More falsities have been written about Marilyn Monroe than Carter’s got little liver pills. For instance, this one: she engaged in lengthy affairs with both John and Robert Kennedy. The preceding falsity, by virtue of its frequent evocation in book after book after book, has been converted into accepted fact; or perhaps more accurately stated, converted into a Norman Mailer factoid. According to Paul Dickson, a factoid is information which becomes accepted as a fact even though it’s not actually true, or an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print. Factoids are, in fact, lies.1“The Origin of Writerly Words,” TIME, 30 April 2014.Virtually every book written about Marilyn’s life has dedicated many words and factoids to the falsities of her purported Kennedy affairs, and likewise, her appearance at John Kennedy’s birthday gala in May of 1962. Each falsity, with the passing of time and repetition, could be called folklore or legend or even mythology.

Approximately one year ago, Maureen Callahan published over three-hundred and sixty pages of vitriol aimed directly at the Kennedy men, entitled Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed.2Please generally note: with the exception of a few significant attributions, I am not going to plow through the noxious weeds of Maureen Callahan’s sources. I am not going to clutter the legs of my trousers with those cockleburs. Maureen referenced both Anthony Summers and James Spada; and each of those writers referenced both Robert Slatzer and Jeanne Carmen, both inveterate liars. Maureen also referenced C. David Heymann, particularly Heymann’s Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, a thoroughly discredited and grotesque book, rather like all of Heymann’s dishonest publications. For more information on Heymann’s literary shenanigans, please refer to “Section 4” of this website, subsection “A Serial Fabulist, Marilyn and the Kennedys.”Maureen identi­fied thirteen women that the Kennedy men purportedly destroyed, one of which was Marilyn Monroe. Maureen also recounted an incident that allegedly occurred backstage during President Kennedy’s birthday gala, an incident that involved Robert Kennedy, Marilyn, the hair stylist Mickey Song, who often asserted that he styled Marilyn’s hair for her appearance at the birthday gala, and a dressing room.

As recently as seven months ago, the nonagenarian actress and book writer, Shirley Mac­Laine, released The Wall of Life: Pictures and Stories From This Marvelous Lifetime, primarily a coffee table book. Evidently, while rummaging through her collection of pictures, Shirley recalled a rather eventful incident from her marvelous lifetime; and that eventful incident allegedly occurred during the after party following President Kennedy’s birthday gala. Shirley’s recollection also involved Robert Kennedy, John Kennedy, Marilyn and a bedroom.

If you are new to the Realm of Marilyn, fundamentally, the presidential birthday legend goes like this. Marilyn accepted an invitation to sing “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy. She appeared, along with many other famous entertainers and luminaries, during a combination Democrat Party fundraiser and an early celebration of the President’s 45th birthday. Marilyn delivered an unusually erotic version of that birthday standard dressed in a tight and sheer, twinkly and sparkly gown. Various attendees reported, that under the bright stage lights, Marilyn appeared to be nude, certain anatomical features concealed by only thousands of sparkling diamonds. Then, following the gala’s after party, the President and Marilyn slyly met for a sexual escapade, so the legend goes, at the Carlyle Hotel.

Naturally, all legends have a beginning, and their beginnings are usually triggered by a factual event. The legend of JFK’s birthday gala and Marilyn Monroe is no different. Obviously, Marilyn appeared at Madison Square Garden. She sang. The timbre and physicality of her vocal performance triggered rumor and gossip, along with the belief that Marilyn and John Kennedy were lovers; but investigative journalist and gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen seemed to reinforce, even confirm the rumors when she wrote for the New York Journal American that Marilyn’s health had improved, allowing her to attend select Hollywood parties and […] become the talk of the town again. Marilyn’s sex appeal, according to Dorothy, was cooking again as well, which made her vastly alluring to a handsome gentleman who is a bigger name than Joe DiMaggio in his heyday. So don’t write off Marilyn as finished.3“Dorothy Kilgallen” by John Simkin.
<http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKkilgallen.htm>

The public believed that Dorothy’s gossip column and her handsome gentleman, with a name large enough to eclipse the name Joe DiMaggio, meant President John Kennedy. Dorothy later revealed that she actually meant his younger brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. The legend that has now persisted for more than six decades achieved ignition. Let the gossip mongering and the exaggerating by authors, in book after book after book, commence.

