F. Kennedy made no bones about the fact that he had high ambitions, politically speaking.
31:42His father was a powerful corporate figure, Joseph Kennedy.
31:50Beneath John F. Kennedy's immaculate public persona, historians have long pointed to rumors of a covert alliance tying the Kennedy
31:57family to organized crime.
32:00Though disputed, some argue that Sam Giancana played a role in John F. Kennedy's election victory.
32:07By leaning on mob-controlled unions to deliver votes.
32:11With Frank Sinatra acting as a middleman between the Kennedys and the gangster.
32:18One of Sinatra's daughters, Tina, wrote a biography of her father.
32:22She asked him point blank,
32:25Is there evidence that the Kennedy family asked you to intervene with Sam Giancana to help win the 1960 presidential
32:33election?
32:34To her surprise, he said yes.
32:38In 1960, there shot a lot of votes.
32:43Once John Kennedy Sr. meets Sam Giancana for a meeting orchestrated by Frank Sinatra,
32:50they agree that Sam will buy the election for Kennedy.
32:54You've got Hollywood, you've got the mob, you've got Kennedy, and you've got a deal done.
33:15The public know nothing of John F. Kennedy's alleged connections to the mob.
33:21Nor do they know of his many vices, including an appetite for womanizing,
33:26which is assisted by his friend and brother-in-law, Peter Lawford.
33:30But as far as I'm concerned, it hasn't changed me. I'm still looking for a job.
33:34Peter Lawford was an English actor, an old Aristo, who went to Los Angeles to become famous.
33:43And he married Patricia Kennedy, who is the sister of Jack Kennedy.
33:49He was very good friends with Frank Sinatra.
33:52He had huge pool parties in his house in Santa Monica.
33:56He was one of the big sort of social hubs. He knew everybody.
34:02Lawford, as well as Frank Sinatra, another friend, were there to supply women to Kennedy.
34:09John F. Kennedy loved women.
34:12He had an unending round of affairs with women, and he was really excited about being around Hollywood starlets.
34:20There are numerous stories about Marilyn Monroe and JFK, and how they met and how their affair began.
34:28In the 1960 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles, they're photographed together with Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford.
34:37And they're flirting away heavily. Then he invites her to go and stay with him at Bing Crosby's house.
34:44It was supposed to be Frank Sinatra's house.
34:48Robert F. Kennedy said to his brother, I don't think you should go there.
34:51Sinatra is too closely associated with the Mafia, and it's not good for your reputation.
34:57And it's not good for what I want to do in terms of prosecuting the mob.
35:03In an unusual move, John F. Kennedy has appointed his own brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as Attorney General,
35:11the nation's top legal authority.
35:13As Attorney General, in the appointments I have made, I have sought the most qualified men.
35:21Robert Kennedy was in many ways a crusader.
35:26That he saw one of the greatest threats to the United States was organized crime.
35:32Whether it was in New York City or Chicago, in Las Vegas, no matter who it was, he took it
35:38as a mission to go after organized crime.
35:41Joseph Kennedy, Robert's father, asked him not to go after the mob, that it could be a dangerous thing to
35:47do.
35:50Sam Giancana hated the Kennedys, because he thought he had done everything he was asked to do for them.
35:55And the reward for doing that is that Robert Kennedy is going after him in the Chicago outfit.
36:02They had back and forth arguments on camera.
36:06Is it because you got the $500?
36:08No, sir.
36:09And with Sam Giancana, who almost always pled the Fifth Amendment, Kennedy actually humiliated him.
36:16He said, you know, you've seen, when you answer that way, sometimes you giggle.
36:22You know, I thought only little girls giggled when they answer questions.
36:28It was a public humiliation of Giancana. He had an absolute hatred of Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy.
36:35Do you plan to have any committees, any witnesses, rather, from New York for the committee?
36:40Yes, there'll be a number of witnesses from the New York City area and a number of witnesses from New
36:45Jersey.
36:45He got over 400 indictments against mobsters and sent many of them to prison for very, very long prison terms.
