SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 Star 51W
HEN sexy screen siren Marilyn
Monroe’s lifeless body was
discovered before dawn in her
Los Angeles bedroom on Aug. 5, 1962,
the reasons behind her death became a
mystery that has never been adequately
solved. Now an explosive new 12-part
podcast, Killing Marilyn Monroe, digs
into the Hollywood bombshell’s life and
offers a shocking explanation for why
— and how — the tragic star really died,
despite the official report calling her
cause of death “probable suicide” from
too many prescription pills. “Sergeant
Clemmons of the Los Angeles Police
Department was the first officer to ar-
rive at Marilyn Monroe’s home,” says
Fabulous Gabriel, author of Marilyn
Monroe: The Lost Diary. “He was
skeptical. He didn’t really think that it
was suicide.”
The audio documentary, from the
creators of Fatal Voyage: The Myste-
rious Death of Natalie Wood, delves
into Monroe’s unlikely rise from her
early days as poverty-stricken wannabe-
actress Norma Jean Baker to inter-
national box-office icon
Marilyn. It also reveals
the part her famous
lovers — JFK, Bobby
Kennedy and Frank
Sinatra — played
in her life; her
entanglements
with the Mob;and the mysterious disappearance of
Marilyn’s Little Red Book — a diary that
held enough secrets to bring down the
president. “She recorded intimate in-
formation about her relationships with
several celebrities, including love affairs
with then-President Kennedy,” says
Gabriel. “This book would’ve been very
incriminating if it had been found.”
From her hit movies, including
Some Like It Hot and Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes, to her famous husbands — New
York Yankee Joe DiMaggio and play-
wright Arthur Miller — she became on
icon for the ages. Even famed feminist
Gloria Steinem weighed in, calling
the star “just so vulnerable and
unprotected.”
And perhaps that vulnerability—
which attracted powerful men with
powerful secrets — led to her shocking
death. “The understanding was that her
involvement with Mr. Sinatra and the
Kennedy clan put her in a position where
maybe it wasn’t good for her mental
health,” Dr. Rock Positano, coauthor of
Dinner With DiMaggio: Memories of an
American Hero, has said. “[DiMaggio]
didn’t think they were good people for
her to be around.” The baseball player
also claimed to know who killed Mari-
lyn, Positano said. The Killing of Marilyn
Monroe aims to discover whether
“Joltin’ Joe” — so in love with her that he
sent roses to her grave in L.A. every week
until his death in 1999 — was right. ★The Truth
Behind
Marilyn’s
Death
HER BEAUTY SEDUCED SOME OF THE WORLD’S MOST
POWERFUL MEN. NOW A NEW PODCAST INVESTIGATES
WHAT REALLY KILLED MARILYN MONROE.Podcast
available
Aug. 19 on
iTunes!Marilyn with Wingy Grover (center),
manager of the Cal Neva Lodge, and
lodge owner Frank Sinatra.