In 1965, Edwin Hoyt published Marilyn: The Tragic Venus. Mark Shaw published a dodgy book in 2021 entitled Collateral Damage. Shaw praised Hoyt’s work and noted that Hoyt’s biography had been released at a time when facts about [Marilyn’s] life and times and death were not polluted with phony sensationalism, as would be the case with many articles and books in the future (Shaw 85). Hoyt reported virtually nothing about President Kennedy’s birthday gala; the author noted only that Marilyn knew the Kennedys and she made an appearance at the Madison Square Garden rally for President John F. Kennedy on his birthday (Hoyt 12).4Hoyt misdated the birthday gala, writing that it occurred on JFK’s actual birth date of May 29th.Hoyt did not mention the after party; and additionally, he did not wander into the weeds of Marilyn’s alleged Kennedy affairs at all. Regarding Marilyn’s death, Hoyt noted that the circumstances of that tragedy contained a few holes; and some of the newspapermen began to embroider a story which would fill the holes; and their embroidery used Robert Kennedy as yarn, which Hoyt labeled the spread of evil gossip. Hoyt continued:

Why Robert Kennedy? Because Marilyn had recently come to know the Robert Kennedys and had been seen with them. Much was made of the friendship of Marilyn for Peter and Patricia Lawford, since Mrs. Lawford was the sister of Attorney General Robert Kennedy and of President John F. Kennedy.
     Such a solution to the tragedy of Marilyn Monroe appealed to the political enemies of the Kennedys and to the sense of drama of many others in America. It was not long before that rumor spread across Los Angeles, permeating every cranny of the motion picture colony and beyond. For in Hollywood nothing can be allowed to be simple if it can be made complex (Hoyt 16-17).

Obviously, Hoyt dismissed all the rumors and evil gossip regarding Marilyn and Robert Kennedy; but unfortunately, Mark Shaw, self anointed historian and Marilyn Monroe expert, along with the authors of many other books that came before and after Collateral Damage, did not follow in Edwin Hoyt’s footsteps.

A brief pamphlet, The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe, had appeared approximately one year prior to the Marilyn biography written by Edwin Hoyt. Written by the rabid anti-Kennedyite and FBI operative, Frank Capell, his diatribe was the first publication to link Marilyn and Robert Kennedy in an affair. Capell’s 1964 text was political artillery, a political salvo motivated by fear and hatred of Robert Kennedy. Its goal? To destroy the former attorney general’s senatorial campaign and his presidential aspirations. Even though he was in the business of inflicting political damage, hopefully even political ruination on Robert Kennedy, Capell did not mention a backstage encounter involving RFK, Marilyn and Mickey Song; and in fact, Capell did not mention JFK’s 1962 birthday celebration at all. Then, nine years after Capell published his harangue, the egocentric Norman Mailer published his factoidal biography. The Pulitzer Prize winner had clearly been influenced by Capell’s 1964 pamphlet. Regarding President Kennedy’s birthday gala, Mailer mentioned that Marilyn sang happy birthday to President Kennedy; but the author who was also an amateur pugilist did not mention a sexual rendezvous following that event. Likewise, he did not evoke the name of hair stylist Mickey Song or mention a Marilyn-Robert-Kennedy-Madison-Square-Garden encounter backstage. Then, one year after Mailer’s fundamentally fictitious publication appeared, chasing the music of Mailer’s jingling pockets—Mailer’s novel biographical novel was a financial success—in 1974, the ubiquitous Robert F. Slatzer published his Marilyn apocrypha, The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe. The journalist Will Fowler and Frank Capell contributed to Slatzer’s fantasy world and bogus memoir. The William Randolph Fowler Collection, housed in the Oviatt Library at California State University, Northridge, contained several literary contracts executed by Slatzer, Capell and Fowler. Thereby they agreed to write a book about Marilyn Monroe, credited only to Robert Slatzer. Contractually, the involvement of Frank Capell and Will Fowler would remain a secret. Even though the inveterate fantasist Slatzer did not mention any type of en­counter between Marilyn, Bobby Kennedy and Mickey Song, Slatzer noted that Marilyn sang “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy at a birthday party being given for him in Madison Square Garden (Slatzer 205).5I have a difficult time crediting any quotation from The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe to Robert Slatzer. Although the book’s authorship has been credited to him, I know he did not write it.However, Slatzer did not mention a sexual rendezvous featuring President Kennedy and Marilyn following her birthday serenade.

