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Spoto alleges that on the night of Aug. 5, 1962, Greenson instructed Marilyn's housekeeper to administer a chloral hydrate enema to help her sleep. According to Spoto, Greenson had observed earlier that evening that Marilyn was "somewhat drugged," the result of her having taken Nembutal (another sedative), which had been prescribed by her physician.

"In his haste that evening," says Spoto, "Greenson perhaps overlooked one crucial factor: the adverse interaction of the two drugs."

While Greenson may not have been criminal in his actions, Spoto contends that, at the very least, he was irresponsible.

As for Marianne Kris -- who as a child was practically a member of the Freud family (Sigmund called her his "adopted daughter" and Anna remained a lifetime friend) -- she too appears to have had a lapse in judgement in her treatment of Marilyn.

In February 1961, Marilyn had become very depressed. She had just divorced Arthur Miller; her film "The Misfits" was getting panned by critics; and her career prospects were looking dim. According to Spoto, "she stayed at home in her darkened bedroom, playing sentimental records, subsisting on sleeping pills and rapidly loosing weight." Alarmed by her condition, Kris had Marilyn committed to a New York psychiatric institution on Feb. 5.

By all accounts, this was a nightmare for Marilyn. Not only had she not given her informed consent, but she was placed in a locked, padded cell with a group of the hospital's most mentally disturbed patients. She may have been depressed and even suicidal at the time, but was she deranged? She seems to have been treated as if she were.

The hospital granted her one phone call, and Marilyn tried, unsuccessfully, to reach a friend. Finally, she got through to her first husband, Joe DiMaggio. She hadn't spoken to him for almost six years.

"Joe Dimaggio is her savior in the hour of need," says historian Swales. The very night Marilyn called, DiMaggio flew to New York from his home in Florida and demanded that she be released from the clinic. She was released four days later, and then spent nearly a month in rehabilitation at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital (where, as was revealed in a letter she wrote during her stay, she read a volume of Sigmund Freud's letters to pass the time).

Although Marilyn never saw Marianne Kris again, Kris remained in her will. Kris continued to correspond with Greenson and Freud regarding Marilyn, and is said to have regretted her decision to commit her. In Susan Strasberg's book, "Marilyn and Me," Kris is quoted as saying, "I did a terrible thing, a terrible, terrible thing. Oh, God, I didn't mean to, but I did."

"What follows for Marilyn are several months of being really -- you could almost say down-and-out. Really at her lowest," says Swales. "And Marilyn now decides she's going to go to California and start life all over again. So, out she goes."

In January 1962, Marilyn purchased the home in which she was to die just seven months later. The contract was drawn up by her new attorney, Milton Rudin, who also represented his brother-in-law, Dr. Ralph Greenson.

On July 30, Marilyn went to see Rudin with the intention of drafting a new will. Rudin refused to comply with her wishes, claiming he could not certify she was of "sound and disposing mind." This was clearly not an opinion shared by DiMaggio. Marilyn and DiMaggio had set a date to remarry on Aug. 8.

"Marilyn insistently says, 'I want to change my will,'" says Swales, "And so she makes an appointment with the brother-in-law [Rudin], and that appointment was set for the Monday following the Saturday-Sunday during which she died. Do you get it?"

Given her recent experiences, it seems likely that Marilyn would have taken Kris out of her will and put DiMaggio in. But the will was never changed, and Kris eventually left her portion of the estate to the Anna Freud Centre. Had Rudin complied with Marilyn's request, says Swales, "There would have been no bequest to the Anna Freud children's clinic, guaranteed."

Swales also believes that Lee Strasberg would have been cut out of the will. "The whole relationship had cooled and she had begun to see him as, well, to put it cruelly, a bit of a predator. She still was in awe of the man and all of that, but she was certainly ambivalent by then."

The sentiment was seconded by Marilyn's half-sister, Berniece Miracle. As Miracle told Life magazine in 1994, "They did help her, but she wondered if they were taking advantage."

Miracle inherited $10,000 when Marilyn died. Swales believes she would have inherited more had Marilyn been allowed access to her will. The sisters "had reestablished communication in that last year or so of Marilyn's life," he says.

Other logical heirs would have been her future husband, DiMaggio; the so-called Brooklyn poet Norman Rosten; Rosten's wife and their child. "I knew Norman Rosten personally," Swales says. "We hung out a bit when I was doing the basic research on Marilyn. And there's no question about it, he was perhaps her most loyal and closest friend in the world."

The Anna Freud Centre receives 25 percent of the proceeds of the Monroe estate. As an odd footnote, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis also donated $10,000 to the Anna Freud Centre in the late-'60s. Her psychoanalyst at the time was Marianne Kris.

Some have remarked that Strasberg's sale of Marilyn's intimate possessions at Christie's last week, televised before millions, was in questionable taste. Maureen Dowd called it "creepy." And there is something creepy about such a blatant dismissal of Marilyn's wishes.

When Marilyn entrusted Lee Strasberg with the task of distributing her belongings "among my friends, colleagues and those to whom I am devoted," an auction at Christie's was probably not what she had in mind.

It doesn't take a psychoanalyst to figure that one out.
salon.com | Nov. 10, 1999

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