36:52Is that the reason that you didn't take any action? Don't you know that was the reason?
36:57No, I know it was not.
36:59Why didn't you take any action the following morning?
37:04As Robert F. Kennedy's crusade against the mob draws dangerous attention,
37:09Marilyn and JFK reportedly continue their secret rendezvous at the Los Angeles home of Peter Lawford.
37:19Peter Lawford's house in Santa Monica was absolutely glorious and right on the beach.
37:25It was famous for its fantastic parties.
37:30JFK stayed there quite a lot because, obviously, his sister was married to Peter Lawford.
37:35So, therefore, it was a family house and a sort of safe space, I suppose, for him to meet up
37:44with Marilyn.
37:46So Marilyn would come over for dinner and would often stay the night.
37:51Peter Lawford's house was bugged.
37:54So, therefore, we have stories about her having sex with JFK in the shower
38:00and her staying the night with him and then them going for a walk along the beach.
38:06Word spreads in powerful circles that Peter Lawford's home has become a playground for Hollywood stars and Washington insiders.
38:15Making it and its guests, including Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy, prime targets for surveillance and blackmail.
38:24One person allegedly watching closely is a man named Fred Otash.
38:35Fred Otash was a private eye who said that at various points he had worked wiretapping and trailing people for
38:45the FBI, CIA, the mafia.
38:50Tapping phones, bugging rooms and reporting on celebrities and reporting on politicians.
38:57He was known to Sinatra. He was known to DiMaggio.
39:02He was likely a known associate of some gangsters like Sam Giancana.
39:08Fred, I learned quite early on how to wiretap.
39:12He bugs everybody. He bugs Peter Lawford's home because of the Kennedy thing.
39:18He bugs Mon Monroe's apartments.
39:21He's a major player, feeling information.
39:26Fred Otash apparently could make a microphone the size of a grain of rice.
39:30He was the one who put all the microphones in Marilyn's house.
39:34He was supposedly sitting outside most of the time in some small van, listening to what was going on in
39:39Marilyn's house with great big tapes whirring.
39:41There are lots of stories about whether it was the mob who'd paid for him to bug Marilyn's house.
39:49Or whether it was the Kennedys in order to get information.
39:54Or whether it was the FBI or the CIA.
39:57I mean, there were hundreds of people who had interest, but nobody quite knows who actually came up with the
40:03cash.
40:08Marilyn Monroe now finds herself unknowingly trapped in a web of intrigue.
40:13Caught between organized crime and the President of the United States.
40:23He was the most powerful man in the world. He was a very charismatic man.
40:28She was the most desirable woman in the world.
40:33She was 35 going on 36.
40:37The newspapers were already saying, how much longer could she go on?
40:41How much longer could she be the great sex symbol?
40:44They were very derogatory towards her.
40:46The press was talking about how she's finished.
40:49This is the end for her.
40:51What she read, what she saw.
40:54So she was in an emotionally very dark place.
41:04On the set of Something's Gotta Give, she flits off to New York for a public televised event for President
41:14Kennedy's birthday,
41:15in which she, of course, famously sings, Happy Birthday, Mr. President.
41:21The famous episode where she sings Happy Birthday to the President was embarrassing to almost everyone involved.
41:30Marilyn's entanglement with the Kennedys may have gone deeper than anyone imagined.
41:34And rumors persist to this day that Marilyn also had an affair with the President's brother, Robert.
41:42There is a story that when she's just about to go on stage before she goes to sing Happy Birthday,
41:48Mr. President,
41:49that Bobby Kennedy goes into her dressing room and they supposedly have sex before she goes on stage to sing
41:58Happy Birthday to his brother.
42:01Other salacious stories arise from that night.
42:05The actress Shirley MacLaine did once say in an interview that the night of the birthday celebrations for JFK, she
42:12saw Marilyn in a room at the after party in a hotel room,
42:16and she saw both brothers coming in and out of the room and sharing her.
42:22Despite the importance of the occasion, 20th Century Fox had explicitly forbidden Marilyn from traveling to New York for the
42:30event.