Sixty years after Capell published his political hit piece vilifying Robert Kennedy, Maureen Callahan followed the footfall along what had become a well trodden path, at least, that is, regarding Marilyn’s alleged affairs with the middle Kennedy brothers. The long accepted assignation involving one or both of those randy boys, following the president’s birthday gala and the after party, received, not necessarily an upgrade, just an update. According to Maureen, Robert Kennedy met Marilyn backstage in her dressing room where the politician spent fifteen minutes with the actress and managed to fire off a quickie.

Half an hour earlier, she had been in her dressing room, alone with Bobby Kennedy for fifteen minutes. Both Kennedy brothers wanted her, and she both of them. […] Late to the stage, drunk and flush with fresh, transgressive sex, her dress so tight she could barely walk, Marilyn approached the podium swathed in a white mink stole. She handed her mink off to her escort, flicked the hot microphone with her finger and moved to the side, revealing herself (Callahan 202-203).6Marilyn did not have an escort onto or on the stage; Peter Lawford, who introduced her, removed her stole and took it with him as he left the spotlight.

Marilyn sang her special version of “Happy Birthday to You”; and according to Maureen, Marilyn virtually announced, right after she had fornicated with his younger brother, that she and the married president of the United States were having an affair (Callahan 152).

In the body of her text, Maureen was intentionally vague regarding her sources for the backstage assignation starring Marilyn and Robert Kennedy. Maureen did not provide her readers with any specificity or any details. How did the author know that Marilyn and the attorney general engaged in transgressive sex? Was the dressing room in a relatively deserted section of Madison Square Garden, away from all the persons reportedly milling about the stage, including the other celebrities that performed for President Kennedy that night? I read one account which asserted that many dressing rooms lined a lengthy corridor behind the stage where a multitude of persons came and went. Maybe Marilyn and Robert simply stifled themselves, stifled their shrieks of joy and pleasure. What did Mickey Song hear? Did the dressing room contain a bed or a sofa, and how did Marilyn extricate herself from that inordinately tight dress without any assistance, engage in transgressive sex, and then get back into that dress, without any assistance, in fifteen minutes? Marilyn could not have lifted her dress in order to give Randy Robert the necessary access: her dress was simply too tight; and when Kim Kardashian wore that dress recently at the Met Gala, she needed assistance getting into and out of it; and according to various reports, donning Marilyn’s dress was not an easy task, even with assistance.

In her source notes, whose flimsy qualities rivaled the flimsy qualities of C. David Hey­mann’s source notes, Maureen did not reveal from where she received her information, making only a vague reference to Mickey Song and James Spada’s biography, Peter Lawford: The Man Who Kept the Secrets. Spada reported that he interviewed Song, who reported the following:

Mickey Song, who had cut Jack’s and Bobby’s hair for the occasion, begged Bobby to let him have a shot at Marilyn Monroe’s hair. “She didn’t want me to work on her, because she didn’t know me. But Bobby convinced her. I didn’t know if I’d get the chance until she showed up backstage at Madison Square Garden. Her hair had been set, but it needed some finishing touches.”  
     Song applied them in Marilyn’s dressing room, and he added a sensational flip curl on Marilyn’s right side, an effect he achieved by teasing her hair from beneath “and using lots of hair spray” to keep the curl in place.
     “While I was working on Marilyn,” Song recalled, “she was extremely nervous and uptight. The door was open and Bobby Kennedy was pacing back and forth outside, watching us. Finally he came into the dressing room and said to me, ‘Would you step out for a minute?’ When I did, he closed the door behind him, and he stayed in there for about fifteen minutes. Then he left, and I went back in. Marilyn was all disheveled. She giggled and said, ‘Could you help me get myself back together?’” (Spada 337).

No mention of sex. No mention of the extremely tight dress, which, according to legend, was literally sewn together on Marilyn’s curvaceous body with the application of five-hundred hand-stitched stitches. I have concluded: Maureen, along with Spada, concluded that Marilyn’s giggle and her request for Mickey Song to help her get herself back together meant that Marilyn and Robert Kennedy had engaged in a form of sex Maureen dubbed transgressive; however, clearly, Maureen did not engage in any additional investigative journalism, an oversight that I label trans­gressive, for had she peered a little deeper, Maureen would have enlightened herself considerably more and quite possibly would have arrived at a completely different conclusion.

