June 1, 2026 will mark what would have been the 100th birthday of Marilyn Monroe.
Yet her death remains shrouded in mystery – and conspiracy theory.
Was it really, as the coroner ruled, a tragic case of suicide?
Or was it something much more sinister?
In his latest book, The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe, author James Patterson, along with his co-writer Imogen Edwards-Jones, examines what really happened that night in August 1962 – and reveals for the first time a late-night caller to her Brentwood, California, home who could hold the key to the whole mystery.
On Friday, 13 July, 1962, a report lands on FBI Director J Edgar Hoover’s desk from the FBI office in Mexico City.
The memo is labeled ‘MARILYN MONROE – SECURITY MATTER – C [Communist].’
It details information passed along by an unnamed source claiming that Marilyn had information about political matters overheard while she was at Peter Lawford’s residence with one of the Kennedy brothers a few days earlier.
An unnamed source claimed Marilyn had information about sensitive political matters
Marilyn’s lover at the time was the Mexican playboy and screen director José Bolaños (left)
The only Kennedy brother who’s recently been in Los Angeles is Bobby. And the most likely informant to the Mexican FBI is Marilyn’s lover José Bolaños.
‘She was very pleased, as she had asked the President a lot of socially significant questions concerning the morality of atomic testing,’ the report notes.
‘Subject’s views are very positively and concisely leftist; however, if she is being actively used by the Communist Party, it is not general knowledge among those working with the movement in Los Angeles.’
The FBI is already alarmed to know of Marilyn’s continued connection to suspected Communist agent Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who is currently staying with his wife Nieves in Marilyn’s New York apartment at 444 East 57th Street.
Field writes Marilyn a letter thanking her and calling her apartment ‘the key to the success of the whole expedition.’
‘We hope you are winning your battles in Hollywood,’ he writes. ‘We kind of figure being who and what you are you will come out on top.’
But Marilyn isn’t feeling victorious.
Days after the FBI report, Bobby stops taking her calls.
Marilyn performs for US troops in Korea in 1954 – but eight years later she was being flagged as a potential Communist
Bobby Kennedy’s sudden refusal to take her calls left Marilyn furious
The sudden cold shoulder – so reminiscent of what happened recently with Jack – leaves Marilyn furious.
‘He should face me and tell me why,’ she rants to friends. ‘Or tell me on the phone. I don’t care. I just want to know why.’
When Marilyn can’t get through to the attorney general, she turns to his sister for help.
‘Forget it,’ Pat Lawford tells her. ‘Bobby’s still just a little boy. But you have to remember he’s a little boy with a wife and seven kids.’
Not only that, but a staunch Catholic who’d been named ‘Father of the Year’ just two years earlier. There’s simply no way he’s ever going to sacrifice his career and reputation to leave his wife for Marilyn.
But Marilyn is deeply hurt and can’t let it go.
‘He owes me an explanation!’ she complains to her friend, the director Bob Slatzer. ‘I want to know what happened, and I want Bobby to tell me himself!’
She continues unsuccessfully trying to reach him: on his private number, at the Justice Department, and even at home in Hickory Hill. If Bobby Kennedy keeps ignoring her, she tells Slatzer, ‘I might just hold a press conference. I’ve certainly got a lot to say!’
Marilyn told Bob Slatzer: ‘I might just hold a press conference. I’ve certainly got a lot to say!’
When Marilyn couldn’t get through to the attorney general, she turned to his sister, Pat Lawford (left, with her husband Peter Lawford), for help
Marilyn demanded that Bobby ‘owes me an explanation! I want to know what happened, and I want Bobby to tell me himself!’
Marilyn has never been a political person. Until lately, when she’s gotten involved with America’s leading political family.
It’s one thing to attend parties at the beach house of Peter and Pat Kennedy Lawford. They’re Hollywood types. But her association with, as she calls them, ‘extremely important men in government… at the highest level’ is another matter entirely.
It’s Saturday, August 4, and her old friend and Hollywood gossip columnist Sid Skolsky calls to check on Marilyn.
She starts in on her problems with the Kennedys. She’s seeing one of them, she insists. Tonight.
Skolsky’s journalistic instincts kick in. He motions to his daughter Steffi, asks her to pick up a telephone extension. Steffi is hit with the same shock and disbelief her father is experiencing.
Marilyn is adamant about her plans. And she seems to be telling the truth.
Marilyn calls her psychiatrist, Dr Ralph Greenson, to come over for an emergency afternoon session.
‘Here I am, the most beautiful woman in the world, and I do not have a date for Saturday night.’
On Saturday, August 4, Marilyn’s old friend and Hollywood gossip columnist Sid Skolsky (right) called to check on her
Marilyn has never been a political person. Until lately, when she’s gotten involved with America’s leading political family (the actress sandwiched between Bobby and Jack Kennedy)
Investigator Fred Otash is reviewing his surveillance notes.
The tape recordings from the ‘grain of rice’ microphone he planted in Marilyn’s telephone – at her own request – run about 40 minutes.
Seems like Marilyn was right about seeing a Kennedy tonight. Only, not in the way she had planned.
The recordings place both Peter Lawford and Bobby Kennedy at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, deep in conflict with a highly emotional Marilyn, who’s demanding ‘an explanation as to why Kennedy was not going to marry her.’
‘It was a violent argument about their relationship and the commitment and promises Bobby made to her,’ Otash writes in his notebook. ‘She said she was passed around like a piece of meat.’
The attorney general loses control of his tone of voice, which becomes ‘screeching, high-pitched.’
He’s not leaving without finding what he came for – Marilyn’s diary. The little red book where she kept all her notes about ‘political things.’
‘Where is it? Where the f**k is it? We have to know. It’s important to the family. We can make any arrangements you want, but we must find it.’
Marilyn refuses to answer.
‘She was really screaming… Bobby gets the pillow and he muffles her on the bed to keep the neighbors from hearing.
‘She finally quieted down and then he was looking to get out of there.’
Tape recordings from Marilyn’s home reveal an angry visit from Bobby Kennedy: ‘He’s not leaving without finding what he came for – Marilyn’s diary’
Marilyn lay in bed with her white telephone – having calmed herself with some pills, she started to call friends
Joe DiMaggio and his son Joe Jr at Marilyn’s funeral – the baseball star’s son was one of the last people to speak to her on the night she died
Marilyn lies in bed with her white telephone. She’s calmed herself with some pills. Talking to friends might make her feel better.
She holds it together when Joe DiMaggio Jr calls – she’s so proud of Joey, now a 20-year-old military private – but by the time she reaches her friend and hairdresser Sydney Guilaroff after 8pm, she’s rambling.
‘Danger… betrayals… men in high places… clandestine love affairs,’ she says, before finally declaring: ‘I know a lot of secrets about the Kennedys. Dangerous ones.’
When José Bolaños telephones at 9.30pm, Marilyn claims to have news for him that ‘will one day shock the whole world.’
She sets the phone down. Is someone at the door?
Eventually, Bolaños ends the call.
Marilyn picks up the telephone again. She was supposed to go over to Peter Lawford’s again for dinner tonight, but he’d made excuses on her behalf.
‘Marilyn’s not coming, she’s not feeling well,’ he’d told the other guests.
Now Lawford is alarmed by the drifting quality of her voice on the phone. He shouts at her, desperately trying to draw her focus.
Marilyn answers sweetly: ‘Say good-bye to Pat, say good-bye to Jack, and say good-bye to yourself, because you’re a nice guy.’
Is he?
Silence is his only answer.
Marilyn is too far gone.
The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe – A True Crime Thriller by James Patterson is published December 1 by Little, Brown and Company