42:31There was messages sent, you know, the President would really appreciate if you let Marilyn Monroe go to New York
42:38for a couple of days to sing Happy Birthday.
42:41The studio feels that they have grounds to drop her.
42:45And it seems strange to fire the most famous woman in the world, someone who is still clearly liked by
42:53the public.
42:54She was getting a little bit older, as ridiculous as it might seem, she's dropped by the studio.
43:09There was a party after the Madison Square Garden.
43:14A lot of photos were being taken at this party.
43:18A few nights later, the Secret Service came and wanted to look at the photos.
43:22And they took all the photos where Marilyn Monroe appeared with JFK.
43:28There's only one now in existence. They only didn't take one of them.
43:32What we know about JFK, he was very casual and blasé about the affairs he was having.
43:39I mean, we know now the many women that he was seeing, and he wasn't always discreet.
43:47Everyone in the mob knew that John F. Kennedy was sleeping with Marilyn Monroe.
43:52They also knew that he was sleeping with Judith Exner, who had been a girlfriend of Sam Giancana.
44:00So all of this was known within the mob.
44:03I don't think that, you know, it crossed his mind that it was going to be any trouble for him.
44:08I think he was fond of Marilyn, but, I mean, he wasn't going to break up his marriage over her.
44:13There was really no place for it to go.
44:18When it started to become too serious, he was warned that he had to back off.
44:22And it was not a good time for her to be rejected.
44:26Though her affair with the president has ended,
44:29rumors swirl that Marilyn is still involved with his brother, Robert.
44:35Again, it took much more importance in her mind than in his.
44:42They'd been advised to sort of stay away from her because she was very famous and very volatile.
44:48Robert Kennedy started backing away from her.
44:53She was desolate at the idea that both Bobby and his brother had kind of dropped her like a sack
44:59of potatoes
45:00because they felt that she knew too much.
45:02She was just not in a good place.
45:06It made a dark summer even darker.
45:14Heartbroken, Marilyn once again seeks solace with Frank Sinatra.
45:19He invites her to his Lake Tahoe resort.
45:22A glamorous retreat he reputedly co-owns with a dangerous business partner.
45:30Sinatra connected as he is to Vegas and both as an entertainer and in terms of the nightclub underworld,
45:36is good friends with Sam Giancana and they co-own a Lake Tahoe ranch together,
45:40which actually is divided by the Nevada-California border.
45:44Which is great because you have the legal gambling on one side
45:48and there's this kind of real anything goes wild west lawless frontier town vibe to it.
45:54All sorts of degenerate behavior went on there.
45:58That was a favorite place for an awful lot of gangsters.
46:03Marilyn has been fired from something's got to give and Frank Sinatra is supposedly giving her
46:07sort of a weekend jolly to cheer her up from having had a run of very bad luck.
46:11It turns out to be the absolute opposite of that.
46:14When Sinatra brings Marilyn to this Lake Tahoe ranch,
46:19it is ostensibly, one would assume, with the desire to sort of shield her.
46:25But he is kind of bringing her into the hornet's nest.
46:29The sum total of it is that she comes back and she lands in Los Angeles looking absolutely terrible.
46:35She's barefoot, distressed, disheveled.
46:40She's clearly had something really terrible happen to her.
46:45Instead of a glittering escape from the turmoil of Marilyn's life,
46:49the infamous Cal Neva weekend is long rumored to have been a chaotic collision of entertainers and organized crime.
46:58It remains one of the most scandalous weekends in Hollywood history.
47:02And just days later, Marilyn Monroe will be dead.
47:13Stay with us for part two here in a moment.
47:16And support information for the issues raised can be found online at channel4.com slash support.
47:22Now, the depths of winter, a remote farm track and one of Britain's most notorious gangland crimes,
47:27Murder of the Essex Boys, Blood and Betrayal starts Monday at 10.
47:31The End
47:32The End
47:32The End
47:33The End
47:35The End
47:36The End
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