While James Spada was writing his Peter Lawford biography, Peter Brown and Patte Barham were writing their book, Marilyn: The Last Take, published initially on June the 1st in 1992. Brown and Barham declared that they interviewed Mickey Song three times, once during December of 1990 and twice in 1991 during the months of March and June. Regarding the alleged backstage sexual incident, what follows is the alleged result of those interviews.

As stylist and star tried to get acquainted, Bobby Kennedy paced back and forth, his hands jammed into the pockets of his tuxedo pants. When Song tried to comb the right side of Monroe’s hair into the flip that became a worldwide craze after the gala, she snapped at him.
     Bobby, tired of Marilyn’s temperament and worried about the passing time, stalked over to the hairdresser and said, “Mickey, would you excuse us, please?” From the hall Song could hear raised voices and expletives, the Attorney General’s voice growing louder and louder.
     Bobby came out, readjusting his white tie. “It’ll be okay now,” he said.
     Almost as an afterthought, Bobby grabbed Song by the arm and asked him, “By the way, do you like her?”
     Song nodded enthusiastically.
     Yelling over his shoulder as he bounded down the hall, Bobby Kennedy had the last word: “Well, I think she’s a rude, fucking bitch.”
     In the dressing room, all smiles, was a purring Monroe. “Mickey,” she said, taking his hand, “go ahead and do your something historic” (Brown/Barham 165-166).

Yet again, no mention of sex. Yet again, no mention of the extremely tight dress or the five-hundred hand-stitched stitches. For true, the use of the word purring to describe Marilyn meant to suggest the she was nothing less than a satisfied pussycat. Satisfied by what? An argument between her and Robert Kennedy, who thought she was a rude, fucking bitch? Of course not. Transgressive sex? Of course. I realize that Maureen Callahan did not mention Brown and Barham; but this fact remains: the picture painted by Spada is completely different than the picture painted by Brown and Barham, and this question arises: why? But wait. There’s more.

Mickey Song included a detail in the yarn he told repeatedly: he asserted that Marilyn entered Madison Square Garden with her hair in curlers covered with a white scarf. Additionally, he asserted that he removed the curlers and styled Marilyn’s hair into the dynamic right side flip, Song’s something historic. Each assertion was and is completely false. Photographs of Marilyn leaving her apartment, sitting in her limousine and entering MSG with Isadore Miller and Pat Newcomb clearly indicated that her hair was already styled with the dramatically historic right side flip. But Wait. There’s even more.

Gary Vitacco-Robles published the second volume of his gigantic four volume Marilyn biography in 2017. Gary also interviewed Mickey Song. Stylist Mickey Song invited me into his home in Los Angeles, Gary declared, and recounted his encounter with Marilyn at President Kennedy’s birthday gala in 1962 (v2: 2). But Gary did not stop there. Gary reported that Mickey disavowed telling the backstage story as reported by Brown and Barham in 1992. During the interview with Gary, Mickey Song asserted

[…] that the authors of Marilyn: The Last Take had fabricated it. For many years, Song spoke at the memorial services held annually on the anniversary of Marilyn’s death in the chapel where her funeral had been held in 1962. Song’s description of his alleged brief encounter with Marilyn varied little year after year and never included mention of Robert Kennedy’s presence back stage at the Garden (v2: 466-467).

Gary noted correctly that the Mickey Song testimony reported by James Spada, Peter Brown and Patte Barham are examples of Monroe apocrypha often applied to prove a relationship between Monroe and Robert Kennedy (v2: 467); and many species of that apocrypha can be found in the Marilyn Monroe murder orthodoxies. In Donald Spoto’s Marilyn biography, the renown biographer offered the following observation about the Brown/Barham literary effort:

But the most astonishing compendium of error was Marilyn: The Last Take, by entertainment writer Peter Harry Brown and Beverly Hills society columnist Patte Barham, for this book quoted people and sources inaccurately, embellished incidents and, under the guise of offering the last word, presented only the time-worn Kennedy/ Marilyn scenario (Spoto 609).

Also, Gary explained, extant receipts clearly prove that Kenneth Batelle styled Marilyn’s hair in her apartment before departing for the birthday gala; and sketches of the Jean Louis designed gown, those prepared by Bob Mackey, definitely indicate the hair style that Marilyn would be wearing, the historic right side flip.

In a recent email, I asked Gary if he and Mickey discussed the backstage incident as described by James Spada in his Lawford biography. Gary advised me that they did not but stated: Song was vehement about the story being fabricated. According to Spada’s source notes, he interviewed Mickey Song once, on May the 29th in 1990. It seems only reasonable to conclude, if, according to Mickey, the source, Peter Brown and Patte Barham fabricated their story, then James Spada must have fabricated his story as well.

Allow me to admit at the beginning, I do not know anything about Shirley MacLaine. Before I started my research for this article, I did not know that Shirley was such a prolific writer: she has written and published sixteen books. Her most recent publication, I have already mentioned.

I have always been a Shirley MacLaine fan. She has starred in many better than average movies, and I have enjoyed the ones that I have seen. I have always considered her to be a better than average actress. Still and all, I was slightly disappointed by what Shirley alleged about the world’s most famous blonde and the middle Kennedy brothers. I found her allegation embarrassing, that is, for Shirley.

Sixty-three years have arrived and departed since Arthur and Mathilde Krim’s 1962 after party after President Kennedy’s spectacular birthday gala. During those passing decades, not one person who attended that extraordinarily crowded gathering of powerful politicians and celebrities has ever mentioned that they observed what Shirley MacLaine alleged that she observed: John Kennedy exiting a bedroom occupied by Marilyn; Shirley alleged that she also observed Robert Kennedy immediately enter the same bedroom and shut the door. Jack Kennedy had just walked out of the bedroom behind me, Shirley recalled, and Bobby Kennedy had just walked in. Marilyn was in the bedroom.7“Hollywood icon reveals she saw filthy bedroom encounter between Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe on JFK’s birthday” by Ruth Walker, DailyMail.com, 2 November 2024, 9:47 EDT.The preceding is not the first or only time that Shirley mentioned this purported bedroom incident. In the 2011 published version of her marvelous life, entitled I’m Over All That, she wrote:

I never had any proof that the Kennedy brothers had intimate relations with Marilyn Monroe, but it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of probability. Once at Arthur and Mathilde Krim’s house in New York, I joined an impressive gathering of movie stars and politicians. Marilyn was there. I saw her go into a private room with Jack. They stayed awhile, until he came out another door. Immediately, Bobby entered the room and stayed until the song that Jimmy Durante was singing was over. I have a picture of that night on my Wall of Life. Of course, the Kennedy brothers and Marilyn could have been talking about world affairs and comparing notes, but most of us thought it was the other kind of affairs they were interested in (MacLaine 203).8“Tall Tales: Marilyn, Shirley MacLaine and a New York Rumour,” The Marilyn Report, 3 November 2024.

Obviously, there are significant differences between the 2011 version shared by Shirley and her 2024 version; and in the 2011 version Shirley admitted that she did not have any proof of anything.

Also, in Shirley’s 2011 version, she reported that she actually saw Marilyn go into a private room with Jack who then exited through another door. In her 2024 version, Shirley reported that John Kennedy had just exited a bedroom behind her, a bedroom occupied by Marilyn; and then Robert Kennedy immediately entered the Marilyn occupied bedroom and shut the door behind him. Lust must have been in the air! My analysis of her 2024 version rendered this: Shirley must have already passed the door as John Kennedy exited the bedroom behind her. This means, then, and I can only conclude, that Shirley paused and turned to see that the president had exited the bedroom as the attorney general entered and shut the door. Shirley did not assert that she saw Marilyn go into a private room with Jack as she had asserted in her 2011 version of this bedroom yarn. In her 2024 version, Shirley did not explain how she actually knew that Marilyn was the occupant of the bedroom: Marilyn could not have been visible to Shirley unless she could see through a closed door or around corners. Also, who were the most of us that Shirley mentioned in her 2011 version, those who thought, did not actually know or have any verifiable evidence, only thought, that Marilyn and the middle Kennedy brothers were interested in the other kind of affairs. They were interested in the kind of affairs that involved pausing for quickies during a party inordinately jammed with powerful politicians and famous celebrities; and in the case of Robert Kennedy, his wife, Ethel? And in the case of Marilyn, her former father-in-law, who she absolutely adored; but then, Marilyn Monroe would fall onto a bed with any man at any time and any place—including her own father, according to Henry Rosenfeld.9Please refer to my article about Anthony Summers’ selected tapes: Part 1, Cassette 98.

Neither Maureen Callahan nor Shirley MacLaine mentioned the alleged Carlyle Hotel rendezvous during which Marilyn purportedly participated in sex with either one or both of the Middle Kennedy brothers; and then she spent the night with President Kennedy. Many authors have written about that particular alleged assignation; and like all of Marilyn’s alleged affairs and sexual dalliances, belief that they occurred preceded any actual evidence that they factually occurred. Many authors have noted that Secret Service Agents escorted, transferred Marilyn and the president from either Madison Square Garden, through secret tunnels, without attending the Krim’s after party, or escorted them from the Krim’s penthouse to the Carlyle Hotel where John Kennedy maintained a suite of rooms or a penthouse duplex. I have never located any direct testimony from the actual agents involved in the surreptitious transfer. Various authors have quoted unidentified agents who purportedly heard about the transfer or claimed to know for a fact that Marilyn and the president met at the Carlyle Hotel without revealing just how they obtained that crucial knowledge.

The preceding notwithstanding, two witnesses testified that they encountered Marilyn following John Kennedy’s birthday gala and the Krim’s after party; but before I quote those two witnesses, allow me to quote what J. Randy Taraborrelli wrote in his 2009 publication, The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe:

It has been reported numerous times over the years—thanks to the FBI’s report of the evening in its files—that Marilyn spent the night with JFK at the Carlyle Hotel after the show. Even more sensationally, it’s also been even reported that after JFK was finished with her, he sent her over to the room next door where she then had sex with Bobby. Marilyn’s actual itinerary that night was as follows: The show started at 8 p.m. Marilyn didn’t get onstage until at least one o’clock, being the thirty-fifth of thirty-nine appearances made onstage that night. Then she went to the Krim party with Isadore Miller. Afterward, she accompanied him to his home in Brooklyn. She kissed him goodbye at the elevator and began to walk away. He [Isadore] recalled that just before he got into the elevator, she turned around and said, “Dad, come back to the coast with me tomorrow.” He smiled. “Later, Marilyn,” he promised. “Maybe in November.” She blew him a kiss and walked away—and that would be the last time he would ever see her. She got home at about four in the morning, where she was met by her friend James Haspiel, who had earlier attended the performance (Taraborrelli 437).10The even more sensational version of the spend-the-night-yarn appeared in C. David Heymann’s ridiculous book, RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert Kennedy, Page 309. In Heymann’s virtually fictitious, Joe and Marilyn, Legends in Love, published posthumously, the author asserted that Marilyn spent only an hour in bed with the president and then passed the remainder of that night in bed with the attorney general, page 314. In his much maligned book about Jacqueline Kennedy, Heymann asserted that Marilyn spent several hours alone with John Kennedy in his duplex atop the Carlyle after John Kennedy’s birthday gala in May of 1962 (Hey­mann: Jackie, 366). Nothing Heymann ever wrote should be accepted as factual, nothing.

According to Marilyn’s friend, James Haspiel,11Haspiel was also a member of the Monroe 6, an ardent fan club that frequently trailed and chatted with Marilyn when she was in Manhattan.mentioned in the preceding quotation, he met Marilyn curbside at her apartment. In his memoir, Marilyn: The Ultimate Look at the Legend, Haspiel declared:

About the night of May 19th – 20th, 1962, over the years there have been many claims as to exactly where Monroe spent that evening, following her appearance at Madison Square Garden, in particular that she had slept with President Kennedy at the Carlyle Hotel. I can tell you with authority, that I was with Marilyn at her apart­ment at ten minutes to four in the morning. Categorically, Marilyn was not asleep at the Carlyle Hotel, and I didn’t notice the President anywhere nearby us, either! The night of entertainment at Madison Square Garden probably got underway at around eight o’clock in the evening, and must have ended sometime after midnight, after which there was a party for Kennedy and certain of the performers from the Garden that Marilyn then attended on the arm of “my father-in-law, Isadore Miller.” Allowing time for her socializing at the party, then getting Isadore back to his home in Brooklyn, Marilyn’s return home at nearly 4 a.m. was not unreasonable. Suffice it to say, she was in my company at ten minutes to four. I know for sure what I saw, I certainly know where I was, I know for certain where she was (Haspiel: Legend 194-196).

Marilyn’s friend and masseur, Ralph Roberts, testified on more than one occasion, that he gave Marilyn a massage in her apartment that May morning until she fell asleep. Both Haspiel and Roberts are reliable witnesses, reliable sources; and even Lois Banner noted:

Marilyn took Isidore Miller home to Brooklyn in her limousine after the Krim party, which lasted until two in the morning, and Ralph Roberts gave her a massage in her apartment on Fifty-seventh at four A.M. Thus it seems unlikely that she spent time at the Carlyle Hotel with Jack Kennedy after the birthday party, as has been alleged (Banner 394).

Returning to J. Randy Taraborrelli briefly:

One might argue that somewhere between dropping off Isadore Miller and meeting up with James Haspiel, Marilyn could have slipped off for a quick interlude at the Carlyle with JFK … but all of my years of research indicate that this did not happen (Taraborrelli 395).

Even Anthony Summers, who published the first version of Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe eleven years following Robert Slatzer’s publication, assumed an arm’s length and suspicious attitude regarding the alleged Carlyle Hotel incident; and Summers usually grabbed onto every opportunity to derogate Marilyn. Summers wrote:

New York had been abuzz with gossip when Marilyn sang at the President’s birthday concert. Legend has since placed Marilyn in bed with one or the other brother that night. Susan Strasberg, who attended the party afterward, recalls that both the President and Marilyn left early—separately.
     The New York Times, in its normal coverage, said the President returned to his hotel, the Carlyle, at 2:00 a.m. His recent biographer, Ralph Martin, quotes an unnamed eyewitness as saying that Marilyn joined him there. If she did, she and the President had a fairly brief meeting (Summers 278).12The preceding quotation appeared verbatim in Summers’ 2012 eBook version of Goddess. Summers also interviewed and referenced James Haspiel. Please note that Summers included a reference to the testimony of an unnamed eyewitness provided by Kennedy biographer, Ralph G. Martin, A Hero for Our Time: An Intimate Story of the Kennedy Years, published in 1983. A complete review of Martin’s publication did not reveal any quotation from an unnamed source which stated that Marilyn joined President Kennedy at the Carlyle Hotel as reported by Summers.

Suffer me to add my two cents. Like Taraborrelli, all of my years of reading about Marilyn, studying and researching her complicated life has not produced any evidence whatsoever to support that Marilyn met John or Robert Kennedy after the May 19th early celebration of President Kennedy’s 45th birthday; and clearly, she did not sleep with or spend that night with either or both of the middle Kennedy brothers. She slept in her Manhattan apartment after the tranquilizing effects of a Ralph Roberts’ massage.

In the panel below, on the left, is a photograph taken during the Krim’s after party. I have already presented a brief analysis of that photograph, but suffer me to expand my analysis. Shirley MacLaine offered that photograph as evidence of her joint Kennedy fornication session bedroom yarn. In fact, the caption for the photograph is that very yarn: In the above photo, Jack Kennedy had just walked out of the bedroom behind me, and Bobby Kennedy had just walked in. Marilyn was in the bedroom. Strange. I see that Jimmy Durante performed or sang while a band played; and President Kennedy stood in a cased opening on the left, next to a guitarist. The woman standing on the far right, also in a cased opening, is most certainly Shirley MacLaine: that woman’s dress matches the dress Shirley wore that night, as evidenced by other photographs taken both during and after the birthday gala. I assume when the photographer, Cecil Stoughton, the White House photographer, snapped that photograph, Robert Kennedy, who cannot be seen in the photograph, was already in the bedroom fornicating with Marilyn. A few pertinent questions arise: 1) where was Ethel Kennedy, Robert Kennedy’s wife, who attended the event with her husband; 2) where was Isadore Miller, Marilyn’s escort for the evening; 3) how did the president and Shirley end up on opposite sides of the room if he had just exited the bedroom behind Shirley as she passed the door; and 4) how did Shirley get possession of the photograph?

Also in the panel below is another photograph of Shirley and Ted Kennedy, snapped in 1984; Shirley offered that snapshot as additional evidence to support her bedroom fornication yarn. The photograph’s caption noted: Here I’m telling Teddy Kennedy that story … and he’s laughing about how the boys got away with it all the time. Strange. Ted Kennedy does not appear to be laughing, at least not in my opinion; he appears to be talking, saying something, perhaps even making a serious point, relating something important to Shirley. At least, that’s my interpretation of the photograph. In fact, Shirley and Ted Kennedy could be discussing absolutely anything.